Janice Johnson - Finding Her Dad

“To pay your college tuition?” he said mildly.

Despite the vivid color in her face, she swiftly lifted her chin and met his eyes. “I never expected money from you. I just wanted…” Her mouth worked. Her voice had gone so soft, he leaned forward, as if afraid he’d miss the rest of what she had to say. “Family,” she finally whispered.

His eyes closed for a moment. Some powerful emotion crossed his face. Lucy couldn’t be sure what it was. Finally he took a deep breath and looked at Sierra. “You have that now.” His voice was kind. He was even smiling faintly. “Not just me. You’ll meet your grandmother and an aunt and uncle and two first cousins, too.”

She stared. “Have you…told them about me?”

“Not yet, but I will. I feel confident they’ll welcome you, Sierra.”

The wonder on her face scared Lucy. It couldn’t possibly be this easy. She hated watching Sierra’s hopes rise like shimmering soap bubbles, all too fragile and certain to pop. Lucy didn’t believe that he was prepared to joyously embrace a teenage daughter’s arrival in his life. There had to be a catch. Probably a whole bunch of them, little traps she imagined closing, snap, snap, snap, until Sierra was dancing fearfully to miss them.

Her own voice was harsh when she said, “Do you intend to tell anyone else about Sierra?”

His dark eyebrows rose. “Do you mean, do I plan to go to the Dispatch or KOMO TV?”

His sardonic tone was probably meant to embarrass her. In her defense of Sierra, Lucy didn’t let it. “I’m asking if you’d rather her existence stay private.”

“Secrets are hard to keep, and this doesn’t have to be one.” The gaze that met hers now was hard. “Would I rather the press not catch wind of her right away? Yeah. I want my campaign to focus on my ability to do the job, not on the surprising appearance of a daughter I didn’t know I had. Is that unreasonable?”

Of course it wasn’t. She wasn’t entirely willing to back down, though. “I’m asking whether Sierra can tell her friends about you, or if you want her to keep quiet for now.”

He noticeably hesitated for a moment. Sierra couldn’t miss that any more than Lucy did. Then he grimaced. “She can tell her friends.” He sighed and met Sierra’s gaze again. “I won’t pretend I’m not concerned about the impact on the election. My opponent will probably try to make something of this if he learns about you. But we’re not going to sneak around, Sierra. You’re indisputably my daughter. I want to get to know you.”

She gave a tremulous smile that made her momentarily radiant. The sight seemed to transfix him. Watching their faces, Lucy felt the oddest lurch in her chest that almost—but not quite—hurt. It felt a little bit like envy.

Jon’s voice was huskier than usual when he said, “Perhaps I can take you both out to dinner Friday night.”

Wouldn’t he be recognized? She imagined him shaking hands with people who paused at the table. The speculative glances.

“Why don’t I cook instead?” she suggested. “Sierra can make dessert. She’s becoming quite a baker.”

If she hadn’t been looking so closely, she wouldn’t have seen how he relaxed. “That sounds good,” he said, smiling. “In the meantime, I’ll talk to my mother. We’ll figure out a time for you to meet her.”

“O-kay!” Sierra all but sang. “A grandmother.” She let go of Lucy and hugged herself, making no effort to hide her delight.

Lucy saw him watch Sierra, then unexpectedly turn his gaze to her. His eyes flickered, the color momentarily deepening. He’d recognized her worry, she suspected. She didn’t care.

“What do you do for a living?” he asked.

“I own a pet-supply store,” she told him. “Barks and Purrs.”

“Ah.” He glanced around. “No pets of your own?”

“Two cats. They disappear whenever we have visitors. You?”

He shook his head. “I work too much. I had a dog growing up. A mutt. Moby lived to be sixteen.” His mouth wasn’t exactly smiling, but his eyes were. “Is there a Mr. Malone? I’ve had the impression not.”

“No. It’s just Sierra and me.”

“No family?”

She didn’t like how perceptive his eyes were. “Only a mother,” she said. “We’re…not close.” She didn’t talk about her mother. Ever. She didn’t let herself think about how soon that would have to change. “Sierra hasn’t met her.” Yet. “I take it your father has passed away?”

“Massive stroke a couple of years ago.”

“He couldn’t have been very old.”

His look became quizzical. “Worrying about what kind of genetics Sierra carries?”

Flustered, Lucy began, “No, I—"

He grinned, the effect both wicked and astonishingly sensual considering how unrevealing and almost grim his face usually was. “It’s all right. Dad’s parents lived to be eighty-nine and ninety-one respectively. My father spent most of his life angry. I figure he worked himself up to the stroke.” He transferred the smile to Sierra, although it was softer for her benefit. “You wouldn’t have liked him. My mother is a nice lady, though.”

She smiled shyly back. “How old are my cousins?”

“Younger than you. Reese is ten and Patrick twelve. You’ll be the only girl.”

Still shyly, she asked, “You don’t have any other kids?”

His mouth quirked, and Lucy knew what he was thinking. He almost certainly did have other kids, ones he’d never know. She wondered if he felt regret now.

“I’ve never been married,” he said. “I was engaged years ago, but she was killed. It hasn’t happened since, despite my mother’s nagging.”

Killed. That made Lucy wonder, but she didn’t ask. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

He made I-need-to-be-leaving noises, and Lucy stayed where she was so that Sierra could walk him out. They talked for a few more minutes on the porch, his quiet bass in counterpoint to Sierra’s soprano bursts. She heard the sound of his car starting, the slam of the screen door and then Sierra burst into the house.

“Lucy! Isn’t he amazing?” She went sur la pointe and spun. She was astonishingly graceful, although she’d given up dance lessons at age twelve when she grew so tall. “He wants to be my dad! I can’t believe it. Oh, Lucy.” Eyes drenched with tears, she flung herself onto the couch and into Lucy’s arms, where she wept quietly and happily against her shoulder.

Lucy said the right things, and she wanted to believe in Captain Jonathan Brenner, that he was as decent and kind as he seemed, but she knew that people rarely were. She loved Sierra too much to lower her guard.

What scared her most was knowing how little she could do to protect her foster daughter’s too-vulnerable heart.

EDIE COOK WAS NOT PLEASED. She paced the confines of his campaign office after staff and volunteers had gone home, her indignation making her steps choppy.

“We couldn’t have discussed this before you walked out on a limb?”

“No.” He half sat on a desk, his legs stretched out and his arms crossed. “This is personal. I had to do what was right. To hell with politics.”

She glowered at him. Edie was small and stocky, her graying hair cut severely short. She had the energy of a hyperactive kindergartner. She could be running campaigns of far more significance than his, but she had a daughter with multiple sclerosis, and she needed to stay close. He knew he was lucky to have her. Even so, he wasn’t going to let her shape him with her nudges and prods the way she’d like to. He wasn’t clay that could be molded into a pretty face. He was a cop. A man on a crusade begun to avenge Cassia.

Jon was honest about his own motivations. Along the way, it had all become more complex, but he’d gone into law enforcement out of anger. He had fallen in love with Cassia Winterbourne the minute he met her during his first year of grad school. They had been engaged and living together six months later when one night she closed the coffee shop where she worked part-time as barista, started for the bus stop and never made it. She was raped and murdered by a man released from prison the day before.