The Real Father

“Absolutely pathetic,” he agreed. “The kid is a zero. So what do you say, Tommy? You think you could give your mom a break and maybe tell this zero kid you’re sorry?”

Surprisingly, Tommy suddenly felt as if he maybe could. Though he wasn’t sure why, it had helped to talk about it. The worst of his anger was gone, like when you twist the top off a cola and all the fizz shoots out.

“Oh, okay,” he muttered, skimming his last pebble expertly across the silver sparkles of the river.

“If it’ll make everyone chill about it.”

They stood side by side, counting the skips together. Four, five, six! They high-fived each other, grinning.

As they walked back toward the plantation house, Tommy decided that, in a way, Jackson might make a pretty good father after all. Tommy knew he’d been lectured just now, sort of, but he really didn’t mind.

“But remember,” Tommy said firmly, pausing as they reached the carriage house, where his mother was waiting, “sorry or not, if Junior Caldwell doesn’t shut up about my mom, I’ll finesse his ugly nose all over again.”

“WOW. You sure do travel light,” Annie said as she deposited the last of Molly’s suitcases onto the polished honey-pine floor of the Everspring carriage house. “I couldn’t even get all my makeup in these puny little bags, much less my clothes.” Straddling the arm of the sofa, she leaned back and gave Molly an appraising once-over. “But I guess the good-girl look doesn’t call for all that much makeup, does it?”

Molly laughed. It was impossible to take offense at Annie’s candor, especially after she’d offered to help unload the car and lug the suitcases upstairs to the small guest quarters.

“Not really. And the gardener look doesn’t call for that many clothes, either. I’ve got six pairs of jeans, all with torn, dirt-black knees, and a couple of mud-colored T-shirts.” She surveyed the luggage ruefully. “Most of these are full of Liza’s toys and video games.”

Annie leveraged her legs over the sofa’s arm, no mean feat considering there wasn’t a spare millimeter of fabric in her electric-blue pants, and slid down the padded upholstery to a comfortably reclined position, kicking her shoes off as she went.

“No kidding? Tommy plays video games, too. All the time.” She grimaced, wriggling to get the pillows just right. “When he’s not out breaking other kids’ noses, that is.”

Molly couldn’t help noticing how instinctively Annie made herself at home here. Was that just Annie’s style—or had she spent time in this little secluded suite of rooms before?

Molly had been here before herself—years ago, with Beau. They had wrangled on that very sofa, Beau pressing and Molly retreating, until finally they had ended the dance the same way they so often ended it, with Molly crying as a coldly disgusted Beau drove her home.

As she thought back on it all now, Molly realized how sadly clichéd it had been. The more sophisticated boy growing bored with his too timid younger girlfriend, making demands and issuing threats. The girl weakening, fearful of losing the love of her life…

But at the time it hadn’t seemed like a cliché. It had been confusing and terribly painful. Molly had begged for understanding, for patience. But she had been so afraid. If one night he made good his threat, if he left her, if he found another girl… How could she live without Beau?

Ironic, wasn’t it? She had ended up having to live without him anyhow.

She wondered what it had been like for Annie and Jackson—if her suspicions were correct and the other couple had sneaked up here, too. Very different, she suspected. She imagined sexy whispers and muffled laughter, beer bottles knocking together as boots and underclothes rained across the floor.

Not that it was any of her business.

“Mom!” Liza appeared suddenly in the doorway, clutching a copy of The Wizard of Oz and a lovely doll dressed in a pink satin princess gown. “These were in the little bedroom. There’s a teddy bear, too. Do you think it’s all right if I play with them?’

Molly smiled at her daughter’s eager face. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll bet Aunt Lavinia left them for you. You’ll meet her tomorrow—you’ll like her a lot.”

Liza nodded, obviously hardly hearing anything beyond the “yes.” She turned back toward the bedroom, already murmuring to her new pretend playmate, stroking the doll’s long, silky blond curls and straightening her tiny rhinestone tiara.

“Aunt Lavinia, huh?” Annie sounded amused.

“That’s mighty cozy. I guess that means the Forrests considered you practically one of the family?”

One of the family. Molly tried not to think about how desperately she had once longed for that to be true. Those hopes had died ten years ago, as if they had been riding in that little car with Beau. She felt a tingle of discomfort burn along her cheekbones as she remembered how Beau’s mother had shunned her at the funeral. How the older woman had turned her away from Jackson’s hospital room. He was rarely conscious, Mrs. Forrest had said frigidly. Molly’s condolences would be conveyed. There was no need to come again….

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” She worked at keeping her face neutral. No need to dredge all that up now—though she could see an avid curiosity shining in Annie’s eyes. “Lavinia was always kind to everyone. I started calling her that when we were all very little, and I guess it just stuck.”

“Yeah, Lavinia’s a peach,” Annie agreed. She rested her cheek on her knuckles and sighed. “That other one, though. The mother. She sure was a puffed-up peacock, wasn’t she? Thought the Forrests were too good to breathe the same air as the rest of us plebes.”

Molly smiled. Giselle Forrest had looked something like a peacock, actually, with her jewel-toned designer clothes and her stylishly spiked and highlighted hair.

“She was pretty aloof, wasn’t she? But I think maybe she was just difficult to know.”

“Difficult?” Annie laughed. “Honey, I know the mannequin down at Bloomingdale’s better than I knew that woman. Like her better, too.”

Molly didn’t argue. She had felt that way once. She remembered being amazed, that day at the hospital, that Giselle could look so perfectly groomed, complete with flashing diamonds, sleek nylons and perfectly applied lip liner. Molly herself had been a mess, tearstained and disheveled. For weeks she had found it a struggle even to run a comb through her own hair.

She had hated Giselle that day, both for turning her away and for looking so completely unaffected by Beau’s death.

It wasn’t until years later—when she heard that Giselle Forrest had died of liver disease—that Molly had finally understood how personal, how unique, grief really is. That compulsive poise had been Giselle’s protection. Her exquisitely cut diamond brooch had been nothing but armor placed over a heart as mangled as Molly’s own.

Annie shifted to a sitting position, stretching like a cat. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve always said it beats me how a cold-blooded witch like that could have a decent son like Jack.”

“Or Beau,” Molly added, feeling strangely as if Annie had slighted him.

“Yeah, sure.” Annie shrugged. “Whatever. Heck, it’s a mystery how she had any children at all, if you know what I mean. Deserves its own segment on ‘Tales of the Unexplained,’ don’t you think?”

Liza appeared in the doorway once again. “Excuse me,” she said politely, “Mom, where are my suitcases? I want to play with all my dolls together.”

Molly picked two pieces from the pile of luggage and passed them to her daughter, who eagerly hoisted them both and trotted back toward her own room. Molly envied the little girl her easy ability to adapt wherever she went. A few spangled scarves for costumes, a few hand-drawn pictures for backdrops, a few smiling princess dolls for companionship, and that little bedroom was well on its way to becoming the Planet Cuspian.

Annie was expertly eyeing the diminished stack of luggage, which, now that Liza’s bright-pink pieces were gone, did look a little skimpy, Molly had to admit.

“Even allowing for the minimalist approach to wardrobing,” Annie said dryly, “I’d have to guess you haven’t exactly come home intending to put down roots.” She laughed. “No pun intended.”

“Nope. Just the landscaping kind,” Molly said with a smile, sliding the largest of the suitcases, which held her seed catalogues, garden brochures and drafting supplies, toward the window. She’d probably work over there—the light was perfect, the view of terraced lawns marching down to the river inspirational. “We’ll only be staying a couple of months, just until the renovations are done. Liza and I consider Atlanta home now.”

Molly felt Annie’s gaze on her as she unzipped the bag and began stacking supplies on the large desk. “Got your own landscaping business in Atlanta, I hear,” Annie said. “Doing pretty well there?”

Her voice was almost too bland. Molly looked up, wondering what the other woman was getting at. “I can’t complain,” she answered evenly.

“Yeah, I can see you’re not the complaining type.” Annie sighed. “Still, it would be a heck of a lot easier with a second paycheck in the house, wouldn’t it? What about it, Molly? Ever think you ought to go down to the husband store and pick yourself out a new one?”

Molly bent over the table, arranging her colored pencils in their holder. She let her hair fall across her face. “I haven’t thought about it,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t sound so tight. “We really do just fine.”

“Oh, now. Don’t go all huffy on me.” Annie grinned as she inspected a pink-hued fingernail. She nibbled carefully at a ragged edge. “I’m not trying to pry your tax statement out of you. I’m a single mom myself. I know all about it. Frankly, I’m just wondering why you’ve come back here at all.”

Molly took a deep breath, forcing herself to relax. She leaned against the edge of the desk, pencils in hand, and looked at Annie.

“Sorry. It’s simple, really. I’ve been doing mostly business landscaping for the past few years. I’d rather be doing houses, but the domestic market in Atlanta is pretty hard to break into. The same companies have been designing those old estates for generations.” She rubbed the soft pencils against her palm, leaving rainbow-colored smudges on her skin.

“But Everspring could change all that. Scarlett O’Hara herself would be impressed with my résumé after this.”

Annie was nodding. “Makes sense.” She narrowed her eyes. “So you really came just for the job?”

“Of course,” Molly said. “What else would I have come for?”

“Well, I wondered…” Annie seemed unsure how to proceed, and the hesitance sounded unnatural, as if she rarely bothered to plan or polish her utterances. “Oh, hell, I’ll just say it. I wondered if maybe you had come because of Jackson.”

Finally, Molly understood. Of course—how could she have been so dense? Annie was interested in Jackson, and she didn’t want any competition.

Molly almost laughed at the thought. If only Annie knew how wrong she was! If only she knew how difficult it was for Molly to even look at Jackson, who wore Beau’s face, inhabited Beau’s body, so casually—as if he didn’t suspect what it did to her. Jackson, who without meaning to awoke a thousand dreams in Molly’s breast, who with one smile, a ghost’s smile, stirred emotions that should have slept forever.

She shook her head emphatically. “No, Annie,” she assured the other woman. “I didn’t come because of Jackson. I came in spite of him.”

JACKSON TRIED to concentrate on the cards in his hand. He tried to ignore the small square of light that glowed, like backlit amber, in his peripheral vision. The light from one of the carriage house bedrooms. He especially tried not to see the slim silhouette that occasionally moved across the golden curtains.

But he hated canasta. He was terrible at canasta. What had possessed him to tell Lavinia he would play canasta with her tonight?

And for that matter, when had his spicy maiden aunt taken up this monotonous game herself? And why? Hadn’t she always lumped canasta in with bridge as the “pastimes of the half-dead or the half-witted?” Yes, last time he was in town, he distinctly remembered Lavinia and her cronies staying up half the night drinking mint juleps and playing cutthroat poker.

“So,” he said, laying down all his fours and stifling a yawn. “What’s with the canasta, Vinnie? And where’s the brandy? Did a traveling missionary come through town cleaning things up or what?”

She didn’t bother to look up from her cards. “I’ve been reading Great-great-aunt Maybelle’s diaries, and apparently this was her favorite game. I thought I’d better find out what the attraction was.”

Oh. That cleared things up. Lavinia was the family historian, and she took her research very seriously. She could tell you what the Forrest family had served President Zachary Taylor for dinner back in 1850. And she was likely to try out the recipe herself, just to see how it had tasted.

It made for some interesting dinners, especially since Lavinia was the world’s most terrible cook.

“So what is the attraction?” Jackson’s gaze flicked toward the carriage house, but he forced it back to the cards. Which were the good threes—the red or the black? God, he hated this game.

“Don’t you try that sarcastic tone on me, young man,” Lavinia said tartly. “And just because you haven’t got the guts to climb those stairs and talk to her, don’t take your frustration out on me, either.”

Jackson glared at his aunt over the pile of cards between them. “What baloney,” he said. “Just because I’m bored stiff with this moronic game—”

“It’s not just that,” she said, snapping her cards shut irritably. “It’s because for the past two hours you’ve been twitching around this house like a fly in a glue pot. It’s because you showered before dinner. And it’s because you can’t keep your eyes off that window.”

Jackson drummed his fingers on the table. “I showered before dinner,” he said grimly, “because I’d been moving your filthy boxes all afternoon and—”

“Oh, stuff and nonsense,” Lavinia said with a hint of laughter buried beneath the peppery tone. She plopped her cards on the table and began to gather up the deck. “Get out of here, Jackson. If you’re not going to go up there, at least go somewhere. You’re driving me crazy, and I’ve got some reading to do.”

He surrendered his cards with a chuckle. Lavinia had always been able to see through him. “Actually,” he admitted, “I was thinking I might see if they needed something to eat. They can’t have had time to stock the refrigerator yet.”

Lavinia huffed and continued stacking the cards in her mother-of-pearl lacquered box. “They had the same dinner we had,” she said. “I sent food up on a tray hours ago.”

Jackson declined to comment. Somehow he couldn’t see Lavinia’s culinary experiment du jour, spinach-and-chickpea casserole, appealing to a nine-year-old little girl. It had taken a good deal of character for this close to thirty-two-year-old man to swallow down his own portion.

“Still, maybe I’d better check. See if they need anything at all.”

Lavinia smiled at him archly. “Of course. How thoughtful. Maybe you’d better do that, dear.”

Jackson kissed her cheek on the way out. “You are an adorable old termagant, did you know that, Auntie?”

“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I do my best.”

HALF AN HOUR LATER, a large, warm, aromatic box of mushroom pizza balanced on his forearm, Jackson climbed the stairs to the carriage house. The night had turned cold and clear. Stars glinted against the black sky, as sharp as bits of broken glass.

He paused at the door, uncomfortably aware that he was rushing things. She was probably still unpacking—she was undoubtedly tired. He should have given her time to settle in. He should have waited until tomorrow.

But how could he? He had waited so long already.

Still, he wished he could shake this ridiculous sense of guilt. Why should he feel guilty? She wasn’t Beau’s girl anymore. Beau was gone. He’d been gone for ten years—long enough, surely, for his claim on Molly to fall forfeit. Surely the invisible walls behind which Beau had cloistered her had long since crumbled to dust.

Damn it, no more guilt. He exhaled hard, his breath materializing, silver and ghostly, in front of him. He raised his hand and knocked twice. Low, in case Liza was sleeping. But definite. Unashamed.

He heard her light footsteps as she came toward the door, and he ordered his heart to beat in even time.

No more guilt. He was betraying no one. He had every right to be here, to offer pizza, to offer help, to offer friendship.

To offer, in fact, whatever the hell he wanted.

CHAPTER FOUR

“OH, YOU WONDERFUL, wonderful man.” As soon as she opened the door, Molly tilted her head back, closed her eyes and inhaled a long, deep, sensual breath of the pizza-scented night air. Her hair streamed unbound over her shoulders and twinkled in the light, as if she’d stood in a shower of glitter. “I could just kiss you.”

Jackson gripped the pizza box a little more tightly, hoping he wouldn’t end up with tomato sauce all over his shoes. But the sight of her was enough to make his fingers numb.

How could she have become even more beautiful? Ten years ago he would have said it wasn’t possible. But if Molly at eighteen had been a fairy princess, the woman before him was the Gypsy queen. Her coltish, utterly virginal body had softened in all the right places, and each curve seemed to be issuing wordless invitations to his hands.

The pizza box buckled at one corner.

“Well, by all means,” he said, somehow managing to keep his voice from squeaking like a kid’s. “Feel free.”

She laughed, a low trickle of warmth that slid across his skin like sunshine. “It’s actually real!” She put one hand on the box and breathed deeply again, as if she couldn’t get enough of the scent. “I thought I smelled pizza, but then I thought, no, I must be dreaming. Like the man in the desert who thinks he sees water.”

Jackson chuckled. “I gather you and I have approximately the same opinion of spinach-and-chickpea casserole.”

“Please don’t tell Lavinia.” She stepped back, opening the door wider to let him enter. “I managed two bites, then I gave the rest to Liza. Believe it or not, she absolutely loved the stuff.”

“Good God, what’s wrong with her?” Jackson grimaced. “I slipped mine under the table. Stewball and I have a pact. I won’t tell Vinnie he sleeps on the Chippendale sofa if he’ll clean my plate for me.”

Molly was already opening the box and peeling apart the gooey slices hungrily. She handed one to Jackson. “Poor Stewball,” she said as she bit into the hot cheese. She moaned with delight. “Mmm. Mushroom. You remembered I love mushroom.”

Jackson busied himself piling melting strands of cheese on top of the crust. Of course he remembered. Molly would probably never believe how little he had forgotten. He remembered how, back when they were kids, she used to sign her name with a smiley-face inside the O. He remembered the opening lines of the sonnet she’d written for senior English. He remembered how her mascara used to smudge around her lower lashes when sad movies or stray dogs—or Beau—made her cry.

And about a million other things. It was a wonder he had ever been able to learn how to build buildings, considering all the Molly trivia that still cluttered his feeble mind.

And yet, tantalizingly, he sensed that there were a million new things to learn about her, too. That womanly quality in her body, for instance. The faint shadows in her face, where pain had left its mark. The deep, satisfied glow in her eyes when she looked at Liza.

The Gypsy queen knew things the fairy princess hadn’t dreamed of.

“And thick crust. Jackson Forrest,” she mumbled, her mouth stuffed with cheese, “I positively love and adore you.”

He grinned. “I’ll bet you say that to all the pizza delivery boys.” He grabbed another slice for each of them, tore off a couple of paper towels from the rack, and made for the sofa. She followed without hesitation, as if she were magnetized to the pizza.

She plopped down beside him, curling her bare legs up under her. She swallowed the last bit of crust, reached for her second slice and dug in greedily.

He stared at her, marveling. Though she wore only a long, grass-stained T-shirt, which had obviously been washed so many times it settled around the curves of her body like a second skin, she was completely uninhibited.

She must not even realize how damned sexy it was to watch her slide that wedge of pizza between her teeth. Or perhaps she just never imagined that good old Jackson would be thinking about such things.

“What?” She blinked at him over the pizza, hesitating midbite. She looked self-consciously down at her hands. “Oh, I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

He looked, too, suddenly, noticing that she had stray smudges from multicolored markers all over her fingers. And, now that they were in a better light, he could see that the gold glittering of her hair was just exactly that—glitter. The sparkling flecks dusted her forearms and the backs of her hands, too.

“What on earth have you been doing?” He rubbed his forefinger along her wrist. “You look as if you stood too close to a preschool explosion.”

She drew herself up with as much hauteur as she could manage in that position, with that silly dab of oil from the cheese shining on her chin. “For your information, I have been in another galaxy,” she said loftily. “I come to you straight from the Planet Cuspian, where I just happen to reign as Queen.”

He looked toward the kitchenette. He knew Lavinia had generously stocked a minibar before Molly’s arrival. “You don’t say. And exactly how many mint juleps does it take to blast you to that particular galaxy?”

She smiled as she popped the last bit of the second piece of pizza into her mouth and wiped her hands on the paper towel.

“None,” she said. “I’ve been decorating Liza’s room. Cuspian is her imaginary planet.” She pulled her hand ruefully through her hair, trying to pick out the glitter. “Unfortunately, it’s a very messy planet.”

Jackson couldn’t stop himself from leaning over and smoothing his fingers across her cheek, brushing away one stray fleck of gold. “Well, if you’re the Queen,” he said, “why don’t you do something about that?”

Her skin was warm and soft, and he felt the gentle rounding of her cheek as her smile deepened. He ought to take his hand away, but he couldn’t. Luckily, she didn’t seem to find anything at all unsettling about having Jackson’s fingers on her skin. They’d been there before, wiping away mud or mosquitos, mayonnaise or makeup or tears.

“It’s a purely ceremonial title,” she explained. “You see, on the Planet Cuspian, all the real power belongs to the Princess.”

“And that would be…”

She grinned. “Exactly. Princess Liza, who even now sleeps under the golden moons of Cuspian, which we transported all the way from Atlanta in a hefty bag.” She shook her fingers playfully, releasing a tiny sparkling rainfall of gold. “The Princess is hopelessly fond of glitter.”

Jackson closed his throat hard, blocking the words he wanted to say. He wanted to ask her to show him—wanted it so much it was a physical thing, like thirst. He wanted to see the golden moons; he wanted to memorize the innocent face that slumbered beneath them. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Molly and her little girl, the child who obviously owned every square inch of her mother’s heart.

But he had to wait. Somehow, he had to be patient.

As a rule, patience didn’t come naturally to him. That had always been the one advantage to being the “bad” brother. Everyone expected Jackson to be outrageous, to say and do whatever he wanted, no matter who didn’t like it. He could think of a hundred people—most of them women—who would laugh out loud at the idea of Jackson troubling himself to resist temptation.