The Man From Her Past Page 13

  “I’m on my way. Are you waiting at the house?”

  “I’m driving toward the road.” The lake, its surface half-iced, drew her. “Tell me she wouldn’t go toward the water.” What kid could resist a layer of ice on a huge expanse of water?

  “Leo wouldn’t let her. He’s forgetful, not insane.”

  “He’s outside in the snow with my baby.”

  “I’m at my car.”

  She rounded a car and there was her dad, strolling toward her, his robe flapping over blue polka-dot pajamas, a paper tucked beneath his elbow. Clinging to his hand, Hope skipped in her coat and a knit cap and her blue ski boots.

  “I see them,” she said into the phone.

  “In the water?” Van asked.

  “No, no.” She hastened to reassure him. “They’re walking. Dad’s half-naked, but Hope’s all bundled up. Will you call the sheriff’s office back?”

  “Yeah, but I’m still on my way to you.”

  Cassie stopped the car in front of them and jumped out. “Dad?”

  “Uh-oh. Mommy’s mad.”

  With a peek at his granddaughter, Cassie’s dad faced her like a chastised teenager. “My paper’s gone. I took Mr. Davidson’s, but I left him a dollar.”

  “We’re almost a mile from home.” She peered over his shoulder, surprised Mr. Davidson wasn’t loping after him with a shotgun.

  Hope ran into Cassie’s arms and she hugged her daughter tight, reassuring herself that her little girl had come through her walk with Grampa unscathed.

  “Dad, why aren’t you dressed for this weather? You must be freezing.”

  “I just went to get the paper and then I planned to go right back inside.”

  She took a deep breath. “What about Hope?”

  “I made her put her coat and hat and boots on.”

  She gave up. “We’ll talk at home.” She ushered them into the backseat and draped him in the coat she’d left back there the night they’d flown in.

  “Someone took my paper without paying. I was going to walk to the market, but a cop told me to go home.”

  Cassie didn’t need Hope’s gasp to tell her he was lying. “A cop? No one else is on the street now and no one from Tom’s office would have let you and Hope walk down the street with you in your pj’s.” She ducked back into the car. “We have to return Mr. Davidson’s paper.”

  “I paid for it.”

  “He wasn’t selling it.”

  “Whatever you want, Cassie. You know best.” He started to unfold it, but she leaned into the back and covered the edges with her hands.

  “Dad, your paper is at home. I brought it in this morning.”

  “I only like fresh ones.”

  Mystified, she eased the newspaper out of his hands. “Then we’ll go get you a fresh one.”

  “I wouldn’t go like that.” He pointed at her sweatpants and tank top. “The cops like a body to be dressed.”

  “Still going with that cop story?” She drove as far as Mr. Davidson’s and took the paper up to his stoop. Then she ran back to the car to find her father and her daughter laughing as if they’d planned this whole fiasco. If her father were a child, she’d think twice before she’d let Hope play with him again.

  She drove to a gas station that also sold newspapers, groceries and “sundries.” Before she went in, she tried to tidy her hair and pinched her pale cheeks in the rearview mirror. Finally, she gave up with a disgusted wave of her hand.

  Her dad and Hope stopped talking when she came back to the car. Her frustration blossomed into the heartburn of too much coffee on an empty stomach.

  “Dad, are you still cold?”

  “I feel fine. We think Van drove by while you were in the store.”

  “He was worried about you so he said he was coming over.”

  He swapped a look with Hope. Cassie might have been glad they were getting along so well if she didn’t seem to be the butt of a private joke between them.

  “I’ve never been so happy to see our house,” she said.

  “There’s Van’s car. Oh,” Leo said, “he’s waiting on the porch.”

  “I’m hungry.” Hope whined for the first time in all their recent adventures. “Grampa can make me cereal.”

  “I’ll make you both breakfast.”

  “I’m very good at pouring, and I’ll watch the news on television. You can have a few minutes with Van.”

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do, and what you’re trying to accomplish is a lost cause.” She was lying even as she tried to convince her father. The mere sight of Van made her all breathless.

  He came down the steps to meet them as she helped Hope out of her seat, and her father climbed out of the other side of the car.

  “Are you all okay?” Van asked.

  “I was getting a paper. You two don’t have to act as if I was on my way to take out the bank.”

  “I hope you would have dressed a little more warmly if that was your plan,” Van said.

  “You’ve been talking to Cass, haven’t you? I don’t need parents.”

  He brushed past Van and went inside the house Cassie had forgotten to lock.

  She stared at the open door.

  Van picked up Hope. “What came over you, little one? Felt in need of a stroll?”

  “That doctor guy told Grampa—Mommy?”

  Cassie broke her gaze from the door. “Huh, baby?”

  “Is something wrong with the house?”

  “I left the door open. I didn’t remember to lock it.”

  Van moved until their arms touched. “I looked it over when I got here. Everything was fine.”

  “And so are we.” Cassie touched Hope’s cheek. “What were you saying about Grampa?”

  “That man told him not to go anywhere. I couldn’t let him leave alone.”

  “Baby, you’re not old enough to be responsible for Grampa.”

  “Huh?”

  “From now on, call me if Grampa wants to go somewhere.”

  “Okay. Can I eat now?”

  “Let’s go see what we have. Van, are you hungry?”

  “You’re asking me to stay?”

  “I’m full of surprises today,” she said, thinking of the door she hadn’t bolted shut. She sighed as Hope hurtled down the hall toward the kitchen. At that age, life was all about the next meal. “Besides, I need to ask someone what kind of preschools Honesty has these days. Which one did your nephew go to?”

  “You’re staying?”

  “I have to call my partners and arrange for a leave of absence, but I can’t keep clinging to the hope he’ll be able to live on here without us.”

  “Well, I’m not sure where Eli went. I’ll ask Beth which one she’d suggest.”

  “Thanks.” She tried to look him in the eye, but she was too aware that she’d be seeing him often unless she told him once and for all to stay away.

  “I should go with you when you enroll her.”

  She disagreed. They were close to the kitchen, but Hope and Cassie’s father were deep in conversation while the TV voices rose, slightly higher than theirs. No one would hear. Now was the moment to send Van away. “People will think you’re her father.”

  “Absolutely, and if I don’t go, they’ll think someone else was.”

  She nodded. “That was hard enough to swallow when you did it for my father, but I can’t let you imply you allowed me to take your daughter from you—for the whole town.”

  “Sorry, Cass, but they’ll blame you more than me. I don’t plan to say anything, just to look as if I belong there.”

  “To keep anyone from guessing.”

  “It’s still a small town. People will guess plenty. Doesn’t mean they’ll get anything right.”

  “They’ll talk about you, too, Van.”

  “I can take it.” He tugged at a strand of hair bent at a crazy angle from her face and she remembered she was wearing no make
up, hadn’t touched her hair with a comb and was still wearing sleep clothes and flip-flops.

  She pushed his hand away, but not before she gave it a quick squeeze whose meaning even she didn’t understand. “Come eat breakfast with us.”

  “MR. VAN, DO YOU HAVE any children in this school?”

  They were half inside the L’il Kids building. Thankfully, the woman carrying a stack of paper down the hall hadn’t heard Hope’s question. “No kids,” he said.

  “You don’t?”

  “I’m not even married.”

  “Neither is my mommy.”

  That tossed a silent bomb into the conversation. Cassie’s face flushed pink. She could use a little more of that color. The past few days had clearly exhausted her.

  But why hadn’t she ever told Hope she’d been married?

  Maybe it hadn’t come up with a four-year-old.

  Van was relegated to the back wall of the director’s office, and then another back wall in Hope’s prospective classroom. Hope had been to “school” before so she approached the centers and tables like an old pro.

  She even waved a yellow plastic cup crammed full of markers in his direction, like a hunter of old, brandishing her favorite trophy. He felt the teacher watching him.

  Funny thing—he liked that they assumed he might be Hope’s dad. He tried to believe he only wanted to keep her from being picked on. Who wouldn’t go out of his way to protect a child from being told her father was a rapist? Time enough for her to deal with it when she was old enough to understand the labels.

  “Do you want to finish the day with us, Hope?” Ms. Amy asked.

  Hope started into the air on an excited jump, but Cassie caught her shoulders. “We don’t have her things yet. I’ll bring her back tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good. Don’t worry, Mrs. Warne. Hope will be happy with us, and I always call right away with any problems—including a difficulty settling in. Welcome to Honesty.” She patted Hope’s head. “I’m so glad you’re joining us.”

  “Cassie,” she said, not bothering to explain further. “Thanks, Ms. Amy. I’m not sure how long we’re staying, although I assume we’ll be here until the end of the school year.”

  Hope kept up a prattle about crayons and the “pretty aprons” the children wore for art classes, and learning to play the violin, an extra class the little school offered.

  Van kept his silence, and Cassie obviously had plenty on her mind, too. Back at the Warne house, he opened the car door for Hope. Cassie leaned in from the other side to urge her across.

  “We’d better get inside and check on my father,” she said.

  “Want to celebrate Hope’s new school with dinner out tonight?” Van put his all into sounding as if it didn’t matter.

  When Cassie shook her head, disappointment formed a big lump in his chest.

  “I have to get some things for Hope and then I need to call Washington. I’m not even sure Dad’s up to eating out yet.”

  He nodded. “Some other time.”

  Cassie seemed to hear his letdown. She turned Hope toward the small blue house. “Run and tell Grampa about your school. I’ll be right in.”

  “Okay. See ya, Mr. Van.”

  She ran, all legs and dark hair falling down her back. Van narrowed his eyes, dismayed at the softening of his heart. He was getting too attached to Cassie’s little girl.

  Cassie shut the other door and came around the car. “I’m not just using you. I’m grateful for what you did today, but I have so much to do. We’re going to have to fly home and get some things so we can stay here for a few months.”

  He noticed “home” was Tecumseh, not Honesty.

  “No problem.” He climbed back into the driver’s seat. “I’ve been neglecting my own work. See you around, Cassie.”

  He started the engine but couldn’t just leave her that way, watching him with a look he didn’t know, from the middle of the street.

  He put down his window and leaned out. “Promise you’ll call if anything goes wrong—if you need help with Leo.”

  She nodded, saying nothing. He forced himself to drive away, unaccustomed to sadness lingering like a nimbus around Cassie.

  IN THE GATE AREA at Reagan National that night, Van’s cell phone vibrated on his belt. He read the number and hit the Talk button. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Cassie’s laugh sounded brittle enough to shatter. “I’ve been thinking of you all day.”

  His pulse rocketed into double time. “What?”

  “Not like that.” She was handy with a bludgeon. “I think you left with the wrong idea. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have dinner with you, and you know Hope thinks you and ‘Grampa’ are godlike.”

  “Does she?” How did Hope’s mother feel about that?

  “I guess she’s missed having men in her life.”

  “I’m waiting for a flight, and I think they’re starting to board.”

  “Oh. You’re leaving town?”

  “Business.” He’d called a client who always appreciated a face-to-face on his Palm Springs golf course.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

  She sounded as if he’d slapped her, and he didn’t want that, either. “I’ll call you when I get back. Cass—call me if something comes up with Leo while I’m gone.”

  “What could you do from wherever you’re going?”

  “Palm Springs, and I’d come home.”

  “We’re not your problem.”

  “I’m getting that idea.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “WHY DO WE FIND ourselves in flannel shirts, casting ten-foot fishing lines and throwing candy while Eli gets to ride with his mom in a ’67 Caddy?” The parade float, a fishing boat on a papier-mâché lake, jerked forward. Snow stung Van’s face as he tossed another handful of candy marked with Beth’s lodge’s logo into the crowd. “No one who lives here will stay at the lodge, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but she figures the Christmas parade draws in people from the surrounding counties, and Eli refused to fish.” Van’s brother-in-law, Aidan, lobbed some chocolate Santas and hard sugar ribbons at the onlookers on the square. “Besides, we’re secure enough in our virility that we don’t mind small children and teenage girls laughing at us.”

  “I wish I’d taken your idiot wife up on that fake beard. My face is freezing.”

  Aidan had grown his own for the past week, in his home office overlooking the real lake. “Too bad clients are put off by a guy who looks like he’s been on a bender, huh? How’d the trip go?”

  “Fine.” Its real purpose had failed. He still thought about Cassie every half hour or so, but at least he hadn’t called her. “We celebrated the night Hank’s portfolio rose by more than my net worth.”

  “The stock market’s been kind to all of us the past few weeks.” Aidan turned and hit Van with a Santa he’d meant to throw at the kids on the street. “You went to one of Hank Bloodworth’s parties? I thought you and Cassie—”

  “Cassie and I are nothing.” Van handed the Santa back. “And a man can go to a party without partaking of all the canapés.”

  “Yeah? In my experience, Hank doesn’t like when you refuse one of his treats.” Aidan laughed. “You’re an iron man.”

  Just not interested in anyone except Cassie. He’d been asleep for five years, and that was already too long to wait.

  “Mr. Van,” a voice that owned his heart shouted. “Mr. Van?”

  He saw her on Cassie’s shoulders, holding Leo’s hand, about ten feet in front of the float. He didn’t let himself look at Cassie, though he was hungry for the mere sight of her face. Instead he dug a handful of candy from the barrel and over handed it Hope’s way.

  Cassie caught most of it. He cast his fishing line toward Hope, and her giggle made him feel better. Leo waved an okay sign, curling his index finger against his thumb.

  Beth, far too interested, had to slam on the brakes when the float in front of her stopped, and Van and Aidan h
ad to grab the front of their boat to keep from toppling into the crowd.

  “Next year, we get harnesses,” Aidan said, “and we don’t set foot on this thing until my wife shows us her graduation certificate from a driving school.”

  “I THINK SOMEONE’S MAD at you,” Cassie’s father said as they skated behind Hope on the ice rink after the parade. “He waved at me and Hope, and he gave her more than her fair share of treats, but he didn’t even look at you. Pointedly.”

  “Hope, not backwards,” Cassie called. “Van’s not my husband anymore. He’s allowed to like you and Hope, but not me.”

  “You care about him. You’re too stubborn to say so. He’s not stubborn.”

  “He’s still my friend. I’d have been lost without him since I came home, but I only need friends these days.”

  “These years, you mean,” her father said in a return to clarity as unwelcome as it was unexpected. “You let that criminal take your marriage away from you.”

  “Dad, you and I will never discuss what happened without more anger between us than we can stand. Hope, don’t skate backwards.”

  “I’m good, Mommy.”

  “You need more practice.” She thought again. “But not now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Leo said. “I was ashamed back then and I don’t know why, but I didn’t know how to change my feelings. I didn’t want the entire town thinking of you at that bastard’s mercy.”

  “I was at your mercy. I needed you to love me, anyway. I felt at fault because I forgot to shut the window.” And yet she’d forgotten to lock the door the day her father had gone wandering, and nothing bad had happened. Life could surprise a woman that way sometimes.

  “You were never at fault. I treated you unforgivably, and I didn’t know how to make up for it. I couldn’t even face myself after you left.”

  She looked straight at him, maybe for the first time since she’d been home. She could see her father in his eyes. “Is that why you got sick?”

  “Maybe.” He skated ahead. “Hope, honey, listen to your mom. You’re going to fall on your butt.”

  Hope stopped so suddenly, Cassie ran into her. They both swirled in a circle, as Cassie fought to keep them upright.

  “Grampa said butt.” Hope could hardly believe it. “Mommy, Grampa said butt.”