Second Chance - 05 - Never Again Good-Bye

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Laney looked at Wes with uncertain eyes, suddenly embarrassed at the unexpected turn in the conversation. “He wouldn’t really feed you oatmeal, would he?”

  “Trust me,” Amy assured her. “It’s either that or canned soup. And he doesn’t even warm it up right.” A child across the park called her name, and her attention was diverted. “I have to go,” she said quickly. “Sarah only has fifteen more minutes to play.” With that she slipped out of her father’s lap and barreled across the lawn toward her friend.

  “Well,” Laney said on a frustrated chuckle. “That didn’t go exactly as I’d planned it.”

  “I think she liked you,” Wes admitted. The words held a note of dread.

  “For now,” she said, casting him an uneasy glance, though relief danced in her black eyes. “I was intriguing to her. She thought I was an ex-con.”

  Wes almost smiled. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s OK. It was a good icebreaker.” Her big eyes sparkled, warming something inside him that had been cold a long time, and he told himself it was just because her eyes looked so much like Amy’s.

  “You’re a good father. I can’t imagine mine ever throwing me over his shoulder.” A tendril of envy uncurled inside her … not just envy of Amy for having a father who cared but envy of the woman he had loved and married and made a family with. What was he like as a husband? she wondered fleetingly.

  Wes’s smile faded a degree, and he looked back at Amy. “If only playing and laughing were all it took to be a good father.”

  Laney followed his gaze and slipped the strap of her purse to her shoulder, leaning forward but not getting up, as if she didn’t know whether to leave now or hang around until Amy’s friend had gone.

  Wes felt for her, in spite of himself, for she had suffered such emotional anguish to meet so little reward. And yet he didn’t know if he was strong enough to offer her more.

  Laney looked at him the same moment he looked at her.

  “It was really—”

  “You know, you don’t—”

  The sentences were begun simultaneously, then died off together. “Go ahead,” they said together.

  Black eyes locked mirthlessly with green ones, and finally Wes spoke. “She’s expecting spaghetti,” he said with a sober expression that told her the words were difficult. “And she wants you to cook it.”

  Laney felt warm blood coloring her cheeks, and she shook her head. “I … I couldn’t impose that way.”

  Wes’s eyes remained as serious as she’d ever seen them. “Cooking us dinner is no imposition,” he said. “I’m not wild about my cooking, either.”

  Laney bit her lip and tried not to fantasize about the possibilities whirling through her mind. Making friends with her daughter, earning her love through a big dish of spaghetti, getting to know Amy’s father … She cut her thoughts off with the last fantasy and searched for her voice. “I’d like that.” She paused. “Could we tell her then?”

  “We’ll see,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if it was the thick clouds blotting out the sun or the utter fear of what was happening that had turned Wes’s face pale. “Five-thirty?”

  “Five-thirty,” she agreed breathlessly.

  At that moment, Laney almost believed in miracles again.

  Chapter Five

  Wes leaned against the counter in his tiny kitchen and watched Laney showing Amy how much oregano to sprinkle into the sauce. Except for his sister, Sherry, Laney was the first woman he’d had in this kitchen—in this house—since Patrice died.

  He looked at his daughter standing on a step stool beside Laney, her black hair pulled up into a slightly crooked ponytail. She watched the sauce intently while she stirred. He knew that she missed her mother and that she missed the feminine guidance and instruction a little girl needed. And no matter how conscientious he was as a father, he would never be able to give her that.

  “See, Daddy? It isn’t runny,” Amy told her father, holding up a spoonful. “Want a taste?”

  “I’ll wait,” he said with a weak smile.

  Laney glanced at him over Amy’s head, a glance fraught with tension, and he realized he was inhibiting her. She had hardly been able to look at him all evening. It was as though their intense emotions mingled and multiplied when their eyes met. Where would this evening take the three of them? both pairs of eyes seemed to ask. And were the two of them, Wes and Laney, actually becoming friends?

  Wes stiffened at the possibility and walked out of the kitchen asking himself why that would be so bad. Wouldn’t it be easier for them to like each other and not constantly be at odds over what was best for Amy—if, indeed, she continued to insist on being part of their life?

  The cramped den seemed more alive than it had in a year, simply because of the happy voices in the kitchen and the delectable smell drifting in the air. He sat down and stared at the scratched coffee table, marred with seven years of child’s play. Even when they had been able to afford to replace it, Patrice had refused to part with it. The scratches were a collage of memories, she had said. Teething marks and dropped toys and hard little baby shoes learning to climb. They had had so much happiness in this house, he thought, leaning back and resting his head against the couch. And so much misery.

  Maybe Laney was right. Maybe Amy did need to know her birth mother. And maybe if he didn’t make waves, Laney would be content with just visiting Amy when she wanted. Worse things could happen, couldn’t they?

  Amy darted out of the kitchen, holding her hands, smeared with butter, in the air the way a surgeon does after scrubbing. “Daddy, Laney let me make the garlic bread all by myself!”

  “That’s great, pumpkin,” Wes said, trying to smile.

  Amy leaned over him conspiratorially. “She’s nice, isn’t she?” she whispered.

  “Yes. Very nice.”

  “And pretty too,” Amy added.

  Wes’s smile dimmed a degree. “Pretty, too.” Patting her behind, he turned her toward the kitchen. “Now go back in there and help her.”

  Amy scampered back into the kitchen, giggling like a child at the fair. “My daddy thinks you’re pretty,” she announced in a trumpeting voice.

  Wes closed his eyes and vowed never to respond to one of Amy’s baited questions again.

  Laney couldn’t escape the feeling of being granted a miracle at the way Amy responded to her. They were already friends, she marveled, and she felt amazingly comfortable with Wes. She looked up at him over her plate and noted that his tension had lifted a bit since they had sat down to eat. But still he wore that distant expression that told her a myriad of thoughts were clashing in his mind. He didn’t want to like her, she realized. He probably resented the way she had fit so easily into Amy’s heart. And he was probably still afraid.

  He looked up at Amy and smiled at the careful way she coiled her spaghetti on her fork. He had a beautiful smile, Laney thought, and it looked as if he used it often. It was the kind of smile that came easily at the sight of his child, but it was also the kind of smile that made the sadness in his green eyes seem more pronounced. It must be hard to lose a spouse, she thought, looking back down at her food. It must be as bad as losing a child.

  Amy took a dainty bite, but the minute she bit down the spaghetti exploded and drooled against her face. Wes laughed aloud, and Laney couldn’t help smiling.

  “Go ahead and slurp if you have to,” he told his embarrassed daughter. “I don’t think Laney’ll change her opinion of you.”

  “Daddy, I can’t,” Amy whispered, mortified.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Laney spoke up. “We’ll all slurp. This business of having every piece of spaghetti in place is for the birds, anyway.”

  Amy watched, amazed, as Laney took a forkful of spaghetti and slurped it up. Laney dabbed her napkin over her mouth and looked at the two people gaping at her. “Well, am I going to do this by myself?”

  Appreciation lit Wes’s face, and for a moment the shadow f
aded from his eyes. “You heard the lady,” he told Amy. “Start slurping.”

  They giggled through dinner and made a monumental fuss over the garlic bread Amy had made. But when the plates were empty, Wes’s lightheartedness seemed to disappear as well. What would he do next? she wondered uneasily. Would he make her leave? Would he let her tell Amy who she really was? Or worse, would he leave the choice up to her, never giving his preference one way or another?

  When he sent Amy to change into her pajamas, Laney stood up and reached for Amy’s empty plate.

  “Don’t,” he said, stopping her. “I’ll clean up later.”

  “No,” she argued. “Really, I want to.”

  “Then I’ll help,” he said, taking his own plate to the kitchen.

  Laney wondered at the flock of butterflies in her stomach at the prospect of being left alone with him. Maybe he wanted to talk to her to ask her to leave quietly.

  “You really don’t have to do this.” His voice came from behind her, too close to her ear, and she turned around. “The dishwasher’s broken, and I haven’t gotten it fixed. You can leave the dishes in the sink, and I’ll do them later.”

  “I insist,” she said.

  “But you made dinner, so I should clean up. It’s a rule Patrice and I …” His voice trailed off and he picked up the dish towel. “At least let me help,” he said. “You wash, and I’ll dry.”

  Laney looked at him for a moment. So many things she wanted to say, to ask. Would he think she was stepping out of line if she asked how Patrice had died? Would he want to talk about the woman who had loved both him and her child, or was the subject still too tender? Laney turned back to the sink and turned on the water.

  When the squirt of soap transformed into a million suds, she started to wash the dishes quietly. He took the dishes from her one by one and dried them, then put them in the cabinets. An amused smile crept across his face, as if he’d thought of some private joke.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s our system,” he said, chuckling. “On Sesame Street they call this ‘co-op-er-a-tion.’”

  “Cooperation?” Laney asked, not quite seeing the humor. Wes found her ignorance even funnier. “I guess you’d have to watch it.”

  “Guess so.” Inept, she told herself. Trying to prove she could be a decent mother, and here she had never even watched Sesame Street!

  Wes seemed to sober at the wistful look in her eyes, and she started to scrub harder. What would they talk about now? Would he ask her how she liked the weather? The silence was driving her mad, yet she couldn’t think of an intelligent thing to say. Finally, groping, she said, “Amy’s really smart for her age. She’s amazing.”

  “Yeah, I guess it comes with being an only child. She’s the center of attention around here. But you were an only child, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t the center of anything.”

  Wes let that sink in for a moment. “Tell me about your family,” he said finally in a deep, quiet voice.

  “My family?” It had never occurred to her that he would be interested.

  One corner of his mouth rose. “You know, you’re not the world’s greatest conversationalist. You repeat everything I say.”

  Laney felt the color climbing her cheekbones. “Sorry. Guess I’m just a little nervous.” She took a deep breath and worked at a burned place on one of the pans. “Why do you want to know about my family?”

  He set a dry plate in the cabinet and took the wet pan from her hand. “I’ve wondered about Amy’s grandparents. What kind of people were they?”

  Ah, yes. They were Amy’s grandparents, weren’t they? Laney thought of her father. What could she tell him? That he was a shrewd, cold, calculating man who hadn’t had a warm emotion in his body? No, she wouldn’t tell him that. She’d tell him about the good things. She’d tell him about her mother.

  “My mother was beautiful,” she said softly. “She had that rare, mysterious kind of beauty that put women in awe of her and made men admire her. She was young when she married my father. Full-blooded Caddo Indian. To this day I find it hard to believe that my father would marry a stigma like that, but he did.” She handed Wes a plate and picked up a pan. “She died when I was nine. I never knew her people.” “So it’s true what the records said. Amy is … one-quarter Indian?”

  Laney nodded. “Yes.”

  “You probably had to do a lot of fast growing up after your mom died, huh? Just like Amy.”

  Laney stared down at the pan in her hand. “Yeah, I guess so. Nothing was ever the same after that. I’m so sorry that had to happen to Amy, too. But you seem better than my father. Different.”

  Quiet settled between them for a few minutes before Wes asked, “You haven’t told me much about your father. What did he do?”

  Laney’s features tightened. She pulled the drain in the sink and watched the sudsy water disappear. “He was a writer. He wrote political thrillers. Adam Fields.”

  The drying stopped and Wes’s eyes darted to hers. “Adam Fields was your father? Adam Fields who wrote Pacific Pride?”

  Laney kept her eyes on the drain. “Yes.”

  “He was famous.”

  “Yes, he was. His last book was on the New York Times bestseller list for forty-two weeks.”

  Was it pride in her voice or bitterness? Bitterness, probably, Wes thought, kicking himself mentally. She had already told him how her father had manipulated her. If he had any sensitivity at all, he thought, he wouldn’t have asked.

  He set the bowl in its place and turned back to her. She was still staring at the drain, running a weak string of water to rinse out the excess soap. What was she thinking? he wondered. Was she thinking of Amy or her father or him? Or was she considering whether they should tell Amy who she really was?

  He reached for the wet colander she had set on the counter. It was too bad she looked so torn, he thought. It was too bad she smelled so sweet …

  “Excuse me,” he said softly behind her as he reached over her head to open a cabinet. His arm brushed briefly against her hair, and he withdrew it too quickly. The colander fell out of his grasp. Laney caught it at the same time he did. Too abruptly, she let it go and turned around, planning to slip out of his way.

  Their eyes met, soot black ones holding glimmering green ones, and she held her breath. “The kitchen’s too small,” he whispered on an unsteady breath.

  They stared at each other for what seemed another eternity, waiting, breath held … for what, neither of them seemed certain.

  He looked at her lips and swallowed. “I don’t think it will traumatize Amy to know you’re her mother,” he admitted finally. “Maybe it’ll help her.” After a fraction of a moment he added, “Maybe it’ll help me.”

  A bubble of joy inflated inside her, joining the hope that had been growing all day. “Then we’ll tell her?” she asked.

  He nodded and stepped back. “We’ll tell her,” he said.

  Then he left her alone in the kitchen, as if staying there with her meant relinquishing too much more of himself.

  A my had taken great pains to impress Laney in her choice of nightwear. She wore a long, pink flannel gown with long sleeves and a regal collar that Laney suspected would suffocate her if she stayed in it for long. The gown was obviously for winter, but it gave the little bright-eyed child a sense of royalty.

  “You look like a little princess,” Laney told her when she sat down on the couch across from her.

  “That’s what my mommy used to call me,” Amy said. “Princess.”

  Laney’s eyes darted to Wes, but he was looking pensively at Amy.

  “Will you stay until I go to bed and tuck me in?” Amy asked Laney.

  Laney smiled and looked at Wes for approval. He nodded that it was OK. “Of course. I’d love to.”

  Wes moved to the couch and pulled Amy into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her small waist and made her lean back against his chest. “Pumpkin, Laney and I want to talk to
you about something. It’s important, and I want you to listen very carefully.”

  Amy sat up on her father’s lap, her face serious. “OK.”

  Laney felt a stir of emotion at the expression so close to fear on the girl’s face. Was that how he’d led in to telling her that her mother was dead?

  “Do you remember when Mommy and I told you about how you were adopted?” Wes began.

  Amy nodded. “I remember.”

  He took a deep breath and looked at Laney again. “Well, we never talked much about the lady who was your mother before we adopted you, did we?”

  Amy rubbed her nose and shook her head. “No. You said you didn’t know who she was and that it didn’t matter because I was yours.”

  Wes paused a moment, as if he didn’t know how to go on. His gaze coasted to Laney, measuring her for the help he needed. It was there in her dark eyes, filling in strength where he had weakness, the way his wife had once done. Finally he turned Amy to face him in his lap, and he dropped his forehead against hers. “Well, I know who she is now, pumpkin. And I think it’s time you knew her too.”

  Amy stiffened in his lap, a tiny frown clefting her brows. She drew back to look at him, as if she couldn’t believe until she saw it in his eyes.

  Laney set a hand on Wes’s shoulder when she realized he couldn’t go on. He looked at her mutely, his groping expression inviting her to take it from there. She scooted closer to them, closer to the warmth the two of them exuded as a family, closer to the circle of love that was foreign to her. Struggling not to let the fierce emotion overwhelm her, she looked at her daughter.

  “Amy, the other day when your daddy had me arrested in the park, it was because he saw me taking pictures of you. I didn’t mean any harm. I just wanted to see you. Ever since you were born and were taken away from me, I’ve wanted to see you.”

  The worry lines on the child’s innocent face deepened, but she looked at Laney as if she still didn’t quite grasp what she was being told.

  Laney arched her brows emphatically and struggled to make the words clear. “Amy, I’m your mother.”