Nathan's Child Page 4

  Finally a smile spread slowly across Lacey’s face. “I’m glad you know about me, too,” she said, then sighed. “I didn’t think you wanted to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you didn’t come. After Uncle Dominic and Aunt Sierra were here the first time, I mean.”

  Nathan looked away, wondering how to explain what he wasn’t sure he understood himself. When Dominic had first told him about finding Carin again, he’d been astonished at his reaction. He’d so determinedly “forgotten” her that he was completely unprepared for the sudden clench of his stomach and the flip-flop of his heart at the sound of her name.

  And he’d felt awkward as hell about those feelings in front of his brother. Dominic’s old pain was fresh enough in Nathan’s memory to make all his guilt flood back. And even though Dominic was happy now and glad to understand at last why Carin had jilted him, Nathan hadn’t been able to come to terms with the new circumstances that quickly.

  He’d resisted all thought of renewing his relationship with Carin.

  And then Dominic had mentioned Lacey.

  He’d been deliberately vague, mentioning her name casually, hinting at a possibility that had frankly taken Nathan’s breath away.

  He had a daughter? He’d been poleaxed by the idea. It had reordered his reality and had paralyzed him at the same time. He’d prowled the beach near their Long Island home for hours afterward, had driven miles. Had tried to think. But his mind had been a blur.

  There was no way he could explain to Lacey the roller coaster of emotions he’d ridden that night and for weeks after he’d learned of her existence. A part of him had wanted to grab the next plane to the Bahamas. A saner, more rational part had refused to let him.

  He needed to get his house in order, to weigh the implications, to decide what would be best for his daughter. And while he did that, he went on with his life.

  He fulfilled the assignments he’d already committed to, wrote the articles he’d agreed to, took the pictures that would go in his next book. And all the while—no matter where he was—his mind was grappling with the knowledge of his daughter.

  “I had commitments,” he said finally. “Things that I’d agreed to do before I knew about you. Photo assignments. Articles. People were counting on me.” And your mother definitely was not. “So I did my job. When I came I wanted to be ready to stay. I didn’t want to have to leave again as soon as I got here.”

  Lacey nodded happily. “That’s what Grandpa said.”

  The old man had certainly been sticking his oar in, Nathan thought. But in this instance he was glad. “He was right.”

  “I’m glad you’re staying.” She gave a little bounce on the bed. “For how long?”

  As long as it takes, Nathan thought. He wasn’t sure what the answer was. But he wasn’t leaving until he and Carin and Lacey were a family.

  “I’ve got a book to write. Pictures to choose. I’ll be doing that here. You can help.”

  Lacey’s eyes lit up. “I can? Really?”

  “Well, you can’t make all the decisions, but you can have some input. You said you were taking pictures, right?”

  “Right. I brought some. An’ I brought my camera. They’re in my backpack. Want to see them?” She looked eager, and then just a little nervous, as if she might have overstepped her bounds.

  But Nathan was delighted. “Of course. Show me.”

  They went back downstairs and Lacey opened her backpack. Her camera was a good basic single-lens reflex, not a point-and-shoot. Every setting had to be done manually.

  “Grandpa said you’d want me to start the way you did,” Lacey told him. “Learning how to do everything.”

  Good ol’ Grandpa. It was true, of course. It was exactly what Nathan would have wanted. He handed the camera back to her.

  “He said it was exactly the same in business,” his daughter informed him. “A person needs to know how to do things herself before she starts taking shortcuts.”

  “Yeah,” Nathan said. “Let’s see your pictures.”

  Lacey hesitated. “I don’t focus real good.”

  “You’ll learn.”

  “And sometimes I wobble a little.”

  “So do we all.”

  “And some of ’em are too light and others are too dark.”

  “It happens. Not every shot is a prizewinner, Lace. I throw out way more than I print.”

  “Really?” She looked at him, wide-eyed, as if that had never occurred to her. And at his solemn nod, she breathed a sigh of relief and began pulling out envelopes of photographic prints.

  Nathan spread them on the island, and they pulled up stools and sat side by side, looking at them. She was right—many of them were out of focus, many were too dark or too light. On some the camera had clearly wobbled. But she had a nice sense of composition. She had an eye for telling detail.

  There were pictures of the harbor and the village, of Maurice blowing a conch shell to call the women to buy fresh fish, of Thomas, Maurice’s son and the father of Lacey’s friend Lorenzo, cleaning fish on the dock. There were lots of pictures of a boy Lacey’s age, mugging for the camera, walking a fence like a tightrope, sitting astride one of the old English cannons near the cliff. Lorenzo, no doubt.

  There was a particularly well-composed picture of a row of colorful shirts flapping on a clothesline in the wind and, behind them, a row of pastel houses climbing the hill, their colors pale echoes of the flapping shirts.

  Nathan edged that one away from the others. “This is really strong.”

  Lacey’s eyes lit up. “You think?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  More confident now, she pulled out more envelopes from her backpack and opened them up. Suddenly Nathan found himself staring at Carin.

  Close-ups of Carin looking stern, looking pensive. Laughing. Rolling her eyes. Sticking her tongue out at the camera. Long shots of Carin walking on the beach or sitting on the sand or working in her shop.

  And a particularly wonderful one of Carin on the dock, her feet dangling in the water, as she turned her head and looked up at her daughter and smiled.

  It was a smile Nathan remembered, a smile that, deep in his heart, he had carried with him for the past thirteen years. It was the smile she’d given him so often that week they’d spent together, an intimate, gentle smile that touched not just her mouth but her eyes, as well.

  For years, in his wallet, he’d carried a picture of that smile. The photo, one he had taken during their week together on the beach, had become worn from handling and faded from exposure to all kinds of weather. Two years ago he’d had his wallet stolen in a street bazaar in Thailand. The inconvenience of having to get his driver’s license re-issued and his credit cards changed was annoying. But the loss of that photo more than anything had left him feeling oddly hollow and alone.

  Now, unbidden, his fingers went out and touched the one Lacey had taken.

  “It’s the best one, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “It’s…very good. The way the light…” His voice trailed off because his reactions had nothing to do with the way the light did anything.

  It was all Carin. He picked it up and stared at it. She could have smiled at him like that today. She could have thrown her arms around him, welcomed him…

  “You can have it if you want,” Lacey offered.

  “No, that’s okay.” Hastily he set it back down, steeling himself against an ache he refused to acknowledge. He felt trapped suddenly, cornered by emotions he didn’t want to face.

  He shifted from one bare foot to the other, then drummed his knuckles nervously on the countertop. “Well, those are good,” he said briskly, gathering the Carin photos into a pile and tucking them firmly back into the envelope. “Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

  But before Lacey could pull out any more envelopes, there was a knock on the front door.

  “That’ll be Maurice. I can talk to him later.”

  But he was wrong again.

&n
bsp; It was Carin, pacing on his porch. When he opened the door she whirled to demand, “Where’s Lacey?” Her voice was high and shrill, like nothing he’d ever heard from her before.

  “She’s, uh…I—”

  “Where is she?” She pushed past him. “Lacey!” She strode into the living room, looking around wildly. “Lacey Campbell! Where are you?”

  “She’s in the kitchen. Cripes, Carin, relax. She’s—”

  “I’m here, Mom.” Lacey appeared in the doorway, clutching her backpack, looking worried.

  “See,” Nathan said. “She’s fine.”

  But Carin didn’t even look at him. She was glaring at their daughter. “I told you he was coming by tomorrow, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. But I wanted to see him tonight.”

  “And the world runs according to what you want?”

  “I left you a note.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “I’m almost thirteen years old!”

  “Then start acting like it.”

  “He was glad I came. Weren’t you?” Lacey turned to him.

  Shoved straight into the middle, Nathan swallowed. “Of course. But—”

  “See!” Lacey said triumphantly to her mother.

  Carin shot him a fulminating glare. “It doesn’t matter whether he was glad or not. I’m your mother and I didn’t give you permission.”

  “Well, he’s my father and he—”

  “Doesn’t want you to start a fight with your mother,” Nathan said firmly, getting a grip at last. If there was one thing he did know about parenting it was that the two of them needed to present a united front. “I was glad to see you,” he said to Lacey. “Very glad. But glad as I was, if your mother said tomorrow, she meant tomorrow. You shouldn’t have come without asking.”

  “But—”

  Nathan steeled himself against the accusation of betrayal in her look. “It might be tough being a one-parent child,” he told her firmly, “but you’ll find out it’s not always a picnic having two, either. Especially when they stick together.”

  Lacey scowled. She looked from him to Carin and back again. Her shoulders slumped.

  Nathan hardened his heart against it. “Go on with your mother now,” he said, feeling every inch the father Carin had never given him a chance to become. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “But—” She turned beseeching eyes on him.

  “Tomorrow, Lace. Unless you don’t want me to show you that fishing spot.”

  Lacey’s eyes narrowed, as if she weren’t sure she believed him. She waited hopefully for him to cave in. When he didn’t, she shook her head sadly. “You’re as bad as Mom,” she muttered. Then, shouldering her backpack, she loped past him out the door.

  Watching her go, Nathan felt guilty and parental at the same time. He supposed it was a fairly common feeling. Once Lacey had gone, he looked at Carin.

  Her arms were crossed like a shield over her breasts. “Thank you,” she muttered, her tone grudging.

  “Don’t fall all over yourself with gratitude.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  Her intransigence annoyed him. “Oh, come on, Carin. No harm done. She’s fine. And you can hardly blame her for wanting to meet me.”

  Carin’s eyes flashed. “I blame her for not following the rules!”

  “I remember when we didn’t always follow the rules, Carin.”

  Their gazes met. Locked. Dueled. Minds—and hearts—remembered.

  “Carin—” He tried once more, said her name softly this time.

  But she tore her gaze away. “Good night, Nathan.”

  And she hurried down the steps and almost ran up the drive after their daughter.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “HE’S SO COOL, Mom,” Lacey said over and over as they walked home.

  As soon as she was sure that her mother wasn’t furious anymore, Lacey hadn’t stopped singing Nathan’s praises. All the way over the hill and along the narrow road through the trees and into Pelican Town she chattered on.

  “He told me about Zeno. The wolf Zeno,” Lacey qualified, because the mongrel dog she had taken to feeding a few months back and who now slept on the porch was, amazingly enough, called Zeno, too.

  “Did he?” Carin responded absently.

  “And he liked my photos! He said they were good. Did you know he has to throw out a lot of his, too?” Lacey hopped around a pothole and grinned over her shoulder at her mother. “He says he throws out way more than he keeps.”

  “I’m sure that’s true.”

  She wasn’t really listening to her daughter. She was busy cringing at how frantic she’d sounded and feeling furious that he had sided with her so willingly—even though, she acknowleged, she’d have been even more furious if he hadn’t.

  “He even said I could help him pick photos for his next book.” Lacey opened the gate to their tiny front garden. “D’you want to see which ones of mine he really liked?”

  “Tomorrow,” Carin said.

  “But—”

  “Tomorrow, Lacey,” Carin said in her she-who-must-be-obeyed voice. “Go get ready for bed. It’s nearly eleven o’clock.”

  She could see that Lacey was humming with energy and the desire to talk till dawn. But Carin needed peace and quiet and she needed them now. Apparently, one look at her face and Lacey must have figured that out. Heaving a theatrical sigh and grumbling under her breath, her daughter went up the stairs.

  Carin sank onto the sofa, stared at the slowly whirling ceiling fan, drew a deep breath and felt the adrenaline fade. She was spent, frazzled, completely shot.

  Was this what having Nathan back in her life was going to do?

  Dear God, she hoped not.

  She’d thought she was ready to deal with him. But she hadn’t expected this.

  The Nathan she’d expected would have railed at her about not telling him about Lacey, but would actually have been relieved that she hadn’t. He would have gruffly offered her financial assistance, would have complimented her on how well she had raised their daughter, and would, after a few hours—or at the most, a few days—have taken off for parts unknown.

  That Nathan she could have dealt with.

  This Nathan made her nervous.

  This Nathan seemed both implacable and reasonable. She’d expected Lacey to be charmed by him. What woman between the ages of three and ninety-three wasn’t?

  But she hadn’t expected him to plan to take their daughter fishing!

  Of course she was sure it had been Lacey’s idea. But Nathan would enjoy it. They would bond.

  Hadn’t she herself bonded with him under similar circumstances? Carin remembered well the times he had taken her fishing. His quiet competence and serene enjoyment out on the water had put her at her ease, and his patience as he taught her everything she needed to know had calmed her at the same time it had caused her to fall even deeper under his spell.

  It was his patience that worried her now.

  What if he really did intend to stick around? What if she had to see him day after day, week after week?

  Dear God. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Lacey finished brushing her teeth, and Carin heard the floorboards squeak as her daughter crossed the hall to her bedroom, so she climbed the stairs to act sane and sensible and calm and maternal—and hope she convinced Lacey even if she didn’t convince herself.

  Lacey was in bed, covers tucked up to her chin. Carin hoped she wasn’t going to start in again on how wonderful Nathan was.

  She didn’t. She said instead, “I was afraid he wasn’t going to come.”

  All the bounce was gone now. This was the reflective Lacey. Usually her daughter was eager, cheerful and fearless—much more outgoing than Carin, so that sometimes she forgot that Lacey had insecurities, too. Sometimes it seemed as if she didn’t.

  Now she realized that Lacey might just be better at masking them. Lacey wasn’t one to talk about her fears, and she’d certainly never before confided
this concern about her father. She’d asked lots of questions about Nathan—especially since Dominic had appeared last year—but she’d never seemed to fret about him.

  Carin had been apprehensive, of course, when she’d had to introduce Lacey to Dominic. But the two of them had hit it off quite well. And while Lacey had asked questions about her father and his family after meeting Dominic and Sierra and, later, Douglas, she’d never asked, “When’s my father coming to see me?”

  Carin had been pleased and relieved, convinced that Lacey simply hadn’t cared enough to ask. Now she realized that the really important questions might be the ones Lacey didn’t ask. Her heart squeezed just a little.

  “Would it have mattered so much?”

  Lacey levered herself up on her elbows. “Of course it would matter! He’s my father! I want to know him. I’ve always wanted to know him!”

  The ferocity of her tone cut Carin to the bone. It challenged the most basic decision she’d made—not to tell Nathan about their child.

  And yet she knew, given the same circumstances, she would do the same thing again. Given who Nathan was and what he wanted to do with his life, she’d had no choice.

  He might think differently now. He might blame her now. But thirteen years ago, keeping her pregnancy a secret had been the right thing to do. If she’d told him, she’d have effectively tied him down to a life she knew he’d hate, to obligations he hadn’t chosen. If she’d told him, he might have married her.

  But he would never have loved her.

  He hadn’t loved her, even when they’d made love.

  She made herself reflect on that for a long moment because that had been the other fact on which she’d based her decision. Even when she’d found out she was pregnant, she knew she couldn’t have begged Nathan for marriage—not when she’d given him her heart and he’d only shared his body. It would have destroyed them both.

  In the end there had been only one thing to do. And the truth was, she admitted to herself, she had barely considered Lacey’s needs at all.

  Later she’d assured herself that it would be better for Lacey to have one parent who loved her than have two where one of them might resent her very existence.