LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t want to ask,” Grace said slowly, “but will you tell me more of the background? How long you’ve been divorced, for example?”

      He picked up the wineglass from the table, looked at it, set it down. “Six years. Claire was seven. Miranda’s drinking was a problem between us, but she didn’t drink and drive, and I thought Claire was better with her. I thought, for a girl, that her mother was important.”

      At last Grace put down the spoon. “And Claire?”

      He shook his head. “There was so much tumult, I just don’t know. I assumed she’d rather stay with her mother.” Sounding stiff, he added, “Obviously now she wants to be with her, so I guess I was right.”

      Or very, very wrong, Grace thought but didn’t say.

      “I assume you continued to see her.”

      He began rubbing the back of his neck. “Not as often as I should have. I was transferred up here from the Bay Area. I talked to her on the phone, but when you’re not living with someone it gets harder and harder to think of anything to say. She was supposed to spend summers, but Miranda had her in swimming lessons and an arts program, and I work long hours, so—” his eyes closed briefly “—I took the easy road.”

      “She never came?” Grace couldn’t help sounding shocked.

      “Oh, two weeks here and there. It was…not comfortable.” His eyes met hers, his hooded. “I’d take time off, but she didn’t want to do anything. She was always sullen. I thought it was her age. Or later I figured it was me. I wasn’t real life for her. Eventually—” he grimaced “—I realized that real life was doing the grocery shopping and coaxing her hungover mother out of bed in the morning and making excuses to the boss if she couldn’t. The first couple of years, Claire would show off her report card. This past couple, she stopped. I found out that’s because she had so many tardies and unexcused absences, she was flunking. I flew down for a visit at the end of the last school year and talked to teachers and Miranda. Claire threw a fit, but I packed her up and brought her home with me. She’s been trying to run away ever since. And that,” he said, “is the whole pathetic story.”

      “I’m sorry.” She stirred uselessly again. “This must be very difficult.”

      “Being her father?” he asked ironically. “Or admitting to you how inadequate I am?”

      “Well, both.”

      He said something under his breath that she suspected was profane, and then took a swallow of the wine. The stare he gave her held a challenge. “You were the one who was going to say your piece, as I recall. Somehow, I seem to have done all the talking instead.”

      “Yes.” She made a business of 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,

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