turning off the stove, setting the pan to one side. “Well, here it is.” She lifted her chin. “If it would help you and Claire, if you need some space to work out your problems, she is welcome to stay here for the time being.” Here was the hard part. “But only if you both make some promises. And keep them.”
His eyes narrowed. “These being the stipulations.”
She nodded, mute.
“And they are?”
“Claire has to promise not to run away. And to go to school every day. No cutting classes. Plus to, well, follow my house rules.” She gestured vaguely. “You know. Help clean the kitchen. That kind of thing.”
David Whitcomb inclined his head, his watchful gaze never leaving hers. “And what do you expect from me, aside from support money?”
“That you become very involved in her life. Take her places, join us for dinner, call her, look over her schoolwork…be her father.”
He scrutinized her for the longest time. “I’d be over here constantly.”
“That’s okay.” Was it? she asked herself, with a faint, fluttering sense of panic. Too late.
“Claire won’t want me here.”
“But that’s the deal,” Grace said firmly. “She, too, has to promise to work at being your daughter. And one of my house rules is that we are all polite to each other and to guests.”
“Guests.” He tasted the word as though it was questionable wine.
And who could blame him? His position would be awkward, to say the least. His daughter was choosing to live with someone else because she detested him. He would feel constantly as if he was foisting his company on strangers—and on Claire, who would be civil, if at all, simply because her foster mother insisted on it.
Not a palatable option. Except that his only other one was to go on the way he had been—with his thirteen-year-old daughter determined to hitchhike to her mother in California.
The struggle, visible on his face, was severe but short. She had to give him that much credit.
Jaw muscles flexed, and then he gave one of those brief, off-putting nods. “I’ll talk to Claire.”
Grace pressed her lips together. “If you think I’m presuming—”
“What?” Irony edged into his tone. “That I can’t cope with my daughter? You’d be right.”
“I’m trying to help,” she said gently.
He looked at her with a disquieting lack of expression. “I know you are.”
“Mr. Whitcomb…”
“Hadn’t you better make it David?” he suggested sardonically. “Since we’re going to be one big happy family?”
A gasp from behind him startled them both. Linnet stood in the doorway, Lemieux draped in her arms. The big snowshoe Siamese struggled as she squeezed him.
“Claire’s going to live with us?” Linnet’s face glowed with hope.
“Her dad will talk to her,” Grace said repressively. “And, you know, if Claire does come to stay, it won’t be one long sleepover. You’ll both have to do homework and chores.”
“But it’ll be like having a sister.” She hugged the cat again, so hard he uttered a cry that sounded very much like “no-o-o!”
“Sisters,” her mother said dryly, “often get tired of each other.” Grace was very conscious of Claire’s father, silent and stiff.
“Not us. We never will.” Linnet set poor Lemieux down and twirled into the kitchen. The cat shot a look at David and bolted. “Can I call her?” Linnet begged.
“No. Dinner is almost ready. And Mr. Whitcomb and I haven’t made a decision. He and Claire need to talk. This is between them.”
“Oh.” She halted her pirouette and showed the whites of her eyes as she rolled them toward her friend’s father. “I didn’t mean…that is…I mean…”
“I think he knows what you mean.” Grace held out two plates with silverware piled atop. “In the meantime, please set the table while I show him out.”
“No need.” His face and voice were wooden. “I’m sure we’ll be talking.”
She’d hardly had time to set one foot in front of another when she heard the soft sound of the front door opening and closing behind him. She was left with the horrifying realization that she’d gotten herself into something she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to do.
It should have been Claire she was thinking about. Unsettled, Grace had to admit, if only to herself, that she was far more worried about dealing with the grim father than with the sulky teenage girl.
DAVID HEAVED CLAIRE’S SUITCASE out of the trunk of his Mercedes and found his daughter was already hurrying up the brick steps to the front door of the condo. Her step was light; he could feel her joy as she raced toward liberation from her father. The door was swinging open even before she reached it, the two girls squealing, vanishing inside with their arms around each other’s waists.
He was left with a lump of heavy, rough concrete where his heart should have been and with the certain knowledge that, once again, he had taken the low road.
He was her father, damn it. He’d walked away once, and here he was essentially doing it again. He wasn’t tough enough to see his own child through a bad patch. Despising himself, David thought, Hell, no, hand her over to someone else. Let them deal with her.
He wondered how sternly Claire’s foster mom would hold him to his part of the bargain. Would Claire meld gradually, naturally, into Grace Blanchet’s family? Or did she really expect him to somehow become the father Claire needed?
Grunting at the thought, David picked up the suitcase and started after his daughter. The woman was a legal secretary, for Pete’s sake! How the hell could he think she would do for him—and Claire—what licensed psychologists couldn’t?
But did it matter? his mocking inner voice asked. So what if he failed, again? At least Claire was out of his hair. He didn’t have to come home from work every day to the deep, obscene beat of rap music, to a kid who’d rather sneer “I’m not hungry” and starve than sit down to dinner with him.
Grace was waiting for him in the open doorway. This being a Saturday, she had her hair in a ponytail and she wore jeans and a blue flannel shirt tucked into them. Casual, but her loafers gleamed like her warm brown hair. A classy lady who invariably left him feeling unsettled for reasons he didn’t understand.
And wasn’t in any hurry to identify.
“Why don’t you take that right up?” she suggested. “The girls wanted to share a bedroom, but for now I’m giving Claire our spare.” She lowered her voice. “I’m guessing that they will eventually want their privacy, even if they don’t believe me.”
Now, how did she know that? The way those two had hugged and
