A Father's Gift Read online

  She was not going to lose someone else she loved!

  “Stop it, you dumb old bird.” Cassie tried to hold back her tears but they came anyway. “We’re just trying to help you.”

  She tried again—this way and then that way. But it didn’t matter how exhausted Juliet looked. Every time Cassie got close enough to reach under the branches, the bird would start thrashing around and waving those big, airplane wings.

  Cassie looked toward shore where her sisters were standing. Fiona was right at the edge of the lake and Samantha was a little behind her, clutching her book to her chest.

  “Fiona!” Cassie cried out. “I can’t cut the plastic away unless she holds still. You’ve got to come over here and help.”

  “In there?”

  Why couldn’t Fiona just stop being such a worrywart, for once? Didn’t she see that Juliet needed both their help?

  Cassie fought back the tears that seemed to be coming closer and closer, but then suddenly Fiona was in the lake, walking gingerly through the mud as she circled around Juliet. “When she’s looking at me, you cut her free,” she told Cassie.

  Cassie just nodded, afraid that if she spoke, she would really start crying. And she never cried. Never.

  Juliet turned to watch Fiona, and as Cassie watched, she felt relief fill her heart.

  “Hi, Juliet,” Fiona murmured to the swan. “You remember me? I’m Fiona.”

  Cassie eased closer to the bird and Juliet flicked a worried glance her way. “Don’t be afraid, girl,” Cassie whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Fiona was still talking and the swan went back to paying attention to her. Cassie sighed and inched forward. Just another foot. She inched closer, then closer still.

  Then finally, taking a deep breath, she reached under the branches into the water. A quick snip and Juliet was free. Clutching the plastic in one hand and the scissors in the other, Cassie propelled herself backward. The swan half-swam, halfflew toward Romeo.

  Cassie watched the bird hurry away, feeling as if her heart might burst. But even as relief and happiness grew inside her, worry started to push in. What if this had happened over the weekend, when they weren’t around? What if it had happened farther around the lake, past the point where the camp was? Juliet could have died.

  Cassie felt the stinging behind her eyes again. Mad as she was at Daddy for lying, losing Juliet would somehow have been like losing part of him again. The hurt made her mad and she stomped back to the shore, splashing up a storm.

  “Look at this stupid junk,” she fumed, waving the plastic ringed strip in the air. “People who throw this stuff in the lake ought to be hung by their necks with it.”

  Fiona climbed out of the water right behind her. “Come on,” she said as she took Samantha’s hand. “We’ll go back to camp by the nurse’s office. We can say we went there with you.”

  “Whatever.” Cassie was too tired to care. What was Mrs. Warner going to do to them, anyway, if they got caught—make them weed the woods?

  But Cassie just followed Fiona and Sam along the shore. They were just about to start up through the trees when an old woman came toward them.

  “I saw what you did,” she said.

  “So?” Cassie was in no mood to apologize to anybody. She could feel Fiona pulling at her but she ignored her sister’s hand and glared at the intruder.

  “It was my fault,” Fiona said, stepping in front of them. “I’m the oldest and I should have known better.”

  Oh, man. The great confessor was at it again. “Gee, Fi—”

  But the old woman’s laughter cut Cassie’s words off. “The gods will smile on you,” the old woman said. “You fought so love might live. Someday, the spirits will return to fight for your love.”

  Cassie just stared at the old woman, stunned for the moment. She wanted to say something smart, something that would snap the old lady back on her heels. But what could you say when someone talked so dumb?

  Love wasn’t good for anything, anyway. You didn’t need it to kick a home run, do chin-ups, or come in first in a race. Love was just a big waste of time. Actually, it was worse. All it did was make you cry.

  Chapter One

  “My, oh, my. Check it out, Cassie. This could be your Romeo.”

  “Romeo’s a swan,” Cassie Scott said and went right on filling out her order form. She knew from Ellen’s tone that a man had entered her plumbing-supply house but she, unlike Ellen, was interested only in the supplies he’d come to buy.

  “Is he or isn’t he studly?” Ellen Donnelly said in a stage whisper that probably woke sleeping dogs in Three Oaks, at least an hour’s drive from South Bend, Indiana. Ellen was a happily married mother of five who believed every woman needed a guy of her own and had taken Cassie on as a special challenge. “On a scale from one to ten, I’d rate him a twelve.”

  Cassie knew Ellen would never let it rest, so she glanced up. Her heart stumbled for a long moment before it started to beat again.

  The man had taken a turn to his right and was staring at a row of faucet fixtures that hung on the Peg-Board-covered wall. His well-tailored suit did nothing to hide his husky physique. His shoulders were broad, and tapered to narrow hips and long legs. Dark hair just barely curled over his shirt collar, his beard was trimmed short, and his eyes were blue.

  “Studly” definitely was an appropriate description. One that Cassie had used herself last weekend when this man, two little girls and an older woman had moved into the house next to hers. However, she’d also used a few other terms—like “dangerous,” “poison,” and “heartbreaker”—to remind herself that she was perfectly happy with her life as it was.

  “Well?” Ellen said, digging a very nonsubtle, uncool elbow in Cassie’s ribs. “What do you say?”

  “Eight.”

  “Eight?” The word almost came out in a shriek. “What do you mean, eight? What’s wrong with him?”

  “I’m not into suits.”

  “You’re not into suits?”

  “Guys who live in them aren’t my type. They always think they know everything and I know nothing.” Cassie went back to her form. He hadn’t been wearing a suit when he’d moved in. No, he’d been wearing jeans and a T-shirt that teased her imagination—a fact that she was reminded of every time he’d wandered in and out of her dreams over the past few nights.

  “The suits come off, you know.”

  “Their attitude doesn’t,” Cassie said, concentrating hard on the form in front of her, hoping against hope that Ellen would take the hint and get back to her own work.

  “Attitude, schmattitude. You get down to the basics in the he-man department and who cares about attitude?”

  “You women are disgusting.” Burt Klinger, a semiretired plumber who worked for Cassie, had stepped in from the storeroom. “All you females think about is sex.”

  Like Ellen, Burt felt that Cassie needed a man of her own. But they couldn’t agree on what type and spent hours dissecting every remotely potential male who stepped into the store.

  “Aren’t you two about ready to leave?” Cassie asked.

  “Sure you can handle things here all by yourself?” Ellen replied with a sly smile.

  “I’ll wake Ollie up,” Cassie said.

  “That beast would chase away a saint.” Burt grabbed his lunch box from under the counter. “Have a good weekend.”

  “And be nice,” Ellen added and hurried out after Burt.

  Cassie turned her attention back to the list in front of her. Some people just couldn’t believe it, but she was satisfied with her life. She had a nice little business, a lot of friends, and teams to play on year-round. And in case things got too boring, she had her hot-air-balloon pilot’s license, a kayak for slaloming down the course in the East Race, and all the “Star Trek” episodes ever made—from all four series—on videotape. Her life wasn’t perfect but it was a heck of lot better than when she had been married.

  “Excuse me.”

  Her gaze flew
up. And her discombobulation level went off the scale.

  The man’s eyes were that soft, cozy kind of blue that made a lady just want to slide down in the hay. But the little lines at the corners of his eyes spoke more of pain than laughter She found herself wanting to coax a smile out of him, to erase that first image that came to her heart.

  “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

  Cassie mentally kicked herself. “I’m sorry.” It was obvious he didn’t recognize her—and why should he, since she hadn’t been the one carrying boxes of belongings up the sidewalk all Saturday afternoon?—but sooner or later they would meet officially, and she didn’t want him to think she was a complete ditz. “I have to fax these orders before five and I wasn’t paying attention to anything else.”

  “That’s okay.” He smiled but his eyes still looked like the sky just before a summer squall. And they still had the power to touch something deep inside her. “I just have a few questions.”

  She put her pencil down, leaned on the counter and waited. She was stronger this time, though. No matter how she trembled inside, she was not going to let those crazy ideas dance in her imagination.

  They stared at each other. It seemed like ages before he cleared his throat and spoke. “Maybe I should wait for that older gentleman.”

  She paused for a long minute, conscious mostly of an overwhelming sense of disappointment. He was a typical suit guy. She’d been hoping he wouldn’t be, but he was. Why it mattered, she didn’t know. Just because she hadn’t seen evidence of a wife, it didn’t mean that there wasn’t one.

  “What did you want Burt for?”

  He looked like he’d wandered into a field he hadn’t meant to visit. “I have a plumbing question.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s technical.”

  Cassie glanced at her watch. She was going to have to cut this short if she wanted to get her orders faxed in on time. If she missed the five o’clock deadline, she couldn’t get the order in until Monday.

  “Look, mister. This is my place. I own it and know every part we have. Why don’t you quit wasting everyone’s time and tell me what you need?”

  His lips twisted slightly. “My faucet leaks.”

  “Your faucet?” Cassie deliberately let her eyes look around the showroom at the various displays of fixtures. “That really narrows things down a lot.”

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “It’s a kitchen faucet with a long neck that swivels around. And to make the water come out, you fiddle around with a thing that looks like a joystick.”

  “That’s very technical. I can see why you wanted Burt to help you.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, I’m a lawyer.”

  “That’s too bad.” Cassie let her own smile shine. “But don’t worry. We don’t discriminate against anyone here.”

  “Am I going to have to listen to lawyer jokes?”

  “Only if you’re too obvious with your biases as to what women can and cannot do.”

  “How about having children?” he said. “Women are the only ones who can do that.”

  Some women. Not all.

  She was tired of this little game all of a sudden. She would let him be the victor.

  “Wait a minute.” She went halfway down an aisle, past bins of ell and tee joints in three-quarter-inch and half-inch copper, to the boxes of cartridges. Picking one up, she brought it back and handed it to him. “There you go.”

  He stared at the package like it was something manufactured on Mars with instructions written in Sanskrit. “This doesn’t look simple. I thought when your faucet leaked, it was something easy, like changing a washer.”

  “Not for yours.”

  “How do you know what kind of faucet I have?”

  She took a deep breath and wondered how much longer before she would have to admit she lived in the bungalow to the west of his house. Or how much longer before she had to address the question of why she didn’t want him to know. She wasn’t scared of him, wasn’t worried that a superstud lived next door to her.

  “You described it to me,” she just said and pulled her order sheet in front of her. “Anything else that I can get you?”

  He was staring at the cartridge.

  Cassie closed her eyes and counted to ten before she opened them again. She had to get her wobbly heart under control. She had lots of customers come in with no plumbing experience. She didn’t take all of them under her wing. There was no reason to want to do so with this guy.

  “You do know what to do with that, don’t you?”

  “Sure.” He put it back on the counter with a grimace. “Give it back to you and call a plumber.”

  If this weren’t Friday and if her soul hadn’t been on a roller coaster since looking into his eyes, she might have been stronger. At least a little. But she was tired, and that shadow hiding in his eyes was so hard to ignore.

  “Getting a plumber out on the weekend’ll cost you a fortune,” she told him.

  He frowned at her. “I can afford it,” he said. “Better than letting Aunt Hattie get more upset.”

  “Aunt Hattie?”

  “She washes the dishes in the kitchen sink.”

  “Aren’t you married?” Cassie blurted out, then wished she could hide. Where had that question come from? She didn’t care if he was married or single, engaged or on the rebound.

  He looked as startled as she had been by the question, but it did worm a slight smile out of him. And that smile sent shock waves clear down to her toes.

  “No, I’m not married,” he admitted. “How about you?”

  “No,” she said in what she hoped was a distant, businesslike tone. She feared it came out more breathless, though. “What I really meant to ask was, why is Aunt Hattie washing the dishes? Don’t you have a dishwasher?”

  “It doesn’t do the job.”

  Cassie frowned at him.

  “According to Aunt Hattie.”

  She didn’t want to know anything more about his life. She didn’t want to start wondering about him. She didn’t want her stupid mouth to go blurting out any other questions. Right now, she would be satisfied to just get through the next few minutes until she could close up the shop.

  “See that rack over there?” She pointed to the far wall with its array of books, pamphlets and photocopied instruction sheets. “There’re do-it-yourself booklets that will show you how to install this cartridge. It’s real easy.”

  She leaned forward and tried concentrating on her list but he was one of those big guys who filled the space around him and crowded everything else out, including the air. Especially since he didn’t move.

  She looked back up slowly. Reluctantly.

  His eyes held an intensity that surprised her; that reached out to her and held her prisoner. “You know how in high school some bigwig know-it-all decides whether you’re going into the college prep courses or trade school?” he asked, his voice a feather that tickled her spine.

  She just nodded, unable to find her voice.

  He leaned his arms on the counter and somehow she was swept with him back to his past. “Well, I didn’t like the decision made for me.” He took a deep breath before going on. “See, we didn’t have much money and nobody in my house had finished high school by the regular route, but my parents had always encouraged me to dream.” His voice had grown soft, but the tension was there and growing. “When Mr. Lincoln told me I was taking shop and basic math my freshman year instead of Latin and algebra, I blew up. He said that given my background, I probably wouldn’t even finish high school but if I did, I’d at least have a trade.”

  The air seemed to quiver around him. The hurt pride and anger of that young boy came back to touch her. She wanted to share his anger and outrage. She wanted to help him slay his dragons. She wanted to take him in her arms and tell him that that was in the past and he should let it go. But she knew he was looking for none of that. Not even her sympathy.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “I vowed then and there that I
was never taking a trade course and would be so successful that I could hire someone to fix even the smallest thing I needed fixed.”

  She frowned at him, more in an attempt to chill the growing warmth that she was feeling toward him, than in reaction to his words. She wanted to shake off those strange reactions and find herself again. The real her—strong and cool and unattached.

  “Are you saying you hire someone to change your light bulbs?” she asked. “Or tighten loose handles on saucepans? Or hang pictures in the living room?”

  “No, I do simple stuff myself. Just like I would have tightened some fittings or cleaned a filter on the faucet. But bigger stuff—” he nodded toward the cartridge “—I hire somebody.”

  “So you don’t care how easy this is to put in,” Cassie said. “You’d rather pay someone sixty dollars than do it yourself.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. A certain defensiveness?

  “You think it’s stupid,” he said. His voice said he was ready for a fight. “Didn’t you make any vows when you were a kid?”

  No, she didn’t think it was stupid. She understood completely because she’d made her share of vows. And was still making them. “A ton of them,” she admitted. “Never let ’em see me cry. That was the first.”

  “And did you keep it?” he pressed.

  She looked away from the persistence of his eyes. Away to the past when she’d made that promise. She’d kept her feelings secret when she’d been a kid starting in yet another new school; when she, Fiona and Sam had waited for the adoption to be official; when she’d had to draw a stupid family tree in junior high and made up all the names. She’d still been keeping that vow a few years back when her marriage had failed and Ron had left her. No one had known how that had hurt.

  “Yeah, I did,” she admitted slowly.

  “Then you understand.”

  But she didn’t want to get into that. Before Cassie had to answer—or give in to the urge she had—she heard a shuffling behind her and saw Ollie come ambling out of the storeroom where he’d been snoozing. After a stretch and a shake and a wag of his tail in her direction, he jumped up, putting his front feet on the counter so he could look over.