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“If Robyn hadn’t broken her ankle in a fall right after you left, Dad might not have known she was pregnant until it was too late to intervene.” Her gaze never left Kevin’s, a bird keeping a steady, watchful eye on the thing that might eat her. “We basically strong-armed her into rehab, then refused to let her out of our sight for the rest of the pregnancy. If we hadn’t…”
Another sour pang of frustration erupted in the center of his chest. “The baby’s okay, then?”
“So far, so good,” she said, her gaze shifting back to the baby. “She was a couple weeks early, but a good seven and a half pounds at birth. And she seems to be developing a little ahead of the curve. So we’re hopeful.”
Hopeful, but not sure. Now panic wiped out the frustration, that maybe she’d need special help down the road, and what if he didn’t know what to do? Or couldn’t afford it—?
“Dad was only following Robyn’s lead, by the way,” Julianne said. “About not telling you. She was convinced you’d abandoned her.”
Kevin gnawed the inside of his cheek. “Since I didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address, she wasn’t that far off the mark. Even so, I wouldn’t’ve left if I’d known she was pregnant. Even at my worst, I was never a total scumbag.”
“Did you love her?”
He rubbed the baby’s tummy, stalling. “Nobody was talking in terms of forever, if that’s what you mean. Even if either of us had been capable of thinking more than five minutes ahead. Not something I’m proud of, but I’m not gonna lie about it, either. And Robyn swore she was on the pill.”
“And you believed her?”
One corner of his mouth ticked up. “I hedged my bets, okay? But there was one night—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Julianne said quickly. “But in any case, it would have been difficult for Robyn to tell you since she didn’t know herself. At least, I’m assuming her shock was real when the doctor delivered the news. What can I say? Logic was never my sister’s strong suit. However, that’s all water under the bridge. The only thing that matters now is the baby. Specifically, if you w-want her.”
Kevin felt like he’d been sucker punched. Not because of her question, but because he couldn’t immediately shoot back the “right” answer. Instead he sucked in a deep breath and said, “Wanting her isn’t the issue.”
“Of course it is. You either want to be a father or you don’t.”
Blood rushed to his face. “For the love of God, I just found out about this! I’m no more prepared now to be somebody’s father than I was when the condom broke! Granted, my brain’s less pickled than it was then, but I’d still figured on having more than five minutes before I had to start thinking about school districts and college funds. Maybe you have no clue what it feels like to have your life completely turned upside down, but right now I feel like rats are runnin’ loose in my brain. So how about backing off and giving me a second to absorb a few things, okay?”
His heart thumping so hard his chest hurt, Kevin twisted around, his gaze dipping back to the baby, who was looking at him with wide, slightly worried eyes. Way to go, bozo. Nothin’like scaring the pants off a five-month-old.
A moment later Julianne crossed the room to clamp bony, blunt-nailed hands around the crib railing. A thin, diamond-studded platinum band loosely circled her left ring finger.
“Sorry,” she breathed out, not looking at him. “I guess I’m still in a bit of shock, too. That you showed up out of the blue. I—we…just…want what’s best for her. That’s all.”
Kevin looked at her profile, incredulous. “And you think I don’t?”
“Sorry,” she said again, tears in her voice. Brother. Was he batting a thousand today or what?
“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Me, too. For yellin’ at ya. Especially considering if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even know about her.” A pause. “Have you been taking care of her all along?”
Julianne reached into the crib, stroking the baby’s cheek. “Yes,” she whispered at Pippa’s bright smile in response. “From the moment she was born.” She angled her head at him, her lips slightly curved. “You can pick her up, if you like.” When Kevin hesitated, she added, “Just make sure to support her head—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He sucked in a breath, then slipped his hands underneath Pippa’s back and head, scooping the surprisingly solid little girl out of the crib to nestle against his chest. A whole mess of emotions slammed through him as she skootched around, her peach-fuzz head tickling his chin. But definitely topping the list was a gut-wrenching sensation of connection, that she was his, and he was hers, and nothing could alter that simple fact.
“You’ve done this before,” Julianne said.
“I’m the youngest of six. Lots of nieces and nephews.” Kevin shifted Pippa so her diapered tush rested in the crook of his arm. She started to fuss. Nothing major, just a few little eh-eh-ehs. Kevin gently jiggled her in his arms and she stopped.
“Is your family close?”
There it was, that same wistfulness he’d hear in Robyn’s voice in those rare, unguarded moments when she slipped on her rebellious streak. “Closer than some of us might like,” Kevin said, his lips twitching. “My three oldest brothers and their families all live within a cuppla blocks of my parents.”
“And where is that?”
“Springfield, Mass.”
“Ah. That accounts for the accent, I suppose.”
“What accent?” he said, and she almost smiled.
“And your other siblings?”
She was avoiding the issue. The “what comes next?” part of the conversation. And thank God for that.
“My sister Mia’s about to marry one of those hedge-fund dudes in Connecticut, over the July Fourth weekend. And my next oldest brother, Rudy, and his wife, Violet, just started runnin’ an inn in New Hampshire.”
Then there’s me, he thought. The caboose running his ass offto catch up.
“Are they all happy?” Julianne asked.
“Sure, I guess. In an Everybody Loves Raymond kinda way. We yell, we fight, we screw up. Obviously,” he said, with a self-deprecating half shrug. “Some of us’ve put our folks through the ringer more’n others. And my dad was a cop. It musta killed him sometimes, watching us learn things the hard way. But we’re there for each other. Can’t ask for more than that, I s’pose.”
She watched him for a moment, expressionless, before walking over to dump out a laundry basket, full of tiny-footed sleepers and those one-piece undershirt things that snapped at the crotch, on top of the changing table.
“So what about you?” he asked, feeling the baby slump against his collarbone, drifting back to sleep. When Julianne glanced over at him, her brow pinched, he added, “What’s your story?”
“My…story?”
“Yeah. You’ve been here for, what? A year, at least. But you’re wearing a wedding ring. Does your husband live here, too?”
She pulled out a sleeper, quickly folded it. “Robyn never talked about me, then?”
“Not much, no.”
“I’m a widow,” she said quietly, not looking at him as she continued folding. Embarrassment cringed in the pit of Kevin’s stomach.
“Oh. Hello. I’m sorry.” Shrugging, Julianne opened the drawer to a plastic bin on the changing table’s second shelf, sticking in clothes as she folded them. “Was he sick? Unless you don’t wanna talk about it—”
“My husband was killed by a drunk driver, Kevin,” she said, the words oddly stripped of emotion. Kevin closed his eyes, bile surging in his throat.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, lamely.
“Yeah. Me, too.” Now bitterness trickled in to fill the void. “Gil and I had gone out to dinner. To celebrate my getting pregnant. It was pouring rain. Per usual for Seattle in the fall. We never even saw the oncoming car.” Finally she looked at him, dry eyes screaming with unhealed grief. “So, actually, I know exactly what it’s like to have my life turned upside down.”
A silent, but potent, four-letter word exploded in his brain. “I can’t believe Robyn didn’t tell me.”
“Clearly the two of you didn’t have that kind of relationship,” Julianne said, shoving more folded clothes into a second drawer. “And anyway, she and I weren’t close. She…she wouldn’t let anybody get close.”
“You got that right,” Kevin muttered, even as he caught the frustration, the disappointment in her voice. “But you didn’t come out here right after, then?”
“Dad wanted me to. Well, after I got out of the hospital. There was a month of hell,” she said dryly. “But I was determined to pick up the pieces of my life where I’d last seen them. It wasn’t working, but I was being too stubborn to admit it. Then Dad discovered Robyn was pregnant, and it was obvious he’d never manage with her by himself, and I thought, okay, a diversion. Something to take my mind off…things.”
Inside Kevin’s brain, two and two slammed together hard enough to make his ears ring. “Even though…”
“Yes, even though I’d just lost my own baby a few months before. But Dad needed me. Robyn needed me. And God knows, later on, Pippa needed me. What can I tell you? It felt good.” She paused. “It still does.”
Pippa was down for the count. Kevin turned to lay her back in the crib, for the first time noticing the pale lavender walls, the border of carousel horses prancing underneath the ceiling. As if reading his mind, Julianne said, “Robyn decorated the room all by herself.”
“So she—”
“Wanted the baby? I’m not sure she knew what she wanted, to tell you the truth. She liked the idea of having a little girl to dress up. Being a mother, though…not so much.” Julianne hesitated. “Dad and I have no idea where she got the stuff. In Mexico, I mean. Or when. But—” her lips flattened “—but there’s a reason why Dad didn’t want to tell you about Pippa.”
“He can’t possibly blame me for Robyn’s habit.”
“No, but you didn’t exactly help things, did you?”
“I tried, Julianne,” he said, hating, even as he weirdly understood, how he’d ended up the logical target for Julianne’s and Victor’s frustration and grief. “Believe me, I tried. But you gotta understand, every time I suggested maybe she go into rehab or get counseling or something, she went ballistic on me. Like you said, she wouldn’t let anybody get close. Including me. And I finally realized I was having enough trouble keeping my own head above water at that point. So I ran. Except…” He streaked a hand through his hair. “The longer I was straight, the more I kept feeling like…I don’t know. That I gave up on her too easily or something. Like maybe I shoulda pushed harder for her to get help.”
“Even though you didn’t love her?”
“Just because I wasn’t in love with your sister didn’t mean I didn’t care about her, for cryin’ out loud. When I started to get my act together, I really did want to help her go straight, too. Only she wasn’t gonna go without a fight, and I just didn’t have enough fight in me for both of us. Not then.”
Her steady gaze felt like it was gonna prick his skull. “The success rate for addicts—”
“Is, like, twenty percent, I know. Believe me, you can’t throw a statistic at me I haven’t heard a thousand times already. But what can I tell ya? You’re lookin’at one of those twenty percent, okay?”
Her face colored. An improvement, frankly, over the ghost look. “Dad will still fight you for custody.”
“Yeah, like that’s a news flash. Well, here’s another one—I may have made a crapload of mistakes in my life, but walking out on my own kid ain’t gonna be one of them. No matter what I’ve gotta do to prove myself worthy of being part of her life.”
After another long glance at his daughter, Kevin pulled out his wallet, extracting a plain white business card with his name and cell number. “I need some time to think, to figure out what the next step is. But I’ll be back. And tell your father to not even think about taking my daughter away so I can’t find her.”
Julianne’s mouth fell open. “He wouldn’t do that!”
“Yeah, well, he already tried to keep us apart, so let’s just say I’m not exactly feelin’ the love here.” He handed her the card. “You can reach me at that number. Anytime, day or night. And you can tell your father…” He hauled in a quick breath. “The pain I saw in his eyes, when he told me about Robyn? Why would he think I’d feel any different about Pippa?”
Then he walked away before the pain in Julianne’s could fully register.
Chapter Two
“It’s the best solution, Dad. And you know it.”
From across the tempered-glass table on the flagstone patio, Julianne’s father shot her an irritated look. “For whom?”
“All of us,” she said, slipping Gus a piece of deli ham from her salad. Wide-eyed and very awake in one of her many baby seats, a just-fed Pippa babbled at the bouncing shadows cast by the thousand-fingered wisteria strangling the redwood trellis overhead. From the nearby pool, a chlorine-scented breeze danced around them like an attention-seeking child, as though trying to wick away at least part of the morning’s turmoil. Fat chance of that.
“Bull,” her father said. “And stop feeding the dog.”
Her father had insisted on making lunch, despite it taking him three times longer than usual. Stubborn old fart. “It was one bite. And I’m eating. See?” Julianne shoved a forkful of red leaf lettuce into her mouth. It tasted, as everything had in the last eighteen months, like paper. Limp, oily paper. Blech.
“You haven’t touched your bread, either,” he said. “And it’s the good stuff, from the bakery. With the chewy crust.”
Julianne stared at the thick slice of bread her father had laboriously cut for her, fast morphing into a slab of concrete in the humidity-starved air. The bread stared back, baleful and unwanted. “I’m not that hungry.” She twiddled her fork amongst the leaves, feeling petulant and out of sorts. More out of sorts. The sort of out of sorts that makes people say things they shouldn’t. “I’m also not five.”
“And you also don’t weigh much more than you did when you were five. So, eat, dammit, unless you want me to drag you to the doctor.”
Fine. So maybe she’d gone down a size—or two—since Gil’s death. But if she wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t hungry. And anyway, what was the point of eating when you just ended up dead, anyway?
Okay, even for her that was probably a tad too morose.
And her father had changed the subject. She speared another chunk of ham. At her knees, Gus—definitely not in danger of starving anytime soon—whined softly and licked his chops, hopeful. The ham suspended in midair, Julianne regarded the top of her father’s head, feeling, as usual, lost in the jungle of emotions being around him provoked. More often than not, though, once she’d machete’d her way through the frustration of living with the spokesperson for implacability, how could she not feel profound compassion for a man who’d never wanted anything more than for his children to be happy? That he’d been powerless to make that happen for either of his daughters…
Well. The least she could do was let the man make her lunch.
“It’s just as well that Kevin found out now and not later,” she finally said, steeling herself against the sting. “It would have only been worse for us—and Pippa—if he had. And now that he knows, he’s not going to go away. Or forget about his own daughter. And the sooner you accept that the easier it’s going to be.”
Her father’s fork clattered to his plate as his gaze slammed into hers. “And damned if I’m going to let some junkie take my granddaughter!”
At his sharp tone, Pippa began to whimper. Gus—who took his role as mother’s helper very seriously—thoroughly licked the baby’s blobby little feet, distracting her.
“He’s not a junkie, Dad,” Julianne said softly, helplessly smiling at her niece’s recently discovered belly laugh. “At least, not anymore. And anyway,” she added, returning her gaze to her father, “even Robyn said his major problem was alcohol, not drugs.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, of course not. But if he’s been clean for a year—”
“We only have his word on that, you know.”
Julianne shakily set down her own fork, her half-eaten salad jeering her as she folded her arms across her stomach. She looked out over her father’s lawn and much-prized garden, scrupulously avoiding the pottery studio he’d had built for her shortly after her arrival. Screw water conservation, screamed the lush, bright green, weed-free grass, the dozens of rosebushes in copious bloom, the masses of deep purple clematis and azaleas and rhododendrons camouflaging the eight-foot-tall privacy fence. Dad spent hours out here during the long spring and summer, coaxing humidity-loving plants to grow in a high-desert climate. The same love-doesn’t-give-up mind-set, Julianne mused, that had made him the darling of the self-help circuit.
If you care enough, you can make it work, make it happen,make it bloom.
She returned her gaze to her father, thinking, It must be hell,living a lie.
Pippa started fussing again; Julianne slid out of her chair to heft the baby into her arms, Gus hovering to make sure she didn’t drop her. As she inhaled Pip’s sweet, baby-shampoo smell, she remembered Kevin’s awestruck expression when he held his daughter for the first time…the fierce look in his eyes when, after the initial shock wore off, he realized he was going to have a fight on his hands. That second look, especially, had pierced straight through the vast dead space inside her, rudely jolting her out of her nice, safe, bland cocoon.
Bastard.
“I know a year isn’t very long in the scheme of things,” Julianne said. “That Kevin could backslide. But he is Pippa’s father, Dad. He has the right to know his child. Which I’ve said all along.”
That merited far too many seconds of her father’s trenchant gaze. “You’re projecting,” he said gently.
“Because I lost my own baby, I’m empathizing with how he’d feel if he lost his? You betcha. But trust me, Kevin’s not going to simply take off with her.”
“You can’t be that naive.”
“I’m not. But you weren’t in the room with him. I was. And I promise you, that man is no more ready to be a full-time dad right now than Gus.” At the sound of his name, the dog waddled back to nuzzle aside Pippa’s thigh, laying his head on Julianne’s lap. She gave him another piece of ham, ignoring her father’s glare.
He stabbed at his salad, winced, then shoved the bite into his mouth. “Then why on earth would you want to encourage him to be ready?”
