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“Who’s he?” Jonathan asked again, pretty much confirming what Leslie had feared. The little boy hadn’t been told that he was about to be taken from the only home he’d ever known.
But at least if Kip decided not to take him, Jonathan wouldn’t realize that Kip hadn’t wanted him.
“He was your daddy’s best friend from the time they were wee like you,” Ada said. She dropped her arm from around the boy and stepped back.
But not too far back, Leslie noted.
The boy studied Kip for a long moment. “You want to see my radio control helicopter that really flies?” Jonathan finally asked Kip. “It’s pretty cool.”
Leslie watched, holding her breath.
“Sure,” Kip said, smiling at the little boy with a natural ease that confirmed something Leslie had always assumed but that Kip Webster hadn’t yet figured out. Someday he was going to make a wonderful father. “You got one control or two?”
THREE HOURS LATER Ada walked them to the door, but Kip wasn’t ready to leave. He wasn’t ready to end this segment of his life—to move on to whatever was coming next.
“We’ll call you in the morning,” he told the older woman in a low voice. Jonathan and Kayla were downstairs, glued to a Disney video on the large-screen TV that took up one end of the huge sitting room. Still he wouldn’t put it past the precocious little guy he’d spent the past couple of hours playing with to have crept up the stairs far enough to listen in.
“Mr. Brackerfield says you might be takin’ Kayla tomorrow.” Ada looked at Leslie.
“I—”
“This all happened so fast,” Kip interrupted and he wasn’t even sure why. Driven by some unidentifiable tension inside him, he continued anyway. “You’ve known about these kids all their lives,” he said. “We’re not only grieving Cal’s unexpected death, but dealing with the shock of finding out that he kept something like this from his entire family.”
That wasn’t it at all. But Ada was nodding so maybe she’d accept his rambling explanation as a reason for delaying any final decision.
“Just give us the evening to talk, and then we’ll call you with some solid plans.”
“Take all the time you need,” Ada said, her expression gentle. “I ain’t in no hurry. Just want to have the little one’s things packed if she’s got to go.”
“We’ll let you know,” Kip said again, before Leslie could make some definite commitment.
“What was that about?” she asked him as soon as the front door of the condo closed behind them.
“I just—”
“I’m taking her, Kip.” She walked to the parking lot, holding the edges of her black suede coat together as she shivered in the cold. “You aren’t going to change my mind about that.”
“I have no intention of trying,” he admitted honestly. But that was all he could tell her. It was all he knew.
CHAPTER FOUR
CLARA SUGGESTED that Leslie and Kip go out alone for the evening, someplace neutral, and have their talk. Which was why, just after seven, Leslie found herself walking along High Street, the main drag, which ran through Ohio State University in downtown Columbus, with her high school crush beside her. Dressed in her lone pair of jeans and the pink sweater beneath her mother’s borrowed winter parka, Leslie was at least glad to be out of the house.
“It’s just like your mom to insist that we get away from her and all the memories of Cal at the house as we try to figure out what to do,” Kip said, his breath visible in the cold night air as they walked past noisy bars interspersed with tattoo shops, fast food restaurants and closed bookstores. “She was always one to respect personal space, always trying not to pressure you unduly to her way of thinking.”
“Yeah,” was the only response Leslie could manage. If her mother hadn’t been so determined to give her and Cal their “space,” would things have turned out differently?
A group of college-age girls passed, parkas open to reveal the belly rings and bare skin that showed between the button on their jeans and the hem of their shirts. One of them knocked the shoulder strap of Leslie’s black Brighton bag off her shoulder. At least three of them had been talking at once, and she wondered how any of them ever got heard.
“You hungry?” Kip asked.
“A little.” They hadn’t eaten since a quick sandwich before going to meet the kids. Leslie hadn’t finished hers. “Not really.”
Too much on her mind. “That place looks exactly like it did when I worked there.” They were passing the popular hamburger joint that had provided her spending money during her undergraduate years.
“You had money from your father,” Kip said, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “I never could understand why you’d choose to work in a fast food place.”
Leslie shrugged, not expecting him to understand. “I wanted to be like everyone else.” And to have long hours with lots of lights and activity and noise—to keep her from panicking her way right out of college.
Secrets isolated people, casting them into an internal darkness, a loneliness that often resulted in bouts of anxiety.
A convertible drove by with the top down and a group of husky young men wearing blue and gold University of Michigan letterman jackets sitting up on the back seat. They were whooping and hollering loudly enough to be heard at Ada King’s home in Westerville fifteen miles away.
“I forgot, today was the Michigan game,” Kip said. “They must’ve won!”
Michigan versus Ohio State was the big football rivalry, often determining which of the two teams would be playing in the biggest college bowl game at the end of the year.
“Good for them!” she said, smiling. “They won only once when I was a student here, but I wore my Michigan jersey up and down High Street that night, doing my father proud.” She hadn’t had many typical college weekend nights during her time at the university; that November Saturday of her junior year had been one of the few.
“I never understood why, considering the fact that both your father and grandfather graduated from U of M—and you were so obviously a fan, even when you were a kid—you chose to go to OSU.”
Because Cal had been at U of M doing graduate work. “I got a full scholarship to Ohio State.”
Her mom had accepted the explanation, and there was no reason to expect that Kip wouldn’t.
The street was so brightly lit it could almost have been daytime, and teeming with young people intent on a night of living it up. Leslie wondered how many of them would be living it down the next morning. She’d occasionally done that, too. Never again.
“You want a drink?” Kip asked.
They needed to talk. A noisy High Street bar wasn’t conducive to serious conversation. Or any conversation that could actually be heard. “Sure.”
She could use a glass of wine. Take the edge off, at least a little. She was going to take Kayla. Telling Kip wouldn’t be easy.
Neither was making the request she had to make—if he wasn’t taking Jonathan, she wanted Kip to sign him over to her.
But then, she’d never found life particularly easy. And that hadn’t stopped her yet.
LEAVE IT TO KIP to find a quiet corner in a quiet bar—one that actually served food as well as drinks—a couple of blocks down from Ohio State. There was only one other patron in the room and the hostess sat them in a scarred wooden booth all the way at the back, far from the door.
“How’d you know about this place?” she asked, the menu open in front of her.
“I didn’t,” he said, laying his menu down. “I’ll have the steak sandwich,” he told the young man who approached the table, pad in hand. “And a beer. Tall.”
He’d lucked into a quiet bar on High Street. Was there nothing in Kip Webster’s life that wasn’t charmed? Other than his childhood, she reminded herself. From all accounts, that had been sheer hell.
Which could explain why the man felt compelled to turn his back on fatherhood.
She ordered the turkey wrap and a glass of wine. She wasn’t like Kip. She couldn’t be like him, couldn’t let herself think about not doing as Cal wished. The irony of that wasn’t lost on her, either.
“SO WHAT DID YOU THINK?”
“About the sandwich? Quite good, thank you.” She smiled across at her dinner companion, finding a curious humor in the fact that her dreams had finally come true—she was out on High Street, alone with Kip, on a Saturday night—albeit ten years too late and not quite for the reason she’d hoped. But then fate had a way of doing that to her.
“I wasn’t talking about the sandwich,” Kip said with a small grin. The flip-flop in her stomach had nothing to do with the food, either. And everything to do with the man.
“I’d like another glass of wine first.”
“I THOUGHT THEY WERE ADORABLE,” Leslie said before her second glass of wine arrived. “I’m guessing they were on their best behavior, but they seem like really good kids.”
“Jonathan’s a brainiac.”
“A what?”
“Brainiac,” Kip said, worrying the edge of his drink napkin between his thumb and index finger. He’d removed his jacket, and the green sweater he was wearing brought out glints of gold in his eyes. “His word, not mine. He said the kids at school call him that. Means he’s smart.”
Her wine was served. Leslie took a gulp, hoping she’d camouflaged the gesture as a ladylike sip. “For a five-year-old, he’s far too aware of others,” she said.
“You’ve known many five-year-olds?”
Leslie watched him for a long minute, a silent debate playing itself out as she decided how much of herself to let him know.
“I want children,” Leslie said. “Not like this, not now, but I’ve known for quite a while that my career isn’t enough to fill my life forever. I want to be a mother, to be pregnant and nurse and potty-train and…and protect.”
The last word resonated through her system. Or maybe it was just the wine.
“Is there a man who’s part of all this?” It was the first he’d asked about her love life, but she supposed it wasn’t surprising that the topic would come up, considering they were there to discuss becoming parents—or not.
“Well.” She cocked her head, hoping she could pull off the sassy smile she’d conjured up inside. “That would be why it’s still just in the planning stages,” she told him. “But…” She held up a hand, glad it wasn’t shaking. “I am a huge believer in stating your intent and focusing on what you desire, so I visit the day care in my office building as often as I can. There are some five-year-olds there during the after-school hours.”
“So you do have some experience.”
She couldn’t tell if his tone was accusatory, relieved or neutral. “I haven’t actually talked to them,” she said. “I just stop in, look around, make sure there aren’t any kids being neglected….”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re making sure that your employees’ benefits are everything they should be.”
He gave her that look. She’d actually forgotten it—that way he had of looking at her with his eyes warm and hinting at a deeper knowledge, as though he could see right inside her. She’d hated it at thirteen, afraid of what he might see. “Okay,” she said, before he looked any deeper. “Yes, I do regular checks—informal checks—on the quality of our day care because I care about our employees. And their children.”
His head tilted just a bit as he peered at her. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about that, Les,” he said, no hint of laughter in his eyes, or his voice. “In fact, I respect the hell out of you for it.”
She didn’t have anything to say to that. So she took another sip of wine. This might end up being a three-glass night.
“You’re still planning to accept guardianship of Kayla.”
“Yes.”
“How can you do that?” In that moment, he reminded her of himself as a twelve-year-old boy watching her mother make pancakes. He’d insisted on trying for himself and sent batter flying across the stove when he attempted to flip one.
She frowned. Whether it was due to exhaustion, wine, or just because she was with Kip Webster, Leslie felt unable to keep up the running game of let’s pretend with which she faced her days. “You want the completely honest version?”
“Aren’t you always honest?”
“To a point.”
“Then yes,” he said, leaning forward, arms on the table, as he held her gaze. “I want the completely honest version.”
“I have no idea.”
He sat back, still watching her. She suspected it hadn’t been the answer he’d been hoping for.
“I really don’t know, Kip.” She glanced over as two older couples came through the door, wearing Michigan colors. Their alma mater? Were they local or had they driven in?
Had Cal taught Jonathan the “Go Blue” theme song, as their father had taught them? Would she teach Kayla?
“I just know I have to do this.”
He nodded, dropped his eyes, tore slowly at his napkin. “You’re really going to take her tomorrow?”
“I’d love to find a reason to delay, but I can’t. I have to get back to Phoenix. I’ve already been away too long. And…” She waited for him to look up at her. “It might seem strange, but now that I know I’m going to be her mother, I don’t want to leave without her.”
“What about Jonathan?”
Here came the really tough part. She took a sip from her nearly empty goblet, wishing the table hadn’t been cleared. She could use a few French fries to play with. Some ketchup to dip them in.
“What about him?” she asked, needing to hear his concerns before she attempted to tell him what she’d been thinking.
“He just lost his father!” Kip said. “Wouldn’t it be cruel to snatch his sister away from him so soon? Without warning? Forever?”
“You think it’d be easier for him to lose her six months from now? Will he love her any less then? Need her any less?”
“No. Of course not.”
“I know it’s sudden, but there doesn’t seem to be a good time to break up the only home they’ve ever had. And yet, it’s going to happen. One way or another. Ada is not their mother and as much as she loves the kids, she’s no longer able to raise them. In one sense it seems cruel to prolong this for any of them. Including Ada.”
“Jonathan knows something’s going on.” Kip’s words were so soft she barely heard them.
“He said that to you?” She stared at him, finding it difficult to breathe.
Kip nodded. “He’s sure I noticed that his skin is a lot darker than his sister’s.”
“Oh.”
“At the same time, he was quick to point out that other than her hair, Kayla looks pretty much like us and he asked me if I thought there was any chance you or your mother would take her. He wanted me to know that he didn’t have to come along if that would hurt her chances any.”
Tears sprang to Leslie’s eyes and she didn’t even try to hide them. “What did you say?” she whispered.
“I told him you and your mother are good people and that the color of his or Kayla’s skin would not make any difference to you at all. And I told him I liked his hair because it reminded me of his dad, whom I miss very much.”
She wiped at the tears sliding down her cheeks. “And you think you aren’t father material?” she asked him before she remembered she wasn’t going to say anything he might construe as pressure to take custody of her nephew. An unwanted guardianship wouldn’t be fair to him, or to Jonathan.
