Texas Dad (Fatherhood) (14 page)

He hurried around the cab and opened her door. They parted with a lingering touch of the barest of fingertips.

From her room, she crossed the patio, entering Mack’s bedroom from the poolside. She beat him there. In the alcove that doubled as his office, she booted up her laptop, accessed her photography software and turned on Mack’s printer. Waiting for him to arrive, she wandered around his bedroom, studying things she’d not taken time to observe before. Other than the crocheted bedspread hanging again on the quilt rack, the room was wholly masculine with dark walls and dark wood furniture. Two eight-by-ten glossy photographs hung on the wall behind his nightstand. On taking a closer look, J.J. saw they were two of her early photographs. The sunset at South Padre Island brought back warm memories, as did the print below, which she recalled taking of their group of college friends their senior year. Everyone was so young and happy then, she thought, studying each face. She wondered why none of them had kept in touch.

Mack came in carrying two glasses of lemonade. Bending, he kissed the back of her neck before handing her one of the glasses. “I can give you nicer photos to hang on your wall. All centered better. I took these so early in my career I’m ashamed of how rough they are.”

“I like them, so hands off,” he said, flopping down on his bed.

Smiling, J.J. carried her drink to the alcove. “No peeking over my shoulder, now,” she reminded him, and soon immersed herself in work. “Zoey is so photogenic,” she said, half to herself. “It’s not easy choosing between these shots.” She printed the one of Zoey and her horse and slipped it into a folder to keep Mack from seeing it. She passed over the next two, but chose the following one, a photo of Zoey in the gold jacket, head slightly tilted, laughing as sun flooded the patio. Her hair appeared redder, her hazel eyes greener, and her mouth uptilted on one side. J.J. blinked as she was starkly reminded of someone else—a face she’d just viewed in the group photo hanging on Mack’s wall.
But not Faith’s.
Her stomach tensed. Forcing her legs to support her, J.J. got up, snatched the picture off the wall and sat heavily beside Mack on the bed. She grabbed his hand.

He bolted up off the pillow. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have,” she said, licking her lips. “Mack, I don’t know a delicate way to put this, but I have to ask. What if...what if Zoey’s not your daughter?” she blurted.

Mack stiffened.

“I’m sorry. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but I took a picture of Zoey that’s a younger version of Tom Corbin.” She drew Mack’s attention to a laughing man in the college print. “During Zoey’s and my photo shoot I had an odd sense of déjà vu when I was centering her in my viewfinder. It’s blatantly obvious now, why. God, I’m so sorry, but look for yourself!”

Mack clapped his hand over her mouth. “Shh. No one knows. Not Erma, not Benny, not Tom’s family, or Faith’s. I promised her I’d keep her secret. She seemed to know I’d have to fight her folks in court to keep them from raising Zoey. See, their religion is a cult. Faith grew up under fear and abuse. Her parents did try to take Zoey. The land I told you I sold... The money went to pay legal fees. No matter what,” he said fiercely, “Zoey is
my
daughter.” He thumped his chest. “I walked the floor with her many nights. I tended her boo-boos. I took her to her first day of kindergarten. My name’s on her birth certificate.”

J.J. blanched. “I don’t understand. I heard Faith crying, telling you she was pregnant, and you said you’d handle everything. I...I... You acted like you’d gotten her pregnant.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The night I left! I came by to tell you about the scholarship to the Sorbonne. I wanted us to move up our wedding date and then I wouldn’t go to Paris. I saw you and Faith in the kitchen. I...heard...it all. It hurt me so much, I ran away.”

Mack gripped her arms. “I loved you. I thought you loved me. How could you think I’d sleep with anyone else? All this time...” His eyes blazed and he squeezed her arms. “You believed so ill of me?”

“Stop, you’re hurting me, Mack.”

He released her at once, but she stood, dropped the college photo on his bed and rubbed her arms. “I did love you, Mack. How could I stay after what I overheard? You never tried to get in touch after I sent back your ring.”

“I had no idea why you sent it back. I was frantic. I called your mom. She said you had a better opportunity and took it. She said you left because your main goal was to advance your career.”

“Yes, well, we both know my mother glories in status. But, Mack, you have to tell Zoey the truth. She’s old enough to understand. Tom has parents and a sister who deserve to know. Zoey may have cousins near her age. No good can come from hiding the truth.”

Mack sliced a hand through the air. “Telling her is out of the question. Reverend Adams would reopen their custody suit. Faith and Tom had planned to elope. When he was killed she was scared to death to tell her folks she was pregnant. I volunteered to let her stay here until she could decide what to do. And then you took off, so don’t lecture me, okay? Anyway, what makes a parent if not love?”

“Trust! How can you ask me that? You saw me fall apart when I found out my mother let me live a lie. No matter the kind of man my real dad was, she stole my choice to meet him. Is that what you want for Zoey?”

“Not an issue. She’s never going to find out about Tom. If you’d stuck around, Faith would have let us adopt her baby. That’s what she hoped—that you and I would take her baby, rather than let her be raised in a cult. She didn’t have the strength to fight her folks alone. They’d always intimidated her.”

“I’m sorry, Mack. I knew Faith had a difficult home life. But...compounding wrongs doesn’t make a right.”

“It’s for me to decide, Jill. You left me. I protected Faith the only way I could. Her doctors said she was risking her life to have Tom’s baby. When she went into premature labor, I swore to keep her secret. It’s my name on Zoey’s birth certificate. I
am
her father. If you can’t accept that, then you and I have no chance, Jill.”

Pain ripped through her. She saw that Mack meant what he said. The love she thought they’d rekindled snuffed out like a candle. It was all she could do to walk back to the printer and print the telltale photo of Zoey. She added it to the folder. “Give these to Zoey, please,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I’ll pack and be gone from here before Amanda Evers brings Zoey home.” Head held high, she left Mack. In the tile hallway her boot heels clicked ominously. Every step rang out,
Finished, finished, finished.

She packed swiftly. Her heart hurt too badly for her to find Erma to say goodbye. J.J. wrote her a note that simply said something had come up in New York. She addressed it to Erma, but left it on her pillow. J.J. had never expected to fall in love with Mack again, but she had, and the pain of leaving this second time threatened to be even worse than the first. She didn’t want to cry on the drive back to Lubbock, but she did.

Chapter Twelve

Because she’d switched her plane ticket, J.J. had to make several stops and arrived at her apartment midmorning a day after she left Texas. The only positive thing about the long trip was that it gave her ample opportunity to write and send in the article on Mack. It was a load off her mind. And yet, in the aftermath of the joyous camaraderie at the ranch, her home felt empty—like her heart.

Off and on she checked her cell phone, hoping Mack would call to say he had thought things over and saw her point about not letting Zoey live a lie. Mack had his family history that made him proud. Tom Corbin probably had a proud family history, too. And yet, there were no missed calls on her phone.

Exhausted as she was, she couldn’t stand the silence, but neither did she feel like getting together with friends. She settled on going to Sunday brunch at a favorite café, hoping to reacclimate to her life—to city life. She ate a calorie-laden cinnamon roll while fashioning a mental list of everything she already missed about Texas—the ranch, yes. Zoey, Benny, Erma and Sonja, but above all, Mack.
This was not helping her.

She paid her bill and went to a movie, a sad one where no one cared if she cried. Walking home afterward, J.J. decided she’d wallowed in self-pity long enough. She unpacked and prepared to go to work on Monday. She had laundry to keep her occupied until then. Laundry and nagging thoughts that she might have been too hasty, too harsh in her judgment. She’d done that once and had been terribly wrong. She’d misjudged Mack and Faith.

Poor Faith.
J.J. dug clothes out of the dryer and imagined what she might have done in Faith’s place. While her own mom had been difficult at times, J.J. had never been browbeaten, or worse, abused.

And Mack, heavens, he had really done an honorable thing, marrying a woman he knew to be in trouble and in ill health—when there was every reason to believe he would be left to raise a baby alone. Anybody with eyes could see he adored Zoey as if she were his own. He and Erma had given Zoey love and solid values.

JJ looked around. Her clothes were done and now what? She still had too many hours to wrestle with her conscience.

* * *

A
T
T
URKEY
C
REEK
Ranch, Mack acted like a grouchy bear. He didn’t join the family for supper the evening Jill left. During breakfast the next day he ignored questions about her precipitous departure.

“I need to call J.J., Dad, and thank her for printing my pictures. I didn’t think she’d leave before we had a chance to say goodbye. I have to email her.”

“You don’t,” Mack said, glowering at everyone who watched him with interest. Zoey’s lips quivered as she fought unhappiness.

Mack poured ketchup on his scrambled eggs instead of salsa, something he never did. “Zoey, just forget that Jill Walker came here and disrupted our lives.”

She stared openmouthed at her dad. Benny, too, reared his head. “What happened to you and Jilly patching things—”

Mack cut Benny off with a dark scowl. He abruptly bolted up, grabbed his hat off the rack and stomped out the back door, leaving everyone in the room staring from his blood-red eggs to the still-vibrating screen door.

“Eat up, y’all,” Erma gestured with her fork. “Can’t let good food go to waste all because Mackenzie’s ham-headed.”

* * *

J.J.’
S
BOSS
POKED
her head around the corner of the break room where J.J. stood alone, doctoring her coffee. “Here you are,” Donna said. “The article and photos you sent in for our hot August cowboy are sensational. We replaced the original pictures on our website with your new ones. We’d already received dozens of entries. Everyone wants to be the lucky lady to deliver the check for that hottie’s charity.”

J.J. poured yet another heaping spoonful of sugar into her already sweet coffee. “Donna, I’d like to help pick the winner.”

Donna leaned against the counter. “Why? Up to now you’ve avoided that chore like the plague.”

Selfish reasons cycled through J.J.’s head, but she only said, “Mack’s daughter is so sweet. And as you know, she wants a mom, a woman her dad can fall instantly in love wi-with.” J.J. stumbled over her last word.

Donna stared at J.J. “Why don’t I think you’ll find anyone suitable?”

J.J. had to turn away from her boss’s all-seeing gaze. “Please. At least let me double-check the background reports.”

“Okay. Frankly I had no idea about the popularity of cowboys. I’m considering extending the campaign for another year and doing twelve months of nothing but cowboys and ranchers.”

Donna’s secretary buzzed the room to say she had a phone call, so she ducked out.

J.J. followed, going to her own cubicle to do nothing but stare at the wall. Next year didn’t matter. She told herself Mack would be old news by then. He could well be old-married-news by then.

For the most part, the rest of her week was crappy. She felt confined and depressed. June 1st, Mack’s birthday, passed. JJ found herself wanting to call Zoey to see what her dad thought of the birthday photographs. But she resisted.

June dragged on. JJ gagged on every contest entry Donna sent over for her to read. She grew restless and yet she didn’t ask for an international assignment even though New York’s streets felt too crowded, her apartment, hollow. Friends invited her to a Fourth of July party, but she declined. Moping about at home, she wondered if Mack had capitulated and gone to the holiday dance with Trudy Thorne. Her jealousy flared as red as the dress she remembered the brazen woman wearing.

Knowing this wasn’t good for her, she went shopping on the weekend. She only bought items for Zoey. A cute gray wool jacket, natural makeup designed for teens, a polka-dot cardigan and shampoo with an orange scent. Lastly, a book on braid styles—since the ranch had sporadic internet access at best, JJ thought the book would come in handy if Zoey wanted to try some new looks. She carefully packed everything and shipped the box before talking herself out of it. Mack wouldn’t like her resurfacing in his life—or Zoey’s. Actually, a hope lingered that he might be so angry with her that he’d phone. And wasn’t that pathetic—her wanting to hear his voice at any cost? So many times she’d started to call him. But darn-it-all, she wanted him to make the first move.

She capitulated to Donna’s request that she go to London and shoot winter fashions. It should have taken her mind off Mack, but didn’t. Before leaving New York, she reviewed the finalists to win the date with Mack. All of the women had been background-checked and approved. Donna had been right—J.J. found fatal flaws in all of the women.

While she was in London, J.J.’s mom phoned, sounding young and excited, announcing her plans to marry Arne Biddle. J.J. no longer needed to subsidize her mother’s apartment. Mercy, that meant she could finally think about leaving her day job. It should have made her ecstatic but only underscored the fact that her mom was on husband number three while J.J. had spent years loving one man who didn’t love her enough in return.
Oh, but was that fair?

Home August 1st, J.J. wearily unpacked and tried to figure out if she could afford to quit
Her Own Woman
in order to freelance. She was so deep in thought that her cell phone startled her when it rang. Her heart seized as she recognized the La Mesa prefix. “He...llo,” she managed, in spite of barely breathing.

“Jill? It’s Erma.”

J.J.’s heart plunged. “Erma, are you all right? Is something wrong at the ranch?”

The housekeeper tsked. “I’m up and walking. Not running any footraces yet. Sonja’s leaving us next week.”

“That’s...nice,” J.J. said.

“I just wanted to see how you’re doing. Zoey got your gifts and you’re all she can talk about. Not about the gifts, but about how much she misses you.”

“Um, I’m glad she likes what I sent.”

“Well, the more she mentions you, the more sullen Mack is. Mind if I ask what went on between you two? Benny and I want to know if either of us can help heal the rift, whatever happened.”

“Oh, Erma.” J.J. started to cry, finally allowing herself to explain what happened the night she’d come across Mack consoling the newly pregnant Faith. She didn’t mention the cause of their last argument.

Erma listened without interruption until J.J. wound down, then she said, “Jill, Mack’s marriage was never right. I saw that. Faith’s bad heart was a result of rheumatic fever not treated when she was young. She knew pregnancy was a risk. One day when I drove her to the doctor, she flat out told me she loved another man—a college friend of Mack’s who was killed in a motorcycle wreck. Guy by the name of Tom. Faith said she’d do anything to keep Reverend Adams from getting his hooks in her baby. I shouldn’t share this, but...Faith didn’t sleep in Mack’s room. And yet, after she passed, he had her buried in the Bannerman family plot.”

“That’s a good thing for Zoey,” J.J put in.

“Right, but it incensed Faith’s daddy. Mack shelled out a fortune to keep custody of Zoey. Faith’s folks sued to raise her, but the judge ruled for Mack.” At J.J.’s silence, Erma added, “I probably should’ve kept all of that to myself, but something I know is families don’t have to be blood. Zoey, me, Benny, Mack, we’d all be in hog heaven if you’d come back. You love him, don’t you?”

J.J. sighed. “I can’t deny it. I always have. But sometimes love isn’t enough, Erma.”

“Of course it is. Love trumps everything that happens in life. Anyway, I’ve gotta go. Suppertime. Come back, please. If you can’t, at least call Zoey.”

Throughout the night J.J. wrestled with her addled brain and her weighty heart. In the morning she was bleary eyed as she watched a smoldering August sun try to cut through Manhattan’s haze. She’d come to several realizations. First, she knew now that her love for Mack was strong. Second, despite how heartbroken she’d been over her mother and Rex’s deception, she forgave them. They only did what they thought was best for her. Wasn’t that where Mack stood? In his eyes Zoey was
his
child. And truthfully, Zoey might be happier to not have to deal with the truth until she was grown up.

J.J. showered, dressed and took a cab to work. They’d hit the wire to pick the reader to send to meet Mack on August 20th.

At noon, J.J. walked into Donna’s office and shut the door. “I have a confession and a request,” she said without preamble. “I’ve loved Mackenzie Bannerman since we were in college. I broke up with him and we went our separate ways due to a stupid misunderstanding. But I never stopped loving him. You sent me back there and I’ve walked away from him again. I’ve been miserable ever since.”

Donna rolled a pen between her hands. “I’ve seen that, J.J. We all have. You’re a fine photographer. I’d hate to lose you. I have to choose a reader today to go meet him. Plane tickets and other arrangements need to be settled. What can I do to help you?”

“I can’t resolve things with Mack from here. I want you to send me with his check. I believe I’m the only reader who can fulfill Zoey Bannerman’s wish for a mother.” J.J. handed her boss a letter she’d composed that morning, her entry to the contest. It made Donna a bit weepy.

“I’m fully aware that I can’t work for the magazine and be considered,” J.J. said. “For a long time I’ve dreamed of freelancing. So I’m also tendering my resignation.” She set a shorter note on top of the tearstained letter.

Donna cleared her throat. “This is actually a timely request, J.J. As much as I hate to, I need to cut some corners for the budget, and I’d save a fair amount on the benefits package if you and Joaquin went freelance.” Standing, Donna offered her hand. “Consider both of your requests done. I wish you luck with freelancing. Keep in touch. I’ll still send work your way,” she said, ushering J.J. to the door where they stopped and hugged.

“Go see Pam in HR. She’ll have the packet you need as our August winner,” Donna finished, smiling as she stepped back into her office and shut the door.

* * *

T
HAT
AFTERNOON
J.J.
boarded a flight to Texas. The butterflies that began in her stomach when the plane lifted off after a brief stopover in Dallas flapped harder once she’d landed in Lubbock. They grew worse after she rented a vehicle and drove toward La Mesa. Time dragged. She dallied, driving far too slowly.

Still, the minute she turned onto Mack’s private road she slowed the car to a veritable crawl. Afraid she might be physically ill, J.J. parked behind his pickup and sat, trying to settle her nerves. It startled her to see Mack and Zoey emerge from the house, each pulling a suitcase.

They were going on a trip. She should have called before coming.
But she assumed he’d be here for the magazine’s event. Maybe he’d called it off. Heaven knew he’d never welcomed the whole notion.

Expecting to be rebuffed, J.J. decided to tell Mack she’d come solely to deliver the magazine’s check for his charity and save him from going out with a perfect stranger. She put on a brave face, got out of the car and hesitated.

Zoey saw her first. She dropped the handle of her bag and launched herself at J.J. “You’re here. You’re really here! Daddy and me were going to go see you in New York.” Zoey practically squeezed the breath out of J.J. even as her gaze lit on Mack for confirmation.

He bent and righted Zoey’s suitcase, but J.J. saw his expression burgeon with hope. “I should have given you a call,” he said. “We could have passed each other on the highway. Why are you here, Jill?”

“Uh, I...brought the check from the magazine for your charity. I’m, uh, we’re supposed to go out on the town when I present it...so...I can take follow-up photos for the magazine. Why were you going to New York?” she asked belatedly.

Mack nudged Zoey aside and he rested his hands on J.J.’s waist. “I told Zoey...about Tom,” he said with feeling. “I fought with you over something I’ve always known I needed to face. You were right to leave. But...the truth is...I don’t want to live without you.”

J.J. clutched his shirtfront, too overwhelmed to speak.