A Father's Promise (7 page)

Renee laughed, tapping the papers straight. “Apparently I was the same way when I was a little girl.” She cut him an apologetic glance as she dropped the papers, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Zach said with a gentle smile. “It’s to be expected to see some similarities.”

Renee’s smile held a hint of melancholy. “I do, but I don’t want to intrude.”

“You haven’t. And I want to say how much I appreciate your tact and consideration. I’m sure this can’t be easy for you.”

Renee fussed with the papers on the table, avoiding his gaze, but he caught a hint of a smile teasing one corner of her mouth. “It isn’t, but at the same time, it’s cathartic for me to know she ended up in such a good place, with such a good mother and father. I’m sad for her that she lost Molly, so I feel like this is one thing I can do for her before I go. Help her document her memories of Molly.”

She looked up at him, and Zach’s heart twisted at Renee’s sincere words coupled with the truth of who Molly really had been.

He wanted to blame his heightened awareness of her on loneliness, but in his deepest heart he knew something else was happening between them.

And before he could stop himself, he closed the small distance between their hands and covered hers with his. He squeezed and she returned his touch.

“So there you are.” Renee’s mother appeared in the doorway, glancing from Zach to Renee. “Tricia said you were still here.”

Renee snatched her hand back, and Zach looked away, hoping Tricia hadn’t caught that little exchange. Thankfully, Tricia didn’t show up, too.

“Are you two done here?”

“Yes. Just cleaning up,” Renee said quietly, her voice holding the faintest tremor. She shook her hair away from her face and shot her mother a quick smile. “Where’s Tricia?”

“Still looking at some stickers she wants for the book. Ashley is helping her.” She looked behind her, then wheeled herself farther into the room. “Zach, I understand you’re looking to buy a house here in Hartley Creek.”

Zach was momentarily taken aback at her comment. “I am. Tricia and I have been staying with my father long enough. I want to settle here. Make a home here.”

“If you’re in the market, our house is for sale.”

Renee frowned. “I don’t know if Zach would be interested—”

“Of course he would.” Mrs. Albertson looked back at Zach. “It’s a beautiful home. My husband was a carpenter, and he fixed it up. It has a large backyard, and the house is big enough that, if you want more family, there’s plenty of room. We had it listed, but our real-estate agent didn’t do much for us, so we decided to try to sell it ourselves.”

“Well, sure. I guess I could look at it.” He had checked out a few houses with a real-estate agent, but hadn’t found anything that caught his eye.

“We’re going to need the money if this store doesn’t sell,” Mrs. Albertson was saying. “I think you would love it, and if you buy the house, it would save us both real-estate fees. And you’re a lawyer, to boot,” Mrs. Albertson said as if everything was already settled. “Why don’t you come by on Saturday?”

“Sure, I think that could work.” His father could look after Tricia.

“Perfect. We’ll see you then.”

Then she spun around and left.

“Um, are you okay with this?” Zach asked Renee after Mrs. Albertson had gone. “Me coming to look at your house?”

“Of course,” Renee said, waving off his objections. “It’s just a house, and the reality is, like my mother said, we’re going to need the money now more than ever if I can’t get the lien off the store in time.”

“It’ll happen,” Zach assured her. He had set up an office appointment for Freddy and Benny to discuss the situation. He was fairly sure they could come to an agreement.

“I really appreciate what you’ve been doing about the lien,” Renee said quietly as they finished cleaning up. “It’s been a needless complication for me.”

“I’m sure you have enough on your mind,” Zach said, returning her careful smile, then he glanced down at what was left of the pictures. “And from the way Tricia worked today, looks as if we might get this scrapbook done by Mother’s Day after all.”

“I think that would be good.”

It wasn’t hard to hear the faint note of relief in her voice. “I want to say how much I appreciate your willingness to do this for Tricia,” Zach said, straightening the box of pictures, shifting the papers to one side. He looked up at her, holding her gaze.

Renee looked away.

Zach caught the faintest glimmer of a tear in one eye and felt like smacking himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting his hand to touch her elbow. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Her only reply was a curt nod as a tear tracked down her cheek. She turned her head and swiped at it with a surreptitious movement.

But as he left, he gave her arm a gentle squeeze, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms and comfort her.

It was definitely time to go.

* * *

Renee glanced around the house, wiping her suddenly damp palms down the legs of her blue jeans. She should have worn a skirt and shirt instead of jeans and a hoodie.

Then she wondered why she cared. She wasn’t a real-estate agent trying to make an impression on a client. She was just a woman trying to sell a house.

To a guy you’re attracted to and the adoptive father of your daughter.

Renee wished, for the hundredth time, that the next few weeks were behind her. Wished that she and her mother were in Vancouver, getting ready for the therapy sessions.

Seeing Tricia every day was like a white-hot agony. How many times had she stopped herself from reaching out and brushing the little girl’s hair away from her face? How often had she dragged her attention away from Tricia’s happy face to the project they were working on?

Yet she couldn’t deny her feelings or change them. Even worse, Zach was woven into the whole business. He was the father of her daughter. A good man, and way more appealing than he had a right to be.

Renee grabbed a pillow and pounded it, taking out her frustrations on the innocent object. She looked around the house again with an assessing eye.

Should have decluttered more, she thought, remembering too late the frequent advice she heard on the TV shows she loved to watch. She walked to the fireplace to remove some of the pictures on the mantel, when a knock on the door stopped her midstride.

Her eyes flew to the grandfather clock tucked in a corner of the living room. Zach was ten minutes early.

She glanced around one more time, stifling the crazy beating of her heart at the thought of Zach in her house, then strode to the door and yanked it open.

Zach stood at the top of the step, looking away from the house, a smile fixed on his face, a lingering scent of soap wafting toward her.

Then he turned to Renee, his deepening smile enhancing the strength of his chin.

He was way too attractive for his own good.

“Was just looking at the view,” he said quietly. “I love the location of this house. Up on a hill like this.”

“That’s why my dad bought it,” Renee said. “I’m so used to it I don’t always notice, but it is beautiful.”

She was babbling. Yanking the front door all the way open, she stood aside. “Come on in.”

Zach glanced over his shoulder again, then stepped into the house.

“So, obviously this is the living room,” Renee said as she watched Zach’s appraising glance flick around the entrance. “When my dad bought it, he had plans to put on a front porch, but after my mother’s accident we needed to make the house more wheelchair accessible, so we added a ramp, and now there’s not really room for a porch. It would be nice to have one, because there’s not much space for boots and such unless you go through the back entrance.”

Again. Stop with the chatter.

Zach didn’t seem to notice, however, as he stepped farther into the house. “How many square feet is the place?”

“About eleven hundred on the main floor. There’re two bedrooms on this level, three rooms upstairs and a basement that we haven’t done much with.”

“Looks homey,” Zach said, his hands shoved into the pockets of his blue jeans. “I like how the living room flows into the dining room.”

“My dad did some renovations. He took down a couple of walls to open up the space.”

“I like the hardwood floors.”

“I do, too. They’re especially wheelchair friendly.”

Zach pointed to the fireplace. “Does that work or is it just for show?”

“My father put an insert in it, so, yes, it is a functioning fireplace.” She followed him as he walked over to it, suppressing the compulsion to rearrange the pictures on the mantel. In one on the far left she was obviously pregnant. Renee had kept the picture as a small way of acknowledging the baby she had borne for nine months.

And as a reminder of the consequences of the poor decisions she’d made in her life.

“How old is the house?” Zach asked.

“It was built in the twenties. My dad rewired it to bring it up to code. Put in insulation in the attic and retrofitted the outside with new siding.”

“You know a lot about the construction of the house,” Zach said, giving her a grin.

“Every day after school I’d stop by, pick up a hammer or nail gun and work beside him,” Renee said. “One summer, I had thoughts of becoming a carpenter.”

“But you started a scrapbook store instead.”

Renee nodded. “I loved helping my father, but I love playing around with paper and glue way more. The store grew out of a hobby my mother and I shared.”

“Sounds like you had a good relationship with your parents.”

Renee gave a wistful smile as she looked around the house. So easily she recalled laughing with her father as she held boards for him to saw, handed him nails and ran a hundred little errands. “I did. My father was a loving, patient man. Took me a while to get over his death.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died of lung cancer about ten years ago. He smoked like a steam engine. I was angry with him because of that.” She stopped herself. Why was she telling him this? She hadn’t talked about her father in years.

Zach held her gaze, frowning.

“The dining room is over here,” Renee said, moving past him, trying to regain control of herself, dismayed at the memories deluging her after all this time. “My father also put in the bay window by the dining-room table and put in new kitchen cabinets.”

Renee walked around the island that held an eating bar with three stools that were only used the times Mia and Evangeline would come over after book club.

“I like the stained-glass lamps,” Zach said, pointing to the set of three small lamp shades suspended over the eating bar. They were red with a pattern of leaves twining around them. Simple but beautiful.

“A girl named Naomi made them a couple of months ago,” Renee said as she flicked the switch to make them come alive. “My mother gave them to me as a birthday present.”

“Would they come with the house?” Zach asked.

Renee felt a flicker of guilt as she switched the lights off, knowing she would have to leave this particular gift behind. She remembered how pleased she’d been with the surprise and how she loved the way they shone in the evenings.

“They would have to,” she said, turning away from them to the rest of the kitchen. “My mother and I will be renting a place in Vancouver. So I can’t bring them along.”

“That’s too bad,” Zach murmured.

“The appliances are older, unfortunately.” Renee waved a hand toward the fridge and stove, surprised at the emotions creeping into her mind. It was as if showing Zach around this house made her realize how much of herself she had invested in it and how much she would be leaving behind.

Don’t think about that. Think about what will happen for your mother.

Those thoughts centered her, and she managed to push the doubts aside.

“You might want to look at replacing them in a couple years. The cabinets are over ten years old now but still in excellent shape.”

“They look great,” Zach said, running his hand along the countertop. “Your dad did quality work.”

“He always told me that if you’re going to do something, do it right or don’t bother.” Renee smiled as she remembered her father’s often-repeated advice.

“I wonder if your dad and my dad went to the same school,” Zach said, opening and closing one of the cupboard doors. “He says the same thing.”

“Your dad is a good lawyer and a wise man.” Renee’s gaze caught Zach’s. Awareness seemed to buzz between them. Renee wanted to dismiss it as merely attraction to a good-looking man, but her heart told her different. Working with him and Tricia had shown her other aspects of his personality that were as appealing as his blue eyes and his strong features.

He was a good father and a good husband. A solid person and, as her father would say, a good man to have beside you in a storm.

She was realizing that she couldn’t do this. She didn’t have space in her busy, complicated life. And he was a problem with no easy solution.

But even as her practical mind told her one thing, her heart, her lonely, yearning heart, pleaded with her to do another.

Chapter Seven

L
ook away. Stop right now.

“So what does the rest look like?” Zach asked, dragging his attention back to the house with an intense effort.

“My mother’s bedroom is on the main floor. I sleep here, as well.” Renee waved her hand to the back of the house. “Did you want to see the rooms? We’ve had to change the bathroom for my mother, but I’m sure that can be changed back.”

Was it his imagination or did Renee sound as breathless as he did?

Please, Lord. Help me to stay focused. And in control.

He clenched his fists as he drew in another steadying breath.

She is the biological mother of your daughter. It’s too complicated.

But even as that thought stormed through his mind another followed.

How easy would it be? A relationship with the woman who gave birth to your daughter?

“It’s okay. I don’t need to see the bedrooms,” he said, dismissing the idea. He was in her house, looking to buy it because she and her mother were moving away. “I wouldn’t mind seeing the basement and the upstairs, though.”

Renee went ahead of him up the narrow stairs that led to the second floor. He glanced behind him before following her up. The house was homey. Cozy. Renee and her mother had made it welcoming and friendly.

He couldn’t help but compare it to the modern apartment Molly had chosen for them when they’d moved to Toronto.

“We haven’t done much up here,” Renee was saying. “My dad had plans of fixing these rooms up, as well. But that didn’t happen...” Her voice trailed off as she opened a door to a room off the narrow hallway at the top of the stairs. “This is the sewing room.”

Zach walked past her and looked inside. A few chairs stood along the wall, a chest was pushed up against another and a dressmaker’s dummy was parked in one corner by a table that held a sewing machine.

“Do you sew?” he asked.

“My mother did.”

Again he heard that muted note of regret in her voice, and again he thought of all the things that had changed not only for Renee but also for Mrs. Albertson after the accident.

He walked across the hall and inspected the other room, smiling at the view the large window afforded him. The space beneath the window was taken up by a long table covered with scraps of paper, stamps and ink. A few completed cards hung from a metal stand at one end of the table.

“Do you work here as well as at the store?”

“Sometimes at night I like to craft. Gives me something to do if my mother is tired.”

“Have you always done this? Work with paper?”

“All my life. My mother said if she wanted to get me out of her hair, all she had to do was give me some scissors, paper, glue and crayons.”

“Now you can play with all the paper you could want.”

“I still get excited when we get a new shipment in,” Renee said with a smile as she straightened a pile of paper, her hands lingering.

“I imagine it will be difficult to give up the store when—” Zach held up his hand as if stopping himself. “Sorry. I don’t need to underline what you’re dealing with.”

Renee gave a melancholy smile. “It will be hard, but I believe it’ll be worth it.”

Silence followed that admission. Then Zach walked out of the room, moving on to another topic.

“I guess I should look at the basement, as well, and pretend I know something about foundations and dry rot and termites,” he said, leading the way down the stairs.

Renee’s gentle laugh warmed his heart. It was good to hear her laugh. She didn’t do it too much.

“I can’t help you there,” she said as she walked past him to a door across from the kitchen. “I know as much about basements as I do about electronics.”

She flicked on a light just inside the door, and he followed her down the worn, wooden stairs.

“This is the part in the movie where the spooky music starts,” Zach said as the stairs creaked under his feet when they descended into the cool, damp basement.

“At least we don’t have to walk in the dark to pull on a string attached to a lightbulb,” Renee added.

“But the humming of those fluorescent lights does add to the creepy ambience,” Zach said, glancing around the large, open space. “I’ll just walk around and frown, and tap on floor joists and look knowledgeable, and then we can go back upstairs where it’s safe,” Zach said, his voice echoing in the cool space.

“Frown away,” Renee said, a note of humor in her voice.

Zach did walk around, envisioning what could be done down here. One corner of the room was taken up with a furnace and hot-water tank. The walls had new insulation but hadn’t been drywalled. The floors held markings of what, he suspected, were future walls. Obviously Renee’s father had plans for this that hadn’t come to fruition.

He returned to where Renee stood at the bottom of the stairs. “I guess that concludes the tour,” he said with a grin.

“Unless you want to see the backyard.”

“I’ve seen enough to know this is a prime piece of real estate and easily worth whatever you and your mother are asking.”

“You don’t even know the price,” Renee said, leading the way up the stairs.

“Don’t need to,” he said. “I just moved from Toronto. Anything here is a bargain compared to the prices there. But you might want to talk to your lawyer first.”

“
You
are my lawyer.”

“Then you’re in a tough situation.”

“Why don’t I make a cup of coffee and we can figure something out,” she said, taking the pot from the coffeemaker and turning on the tap water.

“Sounds like a good idea.” Zach didn’t mind sitting down with Renee for a while.

He slipped his hands in his pockets as he walked to the bay window overlooking the huge yard. Flower beds flanked by a wide flagstone walkway stretched along the fence on one side of the yard. A cluster of tall trees shaded one corner. A wooden swing attached to rope hung from their overhanging branches. Some chairs sat beside a fire pit in the shade of the trees. Zach could easily see Tricia playing in the large, fenced-in area. In Toronto, all she’d had was a small balcony. She would love it here.

The coffeemaker burbled as Renee set mugs out, then put together a plate with cookies and brownies. His mouth watered at the sight. They looked homemade.

“How do you take your coffee?” she asked as she filled his mug.

“Just black,” he said, pulling out two chairs. “Adding cream and sugar to my coffee wastes billable time.”

“I guess every second counts,” she returned with a smile as she set the pot on the counter. “But I’m not going to counter with any lawyer jokes. I still need you to get the lien off the store.”

“I understand the buyer is getting antsy. Do you think she’s still interested?”

“I hope so. She was the only one who replied to my ad.”

Zach felt a flash of sympathy at the anxiety in her voice. He knew what was on the line for her with the sale of the store and, in an unguarded moment, reached over and covered her hand with his.

When he felt the warmth of her hand, he regretted his impulse, but when her fingers twined around his, all reservations fled.

“Could you rent the store out? Get someone else to manage it?” he said, wishing he could help her with more than advice.

Renee shook her head, still holding his hand as if his touch anchored her. “I need everything I can get my hands on to pay off the loan on the store, and pay the bills for the treatment and living expenses for the year and possibly longer if things don’t go as well as we hope—” Her voice broke and she pressed her lips together, cutting short whatever else she might have said.

Zach was quiet a moment, letting her gain control. “This is quite a sacrifice you’re making for your mother,” he said quietly. “You’re an amazing daughter.”

“I’m far from an amazing daughter,” she said.

“That’s not true. I see how attentive you are. How caring. I can’t think of anyone who would be willing to give up their home, their job, their career for the sake of their mother’s health like you are.”

Renee slowly shook her head. “It’s no sacrifice. It’s payment.”

“What do you mean, ‘payment’?”

Renee’s silence drew out the tension. She said nothing more, but Zach felt as if he was on the verge of discovering something important.

“What
kind
of payment?” he asked, encouraging her to speak.

Renee pressed her lips together as if holding back the words, then with a gentle shake of her head she spoke. “I’m the one who put her in that wheelchair.”

“What do you mean?”

Renee pulled her hands away from him, twisting them around each other. “I was the one driving when the accident happened,” she continued. “The accident was my fault.”

Her words fell like stones, taking with them anything he might say. All Zach heard in the heavy silence following her shocking confession was the faint tick of a clock, the hum of the refrigerator.

He dug through his mind, trying to find some way to comfort her, to take away the pain that laced her voice, but he knew anything he said would come across as trite and meaningless.

So he simply laid his hand on her shoulder in assurance and, he hoped, solace.

He waited a moment, then spoke. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I try not to.” Her words came out slowly, weighted with sorrow. “It hurts too much to think about it, let alone talk about it.”

“I think it might help if you did.”

She shook her head. But Zach knew that even the most reluctant witness would often speak to fill a silence. So he waited.

Then after a long, slow intake of breath, she began, her voice pitched low and quiet. “I was in a bad place in my life. My boyfriend, Dwight, and I had been partying pretty hard. I was wasting my time in college, not living the life I should have. I’d turned my back on God and my mother. Not good.” Renee released a bitter laugh. “We were in the car together, fighting about that. Then we came to a tight corner on the road...” She faltered, and Zach tightened his hold on her shoulder.

“I wasn’t paying attention to my driving. The road was wet, and because I was so focused on trying to convince her I was right, I didn’t make the corner. The car swerved and I drove it over a steep embankment. It landed on the passenger side. My mother...she was...she was injured and I—” She stopped there, turning her head away from him, her gaze fixed on the window. “I was okay.”

Her knuckles were white. “I can still hear my mother screaming in pain. Still feel the helplessness of not being able to take it away.” She drew in another shaky breath. “It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to come. I was fine, my baby was fine, but my mother wasn’t.”

Zach was confused by her comment, then came the shocking realization.

“You were pregnant when the accident happened,” he said quietly, his hand moving over her shoulder.

She nodded, her eyes straight ahead. “We were arguing about the baby when I drove off the road. My mother was trying to persuade me to keep the baby, telling me that she would help me take care of her. I wanted to give her up for adoption. Dwight had left me. He didn’t want any part of a baby in his life, and I knew I couldn’t take care of her the way I should.” Her lip trembled and tears coursed down her cheeks, glistening in the light from the window. She hastily brushed them away, shaking her head, releasing a harsh laugh. “Sorry. Don’t know why I’m so emotional about this now. It happened eight years ago.”

Zach heard the anguish in her voice and guessed the reality of having Tricia in her life now brought back memories from that time.

She swallowed and continued, “Dwight had left me, and I really couldn’t take care of myself, let alone a baby. But my mother really wanted a grandchild—” Her voice staggered to a halt. She took a quick breath then continued, “When I found out the extent of her injuries, I knew there was no way Mom could help me take care of a baby. She would need me to care for her full-time. So I gave her up.” She stopped there, covering her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry,” she said, stumbling over the words. “I’m sorry.”

The air was thick with loss and sorrow, and Zach couldn’t sit by idly anymore. He pulled her into his arms.

He said nothing, just held her as her sobs built in intensity, racking her body, and her tears dampened his shirt.

His heart broke for Renee and the difficult choice she’d been faced with, the sacrifice she’d made for the sake of her mother.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he said, raising his hand to stroke her damp hair away from her face.

But she kept crying, her anguished sobs tearing at his heart. He rocked her gently, stroking her hair, whispering quiet encouragement as he helped her navigate this storm.

Please, Lord,
he prayed,
help me find the right words to say to this sorrowing woman. Help me to do the right thing for her.

Because right now, in spite of his own misgivings, he didn’t want to let her go.

* * *

Renee wanted to stop the tears and grief pouring out of her like waves. But it washed over her, mocking the self-control she had struggled to shore up from the moment she’d found out about her mother’s injuries. From that moment, she’d known she had to choose between her mother or her baby.

Zach’s arms around her created a haven and, as the sorrow subsided, a shelter she didn’t want to leave.

His voice murmured into her hair; his hands stroked her arm, soothing and comforting. Strength and security.

Her head felt hot and achy, and slowly she became aware of the dampness of Zach’s shirt. From her tears. She made a token effort to pull away from him, but his arms tightened around her.

“It’s okay,” Zach whispered, his hand pressing her head back into the crook of his neck.

So she kept her eyes closed, letting herself drift against him and the sanctuary of his arms. Just a few more moments, she promised herself. Just a few more seconds of letting someone else be strong for her. She’d had to carry so much, it was a blessed relief to just rest against the solidity of Zach’s comfort.