Janice Kay - The Daughter Merger

“See?” Linnet crowed. “I knew there was something! That’s it! Ask to take horseback riding lessons.”

Part of her balked at the idea. But another part started thinking, why not? The temptation nibbled at her resolve. She could spend his money. Lots of his money. Maybe she could ride English. Learn to show-jump.

Uh-huh. Sure. Let him think he’d done something for her. Tell everyone he was a good daddy because he’d paid for horseback riding lessons.

“No!” She shoved the roll of posters in the closet, in her haste denting it. “No. I don’t want his money. I don’t want anything from him.”

“Wow.” Linnet sounded awed. “You must really hate your dad.”

“I told you I did.” And she didn’t want to think about him, not anymore. One of the Blanchets’ two cats gave her an excuse, poking his head into the bedroom. “Hey, Lemieux,” Claire coaxed, holding out her hand. “Here kitty-kitty. Maybe he’ll sleep with me.” She trailed her fingers down the big Siamese’s taupe back. “Listen,” she said to Linnet, “why don’t you set up my stereo while I put away my clothes? Okay?”

Linnet slid nose first off the bed, like a seal going into the water. As she hit the floor, the cat erupted under Claire’s hand and fled, thundering down the hall.

Both girls laughed, and Claire’s mood improved for the first time. This wasn’t home, but it would be okay.

For now.

DAVID HAD NEVER SO BADLY wanted to make an excuse as he did Sunday. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—let himself. Leaving Claire with her mother, believing she’d be better off there, was one thing. Deserting her on a stranger’s doorstep was another. He might be a coward, but not that big a one.

Besides which, damn it, he’d promised.

What the hell, he thought with grim humor as he rang the doorbell, Grace Blanchet might as well find out now what her Good Samaritan plans would come to.

She was the one to open the door. She wore an apron again, like the other day. From inside her home wafted the smell of garlic and baking bread and a whiff of something sweeter. Apple pie? Behind her, on the stairs, lay a different cat from the other day, this one a fluffy brown Maine coon type with a white bib. It paused in the midst of some intricate grooming ritual and stared at him, unblinking and distinctly unfriendly.

He tore his gaze away from the cat and looked at Grace Blanchet, who was smiling like any good hostess should, even one entertaining this particular guest only because she felt she had to.

“I’m glad you made it.” That smoky voice completely belied her prim exterior. “Claire wasn’t so sure you would.”

Yeah. More likely, Claire had hoped.

When Grace turned, his gaze flicked to her jean-clad rear. The white bow of the apron was a saucy accent to her slender curves.

Hating himself for ogling, feeling the cat’s stare between his shoulder blades, David followed Grace back to the kitchen, into déjà vu. There she was, behind the tiled counter, the apron protecting her clothes from the marinara sauce bubbling on the stove, which she stirred. He stood in exactly the same spot, beside the sliding door, feeling as socially inept as he had that day. He hadn’t stuck his foot in his mouth yet, but he knew damn well what was to come and hadn’t warned this perfectly nice woman.

“If you want to go up and say hi to Claire,” she began.

“I was hoping to talk to you first,” David said truthfully. “Is she, uh…”

“Behaving herself? You bet. She’s very polite.” A faintly troubled look crossed Grace’s face. “She hasn’t exactly settled in, though. She doesn’t want to put up her posters, for example. I wish you hadn’t said that.”

He shook his head. “Usually, my opening my mouth would guarantee that she’d do whatever I suggested she not do.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

She set a wine bottle and corkscrew on the counter. “Would you open this?”

He automatically began turning the screw into the cork. “In all fairness,” he said gruffly, “I should warn you that Claire and I haven’t sat down for a meal together in a month or more. She’s bound to make an excuse tonight.”

For an apparently gentle, pleasant woman, Grace had a steely core. “She can try.”

With a pop, the cork came out. David poured two glasses, held his up, and said, “To a very brave woman.”

She lifted hers in turn. “Courage is in the eye of the beholder.”

They both swallowed.

David leaned one hip against the cabinet and watched her run water into a big pot for the pasta.

“I want you to know that I’m grateful to you for trying this,” he said abruptly.

She clapped a lid on the pot. “All I’m doing is giving your daughter a safe place to stay while you two work out your problems.”

He took another gulp of wine. “I have a bad feeling that you’re underestimating our problems. We don’t have father-daughter tension. Claire hates my guts.”

Her eyes were drenched with compassion. “And loves you, too.”

His laugh hurt. “Sure she does. So much so, she’d rather hitch a ride across three states than stay with me.”

“Thirteen-year-olds don’t think anything bad can happen to them.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. Claire knew that divorce happened, that mothers became drunks, that fathers disappeared from their daughters’ lives.

“Maybe. Just remember,” David said, “if you have trouble with her, you’re not stuck with her.”

“If she doesn’t keep her word, you’ll be the first to know.” She gave him an odd, crooked smile. “Now, would you go yell up the stairs? Tell the girls dinner is ready.”

She made it sound so easy, so casual. Bemused by the idea of being able to call, “Dinner’s ready,” and have his daughter come running in good humor, David went to the foot of the stairs and braced himself for the customary rejection.

“Claire? Linnet? Time for dinner.”

“Okay!” Linnet’s voice floated cheerfully down from above.

David didn’t wait. The less obvious his presence was to Claire, the better.

Back in the kitchen, he discovered Grace had the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear as she took a strainer out of the cupboard and set it in the sink.

“Mom, Claire is a very nice girl.” There was a pause as she lifted the huge steaming pan of pasta to the sink and dumped the spaghetti into the strainer. “No, she won’t be here forever.” Seeing David, she rolled her eyes although her tone was very patient. “Mom, I really can’t talk right now. Claire’s father is here to see his daughter, and I’m putting dinner on the table.”

He mouthed, “Can I help?”

Covering the receiver, she whispered, “Will you put this on the table? Are they coming?”

“Linnet answered me,” he said noncommittally.

“Oh, good. Here.” Grace handed him a heaping bowl of sauce. Then, into the receiver, she said, “No, I wasn’t talking to you, Mom. Listen, I’ll call tomorrow. Say hi to Dad, okay?” She listened for another minute, repeated goodbye and set down the phone, shaking her head. “Maybe we forever feel like teenagers in the presence of our parents.” Her gusty sigh told him she did not look forward to speaking to her mother again. “Oh, well. Okay, here’s the spaghetti.” She handed him this bowl in turn, although clearly she was murmuring to herself now. He could all but see her ticking items off on her fingers. “The garlic bread is on the table and all I have to do is dish up the green beans.”

“Smells good.”

So did she. Close to her, he caught a whiff of an elusive, flowery scent. His gaze lingered on the slender, elegant line of her neck, on tiny wisps of hair against the cream of her skin.