until his whole body felt on fire. “Please, call me Gemma.”
“Gemma...” Realizing he’d been holding on for far too long as he ran his thumb across her silky-smooth skin, he practically jerked his hand away from hers. He lifted his arm, wishing for his old and familiar hat to hide behind, and had to settle for running his fingers through his too long, damp hair instead. “Nice to meet you. Hope Janie here hasn’t been talking your ear off.”
As expected, his daughter gave a huffing sigh, one that had Gemma’s smile widening. “Not at all. She’s been keeping me company.”
Was Janie right? Could Gemma be vacationing alone? Interest and anticipation buzzed along his nerve endings even as Hank dismissed the possibility. Okay, so maybe he had thought a time or two about jumping back in the dating pool, but this... This would be like launching right off Owl Rock and into the rushing waterfall that gave the town its name. He’d be in over his head the moment he hit water.
“I was telling my dad how you’re from New York. And—Oh!” Janie’s eyes widened as she grabbed hold of his hand. “Gemma...have you seen the new Disney musical on Broadway?”
Hank tried not to groan. Ever since Janie’s favorite actress had left her hit television series to pursue a stage career, his daughter had been obsessed with New York.
“Have I seen it?”
Gemma rose to her feet, and Hank realized she was taller than he first thought, the top of her head coming right to his chin. The perfect height for holding her in his arms. Not that Hank had any intention of testing out that theory.
He was a small-town single dad who hadn’t been on a date in well over a decade. Besides, if he needed a visual reference for the phrase out of his league, Gemma Chapman would be it.
“I love going to the theater,” she was saying, “and that’s one of my favorite musicals.”
“I know all the songs,” Janie boasted.
“Which one do you like best?”
This time Hank didn’t bother holding back the groan. One Gemma clearly heard as she shot him a look. Her dewy lips pressed together, trying to hide a smile, as his beautiful, smart, talented and completely tone-deaf daughter started belting out the Oscar-winning song.
A few people in nearby lounge chairs glanced over, but Janie didn’t care. Obviously Gemma didn’t either, as she too started to sing. Thanks to Janie, Hank had heard the song and seen the DVD numerous times, and the words—like the melody—had been little more than background noise.
But Gemma didn’t sing the lyrics so much as she seemed to embrace them. No keeping it in, no holding back...just letting it go. And as she lifted her head, her long dark hair trailing down her slender back, something inside Hank sparked to life. Something that had been, well, frozen for far too long.
Get a grip, Harlow! You’re way too old to be taking life lessons from Disney.
By the big finale, the people around them gave a round of applause that had Gemma laughing breathlessly. Even though a bloom of color brightened her cheeks, she brazened out the sudden attention and gave a graceful curtsy, one that Janie immediately copied.
“This afternoon’s entertainment has been brought to you by Janie and Gemma,” Gemma added with all the flourish of an MC hosting an awards ceremony.
“That was awesome!” Janie practically bounced on her bare toes in her excitement.
“Janie’s right. That was...awesome,” Hank echoed. The blush in Gemma’s cheeks deepened as their gazes met and held, but just like she had with the unexpected applause, she didn’t back down. Awareness rippled between them, and Hank wasn’t sure when he had moved, but he suddenly noticed a puddle of water from his navy trunks had formed at his feet and was inching toward Gemma’s purple-painted toes and sequined flip-flops.
Who wore sequins at a pool?
He took a stumbling step back to keep from dripping on her fancy shoes, nearly tripping over the lounger behind him. He’d barely caught his balance when Janie added, “I totally wanted to go to New York to see the musical, but we’d already booked the hotel here. I’m hoping I can go later this summer with my other dad.”
“Other dad?” At that, Gemma’s dark brows winged upward as she gave him a somewhat-surprised look.
His face already burning, Hank quickly said, “My ex-wife remarried a year and a half ago.”
“Ah, I see.”
Did she? Somehow Hank doubted it. Not that he was about to explain that Dan Stockton was more than simply Janie’s stepdad. The man was in fact Janie’s biological father. And the daughter Hank had raised from birth—the baby girl he’d held in his arms when she was only minutes old, the one he’d rocked into the wee hours of the morning when she was sick or teething, the one who’d taken her first stumbling steps while holding on to his thumbs—was not actually his.
And neither was the woman he’d been married to.
In reality Hank had been little more than a placeholder in Anne’s life. A second-best substitute who had stepped in at a time when she had been alone and afraid. From the start Anne had been completely honest. She’d told him all about Daniel Stockton, the young man she had been in love with since high school. How she had thought they would be together forever, how he had disappeared after his parents were killed in a car accident and how she was pregnant with his child.
Hank had asked Anne to marry him anyway, believing in time she would forget about Dan. He’d been so sure that if he took care of her and treated her right, eventually she would grow to love him. And Anne had said yes, certain Dan Stockton was never coming back to Rust Creek Falls.
In the end, though, they’d both been wrong.
“What else do you like to do, Janie?” Gemma asked. “Other than sing?”
Sitting across a table loaded with chips, popcorn and soft drinks, Hank gave a wry half smile. She had a feeling their impromptu duet had embarrassed him, but he hadn’t let it show, praising his daughter’s efforts...if not her actual talent.
A completely different reaction to how Gemma’s own mother and stepfather would have responded. In Diane and Gregory Chapman’s socially structured mind, everything had a time and a place. Performing on stage at a carefully orchestrated and choreographed pageant or school performance was one thing. Singing a cappella poolside was something else.
Her mother would have been mortified, and Gemma didn’t even have to try hard to picture how the disappointment and disapproval would have pulled at the features so similar to her own. When Gemma wasn’t struggling to rub the image of Chad and Melanie from the inside of her eyelids, she was trying to forget her mother’s reaction when she called off the wedding.
Think of the embarrassment, Gemma!
Because, yes, the real scandal was Gemma calling off the wedding weeks before her walk down the aisle. Not her fiancé’s sleeping with her best friend.
But
