Loe raamatut: «The Third Daughter's Wish»

Chapter One

The man in the Wisconsin sweatshirt was eyeing Josie’s butt. Gabriel Thomas was sure of it now as he watched his good friend Josie Blume approach the pool table. She analyzed the break of the pool balls, then walked around to the far corner of the barroom. She grinned when she found the angle she liked.

Glancing sideways, Gabe noted that the other man’s attention shifted to Josie’s chest when she leaned over the cue stick. Of course he would look there. Guys did. Despite her diminutive stature, Josie hadn’t been short-changed up top. Those sexy assets curved inward to a well-toned waist, then flowed back outward to lean but feminine hips.

The woman was stacked.

She also had stylishly short brunette hair, kissably full lips and the biggest hazel eyes Gabe had ever seen. So yes, guys noticed her, Gabe included. Not that Josie would ever suspect. She thought of him as the big brother she’d never had, he was certain.

Which was for the best.

Josie must be unaware of Wisconsin’s interest, or she’d have called him on the carpet for his boldness. If she was receptive to the idea of a Wednesday-night hookup, she’d have told her admirer directly that she didn’t respond to drooling. If she wasn’t, well, she’d have told him directly to get lost.

Josie didn’t hint at what she wanted; she demanded it. And she didn’t hide her thoughts behind societal expectations or womanly wiles. If you had broccoli in your teeth or conceit in your behavior, she told you about it. Yet she greeted you with such an affable enthusiasm it would be hard to dislike her, even with that sometimes blunt honesty.

Obviously, Wisconsin found her agreeable.

She should have reacted by now.

What the hey! The man’s interest in Josie was no more Gabe’s business than her response to it. He and Josie were merely buddies. Unless she was taking up with a conspicuous drug dealer or abusive jerk, Gabe generally kept his mouth shut about her love life.

After waiting for Josie to make a series of shots—she missed the third by a fraction of an inch—Gabe walked around to stand next to her. He lowered his mouth to her ear and murmured, “He’s not your type, kid.”

Josie stood up straight and looked around. “Who?”

“Wisconsin.” Gabe turned to study the table. After pocketing his first solid ball, he scanned Josie’s perplexed expression. “The guy behind us in the ball cap. He’s enjoying those tight jeans of yours a little too much.”

She scowled. “These aren’t tight.”

He raised his eyebrows as he perused the table again. “The outline of your driver’s license is showing through your right hip pocket.”

He nearly cackled when he heard the slap of her palm against her bottom.

“You were looking?” she asked.

Oops.

“Not in that way,” he fibbed. As though he hadn’t noticed the query in Josie’s eyes, he strolled around the table and pretended to find the conversation a bore.

“I certainly hope not,” she chastised. “Anyway, so what if some guy’s noticing me?”

Gabe scrutinized the man against the wall behind her. After he’d bent to hit a great ricochet shot that sent his six ball into the corner pocket, he explained, “As I said before, he’s not your type.”

Josie stood very still, and Gabe knew she was trying not to crane her neck around to see her admirer. “I don’t have a type.”

“Sure, you do. This one’s too young, I think.”

She snorted. “If he’s in Mary’s Bar, he’s old enough.”

“You started sneaking in here at sixteen.”

“How would you know? We met when I was nineteen.”

Oops again.

Gabe had heard about Josie long before the day they’d officially met. The Blume family had been different enough to cause talk, even among the Augusta cliques who considered themselves too refined for small-town Kansas gossip. Gabe’s mother included.

But until he’d met Josie, Gabe had doubted the tales of little girls hiding in the attic or magazine salesmen chased off by the barrel of their mother’s shotgun. Even of the boldhearted youngest daughter, who’d had the grit to defy her mother’s edicts.

“We’ve been friends for a long time, kid,” he said. “You must’ve told me most of your wild-and-crazy youth stories at some point.” Gabe missed his next shot and moved out of her way.

Apparently, she bought his explanation. She walked around the pool table again, surveying the balls, and snuck a peek at Wisconsin on her way past.

“That guy has to be twenty-five at least,” she said a few seconds later, after she’d made her shot and returned to Gabe’s side. “He doesn’t have a noticeable excess of tattoos or jewelry and he’s gawking at me, a female, and not you, a male.”

Gabe bit his tongue. Josie’s standards weren’t exactly celestial when it came to boyfriends. She said it all the time. The guys had to be fun, straight and un-attached. That was it, she swore.

“So he’s my type,” Josie said, as if Gabe had voiced some argument.

“Right, kid. If you have as few restrictions as you claim, why haven’t we hooked up?”

Josie stared at him.

Damn it, he’d done it again. What was wrong with him? He forced a laugh. “I only meant you have more requirements than you think.”

Gabe’s question had bewildered him, too. The idea of hooking up with Josie sounded dangerous—and exciting. She was young, though—even younger than his twin sisters. It took on a forbidden air.

No. He wasn’t the guy for Josie. Besides, if she grew bored with him in a month, as she did often with her lovers, where would their friendship stand?

Josie remained silent as she concentrated through another couple of shots, but as soon as Gabe had leaned over the table and posed his cue stick, she said, “You think you know everything about me, don’t you?”

He gazed at her. “I know a few things, especially about your love life. Remember? I’m the guy you’re usually with when you meet your dates.”

Her eyes slid to his hairline. “Okay, do I prefer my men tall and dark or tawny and brawny?”

Gabe shot and missed. Then he made a quick study of the tuck of hair beneath Wisconsin’s ball cap. Dark blond, he believed, and curly. The guy was only slightly shorter than Gabe. Josie’s last boyfriend had been Hispanic. Squat and muscular, with thinning dark hair. “Guess anything goes in the looks department.”

“Right. My two requirements for men are enthusiasm in bed and simplicity out of it. Commitment makes people fat and boring.”

One of Josie’s pet phrases.

Gabe wasn’t one to question her choices. He, too, intended to lead a single life. Commitment wasn’t a problem for him—it was the kids that most women set their sights on a few years down the road. A decade ago, Gabe’s father had died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, after a long and debilitating illness. Gabe couldn’t risk passing on those defective genes to any male children.

But at least Gabe stayed with a woman long enough to let her down easily when the time came. Josie tended to seek out guys who had no clue how to handle her. And she left before anyone cared.

Josie maneuvered around so her back was to Wisconsin again. Predictably, the guy leered. When Gabe caught the younger man’s eye, the corners of Wisconsin’s mouth twisted up in a sort of half simper, half gloat.

“Simplicity in the head, lack of skill in bed,” Gabe muttered. A favorite phrase of his own, if usually unvoiced.

When Josie missed her next ball entirely and paused to glare at him, her expression was almost comically disgusted.

Her problem wasn’t her pool game, however.

It was his big mouth.

He didn’t blame her. He couldn’t fathom why he was making the careless comments. Maybe because Josie had recently celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday. Their almost eight-year age difference didn’t seem titanic, as it had when she was that wild nineteen and he was twenty-six.

Gabe stepped forward and sank three balls as he reminded himself that he had no business interfering in Josie’s love life. No reason to warn Josie off Wisconsin.

And infinitely more reason to choke his attraction to Josie than to nurture it.

They’d ignite, explode and be done.

He liked her too much for that.

“You have to admit, the guy has a great smile,” Josie said.

Gabe studied the pool table and didn’t say a word.

“And if you really think I have a type,” she added, “think about that country music deejay I dated.”

“Chubby-cheeked, middle-aged wiseacre?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah.” Josie nodded, lifting a corner of her mouth at some memory. “He had a wicked sense of humor. Man, was he fun!”

Gabe maneuvered around for a likely shot. “That guy lasted, what? Two months? One of your longer stints.”

“Mmm-hmm. Now think of Jerry, the computer programmer.”

Gabe hadn’t liked that one, either, and Josie had dated him over the course of an entire summer.

“Remember him? Such an intelligent kisser.”

Was she trying to prove her point, or make Gabe jealous?

“So you see?” she said. “Those two had to be total opposites. I don’t have a type. Maybe this guy’s exactly what I need to get my mind off my worries.”

She swiveled to check out her admirer, dropping her scrutiny from his hat to his chest to his running shoes. Although she made a show of peering beyond him then, squinting at the clock near the bar’s television, the message had been sent.

She’d looked. Briefly, but directly.

“It’s getting late,” she said to Gabe in an obvious tone. “Guess we should finish this game and quit.”

That was when the guy approached.

Of course. Only a complete moron would have missed Josie’s invitation.

Gabe frowned at the pool table as he listened to her get-acquainted conversation with the other man. This was no big deal. Josie flirted all the time.

But tonight was a work night, and Gabe had only come out with Josie to pull her out of a blue mood. They really should be leaving soon.

After fumbling his shot, Gabe waited for a lull in the conversation so he could tell Josie it was her turn.

“I’m a student,” Wisconsin was saying. “I go to Butler County Juco over in El Dorado. I was on my way home and saw this place, so…” He shrugged.

Josie had nodded through the guy’s explanation. Apparently, she was still interested, even though the kid had just told her he was Juco-student age. Presumably, too young.

“Home…to Wisconsin?” Josie approached the pool table, sank her shot and then peered at the lettering on the other guy’s chest.

“Nah, I bought the shirt on vacation,” Wisconsin said. “I live in Wichita—Willowbend North.”

The subdivision he’d named was filled with pricey homes, and no student-type rentals that Gabe could picture.

Josie let out a soft whistle. “You own a house in Willowbend?”

That grin got even more stupid. “Well, okay. I live with my parents,” Wisconsin said. “But only because they’re paying for my classes. As soon as I get a job that covers both rent and tuition, I’m outta there.”

At least Josie was scowling now. “You don’t work?”

“Sure I do. I make donuts. But my, er, responsibility eats most of my check.”

Josie pocketed her last striped ball. “A responsibility besides financing your own housing?”

“A little boy,” Wisconsin said. “A son. Guess he’d be about two now.”

Josie gaped at the younger man. “You don’t keep track of his age?”

“I don’t see him all that much.”

Ha! Wisconsin was starting to fidget.

“But I pay for his food and diapers. A man has to step up to the plate. I really believe that.”

Gabe hid a smirk behind his beer bottle, feeling as if he’d just won some big, dopey prize at the fair. He waited while Josie missed sinking the eight ball by a mile, then stepped forward, feeling wickedly victorious as he focused again on the game.

He knew what was coming.

Wisconsin had broken Josie’s biggest dating rule—and she might not acknowledge this, but she had plenty. She didn’t date single dads. Under any circumstances. Ever.

“Well, good luck to you, then,” Josie said as Gabe pocketed his sixth and seventh balls. “My boyfriend and I will finish this game, then get out of your way. You waiting to play, are you?”

“Your boyfriend?” Now Wisconsin gawked at Gabe. “Someone said you two were just buddies.”

“You didn’t ask us,” Gabe said. As he had dozens of times before, he looped an arm around Josie’s waist and pulled her close.

The poor guy stared, blinking a couple of times as if he was replaying Josie’s earlier interest in his head. Then he met Gabe’s eyes.

Gabe nodded.

“Oh, okay. Ah. I have to work in the morning. The donuts…Early.” He hesitated for a second, eyeing Josie, then headed toward the exit.

“Thanks,” Josie said, watching as Gabe sent the eight ball into the far corner pocket, ending their game just after she’d ended hers.

“No problem. I could tell you didn’t like him all that much.”

She started pulling balls from the pockets and returning them to the table. “I liked him fine until I heard about the baby he never sees.”

“Nah. I don’t think so.” Gabe replaced the cue sticks on the wall rack. “You didn’t even get his name.”

Josie snorted. “Who needs a name?”

“Even you need that much, Josie. Seriously.” He held her gaze.

A couple of regulars approached the table and set their beers on its edge, claiming it for the next game, so Gabe walked Josie to the parking lot.

“Sorry if I acted jerky in there,” Gabe said, hoping a simple apology would work in lieu of an explanation.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” she said. “That big-brother protectiveness has gotten me out of a few jams.”

She always returned their status to platonic, didn’t she? Except for her brothers-in-law, Gabe was the only guy Josie had been around for longer than a few months. She didn’t want the complications. She said that often enough.

So Gabe would ignore the desire. Pray it abated. Maybe find a new girlfriend to distract him.

“We still on for Halloween night, then?” he asked as they approached Josie’s truck.

“You bet.” After opening her driver’s side door, Josie reached inside the cab to grab her favorite sweater and slide into it. Then she leaned against the door frame, facing him. “I’m hunting for costume pieces this weekend. Want to come?”

“Nah. The twins helped with mine. I’m all set.”

She knuckled his shoulder. “Show-off.”

“Hey! I can’t handle artsy on my own.”

“I’ll catch up with you on Halloween night then. Call me if anything changes.” Her tone was affectionate, her expression soft. She’d forgiven his foolish comments.

But Josie didn’t crawl into her truck. She kept leaning against it, staring past Gabe’s head.

Uh-oh. Gabe recognized that expression. And he did know Josie. The explanation for her recent funk should spill out about…

“I think I’m going to contact my father soon.”

…now.

Whoa, this one was a doozy. Josie had never met her dad. He’d left before she was born and she’d never had a clue about why or where he’d gone. The jerk had never even sent a birthday card, and he hadn’t contacted the Blume sisters when their mother died.

The pain of that rejection must be the reason Josie chose the minor-league partners she did.

“Did something happen since last time you girls talked about finding him?” Gabe asked. “Wasn’t that just a week ago?”

She peered at him, her eyes narrowed menacingly. “No. I haven’t told them yet, so don’t you go blabbing.”

Gabe shot a stern look right back at her.

She sighed heavily. “Callie might believe that finding our father won’t make Lilly better, but maybe if we had more information…”

The Lilly Josie was speaking about was her oldest sister Callie’s six-month-old daughter. Lilly had suffered a mild, fever-related seizure at four months of age. Three weeks ago, she’d had a second, more serious, one when she was rocking in her baby swing.

The entire family had been in turmoil as the tiny girl began neurological testing.

But the sisters had discussed the idea of searching for their father. Callie felt confident that the doctors would discover the cause without an investigation of their father’s genetics. She and her husband didn’t have any seizure disorders, nor did any of the siblings, so Callie suspected a physiological problem.

“Didn’t Callie say she thought a father search would just add stress to a tough situation?” Gabe asked.

“Mom forbade us from seeking him out. I told you that.” Josie lifted a shoulder, barely. “My sisters took her more seriously than I did.”

Gabe remembered Josie telling him, many times, that Ella Blume had described her husband as a weak-minded alcoholic who would taint their lives with his failures. She’d warned them to avoid contact.

Until now, they’d always heeded her advice.

Gabe also remembered pieces of gossip that gave him an inkling about why Ella might have chosen to cut off ties to that husband—whether he was actually an alcoholic bum or some sort of blasted royalty.

However, Gabe had never found the crassness or the courage to tell Josie the things he’d heard. For one thing, he’d be repeating old gossip. And he’d discovered for himself that most of the talk about the Blume girls was simply untrue. They were a family, not a clan or a coven. Despite the unlucky circumstances of their childhood, Josie and her sisters had turned out great.

Gabe didn’t want to see Josie hurt, and he feared that hurt was exactly where she was headed if she pursued contact with her father. “Josie, I think you should follow your sisters’ examples and forget this. Your mom warned you that no good would come of trying to connect with your dad.”

“Mother’s dead.”

“Haven’t you always said she was very strong in her advice? Very intelligent?”

“She was also very weird.”

Gabe had surmised that much.

“Don’t worry about it,” Josie said, before Gabe could sputter a response. “I’ll keep my first few meetings with my father a secret from my sisters. At least until I feel certain that he is all right. I’d protect my family with my life, Gabe. You must see that.”

Gabe did. He’d never met any siblings with a stronger bond, and that included his identical twin sisters. “If he’s as bad as your mother claimed, meeting him could hurt you,” he said.

Josie laughed. “He couldn’t be any worse than the man my mother described. If I expect a lazy bum from the outset, I can’t be disappointed, right?”

No. That wasn’t right. If the tales were true, she could be crushed. “Except you’ll have a real image to link with her words. As it is now, you can tell yourself that this spitefulness was just another of her eccentricities.”

“If we learn that he’s an epileptic, we could shorten the time it takes to get answers about Lilly.”

“Callie said—”

“Callie’s scared and tired,” Josie argued. “If I check things out before I tell her, she’ll be fine.” Josie wrapped her arms across her middle. “God, haven’t we talked genetics a million times? You won’t marry and have kids because of the Lou Gehrig’s. I won’t because of my mentally unstable mom. I’d have thought that you, of all people, would understand.”

Ah, but there was the rub. How many times had Gabe wished he could live life normally, ignorant of the knowledge that he could pass on the gene for ALS? Had his dad foreseen his future, would he have chosen not to have kids? Was it better to know or not know?

Impossible questions, surely.

“But Lilly’s already here, and so is whatever’s affecting her,” he said gently. “Proof that there’s a genetic predisposition probably can’t help now.”

Josie shivered. “It’s dang cold out here, Gabe. I’m sorry you don’t like my idea.” She hitched a breath as if she was going to say something else, but then she clamped her lips shut and climbed into her truck cab.

Gabe stepped forward so she couldn’t close her door. “Have you found him already, Josie?”

She lifted her chin.

Which meant yes. She’d located her father.

“How? Through an Internet search?”

“Yep. It took some doing, but I found him, and he’s not that far away,” she said, sounding pleased with herself.

Damn.

“When are you going?” Gabe asked. “You said he’s nearby. I’ll go with you.”

She sighed as she leaned backward to fish her truck key from a front pocket. “You think my old man’s going to attack me?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, but you might appreciate having someone to talk to about it all. I could offer another perspective. Play that big-brother role.”

She put the key in the slot, then met his gaze. “You’re intense about this, Gabe. Why?”

If he told her his suspicions, he’d risk revealing secrets she might never learn for herself. Secrets best left hidden.

“You take on too much alone sometimes.” He softened his voice to lessen the blow of his next words. “Shades of your mother.”

“Don’t worry. I’m a big girl. And you’re not really my brother. Goodbye.” She started her truck.

“Call me when you’re going, Josie,” he said over the engine noise.

She shook her head, her expression incredulous, then closed the truck door between them. She zipped out of Mary’s lot and onto the street. She’d be home in two minutes.

On his sensibly slower way home, Gabe vowed to keep a close eye on Josie. They were not only friends, they were also business colleagues currently working on separate contracts within the same housing development.

He knew what she was doing a lot of the time.

Perhaps he could show up unexpectedly at her place on a regular basis and make sure she didn’t meet her father on her own.

If she did it at all.