Another Chance to Love You (6 page)

“That’s terrific, Heather. What’s the prize?”

She shrugged. “It’s a secret. I won’t know until Friday.” Her eyes widened. “Do you think you could come with us? To the carnival, I mean.”

Daniel wished Monica would come back. He wasn’t sure what he should answer.

“I just thought you might wanna hear my story, you bein’ a famous writer and all.”

He was surprised by how good that made him feel, his daughter wanting him to hear her work.

“Please come, Mr. Rourke. Mama’d like you to. I know she would. She thinks you’re real nice.”

“Does she?” He glanced toward the stairs. If only it was as simple as Heather made it sound. Everybody liking everybody. No past to stumble over.

“Sure, she does. I can tell. She’s never had a boyfriend like you who comes over a lot.”

Before Daniel could respond, Monica appeared at the bottom of the staircase. She had changed into jeans and a white blouse, the long sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her feet were bare. How was it she managed to look beautiful, even when dressed so simply?

“Mama, I asked Mr. Rourke to go to the school carnival on Friday.” She ran across the room to where her mother stood. “That’s okay, isn’t it? You’d like him to come, too, wouldn’t you?”

Monica’s and Daniel’s gazes met and held for an instant. He felt her tension. The air crackled with it.

Don’t hurt Heather, her eyes seemed to say. Please don’t fail her like you failed me.

Yes, he’d failed her. He’d told her he loved her, but he’d never wanted to make a real commitment to her or to marriage. Not when he’d thought the whole world was awaiting him elsewhere. So he’d intentionally driven her away from him, one angry word at a time.

And look what that decision had cost him.

Monica glanced at Heather. “We need to talk, honey.”

“But what about the carnival—”

“Let’s talk first. Sit down, please. On the sofa.”

A puzzled expression crossed the child’s face as she moved to obey. Monica sat beside her daughter, then took hold of Heather’s hand, as if afraid the girl might run away.

Daniel’s mouth was dry. He wished he could get himself a drink of water.

“Heather, honey,” Monica began, her voice soft. “Mr. Rourke and I have something important to tell you.”

Heather glanced between the two of them, then grinned that mischievous grin of hers. “Are you getting married? That’d be way cool.”

Daniel hadn’t seen that one coming.

“No,” Monica answered without looking in his direction. “No, we are
not
getting married. Where would you get such an idea?”

“I can tell you like him a lot. And he keeps coming over. He’s awful nice and you always seem—”

“Heather, please.” Monica’s tone was sharp. “That’s enough.”

Daniel rose from his chair and crossed to the sofa. He moved by instinct now. He didn’t know what he planned to do or say.

Heather turned to look at him as he sat on her other side. Her smile had vanished. Her mouth quivered, and she looked like she was fighting tears. He suspected her mother rarely raised her voice to scold.

He took hold of her free hand. “Do me a favor, Heather. Just listen to your mom and me for a second, will you?”

She nodded.

“Remember we told you we knew each other when we were in college? Well, we actually were
really
good friends.
We spent lots of time together, your mom and me. In fact, there was a time we talked about getting married. Only…only it didn’t work out.”

Heather’s gray eyes watched him without blinking.

Daniel felt beads of perspiration forming on his forehead. He should have thought this through better. How did you explain something like this to a ten-year-old? Did she understand the facts of life, all about the birds and bees and so forth? Just how much was enough?

“Honey?” Monica said, drawing her daughter’s gaze. Her voice was once again gentle, controlled. “You know how sometimes you ask questions, and I tell you you’re too young to understand and that I’ll explain when you’re older? I’ve decided you’re old enough to know something now that I’ve never told you before.”

“Okay.”

Monica lifted her eyes toward Daniel. The look was brief, and yet it was long enough for him to wonder how different his life might have been had he married her, stayed in Boise, raised not only Heather but other children, too.

She looked at Heather once again. “Heather, Daniel is your father.”

The house seemed deathly quiet. So quiet he could hear the ticking of the sweep-second hand on his watch.

Slowly Heather turned her head so she could look at him. “You’re my dad?”

He nodded.

“Honest?”

“Honest.”

“Why haven’t you come to see me before?”

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He didn’t know how to answer that question.

Monica answered for him. “Because I never told him about you.”

Confusion, hurt, hope. He saw it all in Heather’s eyes as she stared at him. It made him feel overwhelmingly inadequate.

“So do you wanna see me now that you know?”

“Yes,” he answered solemnly. “I do want to see you. I hope you’ll spend lots of time with me this summer.”

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. Her eyes narrowed in thought. Finally she asked, “Can I call you Daddy?”

The simple question caused a rush of emotion unlike anything he’d experienced before. If he tried for a hundred years, he’d be unable to define it. “Sure. I’d like that. I’d like it a lot.”

“And are you gonna come to the carnival on Friday with us?”

He glanced at Monica. She nodded her head.

“I’ll be there,” he told Heather. “You can count on it.”

She looked at her mother. “Can I go call Mary and tell her about my dad?”

“I suppose it would be all right.”

Quickly Heather was off the sofa and out of the room, disappearing up the stairs. Her bedroom door closed behind her, then silence. Again, Daniel heard the ticking of his watch.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said after a lengthy pause.

“No.”

He turned toward Monica again. She was frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“It isn’t going to be that easy, Daniel. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking it will be.”

“But she seemed okay with—”

“She’s a child. It’s going to take time to work things through.”

He heard what she was telling him. He didn’t know Heather the way she did. He couldn’t possibly understand how the girl was going to react to this or anything else.

Would he ever know? Or was it already too late?

M
onica watched her daughter closely over the next few days, but it appeared she’d worried needlessly. Heather seemed delighted to have Daniel for a dad. In fact, if she was perfectly honest, Monica would have to admit she was more than a little jealous at how quickly Heather acclimated herself to having two parents instead of just one.

Daniel arrived at the Fletcher house every day that week, shortly after the school bus discharged Heather and its other riders at the corner. Instead of sharing her day with her mom, as had been their habit since Heather started kindergarten, Heather shared the details with her dad. The two of them sat at the kitchen table, looking so alike with their matching black hair and gray eyes and heart-stopping grins.

Monica understood her daughter’s excitement, but she still felt left out. Excluded. And she was ashamed of herself for feeling that way.

On Thursday, Daniel arrived early, showing up at the door with several bags of groceries in his arms. “You’ve fed me every night this week,” he said in explanation. “I decided it’s time I returned the favor.”

“You’re cooking?”

“Do I detect skepticism in your voice, Ms. Fletcher?”

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

He stepped around her. “I’m wounded to the quick.” His retort was softened by a chuckle.

“Sorry.” She followed him into the kitchen. “What are you fixing? Wieners and beans?”

He set the bags on the counter, then turned to look at her. “I thought you liked wieners and beans.”

For an instant, it seemed they were back in their old apartment near the Boise State campus. They were struggling to make ends meet plus find enough hours in each day to work and study and still spend time with each other. They’d eaten wieners and beans—an affordable meal—by candlelight more than once back then.

Oh, how she’d loved him. She would have done anything for him. Anything.

Suddenly breathless, she turned toward the cupboard. “I’ll set the table.”

“Monica.”

Reluctantly she faced him again.

He stepped closer. “I wish you’d stop being nervous around me.”

“I can’t help it.” She shrugged and tried to smile.

“Why?”

“You
know
why. I’m worried about Heather. This…having a dad around…is all new and different to her. At the mo
ment, she’s excited by the novelty of it. But there are serious issues we haven’t discussed yet. We still have so much to work out before you go back to Chicago in the fall.” Monica stopped, swallowed the lump in her throat, then added, “She’s going to hate it when you leave. She loves you already, Daniel.”

“I love her, too. And I know we’ve got lots of things to work out.” He moved even closer. “But is that the only reason?”

“Reason for what?” She was held mesmerized by his gaze.

“For you being nervous around me.” He leaned toward her.

“Nervous?”

His voice lowered a notch. “I’d like very much to kiss you, Ms. Fletcher.”

Her heart pounded like a jackhammer. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” His lips brushed lightly over hers.

Oh, she was positive it wasn’t a good idea. They shared a past but couldn’t share a future. She wouldn’t be unequally yoked with an unbeliever—and Daniel was most definitely an unbeliever. There was enough at risk, introducing Heather to her father, without Monica risking her own heart, as well.

He cradled her face between his hands, tilting her head as he pressed his mouth more firmly against hers. The kiss was sweet, tender, alluring.

And then the front door slammed. “Mama, I’m home. Where’s Dad?”

Monica jumped out of his embrace. A guilty heat rushed into her cheeks.

“We’re in the kitchen,” Daniel called in reply.

Heather appeared a moment later. She dropped her backpack on the counter, then kicked off her shoes and slid them
under the end table beside the family room sofa. “Guess what happened at school today?”

Daniel grinned at their daughter. “Couldn’t possibly guess. Tell us.”

Heather launched into her story, but Monica didn’t hear a word of it. Her thoughts lingered on Daniel’s kiss. Why had he done it? Unconsciously she touched her fingertips to her lips. Why had it affected her the way it had? It was only a kiss.

She cast a surreptitious glance in his direction.

She supposed a woman always harbored some remnants of feeling for the father of her child, no matter what else happened in the relationship. Was that what that kiss had been? Just a kind of nostalgia?

Daniel burst out laughing, and Heather did the same. The joyful sound filled the kitchen, making it feel warm and cozy. Like a family.

Monica would be making a terrible mistake to allow herself to fall under the spell of Daniel’s considerable charms. Any woman in her right mind would know that.

Please, God,
she prayed.
Keep me in my right mind.

Daniel’s jambalaya—made with ham, smoked sausage, onions, celery, bell peppers and rice and seasoned with bay leaves, mustard, cumin, garlic and thyme—brought rave reviews from mother and daughter alike. Daniel was pleased and amused by Monica’s surprise that he’d learned to cook something beyond wieners and beans in the last decade.

After supper, father and daughter did the dishes, then Daniel helped Heather with her homework, a task he found as delightful as everything else he did with her. When Mon
ica announced it was Heather’s bedtime, he knew it was a not-so-subtle hint for him to say good-night and depart, but he pretended not to understand. He wasn’t ready to leave yet. Only a small, silent house awaited him. He preferred to stay here…with Monica.

There was no denying the attraction that crackled between them all evening. He felt it whenever they were close. He thought she must feel it, too, judging by the wary look in her eyes.

That kiss had changed things.

There’d been other women in his life through the years. He’d even been engaged to one of them. But right at this moment, he couldn’t think of any of their names or even what they’d looked like. He knew, beyond a doubt, it had been a long time since a simple kiss had affected him this much.

Monica returned to the kitchen after seeing Heather to bed. She glanced nervously at Daniel before retrieving a bottle of chilled water from the refrigerator.

He watched her tip her head back and swallow. He found the arch of her delicate white throat enticing and wanted nothing so much as to trace tiny kisses down its length.

She lowered her head, met his gaze across the room, and he knew she’d read his thoughts by the way her eyes widened, knew she felt the same pull of attraction simmering between them.

“You should go, Daniel.”

He rose from his chair. “You feel it, too.”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t you think we should find out what—”

“No, I don’t.”

“But why not?” He took a step forward. “We’re both adults.”

She lifted a hand, stopping his approach. “Yes, Daniel. We
are
both adults, and that’s all the more reason why we must do the responsible thing. The
moral
thing. I’ve changed since you knew me, Daniel. It’s more important to me that I please God than myself…or you.”

She meant every word she said, he realized.

“Daniel, if I ever become involved with a man again, he’ll have to share my love of Jesus. To do otherwise would be an enormous mistake.”

Anger stirred in his chest. “Why? Doesn’t your God love anybody but Bible-quoting Christians?”

“No.” Her gaze was patient. “He loves everyone. Jesus loves them so much He died for each one of them. He died for you, too. All He wants is for you to let Him into your life.”

Daniel released a harsh laugh, the rude sound telling her what he thought of her religion.

She shook her head, her expression sad now. “That’s exactly why it would never work between us. You’ve rejected the one thing that means the absolute most to me, my faith in Jesus.” Tears glimmered in her eyes. “We have no future together, Daniel. Don’t try to pretend we do. The cost is too high.”

He swore beneath his breath. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. He felt like a jerk.

Slowly he headed for the hall. In the doorway, he stopped and looked in Monica’s direction. “I’m sorry. You’re right. This is about Heather, not you and me. I’ll keep that in mind from now on.”

Monica heard the front door close behind him as he left. The sound made her flinch.

She hadn’t wanted him to leave. She’d wanted him to em
brace her faith. She’d wanted him to suddenly see the light. She’d wanted him to want her so much he would also want God.

For the first time in over a decade, Monica knew her heart was at risk, and she was scared to death of what the result might be.

“Oh, God,”
she whispered,
“don’t let me make that mistake. Help me.”

“What’s wrong with you today, Fletch?”

Monica glanced up from her day planner to look at Doug Goodman, the head of Solutions’ accounting department.

He raised a hand. “Don’t try to say, ‘Nothing.’ We’ve worked together too long for that.”

She offered an apologetic smile. Doug always was able to read her moods.

Back when Solutions was expanding beyond a home-based business, she’d hired him to work for her. Before his first week of employment was out, he’d asked her on a date. She’d found him warm and funny, and she’d enjoyed his company immensely. But it had become quickly apparent she was never going to take a serious interest in him. Not in the romance department. After a while, they’d become trusted friends.

“It’s Heather,” she answered him now.

“Is she sick?”

Monica shook her head. “It’s her father.”

“Her father?” Doug’s expression changed from concern to curiosity. He’d always understood this topic was out of bounds, and he’d honored her silence. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested.

“I…I’ve told her who he is. In fact, they’ve met each other.”

“And?”

She rose from her chair and walked to the window. “They’re getting along well.”

He tapped the tip of his pencil against the palm of his hand, waiting. Doug was a patient man.

Monica glanced over her shoulder. “Daniel Rourke,” she said in answer to his unspoken question.

“
The
Daniel Rourke? The writer?” He whistled. “You sure know how to keep things close to your vest, Fletch.”

“We were engaged in college.” She paused, then added, “He didn’t know about Heather. I never told him I was pregnant.”

Doug came to join her at the window. He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her one of his searching looks. “This has you tied in knots, doesn’t it?”

She felt ridiculously close to tears.

He cupped her chin with his hand, tilting her head back, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I see,” he said after a long silence.

And she was afraid he did.

“Fletch, I always wondered why you didn’t fall head over heels for me.” He gathered her closer, let her press her face against his best suit, even though he knew she was going to cry.

Her reply was muffled. “Accountants were never my type.”

“Yeah, I know.” He kissed the top of her head.

The tears came in earnest then. She sobbed quietly while Doug stroked her hair and murmured comforting promises that all would turn out well. It didn’t matter if either of
them believed the words. It was enough just to say and hear them.

At long last, she drew back from the solace of his embrace. She sniffed, then offered him a weak smile. “I hope I didn’t ruin your suit.”

“So do I.” He leaned over and grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk. “Here. You need this. You never look your best with black stuff under your eyes.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“Don’t mention it.”

While Monica tried to remove the smudged mascara with the tissue, Doug returned to the chair on the opposite side of her desk. He didn’t say anything until she sat down on her own chair.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“About what?”

“About these feelings you’ve got for Mr. Rourke.”

She looked at her hands, folded atop her desk. “Nothing.”

He leaned forward. “That would be a mistake.”

“There’s no future for us, Doug. Daniel never wanted the same things I did. He didn’t want a home and family. He wanted success, and that’s what he got. He went off to Chicago and made a name for himself.”

“But he’s here now, isn’t he?”

“Only for a few months.”

“Are you still in love with him?”

Her pulse quickened as she looked at her friend. “How could I love him? Until two weeks ago, I hadn’t seen him in eleven years. I don’t even know who he is now.”

“Maybe this is something new.” He shrugged. “There’s such a thing as love at first sight.”

“Not for me,” she whispered. “Not with a man who isn’t a believer.”

He waited a few moments, then asked, “Are you sure, Fletch? Are you real sure?”

Are you sure, Fletch? Are you real sure?

Monica stared at her reflection in her bedroom mirror while Doug’s words echoed in her mind for the thousandth time that day. As always, her silent reply was, No. No, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t know what she thought or felt or wanted.

But love at first sight?

It wasn’t a possibility. It couldn’t be. Otherwise, she would have fallen victim to it years ago. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had opportunities. It wasn’t as if there hadn’t been men willing to get serious. Yet Monica had never felt drawn to any of them. Not even to Doug, who was one of the nicest, sweetest, most intelligent guys she’d ever known.

But now, here was Daniel, and suddenly she was feeling and thinking like an emotional teenager. It was crazy. She was too practical for such nonsense.

She turned away from the mirror, and her gaze fell on the copy of Daniel’s book on her night table. She walked across the room, picked up the book and turned it over to stare at the photo on the back of the dust jacket. Her heart fluttered as Daniel’s image stared up at her.