The Hellion (33 page)

He snorted and cast her a doubtful glance from

the corner of his eye.

"Oh, Daddy, don't be such a cynic."

"You're makin' the mistake of your life. A skunk doesn't change its stripes."

But again she threw him a curve. "Would you like to meet Beth, since she's going to be your granddaughter?"

He gripped the wheel and blared, "I most certainly would not!"

She pulled away with a mock show of defense. "Okay, okay ... maybe it is best if you wait until she's learned to accept me first."

By the time they reached church Rachel was weak from putting on her act all the way, but she crooked a hand through her father's elbow and kept her step spry as they moved directly inside and found their pew.

The moment she sat down she felt the tension between her shoulderblades and wilted slightly. The worst was yet to come, and she wondered if she was a good enough actress to pull it off when she faced Beth Gentry an hour from now. She had chosen the time and place for its very public aspect. What could Beth Gentry do with half the town milling about, witnessing their first meeting?

When the service ended she studied
      
397 Tommy Lee's face as they converged in the middle of the crowd, and for a moment she forgot the young woman at his elbow and felt only the thrill of seeing him again.

"Hello, Rachel." His dark eyes adored her while he extended a hand.

"Hello, Tommy Lee." His palm was warm and large as it surrounded hers momentarily, and she smiled up at him.

"I'd like you to meet my daughter Beth."

Rachel transferred her smile to the girl and offered her hand as benignly as if they'd never laid eyes on each other before.

"Hello, Beth. I've certainly heard a lot about you."

Color crept up Beth's cheeks and her mouth hung open in surprise as she let Rachel shake her hand.

"Have-h'lo."

Still holding her hand, Rachel smiled up at Tommy Lee. "Why, she's a beauty, just as you said." Again she directed her comment to the girl. "You have your grandpa Gentry's eyes, but your grandma's mouth." And at last she dropped

Beth's hand and tipped her head up to Tommy Lee again. "But then, so does your daddy."

He smiled and took her elbow, then did the same to Beth. "What do you say we stop somewhere for breakfast?"

"I'd love to. I'm famished." Rachel poked her head forward to peer around Tommy Lee. "How about you, Beth?"

From his far side came a grunt.

At the car Rachel slipped into the back seat, leaving Beth to share the front with her daddy, feeling thankful that Tommy Lee didn't make an issue of it.

Throughout the meal Rachel tried by action and word to make it clear she had no intention of usurping Beth's place in Tommy Lee's life, but the girl remained sullen and untalkative, speaking only when asked a question.

Over coffee Rachel produced from her handbag a miniature apple-green box with a pink bow and offered it to Beth. "Here ... a little something from my store, since your daddy told me how much you like them."

Beth shot a puzzled glance from Tommy Lee to Rachel to the box, then up at Rachel again.

Obviously, she was as dumbfounded
       
399 by Rachel's actions as Everett had been earlier. Rachel could read the question sizzling through Beth's mind as clearly as if it had been spoken: You mean she didn't tell my daddy what I did?

"You-you brought a present for me?"

Rachel nodded, set the box on the tabletop, and nudged it toward Beth. "Uh-huh. Just something little."

"But-but ..." Again her eyes dropped to the gift, and Rachel saw how flustered Beth had become.

"Go ahead ... open it."

Beside Beth, Tommy Lee braced a jaw on one palm and smiled, watching her. Her eyes darted up to his, then quickly away as she hesitantly reached for the box. She removed the bow and drew the protective cotton aside to reveal a pair of tiny silver loop earrings, their Florentine finish a perfect match for the bangle bracelet.

At the sight of them, Beth's face flushed brightly and she trained her eyes downward, refusing to lift them to Rachel again.

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"When I was your age girls weren't allowed to wear earrings. How silly, huh? I remember fighting with my mother over every new thing I wanted to try--makeup, nylons, high heels."

Tommy Lee shifted his gaze to Rachel across the table. "With good reason. I remember the first time you broke out in lipstick. It was the color of a matador's cape, and you had it uneven on the top, and painted too far down in the corners. I can remember thinking--yuck!"

Rachel laughed, her eyes sparkling up at him. "Yuck? You were thinking yuck when I thought I was stunning enough for the silver screen?"

"At the time I liked you better in grubby jeans, climbing the pecan tree with your hair all full of twigs."

"Remember that time you fell out of it?" She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table.

"Do I ever. I wore a cast for the rest of the summer."

"And we never did get that tin-can telephone strung between our bedrooms, did we?"

Tommy Lee chuckled. "Uh-uh. Instead we were forced to use the real one and drive our

parents crazy."
                    
401

Rachel was conscious of Beth, looking on and listening with piqued interest. She gave her a quick glance. "Your daddy was a devil. Do you know what he used to do?" She again fixed her grin up at the man across the table, and beneath it rubbed his trouser leg with her shoe. "He had this old purse and he stuffed it full of play money, tied a string to its handle, and laid it out in the middle of the street in the dark of night. Then he'd hide in the bushes, hold on to the other end of the string and wait for some unsuspecting driver to come rolling along and spy the purse in his headlights. But, of course, by the time the car had jerked to a stop, or backed up, and the driver got out to investigate, the treasure had disappeared from sight!"

Tommy Lee laughed. "God, I'd forgotten about that. The old purse-on-the-string trick. Remember the time we pulled it on old man Mullins? I thought that old dude was gonna commit himself by the time he finally gave up."

"I wasn't with you when you duped old man Mullins. Once was enough for me, lying out in the weeds with the worms and snails and getting bitten up by insects, all for such nonsense."

Though their reminiscing had intrigued Beth, she took no part in the conversation, nor did she show any enthusiasm during the remainder of the day. They spent it at Tommy Lee's house, and though time and again Rachel tried to draw Beth out, she was unsuccessful. Beth's reticence remained between them, intractable.

By the time Tommy Lee drove Rachel back into town, she had a pounding headache. She sighed and fell back against the car seat.

"I don't think it worked," she said. "She's totally belligerent."

Tommy Lee drew on his cigarette, scowled and brooded. "Dammit, she was a rude little snot!"

Rachel reached over and brushed his arm. "We have to give her time to get used to me."

"I'm sorry, Rachel."

"It's not your fault. And don't give up yet. We'll try again."

"I just don't understand her!" He thumped the steering wheel. "How could she sit there scowling at you all day long? Didn't she realize how rude that was?"

"She was making her point, darling. I'm a

threat to her or haven't you heard?
       
403 Women of all ages are infamous for being possessive about their men. She'll get over it, but we have to be patient."

But Tommy Lee had wasted too many years to wax patient when the woman he loved had agreed to marry him and the greatest stumbling block seemed to be his petulant teenage daughter.

When he returned home and walked into his house it was as if a different personality had stepped into Beth's body. This one was smiling and gay and filled with chatter.

"Hi. Fixed us a snack--hot fudge sundaes with pecans. Should I scoop you out one now?"

He threw his car keys onto the table and swung to face her, suddenly upset with her constant attempts to win him over by playing the surrogate housewife. "I'm on a diet. I'll pass."

She stood in the middle of the room holding a dish of chocolate-covered ice cream, licking the back of the spoon. At his curt reply she looked up innocently. "Oh. Well ... should I slice you some fruit then?"

"Beth, I don't need mothering, all right? And I have a housekeeper, so you don't need to constantly try to please me with all this ... this domestic subterfuge! What I want you for is to be my daughter."

"Well!" she huffed. "I thought I was."

"Then start acting like one and stop acting like a jealous brat!"

Her face soured. "I can see she's been working on you."

"She has a name!" Tommy Lee's face reddened with anger and he hooked his thumbs on his hips. "It's Rachel, and I'd appreciate it if you'd afford her the common courtesy of using it when she's here! And the last thing in the world she'd think of doing is working on me, as you put it. She was totally willing to excuse your unforgivable rudeness to her today." He tapped his chest. "But I'm not!"

"When she's with you, you forget that I'm even in the room!"

"That's not true and you know it."

"Oh, isn't it? All day long the two of you blabbed on and on about all that junk from when you were kids and left me out."

"And what did you do when she asked you
   
405 about your dancing, and about school? You grunted a one-word answer and turned a cold shoulder on her. How do you think that made her feel when she was trying her best to be friendly?"

Beth's face was a mask of hatred. "I will never be her friend. Never! Because she's the one ... I know she's the one. I found that box of pictures and I know!"

Tommy Lee's brows curved into a frown. "What pictures? What are you talking about?"

She pointed to a distant spot in the house. "All those pictures of you and her, from the time you were babies, naked in a plastic wading pool, riding your tricycles together, and all the way up through high school. You've got more pictures of her than you do of Mother!"

"Beth, we grew up together. You knew that."

"Yes, I knew that." There were tears on Beth's cheeks now. "Mother told me there was someone in your past who made you go through three wives, but none of them could ever measure up to her. She didn't know who it was, but I do! And if it wasn't for your precious Rachel things would have turned out different for me. I'd have a ... a mother

and a father like other kids, and ... and--was

Suddenly Beth threw her dish and spoon on the floor and spun from the room, sobbing.

"Beth, wait!"

"Go to your precious Rachel! Go!" she screamed, slamming up the stairs.

Tommy Lee's heart thundered as he stood in indecision. Should he go to Beth and allay her fears, assure her he'd never leave her as he had her mother? For that was her greatest fear, it was plain. Years of living with a single parent--and a bitter one at that--had left Beth insecure and grasping.

Tommy Lee sighed and dropped to a chair, leaning forward and rubbing his eyes behind his glasses.

Complications. The need for love, that all-powerful drive experienced by everyone--would it work against him all his life?

He considered going upstairs and telling Beth the entire story about Rachel and himself, but she was only fourteen years old. She had her whole sexual life ahead of her. A story like that might leave her with any number of false impressions--that he condoned sex at sixteen, that Rachel was a "bad girl" when she was young, that she

was indeed responsible for Nancy's
      
407 bitterness.

Lord, what went through the minds of fourteen-year-old girls? He didn't know. He'd never had one before. If he told her the whole truth, would it soften his daughter or add to the problem? And to tell it was to include, by necessity, his own estrangement from his parents. Surely she would question him about that. He had promised Rachel he'd make an attempt at reconciliation, but stepping up to that house, then inside it, after all these years, was going to be even more difficult than dealing with Beth.

Gentry, how did you get into this emotional mess?

Disconsolate, he held his head in both hands and stared at the floor between his feet. Then with a weary sigh he unfolded himself and went to clean up the bowl of ice cream. It had left a stain on the carpet, and he supposed he should have hauled Beth back to pick up the mess herself, instead of allowing her to throw a tantrum and get away with it.

How does a guy learn to be a father?

Hunkered down on one knee in the middle of the

living-room floor, a dishcloth dangling from his fingers, he dropped his elbow and forehead onto the upraised knee and fought the urge to cry.

           
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  
Fall moved on with no perceptible changes in the attitudes of either Beth or Everett. In October Rachel listed her house with a realtor, believing the decisive move would force her father to accept the idea of her upcoming marriage, but he remained unyielding. The few times Rachel confronted Beth at Tommy Lee's house the girl was chilly and aloof, escaping to her room as soon as possible.