she’d left Grace with someone who didn’t have the ability to care for her. Jack could learn. She had, but that wasn’t the issue. The true issue was whether she was really willing to let her past, her fears, have so much control over her that she was willing to let Grace suffer while Jack learned to take care of her. Is that who she was? Who she’d become?
If so, why hadn’t she left as soon as she’d handed Grace over? Ran back to the train station and used the last of her funds to buy a ticket that would have taken her as far away as possible?
“Do you need to return to Chicago immediately?”
“No.” Helen closed her eyes at how quickly she responded. Heaviness filled her as she opened her eyes and looked at Jack. She had no idea what to say, what to do. It was as if she was caught in a trap even stronger than the one she’d lived in the past few years.
If Jack had been alone, he might have spewed an entire sentence of curse words, but he wasn’t alone. The woman standing before him was hiding something, and she was holding his niece. His niece. And he didn’t have a clue as to what to do about that. About either of them. He’d never been so out of his element as when Grace had started to cry. Nor had he ever been so relieved as when Helen had shown back up in the doorway.
He’d also never seen fear in someone’s eyes like what had appeared in hers when he’d asked if she had to return to Chicago.
Damn it to hell, this shouldn’t even be his problem. It should be Joe’s.
Which is precisely what made it his. And why it fit so well. Every time he was almost there, almost to the point where everything was good and right, Joe stepped in. It had been that way his entire life. So why should it change now?
Angry like he hadn’t been in some time, he spun around. Ran a hand through his hair, and tried to think. Nothing came to him, much like a few minutes ago, when Grace had been crying.
He huffed a breath of scalding air, full of anger toward Joe for once again leaving him with a mess to clean up, and then drew in another breath. His hands were tied, like they had been so many times before.
Unlike his brother, he’d always accepted that honesty was the best policy, so he turned around. “I have to be up front with you. I don’t have a clue how to take care of a baby, nor do I have a clue where Joe is. Last I heard it was Florida, and I will call some connections I have there, see if they’ve heard from him, know where he is, but it could be days, weeks, before I learn about his whereabouts.”
She didn’t make a move, or say a word, other than to glance down at the baby in her arms.
Frustration had his nerve endings tingling. “And there’s more. I have a movie to make. The actors have been hired, the sets have been built, the script’s written. We start filming in the morning. I have two months, eight weeks from start to finish, to get it filmed, edited and ready to show. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll have to lock the doors of the studio permanently.” He’d never admitted that realization, not even to himself, but it was the truth. The movies he’d made the last couple of years had been small-budget productions, and the minimum runs they’d been given in theaters had barely been enough to pay the salaries of his crew and the actors, especially once the Broadbents had been given payments toward Joe’s debt.
Her gaze was on him, and remained there as she nodded.
At a loss, he let out a sigh. “I know that’s not your problem. That none of this is your problem.” He wished it wasn’t his problem, either, but it was. That little girl in her arms was his niece and like it or not, he couldn’t turn his back on her. “But I don’t know what to do, other than to ask you what it will take for you to agree to continue to care for Grace for the next eight weeks?”
“Eight weeks?”
The fear in her eyes returned full force. He didn’t want yet another issue, but couldn’t deny that it was his only option to deal with it. Whatever it was. “You have to level with me, doll. Tell me what’s really going on. Why you’re acting like some moll on the lam.”
Her head snapped back as if she’d been struck a blow on the chin. “I’m not a moll, and I’m not your doll, either.”
There was fire in her eyes, which was surprising considering how meek she’d been a moment ago. He hadn’t meant she was a gangster’s gal, or his doll, but that really had struck a nerve with her. Which he was going to take advantage of now that he had her full attention. “Then what are you?”
A frown filled her face, but not her eyes, they were still snapping.
“Why are you hiding and what are you running from?” he added.
She stood stock-still for so long he wondered if she was going to answer. When she did finally move, it was to lift the baby in her arms up against one shoulder and pat Grace’s small back. He held his silence. Watching her movements. Once again, the idea of filming her entered his mind. He had to push it away, which wasn’t easy. Her movements were elegant, smooth. Graceful. It was her thoughtfulness, that really held his attention. How she was contemplating her next move. The audience would see that too, and wonder, just as he was, what she was about to say.
“I came here fully expecting to give Grace to her father, that he’d know how to take care of her.”
“And then?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He could tell she was being honest, and honesty brought honesty. “I haven’t talked to my brother in over two years, but would doubt he’d know any more about taking care of a baby than I do.”
“Why haven’t you talked to him in two years?”
He was tired of standing, and figured she was too, so waved at the sofa, silently inviting her to sit down.
She watched him cautiously as she crossed the room and then perched herself on the edge of the cushion, almost as if prepared to jump up and run for the door all over again.
He sat in the chair next to the sofa, but it wasn’t standing that he was tired of, it was this—another obstacle. “I haven’t talked to Joe in two years because he was blackballed from acting in Hollywood and left the state. I tried to smooth things over, but...” He shook his head. There hadn’t been anything he could do. No one had wanted to hear him defend his brother. He’d told Joe that, and that he wasn’t going to lose his standings for Joe’s mistakes. Not again. That’s when Joe had sold out to the Broadbents and left town.
“What had he done to become blackballed?”
“Misconduct.” He shrugged. In truth, Joe’s actions had been no different than half the men in Hollywood, more maybe, he was just the one unlucky enough to get tangled up with the wrong doll. The movie industry wanted the world to believe they had standards and every once in a while, they pulled out a stool pigeon to prove a point. That had been Joe. Jack understood all this, but that didn’t mean he condoned Joe’s actions. Fooling around with a married woman was wrong and one married to a topliner was downright reckless. He shook his head. “Joe had been a good actor, had become popular, and he’d let that popularity go to his head.”
She frowned. “Will
