CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JENNAS MOUTH went drier than dirt. Her father? The same man who’d left her mother almost twenty-five years ago and never looked back, not even to spare a kind word for the child they’d created together?

Anger, raw and powerful, ignited in Jenna as she marched to the house. Damn him! How dare LeRoy Tottering surprise her now after everything that had happened? The last time she’d heard from him was when her mother and stepfather had died. She’d been staying with Laura and her family, and Laura’s parents, concerned for her, had tracked down her father’s number in Santa Rosa and encouraged Jenna to call him. It was only right he take her in and support her until she graduated from high school, they’d said.

Feeling helplessly torn between fear of rejection and hope of acceptance, Jenna had listened to them tell her that he would come through. He was blood. He was her father. She just didn’t know or understand all the reasons he’d stayed away. She’d wanted to believe them, so she’d swallowed her fear and dialed the number.

His wife had answered and coldly informed her that he’d call if he wanted to speak to her. He did phone that night, but only to let her know he wasn’t the rock she could cling to. He had another wife to keep happy and four other mouths to feed. She’d never fit in.

That was it. That was all. She’d never contacted him again.

Jenna tried to suppress the pain that memory occasioned, pain that should have dulled long ago. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was an adult with responsibilities of her own, and she didn’t need her father. She was no longer vulnerable—so why did the thought of seeing him again scare the hell out of her?

Breathing deeply, she stood outside the door, concentrating on the initial anger she’d felt when Pop had announced her visitor, instead of the confusion and sense of loss that had quickly followed. She didn’t hear Adam come up behind her, but she felt his hand close over her cold fingers.

“Come on, Jen,” he said. “Let’s meet the bastard.”

Jenna wanted to scream at him to leave her alone. She couldn’t let herself lean on him. What if he withdrew his support when she least expected it? She’d fall without a chance to catch herself, and the hurt would be much worse than if she’d stumbled on her own.

“I can do it,” she said, but strength and energy pumped from his body to hers through the contact of their hands and heartened her until she couldn’t bear to sever the connection. She’d push Adam away later, she told herself. She wouldn’t trust him, wouldn’t risk another fall. But for now, for this minute, couldn’t she simply be grateful for his support, his presence?

“There’s no reason to do it alone. I’m here now, and I’ll never again let you face a man who might hurt you without being around to break his jaw if he tries.”

She smiled, remembering how good Adam had been to her eighteen years ago. He’d wanted to beat her father to a pulp then—as a mere teenager—and had been the one to support her through the confusion and heartbreak of her parents’ deaths. Fortunately, because she hadn’t wanted to move away from Adam, anyway, her mother’s only sister took her in. Though the widowed Aunt Zelma had been eccentric in many ways, she was kind and lived close to the Victoriana. She’d died of a heart attack five years after Jenna’s marriage.

Adam had been there for her once, she thought. And he was here now. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow.

“If anybody’s going to hit him, I am,” Jenna said simply, and headed inside.

The last of Friday night’s guests lingered in the front parlor near one window, gazing at the view, but Jenna’s attention quickly focused on an uncomfortable-looking gray-haired man in a pair of polyester slacks and a golf jacket. He stood next to the door as though he’d rather bolt than stay, but he stepped toward her when she approached.

“Jenna?”

She nodded, scarcely recognizing this person who was her father. She remembered a man with thick wavy dark hair, like her own, a rather stern face and a slight build. This man, now staring at her from beneath the ledge of a prominent brow, had lost most of his hair. The color of his eyes had dulled to a pale blue, and he seemed several inches shorter than she remembered. But then, she’d been much smaller herself—only eight years old when he left, after all. “Hello.”

“You’re lovely. All grown up,” he said, shaking his head. “How old are you now? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

Jenna felt Adam’s comforting pressure as he squeezed her hand in reassurance, but couldn’t keep the chill out of her voice. “I’m thirty-two. This is Adam Durham, an old friend of mine. Adam, this is…LeRoy Tottering,” she finished lamely, unable to say, “my father.”

Her father’s gaze moved from her face to Adam’s and then down to their clasped hands. “Can we have a few minutes alone?” he asked, looking back at Jenna.

Adam spoke before Jenna could decide how to answer. “I’m afraid anything you have to say to Jenna can be said while I’m here.”

Her father sighed and ran both hands over his bald pate as though combing through hair. “This isn’t easy, is it?”

“That depends on what you want.” Jenna motioned to the couch as the couple who had lingered at the window strolled out the front door. “Would you like to sit down?”

He shook his head and clasped his hands in front of him. “I just…” His voice broke, and he shrugged. “I don’t know. I just wanted to see you, I guess.”

“After twenty-four years?” Jenna struggled to control her resentment. “What makes you want to see me now?”

“Caroline died. Last March.”

Jenna searched for something sympathetic to say, but the memory of his callous reaction to her own mother’s death kept her from uttering words she knew would be obviously insincere. “And?”

“The kids are all gone. You know, what with college and marriages, they’re getting pretty spread out. There’s five of them. I don’t know if you knew that. Pretty big family.”

There’d been only four the last time Jenna had known anything about her father, but it wasn’t the number of kids that reverberated in her head. It was his use of the word family. Why hadn’t LeRoy Tottering wanted her as part of his family? “How fortunate for you,” she said. “Big families are nice.”

He jammed his hands in his pockets as Adam silently moved to stand behind her, his protectiveness reassuringly familiar to Jenna. Just like the old days. It would be so easy to pick up where they’d left off—but how long would it last this time?

“So you haven’t married?” her father asked.

“I’m divorced.”

With a bitter chuckle he ran a hand behind his neck. “Then you know marriage isn’t a walk in the park.”

“Neither is taking care of children, but I’d never abandon one of mine.”

He sighed again. “I deserve that,” he said with a nod that seemed to confirm the statement. “You’ve got kids, then?”

Suddenly Jenna wanted this man to see what he had missed, what he had rejected. “Adam, would you go get Ryan, please?” she asked, and felt the loss of his presence the second he left the room.

“I have a son,” she told her father. For some reason she didn’t mention the baby. It was too much to go into now, in this brief meeting that felt more uncomfortable than Jenna could ever have imagined. “What brings you here?”

LeRoy Tottering seemed old and defeated. He stared at the carpet. “I know it’s a bit late. I’ve been thinking of looking you up for some time, but I didn’t know if you’d see me.”

If he wanted encouragement, Jenna had none to give him. She was still reeling from the shock of his sudden appearance—and the meekness of his manner. Where was the man who had so firmly set her away from him?

Adam returned with Ryan, and Jenna began to perform the introductions. “This is my son, Ryan.”

Ryan looked at her, waiting for the other part of the introduction.

“This is LeRoy Tottering,” she told him, knowing the name would mean nothing to him. He’d heard of his grandmother, but she had died a Smith, and when Jenna married she’d become a Livingston.

“Nice to meet you,” her son said. Putting a smile on his recently scrubbed face, he stuck out a hand.

Jenna watched as grandfather and grandson clasped hands, and her heart contracted. What this man could have given her if only he’d loved her!

“You seem like a fine boy, Ryan,” her father said, but he didn’t try to identify himself any further than Jenna already had.

“Thank you, sir.”

Her father dug in his pants pocket and produced a card that said, “Tottering Heating and Air-Conditioning,” bearing a telephone number and a Santa Rosa address, and held it out to Jenna. “I know you probably won’t want to use this, but if you ever have need of anything, you can reach me at that number.”

When Jenna hesitated, Adam took the card for her. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll keep that in mind. But if it’s up to me, Jenna won’t be needing anything.”

Her father nodded. “It looks like she’s in good hands.”

Jenna almost screamed that she was in no one’s “hands.” She could rely only on herself—but it would be enough. It had to be.

“Goodbye, Ryan. I hope we can see each other again someday,” her father said before she could add anything else, and left.

“Who was that, Mom?” her son asked as soon as the door shut behind him.

Jenna sank into the closest chair and nearly said, “A ghost.” Instead, she patted the place next to her and, when Ryan sat down, put her arm around him. Avoiding Adam’s probing eyes, seeking, instead, the comfort of Ryan’s constant love, she said, “That was my dad.”

He pulled back, his brown eyes blinking up at her in confusion. “But you called him LeRoy something.”

“That’s his name. And it’s basically all I know about him.”

Ryan bit his lip, suddenly pensive. “Is that how it’s going to be with my dad?”

* * *

“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Adam eyed Jenna over his second piece of pizza while Ryan was still finishing his first. Music played in the background of Fort Bragg’s Roundtable Pizza, mostly oldies mixed with a few modern rock songs, and the smell of baking bread and garlic permeated the air.

“I don’t know what to think. I feel kind of weird.” She was sitting across from him in an orange booth by a window that showed nothing but their own reflections because of the darkness outside. Ever since her father’s appearance just before lunch, Jenna had withdrawn inside herself. Adam thought it might help her sort through her feelings if she’d try to explain them, but he didn’t want to push her. Despite the false bravado she’d attempted at first, because of her tremendous pride, he remembered how badly her father had hurt her when her mother died.

“Was your father anything like you expected?”

She shook her head. “He seemed pathetic in a way. I think that’s the part I’m having the most trouble with.” She took a bite and chewed slowly as Ryan shoved his plate aside. “None of us live forever. I just hope I don’t have the regrets he has when I get to his age—if what I saw in his face was regret.”

“It was regret all right.”

“I’m stuffed,” Ryan announced.

Adam severed the string of cheese that stretched from the pan to his own plate as he took his third slice. “Already?”

“Maybe I’ll have more later.” The boy’s eyes darted to several video games that gleamed in the corner. He gave his mother a winning smile. “Can I have a quarter, Mom?”

Jenna got out her wallet and handed him a couple of quarters, and Adam tossed him a few more.

They both watched Ryan hurry gleefully away before resuming their conversation. “Do you think you’ll ever call him?” Adam asked.

With a shrug Jenna relinquished her pizza in favor of her Coke. “If it were just me, I wouldn’t. But I’m half tempted to see what Mr. Tottering’s like for Ryan’s sake. Ryan doesn’t have his father right now, and we were never close to Dennis’s parents. Dennis was born several years after their other kids and they were always a little…different. You remember them.”

“They kept to themselves. No one knew them very well.”

“Well, they still keep to themselves. So it might be nice for Ryan to have some extended family, supposing we could work through the awkwardness of the past. Not that I think my father deserves Ryan.”

“He doesn’t deserve you, either.” Adam studied her, wishing he could erase the strain he saw in her face. Between her father and Dennis, she’d been carrying a heavy emotional load for far too long. And now there was the baby, which had to weigh on her mind constantly. The protective urge he’d felt as a teenager reared up inside him again, the urge to take care of her. At least until she felt whole.

She gazed at him, her eyes deep and fathomless, then reached into her purse and passed him a letter.

“What’s this?”

“The latest from Dennis,” she said, nursing her drink. “He claims he’s going clean and sober.”

Adam unfolded the sheet of paper and quickly read Dennis’s letter. “Pretty typical for a man sitting in jail, drying out.”

“So you don’t think he means it this time?”

“Well, he might mean it, but…has he ever kept his promises before?”

She sighed. “Until he’s tempted by the next drink.”

“Then chances are you already know how long this will last.”

“Maybe going to jail changed him, woke him up to reality. He’s never been in trouble with the law before.”

Adam had his doubts that a few days in jail could reform the man he’d seen kicking the windows of the police car only a week earlier. And he didn’t like Dennis’s plea for a second chance. Adam got the impression Dennis had more in mind than just the opportunity to be a good father to Ryan. “You wouldn’t go back to him even if he cleaned up, would you?” he asked, keeping his eyes on his food so she wouldn’t see how much the answer meant to him.

“I don’t think so.”

Her voice, flat and somehow subdued, sent a shiver of alarm through Adam, and suddenly the pizza wasn’t sitting so well in his stomach. “You don’t seem very certain.”

She glanced toward the corner, where Ryan was still enthralled with the latest car-racing game. “What Ryan said after my father left really bothers me,” she admitted. “I don’t want to be selfish about this. I want to give my son what’s best for him. And this baby needs a father, too.”

“No child needs Dennis.”

A devilish smile curved her lips, and for the first time since Tottering’s visit, her eyes took on some of their usual sparkle. “You’re sounding rather vehement, as though you have a personal stake in all this.”

“I do, dammit! Do you think I’m playing around? God, Jenna, do you want me to swear a blood oath that I’ll never hurt you again? What would it take to convince you to trust me?”

“You could move back to Mendocino.”

The gentle suggestion hit with the impact of a hand grenade. Leaning back, Adam let the rest of his dinner go untouched. “So you want me to raise the white flag instead of you, is that it? Give up what I’ve worked so hard to achieve? Is this your way of taking revenge for my leaving in the first place?”

She grimaced. “That’s a pretty negative interpretation. I just thought maybe Mendocino could use a good attorney. It was a stupid idea really. Of course you wouldn’t want to leave your home.”

Gathering her purse, she slid out of the booth and went to collect Ryan as Adam stared after her. She didn’t understand how much he’d put into his career, how few men attained what he’d managed to achieve. He couldn’t walk away from what had taken fifteen years to build. She had no right to even ask.

But did he have any more right to expect her to move to San Francisco? To uproot Ryan again? And, if she did relocate, what was he willing to promise her? He wanted a relationship with Jenna, wanted to jump in and let the tide of their emotions dictate the future—but he was no less afraid of the undertow than she was.

He had dated some intelligent attractive women, yet he hadn’t been tempted to make a permanent commitment to any of them. Was there something wrong with him? Or was it simply the memory of the pain in Jenna’s eyes when he’d broken the one promise he had made that kept him from venturing down the same path again?

Cursing under his breath, Adam went to get a box for the leftover pizza. Damn Dennis and damn LeRoy Tottering. But most of all, damn himself for hurting any woman who ever got close to him.

* * *

JENNA FOCUSED on cutting several small pieces of antique blue glass for the bird window she was making and tried to ignore the emptiness that hung over the house. Ryan had gone to church with Mr. and Mrs. Durham, and Adam had headed home after breakfast. Though she’d rather not admit it, even privately, his going had left her with a lingering feeling of disappointment and regret. She kept telling herself that she and Adam were better off with the hundred miles from San Francisco to Mendocino between them. But then the memory of Adam on the beach or in the storage barn with his arms around her would intrude, and she’d remember how her body tingled every time he touched her.

Why wasn’t she one of those women who could have a casual affair? she wondered. Why not enjoy the physical elements of a relationship—the part Adam was so willing and capable of giving her—and turn off her emotional needs?

Jenna blew a wisp of hair out of her face and carefully separated the two pieces of glass she’d just scored. She knew the answer—for her, love went hand in hand with sex. She could no more separate them than she could take the salt out of seawater.

The phone rang, but she ignored it, knowing it would probably be Laura. She, Adam and Ryan had stopped by to visit her friend on their way home from the pizza parlor the night before, and Laura had winked and pinched Jenna until it was all Jenna could do to get Adam out of the house without his noticing. And Jenna didn’t want to hear Laura singing his praises now.

“We’re home, Mom! We’re back!”

Jenna turned to see Ryan burst through the door to her studio.

“How was church?” she asked.

Her son shrugged as if to say church was church, then paused in front of the drawing she’d made for the bird window. “Wow, this one’s really great! Are you going to finish it in time to take it to San Francisco?”

“That’s the plan. I want Mr. LeCourt to see a good variety of my work. What other pieces do you think I should take?”

Ryan circled the room, biting his lip in serious consideration as Mrs. Durham came through the door, puffing with exertion.

“You didn’t need to hike all the way back here. I would have come to the house,” Jenna said.

“No. I wanted to see what you’ve accomplished since my last visit. I’ve been bragging to all my friends at church that you’re going to be famous once that shop owner in San Francisco sees what you can do.”

Jenna laughed. “Thanks for the confidence, but Mr. LeCourt has only asked to see my work. He hasn’t agreed to sell it.”

“If he’s got a brain in his head, he’ll see what the rest of us see,” Mrs. Durham insisted. She joined Ryan in perusing the pieces Jenna had already finished. “It’s a good thing you’ve been working steadily. You have quite an inventory here.”

“I want to be prepared for the tourists once the rainy season’s over.”

“You won’t have to worry about tourists. These will all be gone by then.” Mrs. Durham put a hand on top of Ryan’s head. “You have quite a mother, young man.”

Ryan glanced at Jenna over his shoulder. “Do you think Adam likes her?”

Jenna coughed to hide her surprise and pretended to concentrate on making her next cut in the glass beneath her hands.

“Probably more than he wants to,” Mrs. Durham replied with a secretive smile. “Why?”

Ryan shrugged again. “Just wondering.”

* * *

ON WEDNESDAY, Dennis gladly stripped off the orange jumpsuit and donned his own clothes. He hadn’t noticed before how filthy they were, but he couldn’t miss the worn-in dirt and greasy splotches now. Before his arrest he’d been living out of his car and couldn’t remember the last time he’d done any laundry. Somehow he’d lost all perspective on the small everyday processes others took for granted as, more and more, the bottle became the center of his life.

I would have stopped drinking long before now if Jenna hadn’t left me. What had they taught him at all those AA meetings? That some people worked as a trigger? Well, Jenna was his trigger. But he couldn’t think about that. It made him angry, which made him want to punish her, which only chased her farther away. He could forgive her if she’d take him back. Somehow he had to break the vicious hold alcohol had over him, even when the thought of a drink made him dizzy with desire. Like right now…

Clamping a tight hold on the wayward craving, Dennis told himself he couldn’t touch the stuff. It was poison. It had destroyed his life. He’d promised Jenna he was going clean. What other choice did he have, really, unless he wanted to continue living the way he had for the past year?

Following a uniformed police officer from the small changing room, where he’d left the jumpsuit on the floor, he retrieved his wallet, checked for the sixty bucks he had there and shoved it in his pocket.

“Who’s going to take me back to Mendocino?” he asked.

“No one,” replied the deputy who was handling the paperwork involved in releasing him.

“But my car’s in Mendocino!”

“So?”

“That’s more than an hour and a half away. You can’t cart me clear the hell over here and just leave me high and dry.”

A wry smile twisted the man’s face, but he didn’t bother to look up. “Wanna bet? We do it all the time.”

Dennis clenched his fists in anger at the deputy’s indifference. Damn cops! They’d locked him up for ten days like he was some kind of common criminal, and for what? Because he’d tried to talk to his ex-wife? See his son? As if any of them wouldn’t have done the same! And now they were throwing him out on the street without so much as a bus ticket.

He needed a drink—just a small one to calm his nerves and help him think. He couldn’t expect to go dry without one last beer, one final hurrah. Jenna would never know. He’d rent a hotel room, shower and shave, wash his clothes—in the sink, if he had to—and appear decent and appealing when he went to Mendocino to pick up his car. If he was lucky, his letter had softened Jenna up enough so she’d let him see Ryan, which meant he’d get a few minutes with her, too.

And, if he was really lucky, he’d be able to convince her that this time he was changing for good.