A Father's Gift Read online

  “He gets enough to eat,” Cassie said. “He doesn’t need treats.”

  There appeared to be a bit of an edge to her voice. Was she having a bad day or irritated because he’d brought Ollie a treat? A young woman came out from the back—a smaller, softer version of Cassie. A sister?

  “Hi.” The young woman stepped forward, her hand out. “I’m Samantha Scott, Cassie’s sister.”

  Jack shook her hand. “Jack Merrill.”

  “I know,” Samantha replied. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Sam’s my younger sister,” Cassie murmured, her voice as sweet as vinegar.

  Samantha obviously felt something negative in the air as she gave her older sister a sugary sweet smile. Jack felt his own smile wanting to slip away. He hoped he hadn’t come at a bad time. He wanted to get a day picked for his first payback.

  “What can I do for you today, Mr. Merrill?” Cassie asked, her voice all brisk and businesslike. “Do you need a plumbing fixture?”

  “Not today.”

  Cassie just stared at him and Jack noticed that Samantha was suddenly busy tending to Ollie, bending over and talking to him behind the counter so that she almost disappeared from view. He noticed, too, how close Cassie’s hands were to his. How he could just reach over and—

  Those kinds of thoughts would get him nowhere. “So how about our dinner?” he asked her. “When are you free?”

  She frowned. “Look, there’s really no need for that.”

  No need? “I thought we covered all this,” he said quickly. “Merrills pay their debts.”

  “I did you a favor and you did me one. It’s over with.”

  “I owe you for your help. You agreed to let me take you to dinner.”

  “You can’t be this hard up for company,” she snapped. “Every woman in the Western Hemisphere probably wants to go out with you.”

  “Apparently not every one,” he said.

  “So, every one except me. You’ve got a lot to choose from. All sorts of perfectly great women.”

  “I don’t owe any of them for fixing my plumbing.”

  “So, I transfer your debt. Take out Sam. Take out Princess Mishawaka.”

  “Who?”

  She ignored him. “Take out Juliet.”

  “That’s a swan,” Samantha said, suddenly there again and giving Cassie a knowing smile before turning back to Jack. “You don’t want to take her out. Or Princess Mishawaka, since she’s been dead a few centuries.”

  “I see.” Although he didn’t.

  “Cassie’s always been stubborn like this,” Sam went on. “She doesn’t mean what she’s saying.”

  “I do, too.”

  Sam just smiled at Jack. “Are you doing anything this Friday night?”

  He stopped. Was she asking him out? She seemed nice enough, but it was Cassie he had to pay back, not Sam. It was Cassie who lingered in his dreams. Cassie whose laughter was a web he was caught in.

  “Uh, no,” he answered cautiously. “I think I’m free Friday.”

  “Good,” Samantha said. “Then you can come to the party we’re having for my sister Fiona and her fiancé.”

  Be at a party with Cassie? But from the way she was frowning at him, she didn’t seem to be thinking party thoughts. At least, not the kind of parties he went to.

  “It would be nice if you could come,” Samantha said. “We have a big crowd coming and it would be great to have an extra hand or two.”

  Oh. That was it. They needed help and Cassie hated to ask. It was a chance to pay her back.

  “Sure,” he replied. “I’d be glad to help out.”

  “Great,” Samantha said. “See you Friday around seven. Cassie will give you directions.”

  “Super.” But Cassie didn’t look like she thought anything was great or super or even okay. Was she upset about Samantha’s invitation, his acceptance, or both?

  Maybe she didn’t even want him for a friend. The thought hurt, like a quick stab whose pain comes only when you look at the wound.

  Cassie parked her pickup in front of Jack’s house, cut the ignition, and dropped her head on the steering wheel. Why couldn’t she have been an only child? Jack didn’t know how lucky he was.

  She’d been all set to wring Samantha’s neck yesterday, but her sister had been out the door, saying she had to get to work at the library, before Cassie could get her hands on her.

  Jack had no interest in coming to the shower. That was as obvious as the muscles in his chest. Just as it was obvious that he had a life of his own and didn’t need another family horning in on his time. The fact that she occasionally wished circumstances were different was of no importance.

  Sighing, she pushed herself away from the steering wheel. Lordy, what had she got herself into? she wondered as she dropped down onto the street. She should never have promised to teach his kids how to swim. She should have sold her house and moved away as soon as she saw him unloading his van. Unfortunately, she seemed to have lost all power of reasonable thought over the past few weeks.

  Cassie wrestled her feet onto the sidewalk and up the steps to Jack’s house. Her hand twitched and flittered about, but she finally made it ring the bell. The door opened before she could turn and run.

  “Hi,” he said.

  He was wearing a knit green shirt, jean shorts, and sandals. The outfit went very well with his deep voice and showed off his muscles better than anything he’d worn so far. All he needed was a petite blonde at his side, one of those with big blue eyes and long, wavy hair who could give him a houseful of kids if he wanted them. Not some tall, gangly woman who—

  “Come in, please. The girls will be down in a minute.”

  Cassie nodded. She stepped into the foyer and stopped there.

  “Let’s go in here and sit down,” he said, indicating the living room with a sweep of his arm. “I’ll get you something cool to drink while we’re waiting.”

  “No, I’m fine. I’ll just stay right here.”

  “Okay.” He leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across that broad, deep chest of his. “Your sister is very nice. She seems like a lot of fun.”

  “Yeah, she’s a riot.”

  He turned away, but not before she could see his grimace. This whole thing was a disaster. She should just give him the names of other swimming teachers, people much more competent than her, and get out of his life. Run, not walk, to the nearest airport, and take the first plane out. Disappear forever in the depths of some tropical jungle. She would forget her silly dreams about him in time—maybe after a century or two.

  “What do you have planned for today?” he asked, turning back toward Cassie.

  “More of what we had the last time—playing, splashing around, getting comfortable in the water. And I’m hoping to get them away from the side a little.”

  “When are you going to get into real swimming?”

  “When they’re ready,” she snapped.

  They turned away from each other. This was going to turn into a fight. She could feel it in her bones.

  “The girls should be down soon.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “We have plenty of time.”

  He brushed back his hair and sighed. They shared another couple of decades of silence.

  “I could bring the girls over to your place on lesson night,” he said.

  “That’s okay,” she replied. “I’ve got the car out anyway. It’s no big deal to drive here.”

  “No, you’re doing us the favor.”

  “I said it was no big deal, so let’s just leave it as it is.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  The air around them turned a bit more dense and Cassie found it necessary to clear her throat. It appeared to be bothering Jack also, as he suddenly began coughing. That done with, they both settled into silence again and took turns looking up the stairs.

  Darn, those girls were slow. She never took that long to dress. Of course, she never thought
it made any difference anyway. And it still didn’t. Another way that she didn’t—wouldn’t—fit in here.

  “I don’t have to come to the party,” he said.

  “What?” Cassie quickly went on before he could answer. “You don’t have to come, if you don’t want to.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to come. I just didn’t want to force myself on you.”

  “You’re not forcing anything,” she retorted. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated to do something you didn’t want to do in the first place.”

  “I never said I didn’t want to come.”

  Cassie could feel her eyes rolling toward the skies. Samantha did that all the time and she hated it.

  “Look,” Cassie said, trying to be as reasonable as the circumstances allowed. This was as bad as when her brothers brought a date to the family Memorial Day picnic for her. “You won’t know anybody there. And it’s a gift thing. Why should you be forced to buy a gift for somebody you don’t even know?”

  “Buying a set of steak knives isn’t going to send me into bankruptcy.”

  She just stared at him. He made it sound all too reasonable when it wasn’t.

  “All right.” He glanced quickly up the stairs before turning back to her. “It’s up to you. If you want me to come, I will. If you don’t, I won’t.”

  Those big blue eyes had turned dark, like a sea in a storm. Cassie found a need to swallow hard. “If you want to.” She shrugged. “If you want to, it’s fine with me.”

  His chest grew about a mile in circumference as he took a deep breath. “I want to,” he replied quietly. “The question still before the jury is, do you want me to?”

  He was handsome. He was funny. He was an all-around nice guy. And she spent most of her nights dreaming of him. Of course, she wanted him to come. “Yeah.” Cassie could feel a smile tugging at her lips. “I wouldn’t mind if you came.”

  He glared at her.

  “All right,” she snapped. What had he been in a former life—chief torturer at the Inquisition? “I’d be happy if you came.”

  He continued looking at her.

  “But it counts against my plumbing work,” she added quickly. “You come and help out and we’re even.”

  “We are not.”

  Suddenly his eyes were a deep blue and a brightness filled his face, as his lips turned up into a small smile. He stepped forward and she gave up, letting her own lips curve into a smile. She tilted her head back, just slightly, so that they could better research each other’s eyes.

  “We’re ready.”

  The words rolled down and echoed around the foyer. Two pairs of little feet thumped down the stairs. Instead of the dress shoes they’d worn last time, the twins each wore a pair of sports sandals, probably bought specially for their swimming-lesson trips. They skipped the last three steps as they jumped down to the floor with a solid thump.

  “Hey!” Jack shouted as he scooped them up, one in each arm. Cassie almost thought she could feel relief in his voice. “Don’t wreck the joint. We have to live here, you know.”

  “Daddy, put us down.”

  “Yeah, we gotta go swimming.”

  “Okay.” He let them slide down to the floor “Now give me a kiss.”

  They gave him a smack, each on the cheek nearest them. Cassie felt a little lump working to bubble up in her throat. “We’d better get going,” she said. “Or there won’t be any water left for us.”

  “Will too,” the little girls shouted in unison.

  They tumbled out of the house, riding a cloud of good cheer, as they skipped out to her truck. Cassie tagged along after them.

  Mary Louise turned to Cassie as she climbed up into the truck. “We don’t got a mommy, you know,” she said.

  “But everybody’s supposed to have one,” Mary Alice said.

  “We got Aunt Hattie, but she’s not a mommy.”

  Cassie got in the driver’s side, pretending to concentrate on buckling up everyone’s seat belt. “I bet she really really loves you, though,” she told them.

  “You want to be our mommy?”

  “We’d let you.”

  Cassie just looked at the girls, not sure what to say. Not sure what her heart was telling her. “It’s not that simple,” she said slowly. “It would be something that would be up to your dad and me.”

  “Daddy likes you,” Mary Louise said.

  “Yeah,” Mary Alice said. “He was really grumpy before you came.”

  “And then you came and he was all happy.”

  “I think we’d better get going,” Cassie said and started the truck.

  This was all crazy. She doubted that Jack was grumpy all day, or that he had suddenly gotten happy when she’d arrived. Of much greater concern to her was the fact that she had gotten happier when she’d seen him. Definitely not a good sign for someone who prided herself on staying detached.

  Chapter Five

  “I can take care of myself,” Jack told her. “Honest.”

  Cassie just gave him a look and returned to her conversation with Samantha. That was all right with him. It gave him a chance to catch his breath. Somehow, being around Cassie, working next to her setting up the bar in the dining room and helping to carry chairs from other parts of the house, had affected him. It had been harder than running wind sprints in preseason had been.

  His eyes just couldn’t keep from following her around, from letting his gaze linger on her slender form. She was in dress slacks this evening, with a silk blouse that clung in all the most alluring places. He tried to force himself to look around the room, to watch Fiona and Alex mingling among their guests, but his eyes refused to obey. After a quick scan of the party crowd, they were back on Cassie.

  “I need your help for just a few minutes,” Samantha was saying to her sister. “Then I can take care of things from there on.”

  “That isn’t fair,” Cassie insisted. “The two of us are responsible for this shower. I can’t leave the work up to you.”

  “But somebody has to take care of Jack,” Samantha replied.

  “Why don’t we let Jack take care of Jack?” he said. And he might be better off if given a task far away from Cassie. Maybe he would learn to breathe again. “He is a big boy.”

  They were treating him like he was Cassie’s date—something he wasn’t. He was just a friend there to help out.

  “I know,” Cassie said, obviously agreeing with Samantha that he needed a keeper. “He doesn’t know a single soul here.”

  “Just don’t tell anybody he’s a lawyer,” Jack whispered. “And he’ll be fine.”

  Cassie gave him one of her instant frowns. There was something so sweet and fiery about her. He had a sudden urge to sweep her into his arms. It caught him by surprise, slipping in under his defenses and stealing what little bit of his breath was left. He looked away for a moment to steady himself.

  “Wait!” Samantha exclaimed. “Daddy.”

  “Good idea,” Cassie agreed.

  Jack just shook his head. “Why do I need taking care of?” he asked, even as they were waving their father over. “I’m supposed to be helping.”

  Cassie glared at him. “You’re done helping,” she said.

  Her glare didn’t do anything to dampen the fire that was starting to smolder inside him. “Done? I worked about ten minutes.”

  “About the length of time I spent on your sink,” she returned with a definite smirk on her face. “So we’re even.”

  “I think not,” he said.

  “Daddy, keep an eye on Jack, will you?” Cassie asked, patting her father on the arm. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Is that a threat or a promise?” her father asked.

  “Jack can take it any way he wants,” Cassie said, giving her father a peck on the cheek.

  Jack waited, his breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his distant hopes, but she just turned and hurried off with Sam. Just as well, Jack told himself as he turned toward Dan Scott. A little time al
one and he’d be in control of himself again.

  “Great girls,” Dan remarked.

  Jack just nodded his head. His eyes followed Cassie, unable to let her go.

  “My wife and I had three boys,” Dan said. “Having the three girls join our family kind of evened things up.”

  “They were lucky to find you,” Jack said.

  “Naw,” Dan replied. “We were the lucky ones. They brought a lot more to the table than they took.”

  Judging from Dan’s words and Cassie’s attitude, the adoption had been successful, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need to know more about her biological father. Jack wondered if Dan knew of Cassie’s search.

  “The three girls are different but the same,” Dan went on. “It’s hard to explain.”

  Jack nodded. He knew exactly what Dan was saying. The twins, being identical, were a whole lot the same. But once you got to know them you could see little differences that made each one unique.

  “And Cassie’s the toughest,” Dan said.

  “I learned that when we first met.”

  Dan shook his head and chuckled. “If I had me a dollar for every time I had to go to school because of some fight or other, I’d be a rich man now.”

  “I imagine she had a temper when she was a child.”

  “As a child?” Dan repeated with a laugh. “How long have you known her?”

  Jack shrugged. “All right, she still has one.”

  Dan nodded, but his eyes had taken on a distant look. “But of the three of them, she has the softest heart.”

  Jack remembered how Cassie’s dark eyes could look like softened chocolate kisses. How quickly she had agreed to teach his girls how to swim. And the absolute and total devotion she commanded from her big, fuzzy dog. There was no doubt that she had a tender heart.

  “That’s why she acts so tough,” Dan explained. “Without that tough exterior, she’d live in constant pain.”

  Jack nodded.

  “Care for a beer?” Dan asked. “I think they’re going to start opening gifts soon.”

  “Sure.”

  They got two cans from an ice-filled tub in the dining room. Cassie was herding everybody over to the chairs, while Samantha was getting Fiona and Alex set up near the presents. Maybe it was best this way, that he was not all that close to Cassie. Maybe this way he could build up an immunity to her. Maybe this was the way to fight his dreams.