Kitabı oku: «His Secret Daughter», sayfa 2
He gave a short bark of a laugh. More bitter disillusionment than mirth. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Maisie’s big blue eyes ping-ponged between them. “Cawee?” Her bottom lip trembled.
“You’re already scaring her.” She placed her hand on Maisie’s shoulder and curled her lip. “What kind of father does that, Jake McAbee?”
Something flashed across his face, something raw, evoking a reluctant compassion in her tender heart. But she mustn’t weaken. “I won’t let you take her.” She gritted her teeth.
“You can’t stop me,” he growled. “I’m within my parental rights, and you know it.” In a swift, unexpected move, he lifted Maisie out of the booster seat.
Maisie and Callie cried out at the same time.
“I’ll figure everything out as I go.” Clasping the squirming child close, he strode toward the hall. “We’re leaving.”
“No, Jake. Stop.” Callie ran after him. “Don’t leave this way. She won’t understand.”
Maisie’s little arms grasped the air over his shoulder, stretching toward Callie. “Cawee! Cawee!”
He flung open the door. Leaning against the porch railing, her father startled at the commotion.
Callie’s chest heaved. “Dad, don’t let him take her.”
Her father’s features sagged. “She’s his child, Callie. Not ours.”
Jake rushed down the steps. Like a wild thing, Maisie thrashed in his arms.
Callie plunged after them. But catching her around the waist, her father held Callie on the porch. “Don’t make this worse, honey.”
She didn’t see how this could be much worse. She strained against her father’s grasp. “Maisie!”
How had it come to this? How had this escalated so far out of control? God, where are You?
Chapter Two
Somehow Jake managed to wrangle his daughter into the car seat Nash had secured in the truck cab.
“Cawee!” she shrieked. “Cawee!”
He flinched but made sure the buckles clicked in place. Rounding the hood, he slid behind the wheel and cranked the engine. Nausea roiled in his stomach.
This wasn’t the way he’d wanted things to go, but Callie’s words had touched a nerve. He would show them all. He would be the best dad Maisie never had. He wouldn’t desert her or belittle her like his father—
Jake threw the truck into gear, glancing at the house in the rearview mirror. Seeing Nash Jackson’s arm draped around her, Callie weeping, almost broke Jake. He’d never wanted to hurt her. This was killing her. He was killing her.
Tears streaming across her cheeks, she sank onto the porch step. And the last thing he glimpsed before the truck sped over the rise was Callie burying her face in her hands.
Gritting his teeth, he barreled past the shuttered country store and set his face forward toward the road beyond the crossbars of the farm. In the seat behind him, Maisie’s cries had subsided into heart-wrenching, hopeless sobs.
“No, D-Daddy,” she hiccupped. “Bad, bad Daddy.”
Jake slammed on the brakes, spinning gravel. Bad daddy. Like his father. Though he’d promised himself he’d never do anything to hurt his child.
He pressed his forehead against the wheel. What was he doing? What had he done to his daughter except terrify her? Callie was right.
No matter how much he wanted to be her dad, he couldn’t tear Maisie away from the only home she’d ever known. From everything that made her feel safe. From everyone who loved her. He didn’t have it in him to put his rights over Maisie’s happiness. Not if he truly loved Maisie...
Jake loved her more than himself, loved her the way no one in his life had ever loved him. A soul-deep kind of love, impossible to ever find. But that had never stopped him from hungering for it anyway.
He couldn’t do this to Maisie. Not this way. Not now.
For the second time that day, he turned the truck around. He parked once more beside the blue Chevy sedan. The Jacksons hadn’t moved from the porch. They stared at him, mute and motionless. Shoulders hunched, he stepped out and rounded the hood. Opening the truck door, he leaned in, but Maisie shrank from him.
And his heart broke.
He steeled himself to do the hard thing, the right thing, for Maisie. She was the only one who mattered in this situation. As for him? Like always, he’d do his mourning in private.
Jake made short work of the buckles. Maisie stiffened when he lifted her out of the seat. Nevertheless, with his daughter cradled in his arms, like an old man, he stumbled toward the Jacksons. When he reached the steps, Callie rose, and he gave his daughter to her.
His child—no, Callie’s child—burrowed into her. With small, sniffling noises, Maisie pressed her face into the hollow of Callie’s shoulder.
“Oh, Maisie, sweetheart. Callie’s here. Don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken her like that.” His voice guttural, he kept his gaze pinned on the grass. “I won’t ever bother you again. Maisie belongs here with you, not with me. I’ll send money. I—I won’t be a deadbeat dad.” Clamping his lips together, he started to turn away.
“Wait. Jake.”
Midmotion, he froze.
“Don’t go.” Callie stretched out her hand to him. “Please stay.”
“Callie Girl, what are you doing?” Nash grunted.
“It—it’s not right, him leaving. I can’t let it end this way.”
Nash’s gaze flickered between Jake and his daughter.
Jake steeled himself against the whisper of hope unfurling inside his chest. “I don’t understand. I figured you couldn’t wait to be rid of me for good. What are you saying?”
“I’m asking you to stay on the farm.” She lifted her chin. “A temporary arrangement so that you and Maisie can become better acquainted. Where she feels comfortable and safe.”
“Why would you want me to stay?” Jake frowned. “After what I did.”
Maisie shrank away from him as Callie closed the distance between them on the grass. “Because maybe if Tiff had had a dad who...” She moistened her lips. “I won’t allow history to repeat itself. A girl needs her father, Jake.”
She shifted Maisie onto the crook of her other arm as the child almost strangled Callie in her effort to stay as far from Jake as possible.
Anguish clawed at his insides, but he was going to have to learn to live with the gnawing pain of having lost his daughter. As he’d learned to live with the pain of Tiffany’s rejection.
“What would be the point, Callie? Maisie will never trust me again.”
She touched his arm, surprising him. And myriad emotions exploded in his chest, feelings he didn’t care to examine too closely. After the way he’d failed Tiffany and now Maisie, too, these were emotions he had no business feeling.
“Trust can be rebuilt, Jake. You and Maisie need time.”
He shook his head. “Time is something I don’t have. Exactly what are you suggesting? I have to find work.”
“Apple harvest has just begun...” Her gaze darted to her father. “You need help in the orchard. Right, Dad?”
Nash’s face had become unreadable, but finally he nodded. “I haven’t fully regained my stamina after being hospitalized for pneumonia last winter.”
The smile she threw her father caused Jake’s gut to clench. It was a smile Jake in no way deserved or could ever hope to receive from his own daughter.
Nash folded his arms across his chest. “Gala and Honeycrisp apples come off first. We open the farm to the public this weekend for Labor Day.”
“I don’t have many job skills suited for civilian life.” Jake ground his teeth. “But I won’t take charity.”
“No charity here.” Nash jutted his jaw. “It’s hard, honest work. We’re slammed with visitors during harvest season. The orchard is more than Callie and I can handle alone.”
She took another step in Jake’s direction. “We could use your help. Julio, Dad’s right-hand man for over a decade, recently moved east to be near his grandchildren.”
Despite his ingrained defenses, hope took slow root in his heart. “Let me make sure I understand this deal you’re offering me. I work the harvest and in exchange, I get to spend more time with Maisie?”
She bit her lip. “Please, Jake. For Maisie’s sake. And yours.”
He widened his stance. “And, after that, you’d want me to leave.”
Callie narrowed her eyes at him. “Like I said, a temporary arrangement.”
Staying would mean inevitable heartache once the harvest was over, yet how could he refuse a second chance with his daughter? He longed for nothing more than to know his child.
“How much time are we talking about here?” He raked his hand over his head. “I can’t put my buddy off forever.”
“By Thanksgiving, apple season is over, and Maisie will have gotten used to you.” Callie threw him a dazzling smile, momentarily blinding Jake. “You’ll see. Children forgive and forget far easier than grown-ups.”
Tucked into the curve of Callie’s neck, Maisie regarded him with accusatory eyes.
Oh, how he hoped Callie was right. He prayed she was right. Pray—something he should’ve done before grabbing his child.
His stomach knotted. “If you’re sure...”
“I’m sure. Do we have a deal?”
A deal on Callie’s terms and at Maisie’s pace. Yet, what other choice did his heart really have? He’d take what he could get of Maisie.
“We have a deal.” He swallowed. “I’ll be gone by Thanksgiving.”
“Right. Gone by Thanksgiving.” She started up the steps. “Give me a few minutes to get your room ready.”
“You want me to stay here?” His head snapped back. “In your house?”
“Time isn’t on our side. The clock’s ticking on apple season and on creating a real relationship with your daughter.” After wrenching open the door, the hinges squeaking, she and Maisie disappeared inside the house.
Only then did Nash Jackson move, his boots a heavy tread on the boards. When they were shoulder to shoulder, Callie’s father paused, locking gazes with Jake. What Jake read there told him to proceed with caution.
His eyes dark like obsidian, Nash had gone still. A tightly leashed control Jake recognized and respected.
“If you hurt my child, Jake McAbee—” the threat made more menacing by Nash’s quiet, deceptively conversational tone “—I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you ever do on this mountain.”
* * *
Callie went all out for supper.
The summer garden was about played out at this point. She’d been canning, freezing and pickling since July. She was secretly gratified to see Jake’s eyes widen as she placed one dish after the other on the table. Cream corn, butter beans, sweet pickles, mashed potatoes, biscuits and fried chicken.
She sank into the chair opposite Jake, within arm’s reach of Maisie in the booster seat. At the head of the table, her father said grace.
Puckering her lips, Maisie scooped corn onto her spoon and more or less managed to find her mouth. A smile flitted across Jake’s handsome lips.
Handsome— What was wrong with her?
Callie lowered her eyes to her plate. He was Maisie’s father. It didn’t matter whether he had handsome lips or not.
With an upsweep of her lashes, she stole another look at him. But he did. He definitely had handsome lips.
Jake shoveled mashed potatoes onto his plate. “You eat like this every day, Mr. Jackson?”
Her father reached for another chicken leg. “Like her mother, Callie has a way around the kitchen.”
“She sure does. I haven’t eaten this good since...ever.”
Callie fretted the paper napkin in her lap. “Your mother didn’t like to cook?”
Shrugging, he helped himself to the bowl of butter beans. “Don’t remember much before she was gone.”
Callie took the bowl from him and set it down on the table. “I was in college when my mom died. How old were you when your mother died?”
“Didn’t say she died.” His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t look up. “When I was nine, she just left.”
Like Tiff.
Callie’s breath hitched. His tone bothered her the most. It was as matter-of-fact as if talking about the weather.
He split open a steaming-hot biscuit. Brows drawn, her dad passed Jake the butter dish. Jake slathered both sides of the biscuit with butter.
“So how did your mother die, Callie?” With a sudden clang, he laid the knife across his plate. “I shouldn’t have asked that, Mr. Jackson. None of my business.”
Her dad laid down his fork. “Cancer. And we don’t mind talking about her. Keeps her memory alive.”
Callie handed Jake a small mason jar of strawberry jam. “I came home to take care of my mom—” she smiled at her father “—and decided everything I wanted was right here.”
Jake spooned jam onto his biscuit. “First your mom. Then Tiffany. Always taking care of other people.” He caught her eye. “The hits just kept coming, didn’t they, Callie?”
Their gazes locked across the table.
She had a feeling Jake knew more than she about taking hits.
Her dad cleared his throat. Jolted, she became aware that Maisie was studying Jake with those blue, blue eyes of hers.
Sippy cup hanging loosely in one hand, Maisie watched as the men discussed the upcoming harvest and what needed to be done in the orchard.
But without fail, Jake’s attention returned to his daughter, like he couldn’t get enough of her. Starving—Callie realized—in more ways than one. His longing for his child was so evident, something unfamiliar—and not altogether welcome—stirred inside Callie.
It wouldn’t do to get too sympathetic toward Jake McAbee. Legally, he had the right to take the custody issue to court. A court battle was something the Jacksons could neither afford nor win. He still possessed the power to take Maisie away from them. She was running a risk in letting him stay.
So why then, when he’d been willing to walk away, had she offered him a job? She swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. She wasn’t sure why she’d done that.
Except for an overwhelming feeling that she couldn’t let him leave. Was it a sense of guilt about waiting so long to do the right thing by him and Maisie? For continuing to keep Tiff’s secret? Or something else?
Callie brushed a stray blond curl out of Maisie’s face.
“I missed her baby stage.” Sadness clouded Jake’s features. “I guess I’ve missed a lot of other things, too.”
Callie and her father exchanged glances. A strained silence hung over the table while they digested that irreversible truth.
Her dad withdrew a pen from his shirt pocket, sketching on his napkin the boundary lines of the farm. “Here’s the orchard layout.”
Jake cocked his head, examining the rough drawing. “How many acres do you farm, sir?”
She could tell, despite himself, her father was impressed by the sir.
“Ten. We grow Jonathan apples, Red Delicious and Golden in the rows to the right of the house. In September, we’ll harvest those.”
When she rose to clear the table, so did Jake.
“Let me help, Callie.”
His mother might’ve abandoned Jake McAbee when he was young, but someone had instilled in him gentlemanly manners.
She waved him away. “You and Dad finish talking.”
With reluctance, Jake sat down again and pointed to a square on the napkin. “What’s the building by the road?”
“The Apple House.” Her father patted his stomach. “My favorite place on the farm.”
She scraped the plates. “The orchard is your favorite place on the farm.”
Her father laughed. “True.”
Jake leaned on the armrest of the chair. “What’s an apple house?”
She stacked the plates. “A country store and bakery.”
“That’s why it’s my second-favorite place on the farm.” Her dad smiled at her. “Once we open the orchard to the public, Callie has a seasonal crew of town ladies who run the storefront and keep it stocked with apple doughnuts, pies and fritters for sale.”
She carried the dishes to the sink, then returned with a wet cloth to wipe Maisie’s hands. Twisting her head from side to side like every night, Maisie fought Callie’s efforts to wipe her mouth.
But Callie wasn’t a quitter and she persevered. Just as she did every night. “Late October also brings the Apple Festival for the farmers in the valley.”
“Any experience driving a tractor or using farm equipment, Jake?” Her father pursed his lips. “Every weekend from September till we close mid-November, we offer hayrides when people come to buy our apples. For school groups during the week, too.”
Maisie perked up in her booster seat. “Twactor?”
Callie looked at Jake. “Maisie likes the tractor. A lot.”
Jake gathered the silverware into a bundle for Callie. “Overseas I did some convoy driving.”
Her father quirked his brow. “Then I suspect if you can drive around IEDs and insurgents, you can handle a hayride.” He sniffed the air. “Was that cobbler I smelled baking earlier, Callie Girl?”
She grinned. “Blackberry.”
Maisie raised her arms. “Pop-Pop?”
Callie’s dad reddened. “I realize I’m not her grandfather, but she started calling me that one day. I should’ve set her straight, but—”
“You’re the only grandparent she’ll ever know.” Jake sighed. “I’m glad she’s had a strong man like you in her life.”
With a thoughtful expression in his eyes, Callie’s father scraped back his chair. “And now she’ll have two strong men in her life.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jake squared his shoulders. “That means a lot to me.”
Her dad lifted Maisie into his arms. “We’ll be back ’fore long to eat that cobbler, Callie Girl.” He tickled Maisie’s belly. “Right, Daisy Maisie?”
Maisie crumpled into giggles.
Callie couldn’t help smiling. “Dad likes to work off supper by taking a sunset stroll with Maisie through the orchard.”
Her father winked at Jake. “Got to start those farm girls young.” With Maisie hanging on to his neck, they headed outside, the screen door slamming behind them.
Suddenly alone with Jake, she went around to the other side of the table to give herself breathing room. His strong, masculine presence made her feel like a stammering schoolgirl.
He was a man with questions about Maisie’s mother she couldn’t answer. Because the answers were emotional land mines with enough fallout to devastate them all. She wiped down the booster seat.
What invitation to disaster had she already set into motion by asking Jake to stick around? Callie gripped Maisie’s chair. This wouldn’t—couldn’t—end well.
Secrets never did.
Chapter Three
Clearing the dining table, Jake reached for the empty glass at the same time as Callie. She blushed furiously. He let go immediately and stepped out of her way. What about him made her so uncomfortable? Or, like Maisie, did she hate him, too?
Jake didn’t blame her for not trusting him after what happened earlier with Maisie. So why had she asked him to stay, even temporarily? Sometimes when she looked at him, genuine warmth shone out of her lovely brown eyes; other times, she wore an expression he didn’t know how to interpret.
He followed her into the kitchen. “Let me dry while you wash.”
Standing at the sink, she kept her back to him. “No.”
He scrunched his brow. “Bossy, aren’t you?”
She angled her head and made a face. “Hence my single status, I suppose.”
He leaned against the counter. “Guys around here must be blind, then.” He shifted. What had possessed him to say such a thing to her?
She flushed twelve shades of red, the way only a redhead could, and she set to scouring the pot with enough force to take the finish off. “You’re a flirt.”
He stiffened. “Did Tiffany say that about me? Because I’m not. After we were married, brief as it was, I never... Is that why she left? Is that what she told you?”
Callie stopped scrubbing and looked at him. “The only thing I know for sure, Jake McAbee, is that Maisie needs a father.”
She hadn’t answered his question about Tiffany. He let it go for now.
“The only thing I know for sure, Callie Jackson, is that we both love Maisie.”
Her eyes became luminous. “Yes.” She focused on the pan in the sink. “Yes, we do.”
Finding a cloth, he dried the dishes in the drainer. They worked in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. After everything had been put away, she straightened, seeming to come to a sudden decision.
She started toward the living room. “I have something to show you.”
His heart pounded.
“Please take a seat.” She motioned to the couch. “This will take a while.” She removed two leather-bound albums from the bookcase.
An expensive camera with a denim strap sat on the top shelf, placed out of Maisie’s reach, but easily accessible for adults, he guessed.
She sank onto the sofa, keeping a respectable distance. He caught a whiff of her perfume, a pleasing fruity fragrance, reminding him of apples. Callie placed the albums on the coffee table in front of him.
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. “What are these?”
“Maisie’s life in pictures, thus far.” Callie swallowed. “I can’t give you back the time you lost with her, but I can give you a glimpse into those years.”
He stared at her. “I don’t know what I did that made Tiffany leave. I wish I did.”
The unvoiced question lay between them, again giving Callie the option to answer. Or not.
She handed him the album on top of the pile. “I like taking photos, so I documented everything I could.”
Apparently, choosing not.
He wasn’t prepared for the rush of disappointment that flooded him. Would he be around long enough to earn her trust? And why did it matter so much?
* * *
It wasn’t right to let him believe he was to blame for what happened to his marriage. Guilt knotted her stomach, but her deathbed promise to Tiff bound Callie to silence. And a new anger burned against her dead friend for the impossible position in which Tiff had placed her.
Maybe someday she’d tell him what happened with Tiff, but for now, she couldn’t. She didn’t know Jake McAbee well enough for those kinds of revelations. She didn’t know how he’d handle the truth. She also didn’t know him well enough yet to hurt him that much.
But photos she could do. She opened to the first page in the album.
The photograph of newborn Maisie completely captured Jake, and he let the subject drop. For how long, though?
“You take great pictures, Callie.” He smiled, the lines at the corners of his eyes fanning out in warmth. “You could turn professional.”
“Only a hobby.” Shaking her head, she rose. “Take your time. I usually join Dad and Maisie on their walk in the orchard.”
Professional photography was a daydream she’d put behind her long ago. First her mother’s illness, then Tiff’s. Most recently, her dad’s. Her father couldn’t manage the orchard without her, and Maisie needed her.
Remembering she hadn’t put any towels in Jake’s bathroom, she detoured upstairs. One of the best things about summer were the long hours of daylight stretching into the evening. There was plenty of time to catch the sunset with her dad and Maisie.
A few minutes later when she returned to the front hall, she heard a strangled sound from the living room. Jake? Had something happened while she was upstairs?
Light-footed with urgency, she got as far as the kitchen before a sight she’d never forget froze Callie in her tracks.
The photo album lay open to happy pictures of his daughter’s first Christmas, first birthday, first toothy grin. Jake’s face was buried in his hands, and his shoulders shook with muffled, bone-jarring sobs. His body was racked with grief and pain.
Something tore inside her chest.
To spare Jake his pride, she tiptoed out, retreating to the hallway. After easing open the front door, she slipped outside.
Her legs unable to support her, she leaned against the porch column, trying to regain her breath. Trying to still her racing heart. Trying not to lose her supper.
She had never hated anyone in her life, but right now she hated more than anything what Tiff had done to Jake. And she hated herself for agreeing to be a part of it.
For his own good, there were things he must never learn about Tiff, things that would only cause him further torment. Yet, the weight of guilt ate away at her resolve. How could she right the wrong he’d suffered? The pit in her stomach tightened.
If she could do nothing else to assuage her conscience, she must help Jake forge a strong relationship with Maisie. It was the least she could do. Was it, though?
Callie scrubbed her forehead. No matter how Jake’s brokenness lashed her heart, Maisie had to be her top priority. But she would do what she could in helping Jake and Maisie find their way to each other.
She took a ragged breath. And then come November, he’d leave as they’d agreed. The idea of his departure left her with an unsettled feeling.
* * *
Later, upstairs in his bathroom, Jake splashed water on his face and examined the man he beheld in the mirror.
He hadn’t anticipated the intense sense of loss he felt when he’d seen the photo of his newborn daughter in Tiffany’s arms. It was pink-cheeked Maisie that had made him emotional, not Tiffany, wasn’t it?
Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. He’d believed himself over his ex-wife a long time ago. Only an idiot loved somebody who didn’t love them back. Right?
He fingered the stubble on his jaw. Had he made a mistake in coming into Maisie’s life? There were a lot of things worse than nothing. Such as having a father like his. Or Tiffany’s.
In a way, it was that very dysfunction that had drawn them to each other. The problem was that neither of them had ever had a real home. No surprise they’d failed to make one with each other.
He sagged, bracing his hands on the sink. A lifetime of insecurity and self-doubt washed over him. What was he doing here, trying to be Maisie’s father?
Jake had no business being anyone’s father. The familiar childhood tape played over and over in his head. His dad’s voice yelling it was Jake’s fault his mother abandoned them.
Did it really even matter why Tiffany left? Had his dad been right about him being worthless? Perhaps Tiffany’s desertion had answered that question once and for all.
He ought to leave Apple Valley Farm before he messed up Maisie as bad as his parents had messed up him. And yet...
Jake pictured the recent photo of Maisie’s happy face over her second birthday cake. Nash must’ve taken that picture. Lips pursed, Callie stood behind Maisie’s chair, helping the little girl blow out her candles.
Per his agreement with Callie, he wouldn’t be here to celebrate Maisie’s third birthday or anything else. Perhaps if over the apple harvest Maisie learned to trust him again, he would be invited to return some day in the future. But he ached inside at how much he’d miss of his daughter’s life.
The sound of laughter floated from outside. Straightening, he moved toward the bedroom window.
Almost ready to wink out behind the ridge, the sun cast a golden hue on two figures in the meadow. Against the glowing backdrop of sunset, Callie’s hair seemed ablaze with a fiery light. She and the smaller form of Maisie waved.
His heart constricted. For a fraction of a second, he imagined they waved at him. His pulse ratcheted. An indescribable joy flooded over him.
The joy of mattering to someone. Of belonging to a family like the Jacksons, living and working in a beautiful place like the apple orchard. Having a woman like Callie love him.
He spotted Nash at the corner of the barn.
They were waving at Nash. The three of them—not him—belonged to each other. Tiffany’s actions had made it crystal clear that, as he’d always suspected, there was something inside Jake that just wasn’t lovable.
Arms outstretched, Maisie surged toward her beloved Pop-Pop. Callie followed a pace behind, her hand trailing through the petals of late-summer wildflowers. And despite not belonging—never belonging—Jake’s heart caught in his throat. The sheer loveliness of her stirred something inside him.
Surrounded by the mountains, God felt very near to Jake, and casting aside the fear, hope bloomed for the first time in a long while in his heart. An answer to a prayer he’d been too afraid to voice.
Callie was his daughter’s heart—he saw it clearly now—as truly as Maisie’s heart belonged to Callie. With Callie’s help, he might yet earn the love of his daughter.
And something else, too. He sensed that somehow he might’ve stumbled on to more than he had ever dreamed possible.
Home.
