For the Girls' Sake (14 page)

Irked, he said, "I was trying to offer help."

Brows lifted, she said coolly, "Were you?"

"Clumsily."

"Then thank you." She gathered up her catalogs. "But we’re doing just fine. I happen to believe that luxurious surroundings aren’t essential to emotional well-being."

"I won’t argue." Although he’d never forgive himself if he left Shelly with her and they both died some night in a fire started by antique wiring.

She stood, tiny curls escaping the severe braid to frame her face. Instead of leaving the kitchen immediately, Lynn hesitated. "I know today wasn’t what you had in mind."

"Actually," he said, "I didn’t have anything in particular in mind."

"You would have preferred a movie or a day at the beach."

"I thought the girls might," he corrected her, knowing he was lying.

"Real life, remember?"

"What about you?" he challenged. "Was this a good visit?"

"Yes." She sounded surprised. "I’m not totally comfortable with you sometimes, but otherwise...yes."

"Will things get better between us?"

"I’m sure they will." But she wasn’t meeting his eyes. "Once I’m sure you won’t try to take Shelly from me."

Adam felt an instant of disappointment that irritated him when he realized its source: he’d wanted her to admit she felt an attraction to him that was a problem. Either she was being less than honest, or she didn’t feel any of that edgy awareness that had him concentrating on her face so he didn’t imagine wrapping his hands around her small waist.

"We have an agreement, don’t we?" he said.

"We have nothing in writing. Nothing that will keep us out of court."

"Goodwill."

"I don’t trust it. I want to trust you, but I don’t completely. How can I?"

He did trust her, he realized somewhat to his shock. Lynn Chanak didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body.

"We could do a written parenting plan."

She sighed. "No. I just need time. And...and a routine. I’m happiest when I know what’s coming."

"Like a child."

"I suppose." She tried to smile. "Living on the edge is not for me."

"And yet," he said softly, "you must feel as if you are all the time."

"Financially, maybe."

"Is your ex-husband helping?"

"He was. Until this happened." She gestured toward Shelly’s bedroom, where silence had finally settled.

Adam frowned. "He quit paying child support?"

"I’m okay without it."

"The jerk."

"Took the words out of my mouth." Another of her almost-smiles hid a world of hurt. "He figured you wouldn’t want his child-support checks."

"I’d shove ’em down his throat," Adam growled.

"Obviously, I made a mistake there. Except..."

"For Rose."

"Yes. I wouldn’t change things if I could."

"Do you have a picture of him?"

"Sure. There’s one in the hall. After all, he’s Shelly’s dad. Or she thinks he is."

Adam wanted, violently, for his daughter to know
he
was Daddy. Always and forever. Patience, he counseled himself.

Lynn came back in a moment with a framed photograph of a handsome young man with a confident grin, Nordic blond hair and vivid blue eyes. Although he had noticed it earlier, Adam took it from her and studied it closely.

“Not much of him in Rose," he decided, glad.

"Except his eyes. No," Lynn agreed, "there’s even less of his personality in her. I always thought Shelly took after him. He mountain climbs and does that dangerous freestyle skiing and rides motocross. Unlike me, he enjoys taking his life in his hands. Shelly can be so reckless. At eighteen months old, I heard her sobbing in her bedroom. When I raced in there, I found she’d managed to climb out of her crib and scale her dresser. She was perched on top, finally scared."

"Rose never did get out of her crib. After I bought her a twin bed, I had to sit next to her until she’d gone to sleep the first few nights, because she was sure she’d fall out." He had tried to hide his impatience, not understanding her timidity. He’d tried to justify it by the loss of her mother. She hadn’t gotten it from either him or Jenny.

"She sounds so much like me," Lynn said quietly. "Finding our daughters the way we have, I keep being hit by how much is innate instead of environmental. Rose is mine and Shelly yours, no matter how much we want it otherwise."

A clamp squeezed his chest. He couldn’t deny a word she’d said, however desperately he would have liked to.
Rose is mine and Shelly yours.
He adored his Rosebud. He wouldn’t let her be someone else’s.

"We’d better go as soon as Rose wakes up," he said with brusqueness calculated to hide his disquiet. Staying was no longer an option. He needed distance to think about this. To figure out whether he really did trust this woman.

“Sure," Lynn said, with a faint ironic smile. "I assumed you would."

"But you’ll bring her over in two weeks? And stay?"

"Of course I will."

"We have each other over a barrel, don’t we?"

Their eyes met, stark honesty between them for once. "You could say that." Was it bitterness or fright that made her voice momentarily tremulous. "You have Rose, and I have Shelly."

"A balance of power."

"I don’t feel balanced." She pressed her lips together. "You and I both know I could never come up with the money to fight you."

"But I’d never hurt Shelly by destroying you."

"I have to believe that. Don’t I?" She backed away. "Now, I’ll leave you to...to do whatever..." Whirling, she was gone, and Adam was left to wonder whether those were tears clogging her throat.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A
LTHOUGH NOT MORE THAN
a few months old, this library book was already well read, the pages opening easily to the beginning.

"Not all princesses are beautiful," Lynn read. "In fact, some are plain. A few are even ugly."

A child curled on each side of her. Rose sucked her thumb; Shelly held tight to her flannel blankie. Both were rapt on the simple watercolor drawing of a truly ugly princess whose tiara crowned a head of lank brown hair.

She read on, their small bodies warm, their giggles sweet to her ears. Both girls smelled of soap and minty toothpaste. They wore nighties and fluffy socks to keep their toes warm. When she finished and asked if they wanted another story, two vigorous nods were her answer.

Since they’d visited the library just that afternoon and chosen twenty books, she imagined story time would go on for a cozy half hour or more. It was her idea of bliss.

The only mildly discomfiting note was
Adam’s presence, and she didn’t find it nearly as disturbing as she would have a month before. Familiarity bred...well, not indifference, unfortunately, but something almost as good: near trust. Even liking.

This was the fourth visit since they’d agreed on these overnight stays. Counting, Lynn realized in amazement that over three months had passed since that first time when Adam had walked into her bookstore with Rose holding his hand.

Tonight he was reading in what she’d learned was his favorite chair, brown distressed leather with wide arms and a big ottoman for his feet. The newspaper rustled as he turned pages. Once, when the girls got a good belly laugh from the story, Lynn glanced up and saw him smiling as he watched them over the paper. A month ago, his smile would have died. Now their gazes met in mutual understanding and even a degree of warmth before she turned the page and continued the story.

The third book told of a boy’s relationship with a beloved uncle who was a navy captain. It was about the celebration of homecoming and the sadness of goodbyes. When Lynn closed the book, Rose took her thumb from her mouth.

"I don’t want you to go tomorrow."

Lynn wrapped an arm around her and squeezed. "Oh, sweetie, I’m going to miss you, too."

"How come you have to go?"

The newspaper had quit rustling. Aware of Adam listening, Lynn said, "We live in Otter Beach. If I’m not there, who will open the bookstore?"

"Can’t we stay longer, Mommy?" Shelly asked from her other side.

Lynn let the book slide to the floor and put her other arm around her daughter. "You know we can’t, sweetie."

"But why?" Shelly pleaded.

“These are just visits. Rose and Adam will be coming to see us soon. Maybe we can all make a sand castle again. Remember the first time?"

"Can we go tomorrow, Daddy?" Rose begged.

Adam lowered the
Oregonian.
"No, Rosebud, we can’t. You know I have to work. Grown-ups have responsibilities."

She cried passionately, "I hate ’sponsibil...bil..."

"Let’s enjoy the visit while we can," he suggested. "We have fun when Lynn and Shelly come to stay. Don’t spoil it by being sad. The boy in the story Lynn just read to you wasn’t always sad when he was with his uncle, even though he knew he’d have to say goodbye, was he?"

She pouted, teardrops trembling on her lashes. "No," she finally whispered, tremulously.

The telephone rang and Adam groaned.

Picking it up, he said, "Yeah? Oh, Mom. Hi, how are you?" After a moment, he nodded. "I’ll put Rose on for a second."

He crossed the room and handed Rose the cordless phone. "Say hi to Grandma McCloskey."

Not his mother, then, but Jennifer’s.

Rose whispered a shy hello. After a moment she said, "I have a friend here. We’re listening to stories."

Adam’s hand shot out. "Okay, say bye now."

"Daddy says I gotta go. Bye," she managed to say, before he whipped the phone out of her hand.

Covering the mouthpiece, he said, "I’ll go talk out in the kitchen."

"My grandma calls, too," Shelly told her friend. "She’s comin’ to see us."

“At Christmas," Lynn agreed. "In fact, she’ll be here in only seven days."

"My grandma comes at Christmas, too. She says she’s gonna bring lots of presents." Rose sounded satisfied if not excited.

"My grandma, too!"

From the kitchen, Adam’s voice rose in an angry rumble. "What are you saying? Are you threatening me?"

To cover it, Lynn said brightly, "I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we take the books up and read some more stories in Rose’s bed?"

"Okeydoke," Shelly said, hopping up with alacrity.

"But maybe Daddy wanted to listen," Rose said more doubtfully.

Lynn wrinkled her nose. "It sounds like your daddy is talking to someone else now. He’s kind of mad, huh? Does business make him that way? He can come upstairs when he’s done."

He did appear eventually, after ten or twelve more books. Both girls were getting sleepy, and when Lynn saw him in the doorway she set down the book. "Bedtime."

"Read another one!" Shelly protested, but the words slurred.

"Dream a story," Lynn murmured. "About an ugly princess and..."

"No, a beautiful one," Shelly interrupted. "’Cuz I’m beautiful, aren’t I?"

Rose took her thumb from her mouth. "Me, too."

"You’re both beautiful." She kissed them and stood up, passing Adam mid-room.

She went downstairs without pausing, leaving Adam to tuck their daughters in.
Turnabout,
she thought, even as she missed the quiet ritual of switching on the night-light, smoothing the sheet over the blankets, breathing in the sleepy essence of two small girls as she touched her lips to smooth foreheads. She’d had all evening. From the rage she’d heard in his voice and the tension in the set of his shoulders, he needed any comfort they could give him.

They’d had dinner earlier with Rose and Shelly, but she poured two cups of coffee and helped herself to a second, sinful slice of lemon meringue pie from the bakery. When Adam came into the kitchen, she waved the knife at the pie. "Would you like a piece, too?"

"What? Oh. No."

She put the pie in the refrigerator. He was leaning against the island, frowning into space.

"Is something wrong?" Lynn asked.

His glower turned her way. "Wrong?"

"You were...um, yelling."

His eyes seemed to clear as if he were noticing her for the first time. "Oh, no. Could you hear everything?"

"Just something about a threat. I don’t think the girls did."

His head bowed suddenly and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "That was my mother-in-law. As you probably gathered. They figured out that Shelly must be visiting, and they wanted to come over. If not tonight, tomorrow."

"You said no."

Adam swore. "They’d swarm over her like yellow jackets on jam. I can’t make them understand why we should move slowly. They only know one thing—they want their granddaughter. Jenny is gone, and Shelly is all they have left, Angela keeps saying. She’s like a broken record." He breathed out heavily.

Pie and coffee forgotten, apprehension rising, Lynn asked, "What did you mean about her threatening?"

His gaze met hers, and she read in it both apology and anger. "She says they’re considering filing for a court order giving them visitation rights if not custody."

"Custody?" Lynn sagged back a step.

"They wouldn’t get it." His face looked haggard, but his voice was strong. "We’re the parents. I’m behind you. Their lawyer will tell them to forget it."

"But they might get visitation."

"I don’t know." He hammered his fist on the tile countertop. "I can’t believe them!"

Perhaps the time was coming, Lynn thought, when they would have to tell Rose and Shelly the truth. Would it really be so hurtful now? If they were assured that nothing would change? "I understand how they must feel. It’s not so different than what we’ve both gone through."

"They’re a complication we don’t need."

"No." Lynn managed a smile of sorts. "I poured you some coffee."

She took her own to the table in the nook, and after a moment Adam followed her. This was only the third night she’d spent in this house, and yet these few minutes after the girls had gone to bed already felt familiar. They couldn’t talk in front of Rose and Shelly. This was their time.

They sat in silence for a moment, Lynn making a production of stirring sugar into her coffee. Then unexpectedly, Adam said, "I wish you weren’t going tomorrow, too."