lot. If he wished her a good-night, she didn’t hear it.
She had another hour to get through before she could go home and find out whether her daughter was Jekyll or Hyde tonight. With an odd ramble into frivolity, she thought, Maybe I should I make it Jacqueline or…hmm, Heidi?
* * *
“DAMN IT, ALEXA, ANSWER,” Richard growled, listening to the phone ring. He’d left half a dozen messages. He’d have flown to California to confront her if he’d been positive where she and Brianna were living. The house had belonged to Alexa’s husband, Davis, so of course she’d been the one to have to move out along with her children. A month ago, the two had been staying with friends. Brianna had texted that she and Mom had an apartment now, but Richard had yet to get an address.
“Richard.”
She’d picked up. About goddamn time.
“You’ve been dodging me,” he said.
“You know my life is a mess.” She had an irritatingly little girl voice that always caught him by surprise. Hard to imagine why he’d thought it was cute when they were in high school together. Now it only grated. “I don’t need more to deal with. Trev flipped out. It was too much for me. The two of you have always been tight. I thought he’d be happy to be living with you.”
“He’s damn near flunking out of school, he’s been in two ugly fights and is a hair away from getting expelled, and every word he deigns to speak to me drips with sarcasm and hostility. I can safely say that he isn’t happy.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
“Lexa, what happened? This had to be almost an overnight thing. He’s not talking. You need to tell me.”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “Okay? Davis and I were having problems, and maybe I just didn’t notice something. All I know is that he suddenly hated me, Davis and everyone else.”
“Brianna?”
She let out a breath that might have been a sob. “Maybe not her. I don’t know. I think he calls her sometimes.”
“She told me he does.”
“Did you ask her?”
“Not yet.” It seemed underhanded, using one kid to get a handle on the other. And he’d always found it harder to talk to Brianna.
“Well, try,” his ex snapped. “Trevor sure doesn’t talk to me. He doesn’t answer when I call and hasn’t called me once. He’s all yours, Richard. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”
It was all he could do not to say, Yeah, but I’d have liked to get him before you screwed with his head.
That wasn’t fair, anyway. As little as he liked Alexa, she’d done fine with the kids. Brianna seemed like a normal teenage girl—i.e., incomprehensible to him—but what was new about that? Trevor had thrived until whatever happened happened.
They talked for a couple more minutes. Alexa got sulkier and sulkier. He found himself responding in monosyllables. He finally asked if Brianna was there and his daughter came on.
“Hi, Daddy.”
Daddy. Call him a sucker, but that warmed him. Not so much when she was trying to persuade him to buy something for her, but when it popped out for no reason, yeah.
“Hey, honey. How are you? You settled into school?”
She’d had to change schools, too, which wasn’t fair, but her mother couldn’t afford an apartment in Beverly Hills where Davis lived. The guy was rich enough to have made it possible if he’d wanted, but why would he? The kids weren’t his. At least the break hadn’t happened mid-school year.
Brianna was fourteen, and a freshman in high school now. Only a year behind Trevor’s apparent girlfriend, Caitlyn Callahan. Had that occurred to Trev?
“It’s okay,” Bree said, tone telling him it really wasn’t. “At least I still talk to Lark.”
His daughter might be a near stranger to him, but Richard did know that Lark was her most recent BFF. Lark’s daddy was with one of the big Hollywood talent agencies. Brianna had been moving in slightly scary circles. He’d wondered without ever asking her if she told anyone that her father was an electrician.
“That’s good,” he said cautiously. “Gotten to know some new kids?”
“Oh, kinda. The classes are way behind the ones I was in last year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He felt helpless, as he often did when talking to her. He couldn’t have offered her what Davis Noonan had. He’d had painfully mixed feelings about the advantages this man he’d never even met had given his children. His feelings about them losing those advantages were even murkier. “I’m betting you’ll rise to the top wherever you are,” he said in the hearty tone any self-respecting kid would see through.
“Oh, Dad.” Rolled eyes. He knew it. He’d been demoted to “Dad,” too.
“Trev is having a tough time,” he said abruptly.
“Yeah, he doesn’t say much.”
Unhelpful. “I was hoping he did to you.”
“Nuh-uh. I think he’s mad at Mom and you, too, but I don’t know why.” She paused. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”
“Partly,” he admitted, shamed. He tugged at his hair hard enough to hurt. “I always want to talk to you. You know that.”
“I kind of wish I’d come for the summer.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I wish you had, too, honey. I miss you. It’s been too long.”
Bree hadn’t spent this past summer with Richard, either. She’d seemed reluctant with her brother not coming, and Richard hadn’t pushed it. He was sorry now.
“Maybe I can come for Christmas,” she added. “Except then Mom would be alone, so maybe not. Plus I wouldn’t know anyone there.”
“You know me and your brother.”
She made a noncommittal noise. He tried to coax some more information from her about new friends, teachers, anything, but got nuggets like “not really” and “they’re fine.” Finally he gave up and they signed off.
In frustration he thought, This is as good as it’s going to get. I’ll watch her graduate from high school and probably college, help pay for a wedding, walk her down the aisle if stepfather number four or five doesn’t get the nod, and I’ll never really know her. My own daughter.
He’d actually had doubts about whether she really was, although he rarely let them surface. He hadn’t guessed when Bree was born that Alexa was sleeping around, but later… He’d wondered, that’s all. Unlike Trevor, she had her mother’s coloring and enough of her mother’s looks there was no being sure. It didn’t make any difference, though. He’d loved his little girl from the first time he held her, and never stopped. It didn’t really matter if biologically she was his or
