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Fathers and Other Strangers
Karen Templeton
Jenna Stanton had raised her niece, Blair, from birth, with nary a clue as to who the child's father was.Until now - when the piece of paper in her hand led her to the inexplicably attractive grouchy ex-cop Hank Logan. How could she tell Hank that her daughter was his? And more important, should she? The former detective in him told Hank that the pretty widow and the smart-mouth kid were in town for more than just the local scenery.But to say he was floored to find out the truth wasn't even close. Because in Blair and Jenna he was offered a chance to assume the two roles in life he'd sworn he would never take on. Father. And husband.
“Why shouldn’t I keep the dog?” Hank asked.
“Maybe it’s time I had something else to talk to at night besides myself, y’know?”
His words echoed painfully in her own sparsely furnished heart as they pulled up in front of the cottage.
Slouched in his seat, his right hand still griping the steering wheel, Hank looked at her. “I might prefer to keep to myself most of the time, Miss Stanton, but I’m not an ogre.” He hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
After a moment, she nodded, then ran up the porch steps to the relative safety of the cottage, away from the yearning in those dark eyes, a yearning she doubted he even knew was there. But once back inside, as she stood at the front window, she knew there was no reason not to tell Hank Logan he had a daughter.
Now all she had to do was figure out how.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to another fabulous month of the most exciting romance reading around. And what better way to begin than with a new TALL, DARK & DANGEROUS novel from New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann? Night Watch has it all: an irresistible U.S. Navy SEAL hero, intrigue and danger, and—of course—passionate romance. Grab this one fast, because it’s going to fly off the shelves.
Don’t stop at just one, however. Not when you’ve got choices like Fathers and Other Strangers, reader favorite Karen Templeton’s newest of THE MEN OF MAYES COUNTY. Or how about Dead Calm, the long-awaited new novel from multiple-award-winner Lindsay Longford? Not enough good news for you? Then check out new star Brenda Harlen’s Some Kind of Hero, or Night Talk, from the always-popular Rebecca Daniels. Finally, try Trust No One, the debut novel from our newest find, Barbara Phinney.
And, of course, we’ll be back next month with more pulse-pounding romances, so be sure to join us then. Meanwhile…enjoy!
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Editor
Fathers and Other Strangers
Karen Templeton
KAREN TEMPLETON,
a Waldenbooks bestselling author and RITA
Award nominee, is the mother of five sons and living proof that romance and dirty diapers are not mutually exclusive terms. An Easterner transplanted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she spends far too much time trying to coax her garden to yield roses and produce something resembling a lawn, all the while fantasizing about a weekend alone with her husband. Or at least an uninterrupted conversation.
She loves to hear from readers, who may reach her by writing c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001 New York, NY 10279, or online at www.karentempleton.com.
To all my online buds at AOL and eHarlequin, who are always there, even at three in the morning, for solace, support and frequently a damn good laugh.
Thanks for being the best “sisters” in the world.
To Jack and the boys, smooches for understanding why sometimes I really prefer when you’re all somewhere else.
And to Gail C., as always.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Lynda Sandoval Cooper, who helped me see things from a cop’s perspective.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1
“Ewww…why are we stopping here?”
Jenna Stanton cut the engine to her Corolla, then glanced over at the sour-faced thirteen-year-old girl she loved with all her heart. Usually. Ignoring the flood of terror now threatening to expel the contents of her stomach, Jenna forced a smile, wincing when her lower lip cracked. From behind her seat, Meringue let out a plaintive mew, protesting her incarceration in her carrier.
“This is the place I told you about,” Jenna said, still gripping the steering wheel. “Where we’re going to spend the month.”
Blair shoved a tangled strand of copper-red hair behind one recently-pierced ear and crooked her neck to get a better look at the Double Arrow Guest Lodge. “It’s a motel,” she said, her words laced with a disgust usually reserved for fried liver and Disney movies.
“We’re not staying in this part. There are cottages down by the lake.”
That got a “yeah, right” look which immediately settled into a scowl. Not that Jenna blamed her; from this angle, the Double Arrow looked like any other two-bit motel—single story, beige stucco, utilitarian doors and windows. Maybe twelve units that Jenna could see, only three with cars parked out front. The cottages she’d have to take on faith, since they weren’t visible from here.
Still, the place wasn’t quite as puke-worthy as her niece would have the world believe. Quivering shadows from dozens of ashes and cottonwoods softened the stark, unimaginative architecture, caressed the occasional plot of perfectly mowed grass and tubs of vibrant annuals. The air was still and hot, yes, but the silence was thick and sweet and luscious, punctuated only by the occasional brilliant trill of some bird or other. From what little Jenna had seen, Haven, Oklahoma was already living up to its name. On the surface, at least.
“It’s actually very pretty, don’t you think?”
“It’s boring.”
Jenna squelched her sigh, as well as the urge to squirm from the perspiration seeping through her bra. “Oh, Blair…you’d say any place with a population of less than a million looked boring.”
Resentful blue eyes zinged to Jenna’s as Blair hooked her thin arms across a still-flat chest. She’d been a pretty baby—not to mention a cheerful one—but the onset of adolescence was not being kind, either physically or emotionally. Her hair was too fine, her legs too long, her teeth held prisoner by several thousand dollars’ worth of intricate engineering. And the poor child had more freckles than there were lobbyists on Capitol Hill.
“I don’t get it,” Blair said, not quite whining but close enough to set Jenna’s teeth on edge. “You always set your books in D.C. Always. Now you have to set one in Oklahoma?”
This would make…let’s see…at least the fiftieth time they’d had this conversation since March, when Jenna had realized exactly how limited her options were. Plucking at her damp T-shirt—the car’s air conditioner had given out around Nashville—she tried another smile. “I told you. I was getting burned out. I needed a change—”
“What am I supposed to do for a whole month while you write for ten hours a day?” Tears glistened in Blair’s eyes, and Jenna’s heart cracked. Guilt had practically eaten a hole in Jenna’s heart already that she couldn’t tell her niece the truth. Not yet, anyway. “I don’t know anybody here! I mean, God, why didn’t you send me to camp or something?”
Jenna swiped a hand through her own wind-tangled mop, still smelling slightly of the hair-coloring chemicals from her do-it-yourself job the day before. “One, you hate camp. And two, I told you, sweetie—I’m not planning on doing much actual writing. Just going over the galleys for my December book, maybe some preliminary scribbles for this new one, but that’s about it. This is mostly a research trip. So we’ll do lots of sightseeing, maybe some camping. You’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Like you know anything about camping.”
“Do you, smartypants?”
“No.”
“Well, then, I suppose we can both learn.”
Silence vibrated between them for a second or two until, in a flurry of jabbing elbows, Blair unhooked the seatbelt, fumbled with the door handle for a moment then shoved open the door. “I gotta pee,” she announced, bolting from the car. The little pink pom-poms on the heels of her tennis socks wobbled frantically as she tromped toward the sign that said Office.
Jenna finally gave in to the sigh that had been building like a storm cloud for the past ten minutes, then grabbed her purse from under her seat and followed suit, tugging at the seat of her cargo shorts. It wasn’t fair to Blair, dragging her out here like this. And guilt that she couldn’t tell her niece the truth had practically eaten a hole in Jenna’s heart. She couldn’t tell her the truth yet, anyway. If things didn’t work out, maybe not ever. But all she could do was take this one step at a time and hope for the best.
Her sandals crunched the sandy dirt as she followed her niece toward the office, willing saliva back into her mouth. Thank God there’d been at least a barebones Web site for the place. Otherwise, she would have had a devil of a time explaining how she’d just happened to stumble across the Double Arrow, located on the outskirts of a town too small to show up on most maps to begin with.
She’d only spoken to Hank Logan once, when she called and asked about renting one of his cottages for the month. His voice was burned into her memory—low, edgy and heavily seasoned with sarcasm. A voice completely at odds with the image of a man who’d buy a run-down motel and—according to the information she had—single-handedly restore it, shingle by shingle.
A voice completely at odds with neatly trimmed grass and tubs of cheerful petunias and marigolds.
“Something I can do for you?”
Yeah. That voice.
Blair whipped around first, her hand poised to knock on the office door. But Jenna froze, watching her niece’s face, even though Blair wouldn’t have a clue who she might be looking at. Conversely, while Blair looked nothing like Jenna’s sister Sandy, if she looked anything like Hank—if he could see something in her niece’s face that he recognized—Jenna was screwed. Then again, if he didn’t, this whole outrageous scheme of hers might be a total waste of time. A name in a diary, a few coincidences, was all she had. What she didn’t have was proof.
Between the chronic shyness she’d never completely overcome and the particulars of this situation, Jenna’s stomach once again threatened mutiny as she forced herself to turn around.
The good news was, Blair looked nothing like Hank Logan.
The bad news was, Blair looked nothing like Hank Logan.
“Is there a bathroom I can use?” her niece asked, her high-pitched voice knifing through Jenna’s pounding heartbeat.
“Right through that door and to your right. Go ahead, it’s unlocked.”
Then eyes cryptic as midnight focused on Jenna, and her stomach turned inside out.
It took less than a second for Hank to size the woman up as the one who’d called from D.C. a few weeks back. Not that her pale-green T-shirt and khaki shorts were fancy or anything, but something about her—her stance, the way she’d shoved her sunglasses on top of her head to hold back her messed-up blond hair, her prissy little sandals—just told him she was.
He shrugged off the wooden ladder biting into his shoulder to rest it against the trunk of a nearby cottonwood, then grabbed his black T-shirt from the rung where he’d slung it earlier. He used it to make a half-assed attempt at wiping the dust and sweat off his face, then yanked it on over his head, trying to remember the last time it’d rained.
Lord, she was staring at him like she’d never seen a man’s chest before. Which he might have found amusing, once upon a time. Now he just found it annoying. But then, he found most things about women annoying these days.
Then he remembered his manners and said, “You Jenna Stanton?” Hank was not a man inclined to use more words than necessary.
She nodded, pale-blue eyes wary in a face free of any makeup that he could tell, her wide mouth set in a no-nonsense expression that matched what he remembered about her voice. He pegged her to be about his age, pushing forty, maybe a little older. The breeze blew her straight, light hair into her face; she shoved it back. She looked hot.
He almost smiled at the words’ double meaning.
She looked kinda scared, too. Like maybe she was afraid of him. Well, hell, he’d be afraid of him, too, if he saw himself for the first time. Bad enough his parents’ first successful attempt at procreation had resulted in a face that was all angles and jutting bones without Hank’s embellishing their handiwork with a twice-broken nose, an effect only intensified by a head of ornery black hair, a throwback to some Native American ancestor or other. He’d been told he could look mean without even trying, which had worked in his favor when he’d been a cop. Now it just kept folks from messing in his business, which was fine with him. And if they were tempted, all he had to do was add a scowl to the mix, and that pretty much settled the issue.
“I take it you’re Mr. Logan?” she said, finally.
“You got it.”
The woman looked as if she might step closer, then seemed to think better of it. “I’m Jenna Stanton. I spoke to you on the phone a few weeks ago? About renting a cottage?”
“Yeah. I figured that’s who you were.”
“Oh. Well, um, I know we’re a little early, but I was wondering if our cottage is ready?”
Hank almost grinned at that, too. He picked up the ladder, walked past her to thunk it against the outside office wall. “Well, ma’am, this is your lucky day. The previous occupants checked out ahead of schedule.”
“So…the cottages are more popular than the single units?”
Annoyance started to burn, right in the middle of his gut, only half because he’d wasted a perfectly good sarcastic comment. “It’s early yet. Things’ll pick up in a couple weeks. So, you ready for me to show you to your cottage or what?”
She was giving him of one those figuring-out looks that women were so good at and that Hank hated with a passion. She crammed her hands into her shorts pockets, which is when Hank decided she had pretty nice legs. For a woman her age. “I forgot to ask when I spoke with you before—what are the cooking facilities like?”
Hank felt his brows take a dive. “Julia Child probably wouldn’t wet her pants over them, but long as you don’t mind bein’ creative, I’m sure you’ll get by okay. And by the way, there’s no air-conditioning in the cottages, ’cause the old units weren’t any good and I haven’t gotten around to replacing ’em yet. All the rooms have ceiling fans, though.”
Her mouth twisted. “You sound as if you’re daring me to stay.”
“Nope. Just stating facts.”
“I see. Well, Mr. Logan—” she plucked her sunglasses off her head, only to stick them right back up there “—I am hot, have just enough of a headache to be considered dangerous and have spent the last two days on the road with a crabby teenager who’s convinced she’s just been consigned to hell. As long as there’s indoor plumbing, the mattresses don’t look like flophouse rejects and I don’t have to share the place with various and sundry critters, I’ll be a happy camper.”
Hell, he could practically see her pulse ramming in her throat from here. Maybe her words sounded tough, but her eyes—heavy-lidded, deep-set under naturally arched brows—told a whole other story. Too bad he had no idea what that story was. Like most men, Hank was totally clueless when it came to reading women’s minds. However, his cop instincts were rattling around in his brain, telling him that something seemed funny about this. And it was going to bug him to death until he figured out what.
“Well,” he said, scratching his unshaven chin and playing the hayseed to the hilt, “the mattresses are all new, the plumbing’s old but it usually works, and if you see any wildlife inside, I’ll be happy to send somebody up to shoot it for you. How’s that?”
She paled. “I don’t want to kill anything. I just want to be sure it all stays outside, where it belongs.”
