On the Line (9 page)

“I can do this,” Kelsey said quietly as she reached up and cupped Patrick’s cheek.
“And if I can’t, Janelle can help.” Kelsey looked at her and winked. “I’ll have to
climb those steps alone soon enough—”

“Don’t remind me,” Patrick grumbled.

Kelsey’s smile widened. “So I should practice.”

Patrick frowned then quickly kissed her on the lips and stepped back. “Fine.”

Kelsey giggled and slowly turned toward Janelle. “Shall we get the kids into bed?”

Janelle nodded and tried not to laugh at what she’d just witnessed—Patrick’s discomfort
and her sister’s ability to get her way so easily. Together, the sisters turned toward
the living room to herd the kids to bed.

As Janelle exited Zach’s room, Kelsey was standing outside Zoe’s door, rolling her
teeth over her bottom lip.

“What’s wrong?” Janelle asked.

Kelsey looked at her and tilted her head, her question on her face.

“You’re chewing on your lip. I’ve only ever seen you do that when you’re seriously
considering something.” Kelsey’s mouth now formed an O. “So what is it?”

Kelsey pressed her lips together as her brow furrowed. “Do you think Dad’s acting
a bit strange tonight?”

“You noticed too?” Janelle had begun to wonder if she was the only one to notice
how tense George had been during the meal.

“Yeah.” Kelsey turned and looked down the hall toward the stairs. “Promise you won’t
get mad?”

“No,” Janelle replied, her usual response to that question ever since childhood.

Kelsey smiled slightly before she met her sister’s stare again. “He came by the hospital
today while Veronica and Grayson were there.”

“Why would I get mad about that?” Janelle asked after her sister paused.

“Veronica sort of let it slip about the funeral,” Kelsey answered, a sheepish look
on her face. “But he said he’d already heard some of the details, he just hadn’t
known Mom had been a part of it,” Kelsey continued quickly.

“Oh no.” Janelle pressed her back to the wall beside Zach’s door. “He told me not
to go. He’s probably here to talk about that.”

Kelsey narrowed her eyes. “You think?”

“What else could it be?”

Patrick crested the last step, and they turned to look at him. “I thought I’d tell
the kids good-night and help Kelsey downstairs.”

Janelle glanced at the large grin on Kelsey’s face and bobbed her head. “Then I will
meet the two of you in the dining room.”

Slowly, Janelle walked down the steps, preparing herself for her father’s displeasure.
To call it wrath would be an overstatement. Her father rarely got that angry at her
or Kelsey, but it still made her sick to cause him disappointment. As she reached
the dining room, she stopped and inhaled slowly before walking in and resuming her
seat. To her surprise, all the food and dirty dishes had been put away.

When Patrick and Kelsey returned, Patrick took his seat at the foot of the table
and Kelsey sat beside him, across from Janelle. The sisters exchanged a look then
turned to their father.

He sat silently as he stared at everyone at the table in turn then folded
his hands
on the table in front of him. Janelle felt like she was about to be cross-examined
without knowing why. “Janelle,” her father began, staring directly at her, “I believe
that I advised you not to go to Richard’s funeral, did I not?”

Janelle shrank in her seat as she nodded.

George continued, “I applaud your reasons for wanting to go in the first place, but
I had feared that while you were remembering the man Richard had been, thanks to
his revelation, everyone else would see you as the woman he painted you to be. I
didn’t want you to suffer the censure of everyone there.”

“I realize that now, I’m sorry,” Janelle said softly.

“That being said,” George looked at his hands, “I feel that an apology is due.”

“Dad,” Kelsey said, and George held his palm to her. Janelle watched her sister scowl
at her mother as Mary folded her arms across her chest and sat back in her chair.

“I suppose you’re right,” Janelle agreed.

“I absolutely agree,” Mary said, glaring at her eldest daughter.

“I’m glad to hear that, Mary.” George looked at his wife. “Since it’s you I expect
the apology from.”

Janelle’s eyes widened as her jaw dropped. She looked at Kelsey who had a similar
look on her face. At the same time, they turned to look at their parents. Mary’s
eyes were wide as well, but her lips were pursed as her cheeks glowed red. George,
his steady eyes far from calm, held her scornful gaze.

“I. Will. Not,” Mary finally sputtered after a few minutes of their silent showdown.

“Yes, you will,” George replied calmly.

When Mary opened her mouth to argue, he gave her that look Janelle was familiar with.
While her mother had a “look” that meant she would hear no more arguing, Janelle
had always felt her father’s “look” was much more menacing, especially since nothing
really ever made the man that angry. Mary must have shared that sentiment because
for the first time in her life, Janelle watched her mother recoil as she closed her
mouth.

“What you did yesterday, Mary, is unforgivable in my book. You publicly shamed your
daughter. You chose to ignore everything she went through
with Richard and sided
with his family over your own. Not only that, but you also accused her of being a
poor wife, blamed her for her failed marriage, and let everyone know that you’d been
trying to correct that behavior for months,” George said, his face becoming slightly
blotchy as his volume rose. “She was married to the man and you told her she didn’t
belong there.”

“She didn’t,” Mary spat as she sat up taller. “She drove that poor man to the grave,
just as much as her sister did.”

“That’s enough!” George roared, and Mary sank into her seat again. “I don’t care
what you
think
she did to him. You should never have called her out on it in such
a public venue. If you want to reprimand her and try to sway her to your deluded
way of thinking, then you do it in private. You should never have shamed her and
turned your back on her when she needed your support.”

“My support?” Mary practically laughed.

Janelle was frozen to her seat. She’d never seen her parents argue. Period. The fact
that they were now arguing over her gave her a light-headed feeling.

“My support?” Mary repeated as she stood. “Those girls have never listened to anything
I’ve ever told them to do. And now look at them.” Mary turned a scornful glare on
her and then on Kelsey. “Tramps. Both of them. All because that one,” she pointed
to Kelsey, “couldn’t follow my simple advice of keeping her man happy and ended up
chasing Tim away after she’d gotten herself knocked up.”

“Hey,” Kelsey sat up and tried to argue.

“Forcing that one,” Mary continued as she pointed at Janelle, “to take in her unwanted
child. And then she couldn’t be bothered with Richard anymore, and regardless of
how hard he tried, it was never enough for her so she slept with Nathan, and who
knows who else.”

“Hey,” it was Janelle’s turn to try to set the record straight.

Mary ignored her protests and turned to her husband. “If you had even once tried
to back me up, maybe they wouldn’t be such an embarrassment.”

George’s peppered jaw clenched several times before he took a deep breath. “I’m not
embarrassed by either of them, and I’m not going to support you when you suggest
they stay in bad relationships.”

Mary narrowed her eye and cocked her head. “Is that so?” She turned and looked directly
at Kelsey. “I think you should end things with him,” she pointed at Patrick, and
Janelle rolled her eyes, “right now. He’s not good for you and he’ll only hurt you.”

Kelsey’s jaw dropped and she turned her hurt-filled eyes to George.

George rose to his feet and came around the table to stand between Patrick and Kelsey,
laying a hand on each of their shoulders. “Mary, you’re wrong.”

“Auh,” Mary scoffed indignantly.

“Not only are you wrong, but you owe this man, not only your grandson’s life, but
your daughter’s as well,” George said and Kelsey’s hand moved to cover his. “Would
you like to thank him?”

Mary’s upper lip curled. “No.” She turned and walked toward the door into the living
room. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to this anymore.” She walked out of
the room, and moments later the front door slammed.

Janelle felt stunned and off balance as she looked at her father’s face. He was looking
in the direction of the front door. She looked at Kelsey, still gripping George’s
hand on her shoulder as her empty stare landed somewhere on the middle of the table.
Patrick propped his elbows on the table and steepled his hands against his lips,
his thumbs under his chin. He was staring blankly at the wall.

They sat like this in complete silence until the car horn honked.

George exhaled slowly as he rubbed the pads of his fingers in circles against his
closed eyes and temple. “I guess I’d better go.” He bent over and gave Kelsey a kiss
on the cheek then shook Patrick’s hand as Janelle stood.

“Thank you for trying,” she said as she hugged her father.

“I’m afraid it may be too little too late.” He sounded resigned as he broke the hug
and backed a step. “You both knew I always had your back, right?” He looked at both
of his daughters as they nodded their response then glanced in the direction of the
front door. “I should have made sure your mother did, too.” He shook his head. “I’ll
talk to you girls tomorrow.” He waved and left the room.

When the front door closed behind him, Janelle put her palms on the
back of the chair
and looked at Kelsey. The clouds receded from Kelsey’s eyes as she looked at her
sister.

“Well,” Kelsey muttered. “That was new.”

Janelle simply bobbed her head.

Seven

Nathan lay on the couch as he bounced a tennis ball against the opposite wall and
it bounced back into his waiting hands. It had been six days since he’d last spoken
to Janelle, and it was driving him crazy. He was beginning to feel like a caged animal.
He couldn’t go to work. He couldn’t go see Janelle. He would visit his mother, but
she only seemed to want to talk about what happened with Richard and question him
about what he would do about Janelle and his daughter.

His daughter.

That thought still made him a little light-headed. He threw the ball again, and it
skipped off the wall and went down the hall. Nathan stretched to look down the hall
then looked down at his two-year-old black-and-tan German shepherd. McClane simply
looked back at him and lifted an eyebrow.

“Are you going to get that?” Nathan stared at the dog. McClane looked down the hall
then laid his head back down on his paws. “Lazy animal,” Nathan grumbled as he flopped
onto his back and threw his arm over his head, over the arm of the couch. His other
hand slipped off the couch and stroked the dog’s fur.

“She hasn’t called today.”

He ran his fingers over the dog’s ears.

“That shouldn’t surprise me, I suppose. I haven’t answered her calls for the last
five days.”

But still, he hoped she would. If Janelle called, at least he knew she was thinking
about him. It annoyed him that he’d been told to stay away from her when they needed
to talk about . . . what exactly? The incident in the cabin? Their failed relationship?
Their daughter?

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

Nathan gave the dog one last pat then sat up. McClane hopped up and moved out of
the way of Nathan’s feet as he set them down on the hardwood floor. He propped his
elbows up on his knees and locked his hands behind his low-hanging head.

“Our daughter? I asked her so many times if the baby was mine and she always said
‘no.’ How could she lie?”

To go back to
him
? Nathan sneered at the thought. Janelle had abandoned him for Richard.
As if sensing the error in his thoughts, McClane looked sideways at Nathan.

“Okay, fine. She never really left him in the first place.”

McClane nodded and laid back down at Nathan’s feet and put his head on his paws.

“But the sentiment had been there.”

The dog rolled his eyes up at Nathan.

“I think,” Nathan mumbled as he rose from the couch. Was he arguing with the dog?
Nathan shook his head and walked down the hallway.

The truth was, he didn’t know what her feelings had been.

It still stung that Janelle had chosen Richard over him in high school. Even if that
had been fifteen years ago. And she hadn’t known then that Nathan had been half in
love with her. He had just worked up the nerve to ask her out when he found out she
was dating Richard. From that point on, Richard had limited Janelle’s exposure to
Nathan, even though they’d been friends long before Richard had even entered the
picture. They’d gone off to college together and Nathan had entered the local community
college and then gone to the police academy.