Tea and Destiny (20 page)

Ann smiled ruefully. “Actually, I wasn’t talking just about Jason. I was thinking of Hank, too. I was awfully hard on him.”

Liz grinned back at her. “Oh, I’m sure you can make it up to him. Hank’s got a tough hide, but he’s a real softie inside. I found that out when he had a heart-to-heart talk with me when I was about to walk out of Todd’s life. Just make sure you tell him that you don’t blame him for any of this. After all, Todd and I are the ones who let Jason get away.”

“But I don’t blame any of you, not really.”

“I know. You only blame yourself, but there was a minute there, before Hank walked out the door, when I think everyone in this room got the idea that you did blame him.”

“I’ll talk to him,” she vowed. “As soon as Jason is back safely…”

Left unsaid was what she would do if they didn’t find Jason. Ann refused to let herself even consider the possibility. They had to find him. They had to. Her entire future with Hank might very well depend on it.

Hank had no idea how good Jason’s sense of direction might be, but he was relatively certain the boy would try to make his way back to the highway so he could get back to the Keys. In fact, if he had enough of a head start, he suspected Jason would go straight to Key West. Back home. Even though it had never been much of a home to him, Key West was the one place Jason ever spoke of with genuine enthusiasm. Hank only prayed he could find him before Jason hitched a ride. Despite his reassurances for Ann’s benefit, he didn’t like the idea of what could happen to a kid hitchhiking.

As he drove up and down the dark, winding streets, he cursed himself for not anticipating something like this. He was the one who’d recognized Jason’s increasing alienation, his obvious resentment of the place Hank was filling in Ann’s life. He should have talked to the boy, instead of losing patience with his surliness. If nothing else, he’d owed it to Ann to try harder. He was the grown-up, not Jason. Maybe he wasn’t father material after all. Just when he’d begun to think he had it in him to deal with family life, something like this happened to prove that he was a pretender.

His spirits sank lower and lower. By the time he finally spotted Jason walking along the side of a narrow road, half-hidden in the shadows, he was nearly out of his mind with worry and self-condemnation. Where was the kid’s head, he thought furiously when he could barely pick him out alongside the darkened roadway. Wearing blue jeans and a navy-blue polo shirt while walking at night was a good way to get hit by a passing car.

Before he could make the mistake of yelling, though, he warned himself to slow down. Getting into an absurd argument over where Jason had chosen to walk and the clothes he was wearing wouldn’t help anything.

“Jason,” he called out, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “Hop in.”

Jason kept his gaze straight ahead. His pace never faltered.

“Son,” he began, only to have Jason whirl around, his expression furious.

“You are not my father!” he shouted, then took off, nearly tripping and falling in his haste to get away.

Taken aback by the anger and raw emotion, Hank
stared after him for an instant before driving slowly up beside him again. “You’re right,” he called out. “I’m not your father. I’m sorry.”

In the blue-white glow of the headlights, he could detect the sheen of tears on Jason’s cheeks and suddenly his heart turned over. For the first time he truly recognized the scared, vulnerable boy inside that tough facade. With that recognition came another blow: the person Jason most reminded him of in this world was himself some twenty years ago. He didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t admitted it sooner.

“Jason, let’s go somewhere and talk about this,” he suggested quietly, determined to find a way to make things right between them. This time it was not just for Ann’s sake, but for his own.

“I got nothing to say to you.”

“And what about Ann? Do you have any idea how scared she is right now?”

Jason’s step faltered.

“She’s back at Liz and Todd’s blaming herself because you left. She thinks she failed you.”

“She didn’t do nothing,” Jason mumbled.

“You and I both know that, but she doesn’t. All she knows is that you’ve gone and she’s convinced if she’d been there, she could have stopped you. But this is between you and me, isn’t it?”

That drew Jason’s gaze to him. The stark honesty of the words created a palpable tension between them and something new, Hank thought. Hope.

“Isn’t it?” he persisted.

“Maybe.”

“Then let’s go get a soda or something and talk about it, man-to-man.”

“Since when?” Jason said sarcastically. “You always treat me like some dumb kid. Until you came along, Ann always treated me like a grown-up. She depended on me.”

And that, of course, was a large part of the problem that he’d never before recognized. Why hadn’t he seen it before? As Jason saw it, his role in Ann’s life had been usurped by a stranger. Hank had to prove to him that they both belonged, that she had more than enough love for the two of them.

“Fair enough,” he said. “That’s something we should talk about.”

Hank thought he caught a flicker of hope in Jason’s eyes before his shoulders sagged. “What’s the point?” he muttered, starting to walk again.

“The point is that we both love Ann. Neither of us wants her to be unhappy, so we owe it to her to try to work out our differences,” he said firmly. “Don’t we?”

Jason hesitated.

“Jason? Don’t we?”

“I guess,” he said with obvious reluctance.

“Will you get in, then?”

Jason finally turned grudgingly and opened the door. He got into the car, but he huddled as close to the door as he could get. Hank drove to a fast-food restaurant a few blocks away and led him inside.

“Hungry?”

“I guess.”

“Well, I’m starved. How about a burger, fries, something to drink?”

Jason shrugged. Hank told him to find them a table and he took the chance to phone Ann and let her know that he had found Jason and they were going to talk for
a while. She wasn’t happy but she agreed. He hung up his phone and placed the order, carrying it to the booth Jason had chosen once it was ready. When Jason had wolfed down his sandwich and the french fries, Hank asked him quietly, “Okay, why don’t you tell me why you ran away?”

“What do you care, man? I’m just in your way. You were probably glad I was gone.”

“Then why am I here?”

“Because Ann sent you.”

Hank shook his head. “No, it’s more than that. I never wanted you to leave, Jason. I wouldn’t put Ann through this kind of pain for anything in the world. Don’t you realize how very important you are to Ann? I love her, so I wanted to be a father to you, but I didn’t know how. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I’m just as much afraid as you are?”

“Afraid? Right,” Jason scoffed, but Hank could tell that the idea intrigued him.

“It’s true. You know, I never had much of a family life myself. My dad left before I was born and my mom, well, she wasn’t around a whole lot. I got pretty used to being on my own. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so I had no idea what family life was like. Todd was the best friend I had and his family wasn’t too great, either, so I’ve always been real careful not to get too involved with anyone. I figured that was just asking for trouble. Know what I mean?”

Jason’s brown eyes were watching him with avid interest now. He nodded slowly.

“When I came to stay with Ann in the Keys, I didn’t expect to like it there. It was a place to stay, that’s all. I’d only met Ann once and, to tell you the truth, we
hadn’t gotten along all that well. As for you guys, well, the idea of a bunch of kids scared the daylights out of me. What did I know about kids? Not much. Then I started getting to know you all. Tracy and the others, they made it easy, but not you. You were just the way I was when I was your age. You’d built this wall around you and I didn’t know how to get past it. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so hard on you. Nobody made it easy for me. Nobody loved me the way Ann loves you. I figured you ought to learn to appreciate what you had. I thought maybe that job would teach you something about responsibility, about pulling your own weight.”

“I just thought you wanted me out of the way,” Jason finally admitted. “I figured the minute I was making some money, you’d be trying to talk me into leaving.”

“Hey, I may make mistakes, some of them pretty good-size ones, but I’m not dumb. Do you know what Ann would do to me if I tried to get you out of that house?”

Jason grinned suddenly. “You mean after she chased you around with a butcher knife?”

Hank grinned back. “Yeah, after that.”

“Maybe tar and feathers.”

The idea seemed to appeal to him a lot. Hank tried not to wince at the enthusiasm. “Oh, I think she’d probably think even that was too good for me. She loves all you kids and she’d do anything in the world to protect you.”

Jason’s expression suddenly became troubled. His voice dropped to a nervous whisper. “How mad do you think she’s gonna be that I ran away?”

“Oh, I think a month in your room ought to about cover it,” Hank said lightly.

Jason squirmed. “I guess that’s better than being tarred and feathered.”

“Considerably,” Hank concurred. “Ready to go back?”

“Can I ask you something else?”

Hank nodded.

“Are you and Ann gonna get married, like Tracy said?”

“If I have my way, we are. How would you feel about that?”

“It’s not up to me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. What you think is very important to her. She’ll never do anything if she thinks it would truly hurt one of you.”

Jason’s expression suddenly grew cocky. “So it’s sort of like you need my permission, huh?”

Hank had to choke back a laugh. “Sort of.”

“I guess that sort of changes things, doesn’t it?”

He stood and ruffled Jason’s hair. “Not that much, kid. Not that much.”

Jason looked increasingly uneasy as they drew closer to Liz and Todd’s. “Maybe we could just tell her that I went for a walk,” he suggested hopefully.

Hank returned his look seriously. “But that would be a lie.”

“So, big deal. She wouldn’t worry so much, then.”

“She wouldn’t have worried if you’d told her that
before
you ran away. Since you didn’t, the worrying is already done.”

“Yeah, I guess. It was worth a shot, though.”

Jason’s footsteps began to lag behind as they approached the house, but Hank was already calling
out. Ann came racing through the living room, Liz just a few steps behind her. Since Jason was standing perfectly still just inside the front door, she came to him and took him in her arms.

“You cost me ten years off my life,” she said in a voice that was thick with emotion.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said, his skinny arms going awkwardly around her.

She looked from Jason to Hank and back again. “Is everything okay?”

Hank nodded. “I think everything is going to be just fine.”

She cupped Jason’s face in her hands and scanned his expression closely. “What about you? What do you think?”

Hank felt his breath catch in his chest as he waited for Jason’s reply. He had a feeling his future and not just Jason’s hung in the balance.

“I guess it’ll be okay.”

Ann wrapped the embarrassed boy in another tight hug. She looked at Hank over Jason’s head.

Thank you,
she mouthed silently.

He nodded.

Everything was going to be just fine, he told himself repeatedly over the next few days, but it was hard to believe it. Ann never let any of the kids out of her sight for long. She also did everything she could to avoid being alone with Hank. She’d even stopped running, claiming that she had to catch up on paperwork in the mornings. They’d been back in the Keys for nearly a week before he finally called her on it.

“Okay, Annie, why are you avoiding me?” he said, lingering after the last of the kids had left the kitchen.

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“No? How would I get a crazy idea like that, then?”

“Your imagination?” she suggested, inching toward the door.

He shook his head. “Nope. I think it has more to do with the fact that you have not been in a room alone with me since last Saturday afternoon.”

“We’re alone now.”

“For how long? You have one foot out the door. The only thing that’s kept you here is that you’re too polite to walk out on me in midsentence.”

Flustered, Ann returned his challenging gaze. He was right. She had been avoiding him. When they’d come back on Saturday night to find that Jason had taken off, she had realized anew that there were too many things standing in the way of their making any sort of future plans. She owed him an apology for blaming him for Jason’s running away, but beyond that they needed to keep their distance. They certainly couldn’t have a wild affair with six children in the house. And they couldn’t very well go sneaking around. Just look what had happened the first time they’d tried that.

So she’d made up her mind to think of Saturday as a wonderful interlude. It had proved to her that she could still feel, that she was a woman with a passionate nature and emotions that ran deep.
Think of it as a test,
she told herself. She had passed.

Now what?

Now she had to get out of this kitchen before Hank kissed her, which was what it looked as though he had every intention of doing. She scooted through the door.
He was faster. He had one hand locked around her wrist before she could make the turn into the first hallway.

“Running, Annie?”

“I… I thought I heard one of the kids,” she said nervously as her pulse leaped wildly. His mouth hovered near hers, taunting her with the reminder of its velvet softness, its moist heat, its hungry demands.

“I didn’t hear a thing, except for the sound of your heart beating.”

She backed up a step. The wall stopped her. She pressed hard against it anyway, as if hoping it would yield to her desire to flee. “Hank, why are you pushing this? You don’t really want a relationship with me.”

He stared back at her. “I don’t?”