The Daughter Merger

“But it’ll be like having a sister.” She hugged the cat again, so hard he uttered a cry that sounded very much like “no-o-o!”

“Sisters,” her mother said dryly, “often get tired of each other.” Grace was very conscious of Claire’s father, silent and stiff.

“Not us. We never will.” Linnet set poor Lemieux down and twirled into the kitchen. The cat shot a look at David and bolted. “Can I call her?” Linnet begged.

“No. Dinner is almost ready. And Mr. Whitcomb and I haven’t made a decision. He and Claire need to talk. This is between them.”

“Oh.” She halted her pirouette and showed the whites of her eyes as she rolled them toward her friend’s father. “I didn’t mean…that is…I mean…”

“I think he knows what you mean.” Grace held out two plates with silverware piled atop. “In the meantime, please set the table while I show him out.”

“No need.” His face and voice were wooden. “I’m sure we’ll be talking.”

She’d hardly had time to set one foot in front of another when she heard the soft sound of the front door opening and closing behind him. She was left with the horrifying realization that she’d gotten herself into something she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to do.

It should have been Claire she was thinking about. Unsettled, Grace had to admit, if only to herself, that she was far more worried about dealing with the grim father than with the sulky teenage girl.

DAVID HEAVED CLAIRE’S SUITCASE out of the trunk of his Mercedes and found his daughter was already hurrying up the brick steps to the front door of the condo. Her step was light; he could feel her joy as she raced toward liberation from her father. The door was swinging open even before she reached it, the two girls squealing, vanishing inside with their arms around each other’s waists.

He was left with a lump of heavy, rough concrete where his heart should have been and with the certain knowledge that, once again, he had taken the low road.

He was her father, damn it. He’d walked away once, and here he was essentially doing it again. He wasn’t tough enough to see his own child through a bad patch. Despising himself, David thought, Hell, no, hand her over to someone else. Let them deal with her.

He wondered how sternly Claire’s foster mom would hold him to his part of the bargain. Would Claire meld gradually, naturally, into Grace Blanchet’s family? Or did she really expect him to somehow become the father Claire needed?

Grunting at the thought, David picked up the suitcase and started after his daughter. The woman was a legal secretary, for Pete’s sake! How the hell could he think she would do for him—and Claire—what licensed psychologists couldn’t?

But did it matter? his mocking inner voice asked. So what if he failed, again? At least Claire was out of his hair. He didn’t have to come home from work every day to the deep, obscene beat of rap music, to a kid who’d rather sneer “I’m not hungry” and starve than sit down to dinner with him.

Grace was waiting for him in the open doorway. This being a Saturday, she had her hair in a ponytail and she wore jeans and a blue flannel shirt tucked into them. Casual, but her loafers gleamed like her warm brown hair. A classy lady who invariably left him feeling unsettled for reasons he didn’t understand.

And wasn’t in any hurry to identify.

“Why don’t you take that right up?” she suggested. “The girls wanted to share a bedroom, but for now I’m giving Claire our spare.” She lowered her voice. “I’m guessing that they will eventually want their privacy, even if they don’t believe me.”

Now, how did she know that? The way those two had hugged and squealed had him guessing the opposite. But then, his insight into a thirteen-year-old girl’s mind had been skewed from the get-go. Grace Blanchet had the advantage, at least, of having been a thirteen-year-old girl once upon a time.

“Sure,” he said, and started up the stairs behind her.

Even burdened with his daughter’s possessions and his own foul mood, he found his gaze lingering on Grace’s tiny waist and gently curved rear end. In her usual conservative suits, she looked skinnier than he found appealing in a woman. Snug jeans and the soft flannel of her shirt made plain that she was more womanly than he’d guessed. Half memory, half imagination stirred, and his palms briefly tingled with the knowledge of how her bottom would feel gripped in his hands.

He was grateful to reach the top of the stairs and be distracted by her gesture as she stood aside.

“Second door on the left.”

Although she’d said it was for guests, this bedroom had as much personality as the downstairs. A puffy denim comforter covered the antique bed. The maple bedside stand with spooled legs matched the bed. On the wall above the bed hung a small quilt, beautifully hand-stitched even to his uneducated eye, and old, he thought. A lacy valance matched a doily on the carved oak bureau.

The girls had flung open the closet doors and pounced on the suitcase the moment he walked in. Ignoring him, Claire unzipped it while he headed back downstairs for another load.

He was carrying her CD player in when he heard Linnet say, “You can do whatever you want to this room. You can put posters everywhere and—”

“I don’t think so,” David said. “Claire, you’re a guest. You can’t punch holes in the walls.”

She gave him a spiteful look.

Behind him, Grace intervened, her voice easy. “Of course, you can put up posters, Claire. Just use the sticky stuff that peels off, if you don’t mind. Do you want me to take down the quilt?”

Claire held the blistering look for one more moment, then turned her back. “I don’t mind it, Mrs. Blanchet.”

Grace laughed. “Somehow it doesn’t look right for a teenage girl. You need a poster of…who, Freddie Prinze, Jr. there?”

He doubted very much that his daughter would choose anyone so innocuous to emblazon on the walls. She preferred men with multiple body parts pierced, lank greasy hair and foul mouths.

“Dad had me bring my posters,” she said. Her tone suggested he’d ripped them off the wall and shoved them down her throat. Where, in fact, she was the one to strip her bedroom bare, as if she never intended to come back.

He turned to fetch them. That was, apparently, his only acceptable role in this handoff. He couldn’t imagine coming back tomorrow or the next day and knocking on this bedroom door, going in for a chat. How, he wondered, would Grace deal with it when Claire refused to sit down at the dinner table if he was there?

“You’ll stay for lunch, won’t you?” Grace asked, when he came back with the roll of posters.

He sensed Claire’s sharp movement without looking at her. “Thanks, but I have to go into the office. Another time.”

“Then dinner tomorrow,” she said with an air of satisfaction. “Claire, what’s your favorite dinner? I cook a lot of pastas. Do you both like Italian?”

He had no idea what Claire ate besides the microwave meals she’d pop in when he wasn’t around. “I do,” he said. “But maybe I should let Claire settle in before I start hanging around.”

The stubborn woman didn’t know when to let up. “No, the sooner the better,” she said. “We’ll expect you tomorrow. About six?”

His daughter’s eyes narrowed.

“Fine.” He made himself look at her. “Claire…”

It was hard not to flinch at the hatred blazing in her eyes.

Without expression, he said, “I hope you’ll be happy here,” and walked away.

His specialty.

SHE WAS SO HAPPY when he left without bothering with some fakey goodbye scene. She didn’t even know why she’d been worried about that. Look how glad he was to get rid of her.

Well, he wasn’t any gladder than she was to be gone! Claire told herself for the fiftieth time today that anything had to be better than his house.

Mrs. Blanchet had made him promise he’d come over all the time and play daddy. Yeah. Right. They’d see how long that lasted, she thought bitterly. He might come a couple of times, but then he’d cancel at the last minute and say he had to work, and finally weeks would go by without anything but a check from him. He’d pay whatever he promised. Why not? Like he wasn’t loaded. And if he didn’t pay, Claire might be dumped back in his lap. Which he wouldn’t want.

What she figured was, once he’d forgotten all about her existence, she’d get Mrs. Blanchet talking to her mom. That way, once they got tired of her here, she could just quietly go home again.

Daddy might never even notice.

She wished, Claire thought viciously, hating the sadness that squeezed her chest like the asthma she’d had as a little kid. So what if he didn’t love her? She had her mother. Mom was all she needed.