A Daughter's Trust / For the Love of Family: A Daughter's Trust / For the Love of Family

Chapter Ten

RICK TOLD HIMSELF to forget the woman pedaling beside him. After the way he’d been raised, he’d always wanted to have a family. A close family. That did everything together.

Sue’s goal was to remain single, detached. Alone.

Or so she’d said in more than one of their conversations.

And he knew with every fiber of his being that Carrie belonged with him. Whether Sue Bookman helped him get her or not.

If he got the baby, where would Sue fit into his life?

Where did he want her to fit?

She said something about turning back, and his thoughts skidded to a stop. What was he doing, thinking of this woman in terms of his future? He’d known her little more than a week.

“I will be a good father to Carrie,” he said aloud, as much to get himself back on track as anything.

“Rick, you don’t even know if you’ll get a chance. The court might go through with your mother’s adoption of her, regardless.”

He had to get the chance. That baby was not going to go to his mother by default. Fate wouldn’t be that cruel.

“Being a parent is so much more than changing diapers and giving baths,” she said. “It’s more than looking after younger kids in a foster home. It’s a lifetime commitment.”

They’d wheeled past a familiar road about a quarter of a mile back. He’d given it a brief mental acknowledgment and moved past. Now Rick turned back.

Sue followed without another word. Until he signaled the turnoff.

“Where are we going?”

He tried to tell her, but ended up saying, “Humor me.”

“Okay.”

He slowed, and she matched her pace to his. The road was quiet. And short.

“A cemetery?” she asked. “Are you sure we can ride in here?”

“Positive.”

He pedaled slower and slower until he pulled up in front of a headstone and stopped.

“Kraynick,” Sue said, reading the stone.

He nodded. Sort of. As always when he came here, he could barely move.

“Christy?” Sue asked softly. And then answered her own question. “It can’t be. The ground is too settled.”

But the grave site was still new enough that the edges were clearly delineated, the mound of dirt only partially covered with the spindly beginnings of grass.

There was a stone embedded in the ground at the grave’s head, and Rick expected her to get off her bike to read it, but she didn’t. She stayed with him.

And right now, Rick needed her. Needed her like he’d never needed anyone.

She stood between him and what he had to have. And yet, at the same time, she was part of what he had to have.

“I know exactly what it takes to be a father.”

Sue didn’t move, her gaze steady on the stone in front of them.

“Her name was Hannah.”

“What happened?”

“She died.” Stick to the facts, man. They’re only facts.

“I’m so sorry.” The tenderness in her voice—a woman who was a virtual stranger to him yet didn’t feel like a stranger at all—soothed the rawness chaffing a wound that would never go away. “How long ago?”

He’d started this. “Six months.”

“Oh, my God. Oh, Rick. I am so sorry.” Her eyes widened as she gave him a quick glance. And then her gaze returned to the stone. “How old was she?”

“Six. She’d be seven now.”

See, facts aren ‘t that hard. As long as you stick to them.

“Was she sick?” Sue turned on her bike, facing him directly. The look she gave him held a depth he couldn’t describe. She spoke without words. Which made no sense.

None of this made sense. Him with someone. Sharing Hannah.

“She was on the playground at school. A teenager high on acid lost control of his new Mustang convertible, drove through the fence and hit her.”

Yes, that was what the newspapers said. Mark had told him. The police hadn’t been as forthcoming. Rick had tried to read the clippings. Hadn’t succeeded yet.

He ‘d yet to make it through the boxes of cards that had come to the house. Darla had packed them up for him, left them in the spare bedroom. They were there somewhere.

“How awful. I’m…I don’t know what to say…”

Rick pedaled on.

The tragedy had nothing to do with them.

The past couldn’t be changed.

SHE STILL HAD AN HOUR before Barb’s daughter, Lisa, would be expecting her home. An hour before it was time for baths and bed for her three charges.

And she was with a man who’d disappeared into a private hell she couldn’t seem to penetrate. It was as though she’d been riding with a stranger, not the man who’d touched her so deeply in such a short space of time.

He lifted her bike into the van, and then loaded his into his SUV before turning back to her, keys in hand.