A Winter's Rose (17 page)

“Yes.” Bentley took a deep breath. “While you were in D.C. Chloe and I talked. That's when I learned about the circumstances of her birth. She
does
think she wasn't wanted.”

“But—”

Bentley held up a hand. Jackson saw that it trembled, and he clenched his jaw. He knew he wouldn't like what was coming next.

“She overheard Victoria say she wished she'd had an abortion.”

Jackson slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to the side of the road. For long moments he rested his forehead on the steering wheel, fighting the violence that raged through him. He lifted his head and met Bentley's ravaged gaze. “That bitch. That selfish, conniving—”

Jackson bit back the epithets that jumped to his tongue, struggling for control. Losing it wouldn't do Chloe any good.

“She thinks you feel the same way. I assured her that wasn't true. But…”

Bentley's words ricocheted through him like buckshot, ripping and tearing, destroying the fragile security he had built up over the last days. The daughter he loved with all his heart thought he wished she had never been born.

Bentley pressed her face to his shoulder. “I'm sorry, Jackson. So sorry.”

Jackson turned to her, needing and accepting her comfort.

“I told her,” Bentley whispered, “that it wasn't true. I told her you loved her, that you wanted her. She didn't believe me.”

“Why?” Jackson asked, even though in his gut he already knew the answer. He lifted his head, forcing Bentley to lift hers and meet his gaze. “What have I done to make her think this?”

“You let Victoria take her.”

Silently Jackson started the car again, this time driving with precise care. He had known the answer before he'd even uttered the question. The same sin he punished himself for was the one she hated him for.

“I planned to tell you,” she said softly. “But it seemed to be going so well. I knew how upset you'd be.”

Upset? What an understatement, Jackson thought bitterly. Dear Lord, he felt as if he were being ripped in two. His daughter thought he wished she'd never been born. And the truth was, he couldn't imagine a world without her.

Bentley touched his arm. “I'm sorry.”

He met her eyes, touched by the concern, the understanding, he saw there. “I know. I am, too. Damn sorry.”

They rode the last couple of minutes to Jackson's house in silence. When they reached it, they both ran from the car and into the house.

“Chloe!” Jackson called, hoping, praying for a response. Nothing. Even though he knew in his gut she wasn't there, they searched the house. Bentley took the upstairs, he the downstairs.

“Jackson?”

He turned. Bentley stood at the top of the stairs, her expression stricken. Fear won the battle raging inside him, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”

“She's run away. Her drawers look like they've been rifled through, and there's hangers strewn across her closet floor.”

“Anything else?”

“The pictures from her bed table.”

“The one of her and I?” he asked, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

“Gone.”

She didn't totally hate him. It wasn't too late.
Jackson squeezed his eyes shut and said a silent prayer of thanks.

Bentley descended the stairs. “Did you call Billie's? Chloe's grandparent's?”

Jackson was already heading for the phone. “No, I was so certain she'd be at your place. I—” He shook his head. “I'll make the calls.”

No one had seen her or heard from her. The Ellerbees were frantic and promised to start a search from that end, calling anyone they thought Chloe might feel she knew well enough to run to. Including her mother.

Jackson hung up the phone and turned to Bentley. “I guess it's time for the police.”

“Wait…” Bentley drew her eyebrows together, something plucking at her memory. “Jackson, does Chloe have a boyfriend?”

“No.” He shook his head, then frowned. “At least…I don't think so.”

“There was a boy. We saw him at the Galleria. Chloe said he was a family friend.”

“Yes?”

“He was older and—” Bentley searched her memory. “There's something… Oh, God.” Her eyes widened. “He was at the beach party at Tony's! He was with that group of boys that scattered when we came up. I
recognized him, but at the time couldn't remember why he looked familiar.”

“What was his name?” Jackson took a step toward her, a headache beginning to throb behind his eyes. “Think, Bentley.”

“I don't remember.” Bentley pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “It's a Texas name…I recognized it, I was reassured…” She snapped her fingers. “Able. That's right! Rick Able.”

Jackson was immediately on the phone to Lee Ellerbee. The Ables were indeed family friends and they did have a son named Rick. In a matter of moments Jackson had the Ables's number, then their son Rick's at school.

And there they met a dead end. They awakened the boy from a sound sleep and, disoriented, he swore he hadn't heard from Chloe.

Jackson believed him. Hanging up the phone, he made a sound of rage, frustration and fear. As each minute passed, Chloe slipped farther out of his grasp.

“Rich girls don't hitch,” Bentley said suddenly.

Jackson turned to her. “What?”

“Rich girls don't hitch. And they don't rough it.” She looked at Jackson. “Did she have any money?”

“Not much.” He drew his eyebrows together, searching his memory. “That I know of, anyway.”

“Credit cards?”

“I took them away…” Jackson let the words trail off.
Her credit cards. Of course.
He tore upstairs, to the bureau drawer he'd tossed the cards into.
Gone. They were all gone.

Bentley had followed him. He turned and met her eyes. “Let's call the bus and train station, then the Houston airports. I don't know where she's going, but I think I know how she's getting there.”

Chapter Ten

A
fter a series of frantic calls and lucky hunches, Jackson learned where Chloe was headed and on what airline. Airport security agreed to pick her up and hold her until he arrived.

By the time Jackson did, his nerves were stretched to the snapping point. He had no idea what he was going to say to his daughter, no idea whether he should be angry or relieved, whether he should play it hard or soft.

He'd decided he would just have to go with his gut. And his heart.

After pausing to collect his thoughts, Jackson pushed through the glass doors marked Security. He introduced himself to the officer behind the desk, who assured him his daughter was fine and directed him to an adjoining room.

Jackson followed the man's directions, stopping when he reached the open doorway and had a first look at his daughter. Thank God, he thought, taking his first real breath in hours. She was here. She was safe. Soon she would be home, in her own room and within his reach.

He moved his gaze over her, reassuring himself that except for looking lost and more than a little bit frightened, she was unharmed. Relief rushed over him. Muscles he hadn't consciously realized were bunched began to ease and loosen. As they did he experienced the overwhelming and ridiculous urge to laugh.

Chloe lifted her head, her eyes widening when she saw him. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Folding her arms across her middle, she jutted her chin out defiantly.

Jackson did his best to look stern, but all he wanted to do was haul her into his arms and against his chest. How could he stay angry when her eyes glistened with tears and that defiant little chin of hers wobbled with the effort of holding them back? He crossed to stand in front of her, forcing her to look up at him.

“Chloe.”

Silence stretched between them for a long moment, then she cleared her throat. “I guess you're mad at me.”

He let out a long, slow breath. “I'm a lot of things right now. Relieved. Frightened.” He squatted in front of her so their eyes were level. “And yeah, I'm mad as hell.”

She twisted her fingers in her lap.

“What did you expect me to be?”

She peeked at him. “I thought you might be happy.”

“Happy?” he repeated incredulously. “Chloe, I had no idea where you'd gone or why. You could have been hurt. You could have been in real danger. Terrible things happen to kids on the street.” With his forefinger, he tipped up her chin, forcing her to look at him. “And all I could think was, what would I do if something happened to you? How could I go on?”

“I'm sure Bentley could have helped.”

“Baby, Bentley could never take your place. Nobody could.”

Tears filled her eyes and she jerked her chin from his grasp. “Right.”

“You don't believe me?” he murmured.

She shook her head again, her throat working with the effort of holding back her tears.

Torn between pushing the issue and letting her compose herself, Jackson allowed the silence to stretch between them once more. After a moment, Jackson said, “I hear you were going to Colorado.”

She nodded. “To find Mama. I decided to go and live with her.”

Her words hurt, but he fought to keep the emotion from affecting his reasoning. “Why?”

Chloe's chin began to wobble again, but she met his gaze evenly. “At least she's honest about not wanting me around.”

“I see.”

“Why did you stop me?” she continued brokenly. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she brushed impatiently at it. “I'd be out of your and Bentley's hair. You could do whatever you liked without having to worry about me.”

Jackson sat back on his heels. He didn't know what to do, didn't know what to say first. He decided to start with the most important thing of all. “I love you, Chloe,” he said, covering her small hands with his larger ones. “I love you so much.”

“Sure.”

“It's true.” He smiled softly. “You've owned my heart from the first moment I saw you. Did you know that when you were a baby I used to come home during the middle of the day just to look you? If you were sleeping, I'd stand by your crib and watch as you slept. When your mother took you away, I thought I was going to die. I felt like the sun had been stolen from me.”

“Then why—” She cleared her throat. “Why did you let her?”

He brought her hands to his mouth. “Baby, I didn't know what else to do. I was young. I'd grown up believing that a child's place was with her mother. And I had a fledgling business to run…”

Jackson let the words trail off, finding his reasons weak even to his own ears. “None of those excuse me, and if I had to do it over again, I would fight for you.”

He smiled tenderly. “I used to look so forward to our weekends together, our holidays. I don't know if I ever told you that. I should have, I realize that now.”

“Then what happened?” Chloe's eyes flooded with tears again. “What did I do to… How did I change so you didn't want me any more?”

“Oh, baby, nothing happened.” Reaching up, he cupped her face in his palms. “You didn't change and neither did my feelings for you. I do want you. I want you to live with me. I was happy when your mother sent you to me.” At her disbelieving look, he laughed. “It's true. I was scared as hell. But happy. I thought it would be a new beginning for us.”

With his thumbs, he brushed tenderly at the tears that spilled down her cheeks. “Bentley told me what Victoria said. Your mother can be selfish and spiteful, she's spoiled and immature, but I can't believe she meant what she said. She was probably in some sort of snit with Grandma Ellerbee and said it to upset her.

“But in any case,” he murmured, his voice thickening, “she doesn't speak for me. She never has. Your mother and I are two very different people. That's why we couldn't live together.”

“You only got married because of me.”

“That's correct. But you know what? I wouldn't change a thing. Chloe, I can't imagine what my life would be like if you hadn't been born.”

“Really?”

She looked at him with such hope that his heart wrenched. “Oh, sweetheart…” In a second Jackson was beside her, his arm around her shoulders. He hugged her to him tightly, but she didn't protest. “For so long I've been stumbling around in the dark, wanting to be the kind of father you needed and deserved, but not knowing how. I felt so bad about losing you…about letting you go, that I kept trying to make up to you for it.” He took a deep breath, thinking of Bentley. “Finally, a friend suggested that I stop trying to make up for what I did wrong and start doing what was right.”

“Bentley?” Chloe asked, meeting his eyes.

“How did you know?”

“Because everything started to change when she came,” Chloe said simply.

Jackson realized she was right. Everything had begun to change when Bentley had entered their lives. The realization made him uncomfortable, and he shook his head. “You're really something, you know that?”

She blushed with pleasure, and he felt her happiness clear to the bone. It touched him in places and ways that hadn't seen warmth in a very long time.

“I don't want you to go back to boarding school. I want you to stay here in Galveston and live with me full-time, Chloe. Like a real family. But I want us to be happy. I want us to love each other. We can't go on the way we have been.” He stroked her silky hair. “What do you say, sweetie? I'm willing to work on this, I want to work on it. What about you?”

“I want to,” she whispered, her face still pressed to his shoulder. “I haven't been a very good daughter. And I shouldn't have run away. But when I heard you and Bentley together…. I felt so left out.
I felt like I was just…in your way. Like with Mama and Jacques.”

Jackson set her away from him so he could look her in the eyes. “If you had listened a little longer, you would have heard me say how much I was going to miss you while you were gone. You would have heard me say how happy I was. Because of you and me and how well we were getting along.”

Doubt still clouded her expression. “Then why didn't you tell me about you and Bentley?” She sucked in a deep, shaky breath. “Why did you try to hide it from me?”

Jackson paused at the question. It was a tough one to answer honestly, because he wasn't certain of all the answers. Because some things were too private—too adult—for her to know.

“I should have told you,” he began hesitantly. “Bentley wanted to. She urged me to. I wasn't trying to keep a secret from you…” He paused. “I guess I wasn't ready to…admit Bentley and I were a couple.”

“Are you a couple?”

Jackson's chest tightened; his palms began to sweat. “Kind of. I guess…. Yes.”

Chloe searched his expression, her own confused. “So, she's your girlfriend?”

Jackson smiled. How simple that made it. If only it was that simple, that easy. “Yes. You could call her that.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

He swallowed past the knot in his throat. Marriage? His daughter wasn't wasting any time. “I don't know…. It's complicated for adults, Chloe. Marriage is a big step. A lot of men and women date but don't get married.”

Chloe thought a moment. “So are you just going to live together?”

Jackson caught his breath, taken aback. “We haven't discussed it. We…I—”

“You don't want to make another mistake like you made with Mama.”

There she went again, astounding him with her insight. “No, I don't. But it's more than that. And Bentley has to be considered here, too. I have no idea what she wants.”

“That's easy.”

Jackson arched his eyebrows at his daughter's very adult grin. “Is it?”

“Uh-huh. She wants you. She's in love with you.”

Her words settled like a fist in his chest. He didn't want Bentley to love him; he didn't want the responsibility, the complication.

As panic licked at him, he told himself that Chloe was only thirteen and looking at them with the naíveté of the very young. “Chloe, it's not that simple.”

“Yeah, it is. She's in love with you. And I guess it would be okay if you loved her, too. I really like her and…” Chloe let her words trail off and ducked her head. “I said some pretty rotten things to her. Did she tell you?”

“Not what you said, only that you were angry and blamed her.”

“I wasn't very nice.”

“No, you weren't.”

She bit her lip. “You think she'll forgive me?”

“I think so. But you'll have to ask her that question yourself.”

Chloe sighed. “I suppose I've been a real pain.”

Jackson kissed the top of her head. A moment ago his daughter had astounded him with her adult grasp of a situation, and now she sounded so much like a child. No wonder hers was such an awkward and difficult age.

“Sometimes, yes,” he murmured.

She paused. “I'm sorry, Daddy. I didn't mean to upset you or hurt Bentley, but I felt so sad, so left out.”

His heart broke and he pulled her closer to him, trailing his fingers through her silky blond hair. He didn't want her to be sad or unhappy ever again. Even as he made the wish, he acknowledged that he didn't have that kind of power.

But he did have the power to try to guide her toward choices that would make her happy. He did have the power to comfort her when she was sad. “What do you say? Want to give it a try? Would you like to stay in Galveston? Go to school on the island?”

For several seconds she said nothing. She didn't move, didn't seem to breathe. And neither did he. If she said no, his heart would really break.

Finally, she looked at him. Her eyes swam with tears. She nodded, her throat working with the effort of holding them back. “I…would like that. More than…anything.”

She gave up the battle then and started to cry. Jackson wrapped his arms around her and comforted her, never wanting to let her go, feeling so much like a father he wanted to shout with it. It was going to be okay.

One of the security officers looked in on them and smiled. “Glad to see everything's all right. Just thought I'd let you know, we've got a group of protestors coming in. Just in case you're ready to move along.”

Jackson looked at Chloe. “What do you say we go home?”

She wiped her eyes and stood. “I'd like that.”

Jackson followed her to her feet. “As soon as I give Bentley a call to let her know you're safe, we're out of here.”

* * *

Bentley gazed out her living room window, shut today against the cold December breeze, waiting for Jackson and Chloe to pick her up on their way to the airport. The days since Chloe had run away had flown by. Jackson had filled her in on his and Chloe's talk, but even if he hadn't, she would have seen the difference it had made in their relationship. She was delighted for them both.

She moved closer to the glass, peering down at the street and the vendor's baskets of flowers. She wished she could throw the window wide open and breathe in their scent. She needed their sweetness, needed something to stave off the melancholy that had gripped her and wouldn't let her go.

Chloe hadn't talked to her about their argument, and it hurt that the child was reluctant to open up to her. Or maybe, despite what Jackson had told her to the contrary, Chloe meant the things she'd said.
Could the girl still be worried about Bentley and Jackson's relationship?

She had no reason to. Bentley wasn't even sure there was a relationship to be worried over. A cloud moved across the sun, and Bentley frowned. Over the past few days, she'd told herself she was being silly. She'd told herself she was being paranoid. But she hadn't believed her own assurances.

She still didn't.

Something had changed between her and Jackson. Since the night Chloe had run away, their relationship had been different. Less intense. Less emotional. They hadn't spoken of it, and she was uncertain whether the change had been brought about by Chloe's act or by altered feelings on Jackson's part. Or both.