The Goodbye Groom. Ellen James

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СКАЧАТЬ But Shawn wasn’t exactly a kid anymore, and sooner or later he had to solve his own problems. This time he’d outdone himself, leaving a beautiful, inconvenient redhead in his wake.

      Speaking of Jamie Williams, she had yet to appear. Not to mention that Eric’s daughter was also conspicuously missing. He sat alone at the dining room table with all this splendor before him.

      Eric glanced at his watch, then felt angry at himself. Too much of his life had been run by a damn clock. Hadn’t he promised to change for Kaitlin’s sake? What she needed was time…his time. That was why he’d brought her here this summer, to the house where he’d grown up.

      Okay, maybe that had been something of a mistake. This place was too full of memories, the discomforting kind. How many strained dinners had he suffered through in this very room? The empty chair at the head of the table, waiting for his father. His mother, withdrawn into her own private thoughts. Shawn, a funny, anxious little kid back then, trying to pick a fight with Eric just so there’d be some noise in the place. And maybe, finally, Dad arriving, and the unspoken question weighting the air: what would be his mood this time…?

      Impatiently Eric pushed back his chair and stood. Something else occurred to him now. From long habit, he’d dressed formally for dinner—jacket, tie and all. It had been the custom in this house when he was a boy. Whenever he was here, he fell too easily into the old ways. The past was over. His daughter needed him to focus on the future.

      But where was she, anyway?

      Muffled sounds from outside drew him. The murmur of voices, an odd clink, a subdued splash. He went to the back door and stood gazing toward the pool. An inexplicable sight greeted him: Jamie Williams and his daughter carefully lifting up one of the patio tables between them and pitching it into the shallow end of the pool. Two patio chairs had already been deposited in the water. Jamie slipped off her sandals, waded in and captured one of the chairs. She positioned it just so in front of the table.

      After a moment’s hesitation, Kaitlin waded into the shallow end, too. She looked completely absorbed, grabbing hold of the other chair cushion to keep it from floating off into the deeper part of the pool.

      Eric leaned in the doorway, continuing to watch. It would be reasonable to ask why his daughter and his brother’s fiancée were giving the patio furniture a dunking. Maybe the answer didn’t matter all that much, though. Not when his daughter was actually in the pool, braving the water. A minor miracle.

      Eric’s gaze strayed to Jamie Williams. She was standing in his pool fully clothed, but even this ridiculous circumstance did not make her any less alluring. Perhaps more so. She rested her arms on the back of the chair and bent down to catch something Kaitlin was saying. The breeze played with her red hair, while the late-evening sun gave a golden cast to her skin. Her skirt draped damply. With a little imagination, she might have been a lovely Greek statue brought to life. Aphrodite rising from the sea….

      What was wrong with him? He made a restless gesture and propelled himself away from the doorway. Jamie and Kaitlin turned at the same moment and caught sight of him.

      A variety of emotions seemed to flicker across Jamie’s expressive face. Guilt, confusion, perhaps humor at her own predicament. But it was his daughter’s expression that really got to him. She stared at him defiantly, as if expecting the worst. Expecting that he wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t tolerate the unpredictable, that his first reaction would be to chastise.

      Had the divorce led to this—Kaitlin distrusting him so automatically now? And what the hell was he going to do about it?

      Jamie broke the awkwardness. She sat down in her chair in front of the table—sat there in the pool, water eddying around her, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Kaitlin studied her before she, too, sat down, elbows at the table. Both of them now stared calmly at Eric. Clearly the next move was up to him.

      Jamie Williams had been here scarcely a few hours and already she had disturbed the waters in more ways than one. Eric felt as if he were facing some obscure test, one he might easily fail in his daughter’s eyes.

      There was nothing to do but jump in—literally and figuratively. Eric sat down at the pool’s edge and made an elaborate procedure of untying his shoes, taking off his socks. Kaitlin’s eyes seemed to grow larger as she watched, but she didn’t say a word. He loosened his tie, took off his jacket and tossed it onto the tiles. Then he picked up his own patio chair, waded into the pool with it and sat down next to his daughter. Her brown eyes widened a bit more.

      Mrs. Braddock appeared. She folded her arms and observed the lot of them, admirably impassive.

      “Mrs. B.,” said Eric. “Tonight, if you don’t mind, we’ll have dinner…in the pool.”

      Something seemed to glimmer in Kaitlin’s eyes. But then, as so often happened these days, her head dipped forward and a protective curtain of hair fell across her face.

      Eric still didn’t know if he’d passed the test, but he was determined to keep on trying. So he behaved as if dinner à la pool was something he did every day. He waded up and down the pool steps to deliver Mrs. B.’s delicious offerings: roasted peppers and eggplant, homemade rolls, shepherd’s cheese, pasta with basil sauce. Mrs. Braddock had even brought two candles for an air of festivity; he lit them and placed them in the center of the table. Mrs. B. herself retreated as if grateful to escape.

      Eric sat down, serving Kaitlin extra sauce on her pasta.

      “Thank you, Dad,” she said formally. He tried to remember the last time she’d called him by the more casual term of “Pops.” He missed that. Before his marriage to Leah had ended, even when he hadn’t been the most involved of fathers, he’d still been able to count on a hug from Kaitlin, as well as her smile or laughter. And, yes, a beleaguered but affectionate “Oh, Pops” on occasion. But ever since the divorce…

      Would his daughter’s life always be divided in this painful way?

      Jamie Williams seemed to be focusing rather intently on her plate, no doubt sensing unspoken tensions. Eric poured his daughter some cranberry-grape juice.

      “Thank you, Dad.”

      Maybe if he’d been closer to her from the very beginning, the split wouldn’t have been so traumatic for her. Maybe she’d have a more solid foundation on which to build. It occurred to Eric that his life was full of maybes these days. Although Kaitlin had never been a particularly bold child, she’d once seemed at ease in her surroundings. It was only after the divorce that the insecurities had started to surface. The fear of darkness, for one, and the fear of water…and of school.

      Yet she didn’t seem fearful at the moment. She moved her feet back and forth, sending up a shower of droplets.

      “Jamie,” she said comfortably, “would you pass the applesauce, please?”

      Jamie obliged. “I think I’ll have a little more myself.”

      “I like apples,” said Kaitlin.

      “So do I,” Jamie replied. “Apples are my favorite fruit.”

      “What’s your favorite cookie?”

      “Hmm…it’s a tie between chocolate-chip and coconut-macaroon.”

      “Chocolate-chip is definitely the best,” Kaitlin pronounced.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ