The Dream Unfolds Page 10

  Chris arched a brow at Jill. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  Grinning back, Jill nodded.

  “What?” Gideon asked.

  “You know how to throw it around,” Jill said.

  Gideon looked at Frank. “Was that bull? Are these two women gorgeous, or are they gorgeous?”

  “They’re gorgeous,” Frank confirmed, “but who’m I to judge. I got a vested interest in them.”

  Gideon considered that interest as he looked from Chris’s face to Jill’s and back. “All those blondes and one brunette,” he said to no one in particular. To Jill he said, “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  To Chris, he said, “I thought Alex was fifteen.”

  “He is.”

  “Then they’re twins?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Irish twins?”

  Chris slid an amused glance at Jill before saying, “No. Jill is five months younger.”

  “Five months?” He frowned. “No, that can’t be—” He stopped when Chris and Jill burst out laughing, then looked questioningly at Frank, who was scowling at Chris.

  “That’s not real nice, Chris. I told you not to do it. It isn’t fair to put people on the spot like that.”

  “Thank you,” Gideon told him, and directed his gaze at Chris. It was Jill, though, who offered the explanation he sought.

  “I’m not his,” she said, tossing her dark head toward Frank. “I’m hers.” Her head bobbed toward Chris.

  Hers? For a long minute, Gideon didn’t make the connection. When he did, he ruled it out as quickly as it had come.

  Chris squeezed his hand, which she hadn’t let go of once. She was looking up at him, her eyes surprisingly serious. “Say something.”

  Gideon said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re too young, and she’s too old.”

  “I was eighteen when she was born.”

  “You look like sisters.”

  “If she were my sister, she’d be blond.”

  “But she has the Gillette smile.”

  “That’s my smile. She’s my daughter.”

  Daughter. Somehow, the word did it—that, and the fact that with two witnesses, one of whom had originally made the claim and the other of whom wasn’t opening his mouth to rebut it, Gideon figured it had to be true. “Wow,” he breathed. “A daughter.”

  “Does that shock you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, then felt it worth repeating. “Yeah.”

  “Kind of throws things into a new light?” Chris asked, but before he could answer, she released his hand, said a soft, “Excuse me, I want to check on Mom,” and escaped into the crowd.

  “Chris—”

  Frank put a tempering hand on his arm. “Let her go. She’ll be back.”

  But Gideon’s eyes continued to follow her blond head as it moved farther away. “She’ll misinterpret what I just said. I know she will. She’ll think I don’t want any part of her because she has a child, but that’s not what I’m feeling at all. I’m feeling that, my God, she’s done this wonderful thing in life, and I haven’t ever done anything that even comes close in importance to it.”

  “This is getting heavy,” Jill drawled.

  Gideon’s eyes flew to hers. He’d forgotten she was there, and was appalled. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, too. I really like … your mom. If you’re her daughter, I like you, too. Hell, I like the whole damned family. I don’t have any family.”

  Jill’s eyes widened. “None?”

  But before he could answer, there was an uproar at the door. Frank turned around, then, wearing a broad grin, turned back and leaned close to Gideon. “See that bald-headed son of a bitch who just walked in? I haven’t seen him in twenty years.” To Jill, he said, “Take Gideon around, honey. If you run out of things to say, point him toward the game. He’s a fan.”

  “Chris said I couldn’t,” Gideon told him.

  Frank made a face. “Mellie says I can’t, but do I listen?” Slapping his shoulder, he went off to greet his friend.

  “You don’t have any family?” Jill repeated, picking up right where she’d left off.

  He shook his head. His hand felt empty without Chris’s, so he slipped it into his pocket.

  “No family.”

  “That’s awful. Do you live all alone?”

  “All alone.”

  “Wow, I don’t think I could do that. I’d miss having people around and things happening.”

  Gideon was trying to think back to what Chris had said about herself. There wasn’t a whole lot. She had evaded some questions and turned others right back to him. He didn’t think she had ever lied to him, per se, but she’d obviously chosen every word with care.

  When it came to where she lived, he had the distinct impression that she had her own place close to her family’s. He suddenly wondered whether, there too, she’d stretched the words. “You don’t live here, do you?”

  “Oh, no. We’re next-door. But we’re here all the time.”

  “Next-door?” He was trying to remember what that house had looked like. “To the right or the left?”

  “Behind. We’re in the garage.”

  “The garage.”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re stuck in the garage?”

  She shot him a mischievous grin. “Want to see?”

  “Yeah, I want to see.” It occurred to him that Chris’s daughter was a treasure trove of information on Chris, and that he wasn’t adverse to getting what he could.

  Jill led him around the crowd at the door, out and across the frozen lawn to the driveway. “My friends love my place,” she said when he’d come up alongside her. “They keep bugging their parents to do something like it for them.”

  From what Gideon could see, the garage was like any other. Detached from the house, it was set far back at the end of a long driveway, with a single large door that would raise and lower to allow two cars inside. His builder’s mind went to work imagining all the possibilities, but when Jill opened a side door and beckoned him inside, he wasn’t prepared for what he found.

  The garage had been elongated at the rear and converted into a small house, with an open living-room-kitchen-dining area, then a balcony above, off which two doors led, he assumed, to bedrooms. To compensate for a dearth of windows, there were indirect lights aplenty, as befitted the home of the daughter and granddaughter of an electrician. But what impressed Gideon even more than that was the decor. Nearly everything was white, and what wasn’t white was a soft shade of blue. There was a light, bright, clean feel to the place. He couldn’t believe he was in a garage.

  “This is fantastic,” he said.

  Jill beamed. “Mom designed it, and Gramp’s friends did it. I was just a baby and Mom was still in school, so it meant she could leave me with Gramma and Alex during the day, then have me to herself here at night.”

  Gideon was still looking around, taking in the small, sweet touches—like pictures of Jill at every imaginable age, in frames that were unique, one from the other—but he heard what she said. “So you grew up right alongside Alex?”

  “Uh-huh. He’s not bad for an uncle.”

  Gideon looked at her to find a very dry, very mature grin on her face. Narrowing an eye, he said, “You get a kick out of that, don’t you?”

  “Kinda.” She dropped onto the arm of a nearby sofa with her legs planted straight to the floor. “People don’t know what to think when they meet Alex and me. I mean, we’re in the same grade and we have the same last name but we look so different. They don’t believe it when we tell them the truth. They get the funniest looks on their faces—like you did before.”

  He wondered what explanation she gave for where her own father was. He wanted to ask about that himself, but figured it was something better asked of Chris. “Do you mind your mom working?”

  Jill shrugged. “She has to earn a living.”

  “But you must miss her.”

  �
�Yes and no. I have Gramma. She’s always around. And I have a house full of uncles. And then Mom comes home at night and tells me about everything she did at work that day.”

  “Everything?”

  Jill nodded. “We’re very close.”

  He had the odd feeling that it was a warning. Cautiously he asked, “What did she say about me?”

  Without any hesitancy—as though she’d been wanting the question and he’d done nothing more than follow her lead—she said, “That you were a builder, that you were on the committee that interviewed her, and that you were a real jerk.” When Gideon’s face fell, she burst out laughing. “Just kidding. She didn’t say that. She did say that you were very good-looking and very confident and that she wasn’t sure how easy it’d be working with you.” Jill paused, then added, “She likes you, I think.”

  “I know she likes me—”

  “I mean, likes you.”

  Gideon studied her hesitantly. “Think so?” When she nodded, he said, “How do you know?”

  “The way she ran off after we told you about me. She was nervous about what you’d think. She wouldn’t have been if she didn’t care. And then there was the thing with the hands.”

  “What thing?”

  “She was holding yours. Or letting you hold hers. She doesn’t usually do that with men. She’s very prim.”

  “But you noticed the hands.”

  “I sure did.”

  Gideon ran a finger inside the collar of his shirt. “How old did you say you were?”

  “It was only hands,” she said in a long-suffering way. “And I ought to notice things like that. She’s my mother. I care about what she does with her life.”

  He could see that she did, and had the oddest sense of talking with Chris’s parent rather than her child. “Would it bother you if I dated her?”

  “No. She ought to have more fun. She works too hard.”

  “What about Anthony?”

  “Anthony is a total dweeb.”

  “Oh.” That about said it. “Okay. Then he isn’t competition?”

  “Are you kidding?” she said with a look of such absurdity on her face that he would have laughed if they’d been talking about anything else. But his future with Chris was no laughing matter.

  “So we rule out Anthony. Are there any others I should know about?”

  “Did she say there were?”

  “No.”

  Jill tipped her head. “There’s your answer.”

  “And you wouldn’t mind it if I took her out sometimes?”

  The head straightened and there was a return hint of absurdity in her expression. “Why would I mind?”

  “If I took her out, it would be taking her away from time spent with you.”

  Jill didn’t have to consider that for long. “There are times when I want to do things with friends, but I feel so guilty going out and leaving Mom alone here. She can go over to the house and be with everyone there, but it’s not the same. I mean, I love her and all, but my friends go shopping or to the movies on the weekends, and it’s fun to do that. And then there’s college. I want to go away. I’ve never been away. But how can I do that if it means leaving her alone?”

  Gideon scratched his head. “Y’know, if I didn’t know better, I’d wonder whether you’re trying to marry her off.”

  “I’m not,” Jill protested, and came off the sofa. “I wouldn’t be saying this to just anyone, but you like her, and she likes you, and what I’m saying is that you can’t use me as an excuse for not taking her out. I’m a good kid. I don’t drink or do drugs or smoke. I’ll be gone in three years. I won’t be in the way.”

  Gideon hadn’t had much experience with fifteen-year-old girls, but he knew without doubt that this one had a soft and sensitive side. She might be totally adjusted to the fact of her parentage; she might be far more mature than her years. But only in some respects. In others, she was still a girl wanting to please the adults in her life.

  The fact that she considered him one of those adults touched him to the core. Crossing to where she stood, he tipped her chin up and said, “You could never be in the way, Jill. I don’t know what’ll happen between your mother and me. Our relationship has barely gotten off the ground. But believe me when I say that your existence is a plus. A big, big plus. I’ve been alone most of my life. I like the idea of being with someone who has family.”

  “Family can get in the way sometimes.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’ve been without the way I have.”

  “Are you gonna tell Mom that?”

  “As soon as I can get her alone long enough to talk.”

  “What’s going on here?” Chris asked from the door.

  Jill slipped away from his hand. “Whoops. Looks like you’ll have that chance sooner’n you thought.” She grinned. “Hi, Mom. I think I’ll go back to the house and get something to drink. I’m parched.” She was halfway past Chris when she said, “Invite him for Christmas dinner. He’s nice.” Before Chris could begin to scold, she was gone.

  6

  “Whose idea was it to come back here?” Chris asked. She wasn’t quite angry, wasn’t quite pleased. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure what she was feeling, and hadn’t been since she’d shocked Gideon with the fact of Jill.

  “Uh, I’m not sure. I think it was kind of mutual.”

  “Uh-huh.” Chris understood. “It was Jill’s idea. You’re protecting her.”

  Gideon held up a cautioning hand. “Look, she may have suggested it, but only after I started pestering her about where you two lived.” Dropping the hand to his pocket, he looked around. “It’s a super place, Chris. I like it a lot.”

  “So do I, but it’s only a place. Jill’s a person. She means more to me than anything else on earth. I don’t want her hurt.”

  Gideon straightened. “You think I could hurt her?”

  That was exactly what Chris thought. “You could get real close, then lose interest. When I said that she throws a new light on things, I meant it.”

  “Hold on a minute. I’m not romancing Jill. It’s you—”

  “But she’s part of the package,” Chris interrupted, feeling the urgency of the message. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You say you want to date me. You hoodwinked me into inviting you here today. Well, okay, you’re here, and I’ll date you, but you have to know where my priorities lie. I’m not like some women who flit around wherever the mood takes them. I’m not an independent agent. I’m not a free spirit.”

  “I never thought you were,” Gideon said soberly. “From the start, you’ve been serious and down-to-earth. You made it clear how much your family means to you.”

  “Jill is more than family. She’s someone I created—”

  “Not alone.”

  “Someone I chose to bring into this world. I have a responsibility to her.”

  “And you think you’re unique?” Gideon challenged impulsively. “Doesn’t every mother feel that responsibility? Doesn’t every single mother feel it even more strongly, just like you do? For God’s sake, Chris, I’m not trying to come between you and your daughter. Maybe I’m trying to add something to both of your lives. Ever thought of it that way? I sure as hell know I’m trying to add something to mine.” He swore again, this time under his breath. “Trying is the operative word here. You get so goddamned prickly that I’m not making a helluva lot of headway.” He stopped, then started right back up in the next breath. “And as far as Jill’s existence throwing a new light on things, let me tell you that I find the fact that you have a daughter to be incredibly wonderful—which you would have known sooner if you hadn’t run off so fast. You do that a lot, Chris. It’s a bad habit. You run off before things can be settled.”

  “There’s nothing to be settled here,” Chris informed him, staunchly sticking to her guns, “since nothing’s open for discussion. Jill is my daughter. For the past fifteen years, she’s been the first thought on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last
thought before I fall asleep at night.”

  “Is that healthy?” Gideon asked innocently, but the words set her off.

  “Healthy or not, that’s the way it is,” she snapped. “A woman with a child isn’t the same as one without. You ought to think really hard about that before you do any more sweet-talking around here.” She turned and made for the door, but Gideon was across the floor with lightning speed, catching her arm, drawing her back into the living room and shoving the door shut.

  “Not so fast. Not this time. This time we talk.”

  “I can’t talk now,” she cried. “I have a house full of Christmas guests to entertain.”

  But Gideon was shaking his head. “Those guests entertain themselves, and besides, there are a dozen other hosts in that house.” His voice softened, as did his hand on her arm, though he didn’t release her. “Just for a minute, Chris. I won’t keep you long, but I want to make something very clear.”

  She glanced up at him, and her heart lurched. The look in his eyes was gentle, almost exquisitely so.

  “I like you,” he said. “God only knows why, because you give me a hard time, but I like you a lot. You could’ve had five kids, with half of them in diapers, and I wouldn’t care. Knowing about Jill now, I respect you even more for what you’ve done with your business, and you’ve obviously done something right with her, or she wouldn’t be as nice a kid as she seems to be.” He paused. “When I said I was shocked back there, it was because you never let on—I didn’t expect it. You just didn’t strike me as the type to—”

  “Get knocked up?”

  “Have a baby so young. Okay, yeah, maybe be with a guy so young.” A tiny crease appeared between his brows. Quietly he asked, “Who was he?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Chris said, and tried to turn back toward the door only to have Gideon lock a grip on her other arm, too.

  “Did you love him?” he asked, still quietly, even unsurely.

  Chris had been prepared for criticism, which was what she’d gotten most often when she’d first become pregnant. Didn’t you know what you were doing? Didn’t you use anything? Didn’t you stop to consider the consequences? Rarely had she been asked what Gideon just asked her. Looking up into his deep charcoal eyes, she almost imagined he was worried.