Karen Templeton – Dear Santa (страница 5)

Totally unaware that Grant’s drink had turned to vinegar in his stomach, Mia unfolded her legs, stretching the previously trapped foot in front of her and wiggling it. “She’d call or e-mail me to ask how I was doing, suggest we go shopping or to the movies, or go to the museum or zoo with Haley…ouch! Damn, my foot fell asleep!”

Leaning over to rub the prickles away, her long hair tumbled free over her shoulders, framing her much-less-swollen face with exuberant, shiny waves. A moment later, she lifted her eyes to his, only to frown. “Is something wrong?”

With a sharp shake of his head, Grant abruptly returned to the window, unable to look at that trusting, loyal face a moment longer. He’d known, of course, from the moment he’d answered her call, heard the concern in her voice, that somehow, amazingly, Justine had managed to keep her betrayal under wraps. Otherwise, he seriously doubted even someone as wide-eyed as Mia would have continued babysitting for her best friend’s daughter. Still, to hear it confirmed…

“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, willing the words to quash the anger flaring inside him, “I didn’t marry Justine expecting it to fail. I may be a risk taker in my professional life, but I’ve always erred on the side of caution about all things personal. So when things fell apart, I was definitely…disappointed.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he heard behind him. Inhaling deeply, he spared her an almost-smile.

“No response necessary,” he said, then returned his attention outside. “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do about me. From your standpoint, I made someone you cared about very unhappy. All I can say, in my own defense, is that it wasn’t intentional. Although I do shoulder the blame for believing that Justine more clearly understood what she was getting when she married me. That I’ve never been a fun-and-games kind of guy.”

“There’s an understatement,” he heard Mia mutter.

Grant turned, his mouth set, his gaze unwavering. Why he felt compelled to make this woman understand, he had no idea. Perhaps because Justine hadn’t understood. But Justine had been his wife. Mia was…

Mia was very likely the only person who could help him bridge the canyonesque gap between him and his daughter.

“I can’t help my nature, Mia. Even as a child, excessive shows of emotion made me cringe. However, I never promised Justine anything I couldn’t, and didn’t, deliver. That she still wanted more from me than I could give her…” He blew out a breath. “The marriage was a mistake. Or rather, the mistake was in my thinking I could somehow make a marriage work simply because getting married, starting a family, is what men my age, in my position, do.” He paused. “A mistake I won’t make again, believe me.”

“Yeah, well,” she said finally, getting up, hanging on to the back of the chair as she hobbled around it, “I could’ve told both of you that at the beginning and saved everyone a lot of grief.”

“Except then there wouldn’t be Haley.”

Her “oh, please” gaze slammed into his. Her eyes were a strange shade of green, he realized, almost an olive. “And wouldn’t that make your life a whole lot easier.”

At her direct hit, heat surged up his neck. Irritated—with himself, with her, with the whole damn mess—he turned to spare her the satisfaction of his discomfiture. “Hard as this may be to believe,” he said stiffly, “I do care about my daughter. About what happens to her. I always have. But I’ve never been comfortable around children.”

“Including your own.”

He hesitated, then said, “Especially my own. I seriously doubt we’ll ever have the same sort of relationship she had with her mother. I’m simply not made that way.”

“And I have zip tolerance for people who act like their kids are some kind of food they sampled once and decided they didn’t care for! For crying out loud, Grant—have you even tried? You took Haley twice a month. If that—”

“Because neither Justine nor I wished to disrupt her routine any more than necessary!” he said, the excuse lame even to his own ears. “She often had playdates and birthday parties on the weekends—”

“Which you decided were more important than continuing her relationship with her father.”

“That wasn’t solely my decision, Mia.”

Mia opened her mouth, only to press it tightly closed again. He guessed that as much as she’d dearly love to refute his statement, he doubted she could. Not if she’d been privy, as a close friend would have been, to Justine’s fabricating some excuse or other to keep Haley with her on one of Grant’s weekends.

Her eyes narrowed, but not enough to block what might have been the beginnings of doubt. “But you didn’t exactly fight Justine on it, did you?”

One side of his mouth lifted. “Guilty as charged.”

“Why not?”

And if he had a chance in hell of getting her to agree to his plan, he had to lay all his cards on the table, no matter how bad his admission made him look.

“Because Haley was barely two when we separated. A two-year-old who adored her mother and screamed whenever I tried to pick her up. Of course I tried to close the gap between us—contrary to popular opinion, I’m not a monster. But unfortunately Haley’s appearance didn’t magically transform me into one of those men who gets all sappy in the presence of babies. I suppose I hoped… well, that as she got older, I could make up for lost time, somehow.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this! Did it ever occur to you that maybe Haley wasn’t going to wait until you were ready to be her father?”

“Every damn day since her birth,” Grant said through gritted teeth, as if willing the raw fear—that he was going to fail his own child—to stay locked up where it couldn’t do him, or Haley, any harm. “And it kills me, that there’s a little girl upstairs who didn’t ask for her mother to die and leave her with me as her father! That I’m the one who’s supposed to get her through this, only I have no earthly idea how to do that!”

“Who the hell does, Grant?” Mia said. “Who knows how to handle stuff like this until they have to?”

“But at least Haley likes you.”

Mia eyed him for a long moment, then sighed out a swear word, followed by, “I can’t stay, Grant.”

“Just for a few days. To help Haley through the transition.”

“I can’t,” she repeated. “I have a life. And a business to run.”

“I thought you said you loved her?”

Her eyes darkened. “Oh, you will not pull that emotional blackmail crap on me. Of course I love Haley. But she’s not my daughter, she’s yours. And whatever is or isn’t going on between you is not my problem to solve—”

“I’m not asking you to solve anything, damn it! I’m only asking you to help me solve it! And I would think, given Haley’s obvious affection for you, that you’d put her needs before whatever animosity you feel for me!”

Silence jangled between them for several seconds before she finally said, “I can’t get out of this party tomorrow night, it’s too big for my assistant to handle on her own. At least not on such short notice. But…” Long, blunt-nailed fingers dragged across her jaw for a moment before she crammed both hands into her jeans’ pockets. “But I’m free for a few days after that. I suppose I could come back up the day after tomorrow for a day or two.”

“Until after the funeral?” At her frown, Grant said, “Since Justine has no one else…”

“Right. Okay. Until after the funeral, then. But just so we’re clear? I’m only doing this for Haley. Not for you.”

“Fair enough.”

He followed her when she walked out of his office, watching silently as she gathered her things off the table in the foyer and shrugged into a boxy tweed jacket at complete odds with the sweatshirt. And he couldn’t resist wandering into the living room after she’d left to stand in front of one of the bay windows, listening to her peel rubber as she sped off, spitting gravel in her wake.

“Not exactly a prissy little thing, is she?” Etta said behind him.

He almost smiled. “No.” Then he added, “She’s coming back.”

“So I heard. But she’s right, you know. It’s not up to her to fix whatever’s wrong between you and Haley.”

The smile stretched slightly. “You’re not even the least bit repentant about eavesdropping, are you?”

“Hell, no,” she said, and tromped off, and Grant eventually went upstairs to check on his daughter. The light from the hallway spilled across her bed, illuminating the tiny child sleeping fitfully in it.

Grant slipped noiselessly into the room to stand over the bed, releasing a long, soundless breath. He couldn’t exactly grieve for Justine, but her death—the shock of it, the pointlessness—had still shaken him. More, in fact, than he’d at first realized. For what had happened—to her and between them—regret and genuine sorrow clawed at him, snarling and snapping. Once the truth sank in, Haley would miss her mother terribly.

As would Mia. Undeserved and misplaced though her loyalty to Justine may have been.

She doesn’t know.

Again, the words pelted him, leaving the sting of guilt in their wake. But it wasn’t his place to tell her. Relationship Neanderthal though he might be, even he couldn’t bring himself to disabuse Mia of her faith in Justine’s friendship. What would be the point? The woman was dead, her indiscretions—and betrayal—soon to be buried with her, God willing. Still, whatever his personal feelings about Mia, it had been no easy feat to tamp down the flash of anger on her behalf, that the woman she credited with getting her through the worst period of her life had actually been the very cause of her misery.