Fathers and Other Strangers. Karen Templeton

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t smile so much as her face seemed to relax. “Yeah. She is.”

      “So she lives with you now?”

      She fiddled with the straw for a bit, screaking it in and out of the plastic lid. “Actually, she’s been living with me since she was a baby. My husband and I raised her. My sister…wasn’t exactly a constant in her daughter’s life.”

      Hank swallowed, trying to figure out what was bothering him so much about this conversation. Cop instincts again, he decided, keeping an eye out for body language that would alert him that she was lying or something. But all he saw was a pretty lady with her hair crammed up in a stupid hat, her mouth creased some from sucking so hard on that straw.

      She nodded toward his sandwich. “How’s your breakfast?”

      “What? Oh…good.” He took another bite, then unwrapped his own straw, poking it into the little hole on the plastic lid. Some of the chocolate oozed out around the base. For some reason, Hank’s throat got dry. He looked up at Jenna, her cheeks sunk in as she sucked on her own straw, and his throat got dryer. Then his lips curved up in a smile.

      “That wouldn’t be a chocolate shake by any chance, would it?”

      She let go of the straw and smiled as well. Not full out, maybe, but it was something. “As a matter of fact, it is.” Her eyes glittered like aquamarines underneath the hat brim. “This is absolutely the best chocolate milk shake I have ever had.”

      “See? What did I tell ya?”

      She took another short pull, then lowered the cup again, her eyes narrowed. But that almost-smile still flirted with her lips. “It’s not worth getting a swelled head over.”

      A drop of chocolate glistened at the corner of her mouth: her tongue darted out, snatched it inside like a mother taking her child out of the rain.

      Swelled head, no. Other things, however…

      “Oh!” She shifted to one hip to dig in her pants pocket. “I almost forgot…here’s your change.” She leaned over to drop the bills and coins into his hand, her fingers brushing his palm. An innocent touch, brief and meaningless. Except Jenna’s cheeks flushed. And no, he wasn’t imagining it. And let’s just say Hank could see where things could get interesting between them. If he’d let it. If she’d let it, which was even less likely, considering that wedding ring of hers. Hank did not mess around with married women. Hell, Hank hadn’t messed around with anybody since Michelle’s death. Which probably accounted for why he was seeing erotic overtones in milk shakes, for cripe’s sake.

      “What’s your husband do, if you don’t mind my asking?”

      Her laugh startled him, not only because that was the last thing he expected her to do and because he liked the sound. A lot.

      “What’s so funny?”

      One side of her mouth pulled up. “The way people around here seem to think if you add ‘if you don’t mind my asking’ on the end of a prying question, that somehow makes it okay.”

      She didn’t seem particularly offended, though. So Hank shrugged. “I guess that way we can ask whatever’s on our mind, but it still leaves folks the option of not answering if they don’t want to without being afraid they might hurt somebody’s feelings.” He finished off his sandwich, picked up the plastic fork to attack the hash browns. “So. You gonna answer, or you gonna take your out?”

      The last thing Jenna had expected was for Hank Logan to sit himself down and get chatty. So it had thrown her for a loop when he had. But then, she suspected Hank was good at keeping people off balance. Like the way he could still look so disreputable—did the man even own a comb and razor?—but smell so incredibly good, even over the cigarette smoke. In any case, after her initial No! Go away! I don’t want to talk to you! reaction, logic took over. After all, she couldn’t very well get to know the man if she never talked to him, could she? And since it might look a wee bit suspicious if she made the overtures, she should be grateful for the opportunity that fate had presented her, right?

      The thing was, though, she was supposed to be finding out about him, not the other way around. Still—there went that damned logic business again—if she opened up to him, maybe he’d open up to her. Besides, this was all stuff he’d find out eventually, anyway. If…things worked out, he’d need to know as much about Blair as possible. And everything that affected Jenna affected Blair.

      “My husband died three years ago, of cancer,” she said at last. “Almost three and a half, actually.” She still wasn’t quite reconciled to how little her heart twinged when she mentioned Phil’s death, or to the fact that it had been ages since she’d felt guilty about laughing, or that the memories that once ached were more likely these days to suffuse her with a gentle joy. But it had taken a long, long time to get to this point. And even so, her sense of peace was as fragile as spun sugar. She would do nothing to jeopardize it.

      Nothing.

      “I’m sorry,” Hank said, the surprising gentleness in his voice luring her eyes to seek his. And for the briefest moment, she saw her own emptiness reflected in his bottomless black gaze; she hitched one shoulder, then shivered slightly in the breeze. From the cold milk shake, she assumed. Although more likely from the uneasiness of her knowing more about him than he could possibly guess.

      “Phil was a real fighter,” she said, although she wasn’t entirely sure why, especially as she seemed to be the only one baring her soul, here. “But God, it was hard, watching him suffer. So when he finally let go, it was almost a relief.”

      Hank stabbed at his hash browns, forked a bite into his mouth. He chewed for several seconds, then said, “I take it you had a good marriage?”

      “Yeah. We did.” She shrugged. “It just didn’t last long enough—”

      The screen door banged back as Blair picked that moment to come outside. Her hair was wet: she’d apparently taken a shower, then put on clean shorts and a T-shirt large enough to hold a revival meeting in.

      Barefoot, she crossed the porch, then plopped herself down beside Jenna, eyeing Hank cautiously. As she’d done since Blair was a little girl, Jenna lifted a hand to rub between her niece’s shoulder blades, thinking, as she did from time to time, that this was the last person she’d ever have to be afraid for.

      “There’s nothing to do,” Blair said, her hands framing her face.

      Hank snorted. Both Jenna and Blair looked at him. “See, that’s the trouble with city folks. They got it in their heads that doin’ nothing’s a crime.” He tossed a soggy crust of bread out into the yard, presumably for the birds. Or something. “Free time is a rarity for kids around here, so they know how to make the most of it. If nothing else, you could always take yourself off to explore some of the trails behind the lake.”

      “Oh, yeah, that’d be real exciting.”

      Jenna slid her hand to Blair’s shoulder to give her a little warning squeeze, just as she caught the muscle ticking in Hank’s beard-hazed jaw.

      “Far as I can tell,” he said, his words clipped, “you got two choices. You can either sit around and mope for the next month, or you can get up off your duff and go find something to do.”

      Blair’s hands smacked to her knees and her mouth СКАЧАТЬ