The One That Got Away (4 page)

“I guess. I mean, at the time, I’m not sure if…”

He trailed off, ashamed to say the words aloud. He didn’t even know if what he was about to say was true, anyway. What
would
he have done if Lisette had told him she was pregnant? Would he have had the courage to stick around and be a father when what he’d really wanted to do was travel the world and be responsible only for himself?

It was an impossible question to answer now.

“I’d like to think that if I’d known about her, I’d have been a good father, but I don’t know.”

“I’m sure you would have been, Marcus—I don’t have any doubt,” she said with far more certainty than he felt.

“But Lisette and I were finished anyway. There’s no way we could have stayed together for the sake of a baby, and I’m sure that’s why she didn’t tell me, you know?”

“I know, but it was still despicable not to say anything—not to give you the option of being a part of your daughter’s life.”

“I guess she was scared. And angry. I got the
Reader’s Digest
version of events from a friend of hers who’s Izzy’s guardian now.”

“Sure she was scared, but still…” Ginger’s voice sounded a little odd.

If Marcus hadn’t known better, he’d have suspected she was uncomfortable with the subject.

As she navigated through traffic, he studied her profile, still stunned at what a beautiful woman she’d become. And yet it was hard to put his finger on anything profoundly different. There were simply a lot of subtle changes that added up to a profound transformation.

Forcing his gaze away from her so that he wouldn’t be caught staring, Marcus took in the sights of South San Francisco. This area north of the airport had never been known for great character or charm, but he felt a little tight in the chest to be here again. His parents were bohemian drifters, so he’d grown up never spending too long in one place, but cliché as it sounded, his heart had always called San Francisco home.

And here he was again.

Once Ginger was cruising on the highway and could divide her attention between driving and talking again, she cast a glance at Marcus.

“So Lisette died of ovarian cancer?”

“Yeah.” A new weight settled on Marcus’s chest.

He no longer held any romantic feelings for the woman, but it hurt in an oddly distant way to know she was gone. What was more painful, though, was knowing he’d never be able to talk to her about Isabel. He couldn’t ask Lisette about their daughter’s childhood—what her first words were, or what she’d been like as a little girl, or whether she’d suffered not having a father around.

That was all lost to him, but he wouldn’t lose any more time with his daughter. Somehow, he had to find a way to fit this child into his life.

“I’m sorry,” Ginger said quietly.

“It’s weird, you know. If I hadn’t been shot in London, I wouldn’t have found out that Isabel exists. She wouldn’t have contacted me if she hadn’t seen the news.”

“I’m sure she would have. Maybe not now, but eventually.”

“Who knows how many more years I’d have missed out on.”

“So it’s kind of a weird blessing, what happened, huh?”

“Yeah, I mean, I never would have thought being shot could be a good thing, but in some crazy ways it changed my life.”

There was a moment’s pause, then Ginger said, “I guess I wouldn’t have gotten back in touch with you, either.”

“I’m glad you did.” That was one thing Marcus had no doubts about. “It was scary, lying in that hospital in London and realizing I didn’t have any next of kin to call.”

She said nothing, and an awkward silence grew between them. Ginger was too kind to point out the obvious—that it was Marcus’s own fault he was close to no one. He might not have had control over the fact that his blood family had dwindled over the years, but he had only himself to blame for not staying in touch with all of his friends.

“Who
did
you call?” she finally asked.

“My publisher—since the book tour had to be cancelled.”

“Oh.”

Another awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” Marcus finally said, surprised at the emotion in his voice. “It was my fault we lost track of each other, and I really appreciate your helping me out now, even though I don’t deserve it.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” She glanced over at him again, this time incredulous. “I mean, there are two of us here and we’re both capable of making a phone call or writing a note.”

“Sure, but—”

“There’s no point in assigning blame. I’m so glad you’re safe and back in the U.S., I don’t care what happened, you know?”

Her voice sounded so much like the old Ginger he’d known back in school that he laughed. “I do. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to remind you what’s important.”

“And Isabel,” she said carefully. “Do you think she’s angry with you?”

“For what?”

“For not being around.”

“But how could I have been?”

“That’s how an adult would think about things, but a child might see things differently. She might feel betrayed anyway.”

Marcus hadn’t considered this, and it gave his stomach something new to cramp up over. “I don’t know what Lisette told her about me. I guess some of it might not be so great.”

“Perhaps. Or even if she didn’t say anything negative, Isabel might have read between the lines in an unfavorable way. Who knows?”

“Yeah,” he said weakly.

“I don’t mean to be pessimistic,” Ginger added. “I only want you to be prepared for possible difficulties. Probably things will be fine.”

She guided the conversation toward more neutral topics, filling him in on the classes she taught at the community college, the writing she’d been doing, the whereabouts of their college classmates, sprinkling in interesting gossip whenever she had any to share. But Marcus was barely paying attention. He knew she was trying to distract him, to get his mind off more troubling matters, and he appreciated her effort, yet he couldn’t keep his thoughts from dwelling on the daughter he was about to meet.

As the minutes ticked by and they made their way through the city toward Isabel, Marcus found himself paralyzed with anticipation and dread the likes of which he’d never experienced before.

Not even the price on his head had scared him like this, because of course, the death threat affected only him. But this—this fatherhood thing—meant that his actions from this point on really mattered, that whatever he did affected not only him, but a child who needed him. A child who’d just lost her mother.

The ride passed too quickly, and when Ginger pulled into the driveway of the address Isabel had given him, he shuddered. A three-story Edwardian row house loomed before them, inside of which his child was waiting.

Okay, deep breaths. In, out, in, out.

He could do this. He could meet her. He wouldn’t run away this time.

It was too late now, anyway.

Her mom’s last few boyfriends had been small men who talked about wine too much and worried a lot about keeping their shoes neat and their clothes lint free. She’d started thinking that kind of guy was her mom’s type or something. She’d started thinking her mom had bad taste in boyfriends.

But this guy…this guy who was supposed to be her dad, Marcus Kastanos—would she want to change her name from Grayson to Kastanos, even though it sounded weird?—he looked like the opposite of a guy who talked about wine and worried about his clothes.

She heard the knock at the door and felt like puking.

Oh, God.

This was it.

Ever since the first moment she’d realized other kids had one dad and one mom or two dads or two moms or a houseful of moms and aunts and whoever else to care for them, she’d desperately wanted to meet her own father.

Well, she’d wanted to and she hadn’t wanted to. Her mom had told her stuff. She’d said he wouldn’t be a good dad. That he wasn’t that kind of guy.

And now he was here, coming to take her off for their own little summer getting-to-know-you party. Why had she even suggested it?

But if he wasn’t a dad kind of guy, then what? Should she even go?

She couldn’t do it. She didn’t know this guy. He didn’t know her.

This whole meeting thing was a terrible idea. Why had she phoned him?

She stood up, walked across the room and locked her door.

Then she went into her bathroom and cried.

She buried her face in Nina’s thick gray towels to drown out the noise of her pathetic sobbing, she had a moment of totally hating that she was messing up her carefully applied eye makeup, but she kept right on crying.

She hated the guy downstairs for not having stuck around when she was born to get to know her, to find out what a great person she was. He’d just disappeared. He’d been sure he wouldn’t love her and he’d taken off.

He was a loser.

Well, maybe that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t known about her, so she couldn’t really blame him for not sticking around.

And she hated her mom for dying. This was the thing she’d never said aloud in her own head before. It was an ugly dark cloud that had been lurking in the back of her brain, waiting for the right moment to move in and make everything even more screwed up.

Izzy sank onto the floor, taking the towel with her. Her chest was doing this weird heaving, shuddering thing, and she needed to blow her nose, and she was drooling.

Not pretty.

She heard someone knocking on the bedroom door and calling for her to come out. It was Nina.

“Izzy? Are you in there? Can you open up, please?”

She didn’t have anything against her. Nina was her godmother and her mom’s friend, and she’d been nice to Izzy. Too nice, even. Since she didn’t have any kids of her own, Nina didn’t know what to do with a teenager who’d just landed in her house, motherless and devastated. So she had bought Izzy stuff and tried to soothe her by taking her out to fancy restaurants. She’d even suggested the two of them take a trip to Hawaii or Paris or wherever Izzy wanted to go.

But it was weird. Izzy didn’t want anything, and she didn’t want to go anywhere. She barely wanted to get out of bed in the morning, but she didn’t think about her mother much, either. Whenever a memory of her mom slipped into Izzy’s head uninvited, she’d force herself to think about something happy, like her dog, Lulu, when she was a puppy and so small she could fit in Izzy’s palm.

Right now Lulu was downstairs in a pet carrier next to her suitcase, waiting to be taken on the trip. Izzy wished she hadn’t corralled her in that stupid carrier already. She’d have felt a little better if Lulu was in her lap now, staring up at her with her brown cow eyes.

Why had she freaked out like this? Especially now, after all the other stuff that had happened.

Izzy figured that once a kid’s worst fear comes true and her only parent dies, and she survives the pain of it, or at least is pretty sure she’s surviving, she starts to think nothing can shake her. She starts thinking maybe she’s invincible, like some starry-eyed superhero.

But maybe the opposite happens. Maybe when the worst of it is already over, that’s when a person falls apart.

Izzy swiped at the drool on her chin with the towel. Her breathing was coming out all shuddery, and she was pretty sure her face looked so puffy it would take her an hour to get it back to semi-normal.

“Izzy…honey…please open up!”

The “honey” part of Nina’s plea sounded a little awkward, because she wasn’t the kind of person who called people things like that. Izzy figured that even shortening her name to Izzy, as she preferred, must test Nina’s preference for formality. Nina had been good to her, but Izzy could tell her godmother was more comfortable bestowing love on the two cats who loathed Lulu’s presence than on a teenager, and Izzy didn’t really blame her, since Nina had no kids of her own to practice on.

“Izzy, please let me know you’re okay, at least. I’m going to have to pick the lock if you don’t.”

Oh, God. She wasn’t ready to face anyone.

“I’m fine!” she lied, but the weepy sound in her voice told the truth.

She could hear Nina talking to someone in the hallway, and then footsteps retreated down the wood staircase. Izzy knew she couldn’t stay hiding out in the bathroom forever, so she pulled herself up and took a good hard look in the mirror.

Yikes.

She splashed cold water on her face, hoping to rid her eyes of some of their puffiness. Then she went to work on repairing her makeup. She didn’t wear much—just a bit of mascara, eye liner and blush. Nina insisted she didn’t need it, but Izzy thought it made a difference. She figured if she had to go to her own mom’s funeral, she got to decide whether or not she wore makeup, and Nina seemed to sort of agree, even though she didn’t like it.

There was still a shaky feeling in Izzy’s belly when she was done, but she didn’t feel quite as bad as before. She guessed she needed to let out some of the sheer terror.

But now…

Now she had to face
him
.