to be.”
Her father’s fork clattered to his plate as his gaze slammed into hers. “And damned if I’m going to let some junkie take my granddaughter!”
At his sharp tone, Pippa began to whimper. Gus—who took his role as mother’s helper very seriously—thoroughly licked the baby’s blobby little feet, distracting her.
“He’s not a junkie, Dad,” Julianne said softly, helplessly smiling at her niece’s recently discovered belly laugh. “At least, not anymore. And anyway,” she added, returning her gaze to her father, “even Robyn said his major problem was alcohol, not drugs.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, of course not. But if he’s been clean for a year—”
“We only have his word on that, you know.”
Julianne shakily set down her own fork, her half-eaten salad jeering her as she folded her arms across her stomach. She looked out over her father’s lawn and much-prized garden, scrupulously avoiding the pottery studio he’d had built for her shortly after her arrival. Screw water conservation, screamed the lush, bright green, weed-free grass, the dozens of rosebushes in copious bloom, the masses of deep purple clematis and azaleas and rhododendrons camouflaging the eight-foot-tall privacy fence. Dad spent hours out here during the long spring and summer, coaxing humidity-loving plants to grow in a high-desert climate. The same love-doesn’t-give-up mind-set, Julianne mused, that had made him the darling of the self-help circuit.
If you care enough, you can make it work, make it happen, make it bloom.
She returned her gaze to her father, thinking, It must be hell, living a lie.
Pippa started fussing again; Julianne slid out of her chair to heft the baby into her arms, Gus hovering to make sure she didn’t drop her. As she inhaled Pip’s sweet, baby-shampoo smell, she remembered Kevin’s awestruck expression when he held his daughter for the first time…the fierce look in his eyes when, after the initial shock wore off, he realized he was going to have a fight on his hands. That second look, especially, had pierced straight through the vast dead space inside her, rudely jolting her out of her nice, safe, bland cocoon.
Bastard.
“I know a year isn’t very long in the scheme of things,” Julianne said. “That Kevin could backslide. But he is Pippa’s father, Dad. He has the right to know his child. Which I’ve said all along.”
That merited far too many seconds of her father’s trenchant gaze. “You’re projecting,” he said gently.
“Because I lost my own baby, I’m empathizing with how he’d feel if he lost his? You betcha. But trust me, Kevin’s not going to simply take off with her.”
“You can’t be that naive.”
“I’m not. But you weren’t in the room with him. I was. And I promise you, that man is no more ready to be a full-time dad right now than Gus.” At the sound of his name, the dog waddled back to nuzzle aside Pippa’s thigh, laying his head on Julianne’s lap. She gave him another piece of ham, ignoring her father’s glare.
He stabbed at his salad, winced, then shoved the bite into his mouth. “Then why on earth would you want to encourage him to be ready?”
“Would you rather he show up with a court order and just take her away?”
Her father’s brows crashed together. “But you just said—”
“I didn’t say he didn’t want to be Pip’s father. I said he wasn’t ready. Once the dust settles, however, I have no doubt he’ll change his tune. And if he does press the issue, I can’t see where he wouldn’t be within his rights. Pip is his daughter, after all.”
“According to Robyn.”
“So we’ll do a DNA test. I doubt Kevin will object. But what did Robyn have to gain by telling us Kevin was Pippa’s father? Especially since she didn’t want him to know.” Julianne fiddled with her lettuce some more, then lifted her eyes to her father’s. “Be truthful—are you really up to a custody battle? Because I’m sure as hell not.”
“So we should just hand Pippa over without a fight?”
“I don’t want to lose her any more than you do. It’s the fighting part I’d just as soon avoid.”
Victor carefully leaned back in his padded chair; Gus the Fickle hobbled over to him, his long tail whapping Julianne’s bare knee. “What do we even know about this kid? Aside from his dragging your sister down into the pit with him, I mean. Is he working? Does he even have any way of taking care of Pip?”
Julianne pulled the baby closer as she worked to bring her breathing under control. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand where her father was coming from. Or why. Losing Robyn—first to drugs, then to death—had nearly wrecked him. And God knew how Julianne would have gotten through the last year and a half without his support. But while her dad might have been the go-to expert on mending other people’s family rifts, he could be spectacularly obtuse when it came to mending—or even acknowledging—his own.
“I’ll grant you, maybe his earlier behavior wasn’t the most mature in the world,” she said at last. “And maybe we don’t know what he’s really like now, or if he’s really changed. Or even if he is able to take care of a child. Even so, he didn’t have to come all the way out here, just to check up on Robyn. So I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if you’re not.”
She leaned forward. “But you have got to stop using Kevin as a scapegoat for what happened to Robyn. He said he tried every way he could think of to get her into rehab, but she refused. And yes, I believe him,” she said before her father could argue with her. “After all, she didn’t exactly go meekly for us, did she? And we weren’t trying to get our own heads straight at the same time. There was only so much he could do, Dad. Even you have to see that.”
A bruised shadow passed over her father’s features, followed by a sigh. Of acceptance? Resignation? Julianne had no idea.
“You always were the soft-hearted one, Julie-bird.”
“Because I don’t have it in me to keep a father and child apart? Then, yeah. Guilty as charged. In any case, the more obstacles we throw up between Kevin and Pippa, the worse it’s going to be for all of us. But if we let Kevin stay with us…” She shrugged. “It’s a win-win situation.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“Because if he’s here, we can keep an eye on him. Get to know him while he gets to know his daughter. But at the same time, maybe…”
“What?”
She turned Pippa around; pudgy, shapeless feet dug into her thighs as the baby pushed herself upright, Julianne’s hands firm on her waist. The baby had recently discovered the wonder of noses. Now, with a drooly squeal, she batted at Julianne’s, the little girl’s innocent joy jostling loose—even if only for a few precious moments—the solid, putrid ache of loss. “Maybe,” Julianne said softly, locking eyes with her niece, “if we don’t fight him, he’ll realize she’s better off with us, after all.”
Her
