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“I’d rather keep Sierra out of the public eye,” he said, his head turning as Edie stomped by.
She snorted. “Fat chance.”
“If we don’t make any announcement, how will Rinnert find out about her?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he already knows. Hell, he’s probably got a P.I. trailing you.”
His jaw firmed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Don’t kid yourself. He’s behind in the polls. But really, he doesn’t have to go to those lengths. Are you telling me no one saw you walk into the sperm bank? Wait in the lobby? Your race is a hot one. Your face is on the local news often enough—you’re all too recognizable.”
“You want my face to be recognizable,” he said sardonically.
“That was before you did something stupid like visit a sperm bank.”
“Most people would assume I had questions relating to an investigation.”
She stalked by again. He felt like a spectator at a tennis match, his head swiveling.
“You don’t do investigations. You supervise other people who do them.”
That was true, but he doubted that the common voter realized he was pretty well trapped behind a desk these days. When he pointed that out, Edie snorted again.
She eventually wound down, conceded they might get lucky and no, it probably wasn’t the end of the world if Sierra’s existence became public knowledge.
“Will she be living with you?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. Not right away. We need to get to know each other.”
“You found your daughter, and have left her living in a foster home? That may not play well.”
“You know how seldom I’m actually home these days.” He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he said that. But he was. The exhaustion wasn’t physical, but it was real, and went bone deep. “I can’t be an adequate single parent right now, even if that was the right thing to do for other reasons.”
Edie, grudgingly, supposed he was right. She made noises about Sierra going to live with his mother or sister. He still hadn’t told either that he had a daughter. Even if they’d been eager and willing to have Sierra with them, he wouldn’t insult Lucy that way. Remembering their clasped hands, he knew it wouldn’t be right anyway to separate them.
He and Edie made the decision to keep quiet about Sierra for now, but Jon warned her that he’d answer questions honestly if they came to be asked.
“This woman she’s living with? Is she an asset or a detriment?”
In a flash that startled him with its vividness, he saw Lucy Malone sitting on that couch watching him with the spark of suspicion in her chocolate-brown eyes. He saw the lush curves of her petite body, her pretty face, the thick, glossy, wavy black hair that to his disappointment she’d worn in a fat braid last night. And he hated himself for, however briefly, actually giving some consideration to Edie’s question.
“Asset,” he said finally, shortly.
Edie gave him a startled glance, opened her mouth as if to say more, then visibly thought better of it. “All right,” she said. “Keep me informed.”
She left, but he lingered in the deserted campaign headquarters. Usually he focused on his goal—becoming sheriff. Finally being in a position to make the decisions that counted. But he was unsettled tonight, and he found himself looking around at the half-dozen desks where volunteers would sit making phone calls on his behalf, at the stacks of campaign posters and the placards stacked in corners waiting for supporters to jam them into their lawns or beside well-trafficked roads. Jonathan Brenner for Sheriff. Hard Decisions Made with Integrity.
That was him, so defined by integrity that he could weigh a woman’s worth only as it related to him. How would it look that he was spending time with her?
A phone rang at one of the desks, the sound shrill in the otherwise quiet storefront.
Jon muttered a profanity, scrubbed a hand over his face and let himself out, locking the door behind him. He wasn’t often ashamed of himself, but there were moments, and this was one.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’M TOTALLY INTO COMPUTERS,” Sierra told her father. “But I don’t know if I want to work in software or anything. I might decide to be a doctor. Or maybe a veterinarian.” Her expression became eager. “Did Lucy tell you she helps finds homes for cats that end up in shelters? I’ve been spending lots of time with the ones she has at the store right now. And with Rosemary and Magnolia, too. Those are Lucy’s cats.”
There was a smile in Jon’s eyes when he looked at Lucy over the dinner table. “I noticed you’re a gardener. I gather that’s where your inspiration came from.”
“Yes,” she said ruefully. “Only, the cats are really Rosie and Maggie. Every animal I’ve ever had ends up with a name that ends in an ie sound.”
Jon thought about it. He’d grown up with Moby. His mother had a fluffy, yappy little excuse for a dog whose name was Renoir, but who had come to be called, of all things, Really. It was a joke at first—yes, he’s really Renoir—but it stuck. Jon grinned every time he heard his mother stick her head out in the backyard and shout, “Really! Come to Mommy!”
“Maybe there’s something to that,” he had to admit.
“We convert children’s names that way, too. Jimmy, Stevie, Katie, Susie.”
“Becky,” Sierra said softly.
Her flash of sadness came and went so quickly, he’d have missed it if he hadn’t been looking.
Lucy smiled at her. “I like to think that softened ending is affectionate. Think how often it sticks. It did for me.” She reached for her wineglass.
“Were you ever Johnny?” Sierra asked him.
Lucy sputtered and had to slap a napkin to her mouth.
Jon pretended to glower. “You’re laughing at me.”
“No…yes. Oh, heavens. You just don’t look like a Johnny.”
He loved the way merriment danced in her eyes and puckered her cheeks. It sure beat the chilly stare of suspicion she also did well.
“No, I was never a Johnny. I think you have to be cuddly to deserve having your name softened. Me, I was born long and skinny, and only got longer and skinnier.”
“Me, too!” Sierra exclaimed, her face bright. She wrinkled her nose, looking down at herself. “I think I’ve quit growing.” Her tone said she wasn’t betting on it.
Lucy smiled at her. “You probably have. Girls usually reach their full height long before your age. It’s boys who still keep growing into their twenties.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jon began constructing another taco from the selection of ingredients laid out in the middle of the table. He chose the shredded chicken and heaped on the salsa Lucy made herself. It seared the mouth and opened the sinuses. He’d seen the challenge on her face when she first offered it to him. He had been damn careful not to react when he took his first bite. On his third taco now, he’d developed a taste for it. “I added another couple of inches in college. Mostly I got broader, though. I was a rack of bones until then.” He smiled at Sierra. “Remind me to show you some pictures. Forget it,” he said ruefully. “You won’t have to remind me. Mom will whip out the family albums the minute you walk in the door.”
“She really wants to meet me?” Her voice was wistful.
“She really wants to.”
His mother had reacted exactly as he’d predicted. She was stunned to think she had grandchildren she would never meet. He thought she would have been angrier yet if she hadn’t known why he had scrabbled to raise money any way he could back in those days. She felt guilty that she hadn’t been able to persuade his father to treat him more decently. Jon didn’t like knowing that his mom lived with more regrets than he had. In this case, though, guilt served a purpose; she’d forgiven him faster than he deserved.
“She expects me to bring you to Sunday dinner, if you’re free.” He transferred his gaze to Lucy. “She’d like to meet you, too.”
“My feelings won’t be hurt if you only take Sierra,” she said. “I’m not family.”
She was so composed, he was willing to bet it was a facade. She’d wanted him to accept Sierra as his daughter, there was no question of that. But he couldn’t help wondering if her feelings weren’t a little hurt, too, that Sierra had set out to find her biological family. It would be one thing if Sierra had been assigned to her, a licensed foster parent. But he’d learned that she’d taken the teenager in out of affection.
The teenager. No, he told himself, my daughter. Get used to thinking it. My daughter.
Aware of Sierra watching them both, he said quietly, “You’re family.”
Lucy stared at him for a moment that stretched. He forgot about Sierra. He lost himself in those warm brown eyes that seemed to darken with emotion, and lighten and shimmer with laughter. Right now they were the color of Belgian chocolate, rich, dark and somehow stunned. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she’d started to say something and forgotten what it was.
She blinked. “I suppose I am.” Her mouth curved into a heartbreakingly sad smile, although he doubted she knew it was. Very softly, she finished, “I’m family as long as Sierra needs me.”
Now he felt like a heel. Would every wish of Sierra’s he fulfilled hurt Lucy? Damn, he hoped not.
“Will you come Sunday?” Sierra begged. “Please? I’d…really like it if you would, Lucy.”
This smile was more natural. “If you’d be more comfortable, of course I will.”
“Is the store closed on Sunday?” Jon asked.
“Sundays and Mondays,” she confirmed. “Although I have to go in to take care of the cats.”
He asked questions, and found out that she had two part-time employees, one of whom was Sierra. Lucy had been a licensed vet tech. She told some stories from her years working in veterinary clinics. He had the impression her last boss, at least, had been an ass. Sierra was wide-eyed not at the tales of eccentric owners or animals run amok, but at the notion the clinic hadn’t been computerized.
“A wall of file folders?” she said, as if Lucy had been describing a holdover from the Edwardian age. Maybe even Jurassic. “How did you ever find anything?”
Lucy chuckled. “Easily. As long as it wasn’t misfiled. And I might point out that a misfiled folder is still more easily recovered than a computer file with a locator name misspelled.”
“That’s not true!” Sierra launched into a passionate explanation of search functions. Jon and Lucy listened with amusement.
At the end of her lecture, Jon said only, “The world did run precomputer, you know. America was settled, railroads spread, manufacturing changed society, wars were conducted. Nobody knew what they were missing.”
Sierra sputtered a little, but tongue in cheek.
Lucy rescued her. “Sweetie, why don’t you bring out your dessert? I’ll start clearing the table.”
The teenager jumped up. “Okay.”
“Can I help?” Jon asked, starting to rise.
“Don’t be silly,” Lucy said comfortably. “This isn’t a three-person kitchen.” She had picked up a couple of the serving bowls and almost bumped Sierra when she turned. Over her shoulder she made a face at Jon. “It’s not even a two-person kitchen.”
No, it wasn’t. The snug eating area was tucked in what he suspected had once been a glassed-in porch. One more could have sat at the table, but wouldn’t have been able to get in or out once everyone was seated. Like the rest of the house, though, the room was charming, the windows that wrapped it small-paned and looking out at roses and tall, daisylike flowers in deep blues and purples that he thought might be asters. Walls were painted a buttery-yellow, woodwork snowy-white, the floor tiled. A small watercolor painting of tulip fields hung on the one stretch of wall not filled with windows.
Jon examined his feelings of contentment as he watched woman and girl work in the kitchen in a seemingly practiced dance of steps that kept them from colliding. Sierra was more graceful than he’d thought at first; she made him think of a blue heron, with those long limbs and initial awkwardness overcome when full flight was achieved. And Lucy… His gaze tracked her, small and pleasantly rounded, her waist tiny and the glossy black braid swaying seductively as she moved, emphasizing the supple line of her back and the equally seductive sway of her hips in neat chinos.
Lucy Malone wasn’t a beautiful woman, exactly. Jon couldn’t even have said why she attracted him so powerfully, but she did. She was really too short for him, he mused; he’d have to bend over to kiss her. He contemplated the kitchen counter. No, he wouldn’t stoop, he’d set her butt up on the counter and stand between her thighs. That would work. And lying down, height didn’t matter much, did it?
Oh, hell. He was getting aroused thinking about it. Wondering how firm or soft her generous breasts were, whether her skin, a pale cocoa, was ivory colored where the sun didn’t touch it. Would she have small, pert nipples, or ones with broad aureoles as generous and womanly as her breasts themselves?
He almost groaned aloud. This was—what?—his third meeting with her and in his mind he already had her in bed with him. Although he wanted to think she was attracted to him, too, he doubted she was anywhere near as far along in her thinking about him. She was still too suspicious of him, for one thing.
As well she should be. He had no idea whether he could meet this unexpected daughter’s needs. Whether he really wanted to. He’d accepted responsibility, acknowledged that she was his, but that might not be enough, whatever Sierra insisted to the contrary. She wanted what she’d lost: a parent who loved her, completely and absolutely. He’d never felt that way about anyone.
He refused to feel guilty yet. He had to get to know her first. As smart as she was, she probably had a personality more complex even than the average teenager. He saw the sweetness, the quick leaps her mind took, the eagerness and yearning. But he knew there had to be considerably more. How did she feel growing up without a father in a world where most kids had one, even if they saw him only every other weekend? Had her mother been enough? Were they closer than usual, given the need teenagers had to push away from their parents? How much did she still grieve privately? Did she have crushes on boys? Have one especially good friend? Feel rage or self-loathing that she hid for fear she’d be rejected by Lucy or her newfound father?
Thinking about Sierra had given his body time to relax. He was able to smile naturally at Lucy, who brought dessert plates, and Sierra, who produced a cheesecake.
“I hope you like it,” she said anxiously. “I was going to bake a pie. Lucy has an apple tree in the backyard. But I’ve been experimenting with cheesecake, so I thought I’d make that.”
“I love cheesecake,” he told her. “I’m afraid I have a sweet tooth.”
Her face lit in that way she had. “Me, too. I must have gotten it from you. Mom didn’t care about desserts at all. Mostly we had store-bought cookies. Like Oreos and Fig Newtons. But it was fun when we made, like, Christmas cookies, so I started baking when Mom would let me. I don’t like regular cooking that much. Mom said I was her pastry chef.”
Sierra cut the cheesecake, which she said was layered with tiramisu. Jon took the first bite figuring it would be good—this was a kid bright enough, after all, to manufacture a nuclear bomb if she put her mind to it—but he hadn’t anticipated pure nirvana. He actually closed his eyes to savor the pure, melting flavor on his tongue. After he swallowed, he said with complete honesty, “I think that tastes better than anything I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
Sierra grinned in delight. “It is good, isn’t it?”
“Heavenly,” Lucy murmured around her first bite.
Jon’s body stirred again at the sight of her face. He’d have sworn color had risen in her cheeks, and her eyes had closed as his had. Her mouth was moist, and as he watched the pink tip of her tongue flicked out to sweep over her lips. Damn, he thought. Would she look like that when he touched her? When he suckled her breast?
He wrenched his gaze from her and took another bite, good enough to be distracting. After a minute he said to Sierra, “Tell me about your mom. What did she do for a living?”
“She was a bank manager. She’d just gotten promoted to having her own branch not that long ago. She was good with math and computers, like me.”
She was silent for a moment, seemingly having forgotten her own serving of cheesecake. She’d withdrawn somewhere inside, and he could tell she was no longer really seeing him or Lucy. He hoped asking her to talk about her mother hadn’t been a mistake.
“I think sometimes Mom felt bad that I’d had to go to day care and after-school care and all that. I mean, that she couldn’t ever be stay-at-home. You know?” Her eyes briefly focused on him, and he nodded. “But the thing is, she wouldn’t have been any good at that. She wasn’t into stuff like sewing or crafts or really even cooking. She hated mowing the lawn and we didn’t have flowers like Lucy does.”
Jon was conscious that Lucy, too, had stopped eating and was watching her foster daughter. He wondered if, like him, she’d tensed at the unconscious comparison between her and Sierra’s mother. He wondered, too, where Sierra was going with it.
“I guess, like, when I was really little I wished Mom was more like some of my friends’ mothers. You know? But later I was glad she wasn’t. Because she didn’t just have to work. She liked her job. That made me want to do something I’m as happy doing. Some girls I know want to have babies, or get married, or take some classes at the community college. But you can tell they think jobs are just something you do to make money. Mom was different. She talked to me about anything.” She shrugged finally, and looked at the two adults. “I love Lucy’s garden, and the cats, but now I know that everyone has different things that make them happy.”
To Lucy she said, “I see how you like to touch. I mean, you run your fingers over the cats, or smooth my hair, or stroke that antique bookcase you bought, or the petals of a flower. Mom lived more in her head. She wasn’t so…” Her face reflected her struggle to find the right word.
“Tactile?” Lucy suggested gently. “There have been studies, you know, about different ways of learning. Some people learn best by touching, some by reading, some by hearing information.”
Sierra nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Tactile.” Jon could tell she was sampling the word. “Mom and I weren’t that huggy, but I knew she loved me.”
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