Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (34 page)

They'd had much the same thoughts, only he'd let the heat of passion overwhelm practicality. Vivian had occupied nearly all of his thoughts since she'd arrived, and it would've been a relief to know how accurate his imagination was. Then he could come up with new fantasies.

“My reassurance that your housing and health care didn't come with a cost wasn't enough?” He knew it wasn't enough. It wouldn't have been enough for him and he respected her more for it.

“When I have a job of my own, and my own apartment, then that will be enough.”

“Why haven't you applied for one of the jobs at the casinos?” They'd talked about the jobs she'd applied for and what she was interested in doing. Not once had she mentioned applying for a riverboat casino position.

“I've worked in casinos since I was eighteen, and I grew up around them. I'd like to try something new.”

Ah, there was the guilty look, he thought, when she turned toward the window, but he was suddenly too worn out by emotion to pursue it. Like his other questions, this one could wait until morning.

CHAPTER NINE

“D
AD
, I'
M
ASKING
you again,
where is my money?” Vivian heard herself shriek the words and quickly lowered her voice before she woke up Karl.

“It's not my fault,” her father pleaded. Nothing was ever his fault. “How was I supposed to leave Las Vegas with no money?”

“How was I supposed to
live
in Las Vegas with no money, especially after you got me fired?” She shared responsibility for getting fired, but blaming her father seemed fair since he wouldn't take responsibility for anything else.

“You've managed before. You're resourceful.”

“Resourceful?” Of course that's how he would see her. Good ol' Vivian. It's the first day of school in a new town, but she doesn't need her dad to help her register for classes. There's no food in the house, but he needs to meet with the guys because “it's gonna be big.” She'll figure it out because she's resourceful. Go ahead, gamble away the college fund she worked and scrimped to save. She'll get to college anyway, because she always manages.

Apparently she hadn't managed well enough. She'd registered for school and gotten them groceries, but she'd never made college happen. A random series of college courses taken when she had the money didn't make a college degree. All it made was a table dealer who'd read Homer and taken calculus.

All her dreams of college and getting a good, respectable job—developed out of the scares of years spent in a world that hoped for one big score to fix all problems—lost in a card game.

Marriage and pregnancy had gotten her out of Las Vegas, but not in the way she had wanted. She hadn't
earned
her way into this beautiful apartment through hard work, and neither had she
loved
her way here with the man of her dreams. She'd
slept
her way into this apartment, and the truth of it broke her heart. But she couldn't leave, because outside of this apartment was a quicksand world of unstable housing and unemployment. She hadn't loved Las Vegas, but at least she'd been on stable ground there.

“Yeah. I heard you were fired and aren't even in Vegas anymore. You must have figured something out, though.”

“I could be in a homeless shelter somewhere, or out on the street begging for money. What do you know?”
What do you care?

“But you're not. I know you're not because you're...”

“Resourceful. I know. You've said it before.”

“I've almost got all the money to pay these guys back. Then I only need one more big hit to pay you back. I'll pay all of it back to you, Vivy, I swear.”
I swear this is a sure thing. By next year, you won't even need financial aid to help with college. We'll pay your way through any school you want.

“Are you going to get me back my money the same way you lost all of yours and got me in this situation to begin with?”

“The next time...”

The next score. Over the next big mountain. Around the next corner. “Get a job and earn money the hard way, like the rest of us do, Dad. You know what, if you get a job, I won't even charge you interest on the money you owe me.”

“Ah, Vivy, you wouldn't charge me interest. I'm your father. Even if you are frustrated with me now, we'll have a fun road trip from wherever you are back to Vegas and you'll remember how much you love your old man.” Even on the other end of the phone she could see the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and his wide smile. When he smiled like this, old women stopped him on the street to pinch his cheeks, and he had such a look of innocence that he could walk out of Fort Knox with bars of gold in his hands.

She had tears in her eyes, but she wasn't fooled. “Emphasis on old.”

“Don't be that way.”

“Dad, I want my money back.”
I want my life back.

“My plan's going to work this time, Vivy. I swear it. I can win. I won you that bird, remember. That bird has to be worth something. Most parakeets can't talk, and Xìnyùn's a regular conversationalist.”

Yeah, if gambling phrases were all I wanted to talk about.

Of all the apps that were available for smartphones, the one Vivian wanted most right now would enable her to reach through the phone and shake sense into her father. She probably couldn't shake hard enough.

They said their goodbyes and hung up, which was good because Vivian didn't think she could keep calm much longer.

When she looked up and saw Karl standing next to her in the kitchen, she nearly dropped her phone in the sink. “Did it ever occur to you that eavesdropping on conversations is rude?”

“No.” He didn't even look ashamed of himself for listening in. His face had the unfeeling, immovable look of suspicious-Karl. Last night's open, honest laughing-Karl was gone.

“How much of that conversation did you hear?”

“Enough to know you're resourceful and that your father took your money.”

“Oh.” Thirst rushed her and she got herself a glass of water. And then another. She pressed the third against her head, hoping to cool her nerves. Karl waited.

He didn't speak until she'd drunk the third glass of water. “I'd like to hear the story from you.”

Vivian thought about lying. Though she hadn't been forthcoming with everything she hadn't lied to Karl yet, and she didn't want to start. Until she got a job, he was all that stood between her and that homeless shelter she'd hung over her father's head. She could tell most of the story honestly.

“My father hopes that around the next corner will be a golden ticket to wealth. He bet more than he had at a private poker game.” She couldn't tell this story while staring at him staring at her. She needed something to distract her from her own foolishness. Since the coffee was already made, she got out mixing bowls and started making pancakes.

“I don't even know why he was allowed into such a high-stakes game.” Especially with the men he'd ended up playing with. They'd scared her in the short time she'd interacted with them. How her father managed to spend his free time with them...

When she shook her head at her own ignorance about what her father had been doing since she'd moved out of the house, flour from her measuring cup spilled onto the counter. To get something to wipe it up, she would have to turn around and face Karl. She left it to clean up later. “No, I do know how he got into the game. When he wants something, my dad is nothing but charm and flattery.” And that innocent smile.

“It's a rare person who's not susceptible to flattery.” Karl was standing so close to her she could feel his breath on her neck.

“Yes, especially when it's in the form of an eager puppy.” Her father was a small-time grifter, hoping to be big-time one day. And to big-time grifters, her dad was a mark, because he didn't have the smarts not to get in over his head. She took a step to the right, shifting the pancake-making operation with her. “Apparently he won for a while and got cocky. Then he started losing. So he kept betting bigger and bigger to win his money back, but it never happened. When he couldn't meet his obligations, he stole every penny I had. He'd been visiting me and I was stupid enough not to make it hard for him.” All her security and the cushion she'd built up for sixteen years, gone in an instant.

God, this was embarrassing to admit. Since she'd left Jackpot, Vivian had tried to live a normal, stable life. Get to work on time. Save her money. Pay her bills. She'd thought she was safe from the chaos of her father because she only interacted with him when he said he needed money.

She dumped the milk and eggs into the flour mixture with a splash, adding to the mess on the counter. No wonder her dad had thought she would help him. She'd left Jackpot intent on leaving schemes behind, but she'd always given him money whenever he'd needed it. She'd gotten out; that was all she had been concerned about.

She started mixing. “Then he disappeared. I don't think that even everything I had was enough to cover his debts.”

Karl put his hand on hers, stopping her furious beating. She looked down at the bowl. There were no lumps in the pancake mixture. They were overmixed and would be tough.

“You were at the bar that night because of what your father did.”

“Yes.” The actual timeline was a little different than what Karl was assuming, but it was close enough.

“And your job?”

The frying pan banged when she set it on the stove, a great, satisfying sound that rang through the apartment and echoed in her ears. “My father's debts cost me that, too.”

“Ah.” Karl nodded as though he understood, but he didn't understand anything. Not her fear, not how close she had come to slipping and crashing into a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon. “If you hadn't been fired, would you have come to me for help?”

“No. I would've told you about the baby, but...”

“But you would've done it with a phone call rather than a cross-country drive.”

“I was raised by a single parent. I could've made it work.” Plus, she wouldn't have had a long drive with which to talk herself out of an abortion. And she would've had the money to pay for one, too. As life had actually happened, though, she'd driven to Chicago certain she would ask Karl for abortion money, but then spent the drive coming to the realization that she couldn't go through with one.

Objectively, she could see she was vulnerable both financially and emotionally. If a friend had been in her situation, she would suggest an abortion and then question the friend's judgment when she decided to have the baby anyway. But there was nothing objective about being faced with such a decision, and she couldn't say anything other than “I'm keeping my baby”—as if she was in a Madonna song.

She'd given herself trigger reactions. If Karl had said “I don't want a baby” or “How dare you bring this into my life?” or something else of the sort, she'd have mentioned abortion. He hadn't, and so
she
hadn't. It hadn't been the best way to decide to have a child, but Vivian was certain there were people who'd had children based on a fuzzier decision-making process. Even if she didn't know any.

She wasn't going to let herself think about the consequences of leaving a major life decision, such as having a child, in the hands of one man's reaction to the news. She'd been in an emotional chasm at the time. If she were being honest with herself, she hadn't fully climbed back out yet. She was on the edge of the canyon, teetering, and her life could go either way. Sometimes lifting herself over the edge and back onto solid ground seemed a sure way to lose her grip completely.

“And we can see how well that turned out,” Karl said.

Pancake batter dripped onto the counter as she whipped around to face him. “I've done the best I could with what I have. When the longest
you've
ever lived in a place after your seventh birthday is two years, let me know how willing you would be to pack up and leave your life behind, no matter how less than ideal it is. Until then, shove off.”

“Your mother?”

“She died in childbirth. And, yes,” she added, turning back to the pancakes on the stove, “women still die in childbirth.” The thought should scare her, but death seemed the least of her worries right now, especially since her baby would have a stable father and welcoming family. More than she'd started out with.

“Your father raised you.”

“My mom's sister helped out for a while, but Aunt Kitty left when I was about seven. Not long after she left, we moved for the first time.” They'd exchanged letters until Aunt Kitty couldn't keep up with their moves. When Vivian was in high school, she had mailed her aunt a letter that had been returned, marked undeliverable. And her one blood connection to her mother had disappeared from her life.

Vivian had thought about Aunt Kitty on and off over the years, but now was the first time she understood why her aunt had left.

She flipped a pancake too early and poorly; half of it ended up on the stove top. “My father should never have had children. But—” her childhood hadn't been all bad and she had to credit her father for that, too “—he loved me. I never doubted that. He made the moving seem fun and he protected me the best he knew how.”

“If he showed up at my door tomorrow, what would you do?”

“I'd turn him away.” She didn't have to look at Karl to know he didn't believe her. She sighed. “I'd let him in and make him dinner. He's my father.” And she would remember how he'd turned the experience of buying her first maxi pads into a spy game so she forgot her embarrassment. How they'd started their time in each new house by searching for secret passages, though they'd never found one. And how he'd never laughed at her for believing a wardrobe could take her to Narnia.

Karl put his hand on her shoulder. Vivian supposed it was meant to be supportive, but it felt holier-than-thou. “Just because he's family, doesn't mean he shouldn't be subject to the same rules as the rest of us.”

She swatted his hand away with the spatula. “It's easier to preach when you don't have to practice.”

“How do you know I haven't practiced what I preach?”

“Because if you did, you'd at least have a little sympathy for how hard it would be to shut the door in my father's face.” She set the spatula down on the counter, sick of this conversation. “I'm going to get dressed. You can finish the pancakes.”

* * *

K
ARL
DIDN
'
T
SEEM
to get
any less suspicious as they cleaned up breakfast and he got ready to spend his Saturday at work, while Vivian got ready to do very little with her day.