Daddy's Little Girl (A Homespun Romance) (12 page)

The words tore at Jason.  He had no right to deny his daughter's ties with her mother's family. 

The worried look in Sara's eyes made him touch her on the shoulder.  "Maybe you're right.  Maybe I have been looking at this from the wrong angle.  I'm willing to give your way a try and be nicer to Dee Dee."

"You are?" Sara asked, dazed.

"Sara, I'm not the mean monster you think I am.  What you said makes perfect sense.  Why should Kelsey lose both her mother and her grandmother?  I never knew my grandparents and I always used to watch the other kids in boarding school when theirs came to visit."

"You were in boarding school?"

"My Dad was in the army and when my mother died and he remarried, my stepmother thought it was the best place for me."

Sara picked up the change in Jason's voice.  Did he feel he'd been sent away?  "Your stepmother and your father probably didn't want your education to be interrupted."

"They didn't want me around," Jason said harshly.

Was that another reason he had proposed to her?  Meek and mild Sara Adams would never have the kind of influence over him that he thought his stepmother had had over his father.

"Were you very close to your father before he remarried?"

"Very."

Sara bit her lip.  She was so far in, she might as well go all the way.  "One of the girls I was at high school with lost three years of schooling because her parents were in the military.  She said she couldn't adjust to changing school all the time and after a while she gave up trying to keep up with her school work.  She dropped out in her junior year of high school."

"What are you trying to say, Sara?"

"I think your  Dad didn't send you away, Jason.  He really wanted what's best for you."

Jason frowned.  Was what Sara said true?

"How old were you when your mother died, Jason?"

"Nine."

"Didn't she ever mention boarding school to you?"

The memory returned in a flash.  His mother lighting the candles on his birthday cake.  She'd bent and kissed his cheek after he'd cut it and said.  "I'll miss this when we go away to Germany, and you're at school."

Fragments of memory came back.  Yes, Mom had mentioned boarding school from time to time.  It hadn't been only Margaret's idea.  How could he have forgotten?

"They were going to Germany and I was going to stay in boarding school," Jason said slowly.  "I remember her mentioning it now."

Sara got to her feet and started clearing the table.  "They didn't send you away on purpose."

After his mother died, he'd hurt so badly.  It had hurt even worse to know that Dad had wanted to marry someone else.  He'd been too angry to listen to explanations, to believe what his father said about loving him just as much as always.  During vacations he had rejected Margaret's offers of friendship, grown up quiet and reserved.  They had died in a car accident while he was away in college. 

Jason stared at the kitchen wallpaper.  If only he'd been a little more patient with his father.  His mouth tightened.  He couldn't rewrite the past, but he would give Dee Dee another chance.

"I want to do what's best for Kelsey."

He must have said it aloud, because Sara came and stood by him.  Placing a hand on his shoulder she said, "You always will Jason.  Every parent who loves his child does their best."

Jason put a hand up and held Sara's.  He needed the comfort of her touch.  "My Dad did his best for me, only I didn't see it that way.  He wrote to me after I went away to boarding school, telling me that I had a special place in his life that no one else could ever fill."

"Just like Kelsey has in your heart."

"If I lose Kelsey to Dee Dee in court, she might grow up to think that I didn't care enough to keep her with me.  The only reason I've been taking her with me on these trips is because I never want her to feel abandoned the way I did as a child.  I didn't know moving her around might affect her development."

It was the basis of Dee Dee's case and because Kelsey hadn't started talking Sara knew Jason must worry  it was true.  Being a parent was never easy, especially when one had to make decisions like the kind Jason was faced with.  The pain in his voice made Sara wrap both arms around him and hold his head to her chest the way she did with Kelsey.

"You're doing your best, Jason," she said fiercely, blinking to stop the tears falling.  "No one can do more than that."

Sara went out for a long walk in the Park that afternoon to think about what Jason had told her.  The Park was crowded because it was Sunday, but Sara hardly noticed the people.

Why did some people's lives hold so many jagged pieces that kept hurting them?  Jason wanted to do his best by his daughter.  Was there a patron saint of single parents?  Couldn't he, or she, see that Jason was doing more than his best, that all the man wanted was to be allowed to take care of his daughter?

Tears filled Sara's eyes, but she brushed them away.  Her third challenge was to put her own feelings aside, and concentrate on helping Jason as much as she could.

"Why do you and Jason have separate bedrooms?"

Jason paused on the balcony, his heart beginning to thud.  Dee Dee's question was loaded with innuendo.  Kelsey had gone to bed, and Jason had retired to his room on the pretext of work.  Why had Sara gone to Dee Dee's room?  It would have been simpler just to put her head into a crocodile's mouth.

"We have separate bedrooms because we've decided to wait until we're married to sleep together."

Sara must have rehearsed that answer in her mind for it to come out so pat.

"Huh!  It's the first time Jason Graham's waited for anything."

Jason's mouth tightened as he waited for the volley of spite that would follow.  The promise he'd given Sara wasn't going to be easy to keep.

Sara cleared her throat before she said.  "Jason's past is his business."

"Not if it influences my granddaughter's upbringing."  The vinegar Dee Dee had put on her salad, was showing in her voice.

"As far as I know, a saint couldn't raise a child better than Jason is doing.  Why do you keep treating him like some kind of criminal?  Because your daughter died, and Jason lived?"

"She would never have rushed out of the house that night on her own.  He won't admit it but they must have had a fight."

"You told Mrs. Binty that Jason was in England the night Diana died," Sara said calmly.  "You also said that tests on her body showed that her blood alcohol level was very high that night."

"He drove her to drink."

"She started drinking after she married Jason?"

"No."

"When did she start?"

"In her teens."

"The truth is you couldn't control Diana even then, could you Dee Dee?  No one could."

In the silence that followed, Jason realized that Sara would have made a great lawyer.

"It wasn't my fault that Diana was so wild."

"No one's blaming you Dee Dee, but you've got to stop acting as if Jason's the one to blame.  Diana was responsible for what happened to Diana.  You knew your own daughter, and you know Jason.  At least to yourself, can't you admit who was really at fault?"

Another silence, and then Sara said, "Don't let Kelsey suffer because you want someone to pin responsibility for your daughter's death on Jason."

"Diana didn't want to have Kelsey."

"But she did, and nothing can change that."

"Jason refused to let her have an abortion."

"In this day and age Diana could have got one if she really wanted to.  The fact she didn't proves that deep down she too hoped the baby would change things.  You need Kelsey as much as she needs you.  If Jason wins the case, and he will, that's going to leave you out in the cold.  You've lost your daughter, there's no need to lose your granddaughter as well.  Don't do what my uncle did.  He shut love out of his life and made being unhappy a habit."

It was the first time Sara had volunteered information about Samuel Bly. 

"Di was so wild...she would never listen to me.  We spoiled her.  I don't want Kelsey to turn out like that."

Jason wondered if Sara knew Dee Dee had never discussed her daughter like this with anyone.

"She won't.  You don't see Jason spoiling her, do you?  And you'll be on hand to make sure the mistakes that were made with Diana aren't repeated."

"Jason doesn't want me around."

"The fact he's invited you to stay here proves he's trying his best to accept that you're an important part of Kelsey's life.  You'll always be her grandmother.  We would never interfere with that special relationship."

"Do you mean that?  You won't shut me out once you're married?"

Through the gap in the billowing curtains, Jason saw Sara kneel in front of Dee Dee's armchair and take both her hands.  "I didn't have a grandparent around when I grew up and I envied the kids who did.  My best friend, Claire could always talk to her grandmother about anything...she was one of her best friends.  I want Kelsey to have the wealth of family."

A wealth she'd never had herself.  Dee Dee said nothing and Sara got to her feet.  "I'd better go finish putting the laundry away."

Jason couldn't understand the heaviness that banded his chest.  Sara had pleaded his cause as if it were her own.  Kelsey's future was very important to her. 

"Himself wants to see you in his room miss, when you have a moment free."  Mr. Binty told Sara at ten, Monday morning.

Sara smiled at Mr. Binty.  She'd gotten used to the way both the Bintys addressed Jason as Himself.  So far she hadn't been able to persuade them to drop the `miss' where she was concerned and call her Sara.  It was just not their way.

Going to Jason's bedroom, Sara knocked on the open door. 

"Sara, come in.  I have to apologize.  I opened one of your letters by mistake."

Sara glanced at the envelope in Jason's hand.  Claire was the only person who bothered to write to her and Sara hoped Claire hadn't made any too-euphoric references to Jason.  "That's okay."

"This envelope was lying face down.  I was halfway through the letter when I realized it was for you."

Her eyes widened as she saw the return address printed on top of the page.  It was from a nationally known writing magazine that sponsored an annual writing contest.  She'd given Claire's address when she'd entered the contest and her friend had forwarded it.  Sara's hands shook as she extracted the single sheet of paper.  As she read the words on the page, her heart seemed to stop for a single second and then broke into a gallop. 

She'd won first place in the essay competition.  There had been one hundred entrants in the category she'd entered in.  One of the judges was the editor of a national magazine, and he wanted to publish her essay.

Sara raised her gaze to Jason's still unable to take it all in.  Why on earth was he looking at her so strangely? 

"Congratulations."

"I e...entered this competition some time back.  I n...never expected to win."

"You're a good writer, Sara, and this is proof.  You could call the editor who wants to publish you from here if you'd like to."

The idea seemed to petrify her.  "C...call the editor?"  she said in a tone that implied he'd suggested calling St. Peter in Heaven.  "I'll think about it, thank you."

She turned and left the room. 

He'd wanted her to experience freedom the way he imagined it to be, to gain confidence in herself.  He'd done everything to give it to her, but that wasn't the best way.  This was the best way...gaining it through her own accomplishments.  Winning the competition opened up a whole new world for Sara.

Getting to his feet Jason reached for the phone on his desk.  He had to stop being selfish about letting Sara go.

"You actually won a competition?"  he heard Mr. Binty say, as he entered the kitchen ten minutes later.  "How clever of you miss!"

Mrs. Binty beamed proudly at Sara.  "So it's a writer you are, are ye?  I thought to myself when I saw those papers all over that you were working very hard at something."

Sara smiled.  The idea was taking some getting used to.  She'd shared her news with the Bintys and Dee Dee, because saying it out loud helped her believe in it herself.

"What does Jason have to say about all this?"  Dee Dee asked.  "He never mentioned that you write."

Before Sara could answer, Jason walked up to her and slipped an arm around her waist.  "Jason thinks its wonderful.  Sara didn't want to discuss her writing with anyone because it was a dream too close to her heart to share.  Exposure has a way of destroying budding hopes."

Sara felt herself stiffen with surprise.  Jason had said that as if he were looking through a keyhole right into her mind. 

The doorbell rang, and Kelsey and Mr. Binty went to answer it.  When they returned, Mr. Binty held two dozen roses in his hand.  Kelsey handed her a card. 

"For me?"  Sara opened it.