Once in a Lifetime (19 page)

“You wouldn’t…would you?”

“Naah. I don’t remember life without him. He was always like a father to me, even when Dad was alive. He’s just such a smartass sometimes.”

They walked hand in hand into the house and found Henry and Tara in the kitchen eating black-cherry ice cream.

“Any messages?” Telford asked Henry.

Henry took his time answering. “I got back a couple a days ago. Since then, Allen Krenner called twice, and the mayor wanted to remind you about the ceremonies day after tomorrow. The way he went on, anybody would think he built that school building with his own hands. Russ come back this morning, and he said Drake will be here this evening, though I ain’t heard drip nor drop from ’im.”

At the mention of Allen Krenner’s name, one of the reasons why she’d been reluctant to become involved with Telford pounded her senses like a hard-rock drummer. In the euphoria of her Cape May idyll with Telford, she’d forgotten about Melanie Krenner.

“You want me to take this to the men down at the warehouse?” Telford asked Alexis the next day when he returned from work. He never bothered to guess at Alexis’s motives.

She nodded. “They’re working double time, sometimes longer, so I thought they’d appreciate this.”

He opened the box and sniffed. “Gingerbread? I love this stuff. You giving it all to—”

“Of course not. There’s another pan of it in the pantry. Will you take it down there? If they haven’t eaten since lunch, they’re hungry by now, and I thought…well, you know.”

Every day, he learned more endearing things about her, and it occurred to him then that her compassion set her apart from other women he’d known. “I’ll be glad to take it down there and you can bet it’ll make you a bunch of friends.”

“Can I go with you, Mr. Telford?”

He picked Tara up and hugged her, basking in the adoration she always bestowed on him, and his gaze settled on Alexis, a question in his eyes. He had no rights where this child was concerned, and that fact had begun to gall him like the taste of bile. Loving the little girl as he did meant that he was vulnerable and susceptible to pain and disillusionment.

She must have discerned his feelings, for she said, “You don’t have to ask me. Just let me know where you take her.”
Her words should have given him relief, but he couldn’t say that they did.

“Let’s ride in the truck, Mr. Telford. I love to sit in the front seat.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? When did you do that?”

She slapped her hands together, her face beaming. “With Mr. Russ.”

“I see. Well, not today.” She wasn’t going to con him into doing that.

Allen met him at the gate. “Great, man. This comes right in time. One of the men just made coffee. I…uh…meant to tell you I went up to the university—hardest thing I ever did—but I didn’t get one crumb of information about Melanie. Not a single soul could tell me anything.” He blinked rapidly. “Telford, nobody was interested.”

Telford hurt for his friend. “I’m hoping our investigator will be able to tell us something.”

That night at dinner, he mentioned it to Russ and to Drake, who got back from his vacation precisely at dinnertime.

“That’s the only way to go about it,” Russ said, “and it’s what we should have done when this first happened.”

“What’s the matter?” Drake—always sensitive to another’s discomfort—asked Alexis. “You all right?”

She shook her head and got up. “No, sit,” she said to Telford. “I’ll be all right in a minute.”

He had a hard time preventing himself from going after her, and he exhaled a sigh of relief when she came back to the table looking as if nothing had happened.

To his delight, Tara’s normal ebullience resurfaced during dinner, though he didn’t much care for the course of her mind when she asked, “Where did you have your vacation, Mr. Drake?”

“Mallorca, off the coast of Spain.”

“Mr. Russ went to the Cod, and Mr. Telford and my mummy took me to Cape Cod. Did you see what I brought you?”

“You mean Cape May,” Alexis said.

Telford looked around the table at the little boxes of peanut-filled saltwater taffy that Tara must have placed beside the plates belonging to Henry, Russ and Drake. “You hid it,” Drake said.

Her smile reminded him of the wicked streak he’d discovered in Alexis. “I know. Mr. Telford gave me a ’lowance, and I spent it all on the presents,” she explained to the surprised men. Then she dropped the bomb he’d dreaded.

“I want Mr. Telford to stay with me and my mummy all the time.”

“I’ve told you that’s not possible, sweetheart,” Telford said.

“You said you and mummy had to…to…to what, Mummy? To…work it up.”

“Did you swim in the ocean?” Russ asked, smothering a laugh and diverting Tara to a less sensitive subject.

“Yes.” She giggled. “In the Lantic, and it was cold.”

“
At
-lantic,” Telford corrected and sent Russ a look of thanks.

Later, they gathered in the den, sipped coffee and cognac and related as much of their separate vacations as was appropriate to the circumstances. Henry gave Tara a box of multicolored seashells, Drake handed her a Spanish doll and Russ gave her a miniature Shaker rocking chair.

She ran around the room kissing each of them, her whole demeanor a vision of delight. When she stopped before Telford, put a hand on each of his knees and said, “Everybody loves me, Mr. Telford,” he wanted to shield her from all the sadness she would ever face.

The next morning, he sat with his brothers and Henry on the dais in the new high school’s auditorium, and it pained him that Alexis was not beside him to share his victory publicly.

The mayor’s speech was longer than it had a right to be, but he didn’t mind having the public blessings of the town’s highest elected official.

“This school is the finest building ever to stand in Eagle
Park,” the mayor said. “I’m proud of it. We owe the Harringtons a debt of gratitude for bringing it in at a price the people of this town could afford and in time for the beginning of this school year. I hereby proclaim today Harrington Day in this town.” He walked over to Telford. “Telford, my boy, on behalf of yourself and your brothers, would you accept this key to our great town? For today, it unlocks everything but Bart’s Bar, the YWCA and the jail.” He laughed heartily in appreciation of his own cleverness.

Telford hadn’t expected the mayor’s accolades; neither had he anticipated the feeling of humility that pervaded him. “On behalf of my brothers, I thank you, sir,” he said when accepting the key. “We all wish our father could have been here to witness this moment.”

He sat down and looked in the face of Fentress Sparkman, who sat in the first row among the notables, but the sense of triumph, the feeling of victory, of having made the kill did not materialize. Instead, and in spite of the hatred he tried so hard to summon, he couldn’t help admiring the weather-beaten old man who had the courage to face his mockers with head high and shoulders back.

That evening, he and Alexis sat beside the pool, holding hands, their first minutes alone since returning from Cape May. “I don’t understand it,” Telford said, “I didn’t feel a thing. Nothing. All this time I worked my butt off for revenge.” He turned to face her. “Fentress Sparkman might as well never have existed.”

“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that. You’re not a vindictive man.” She squeezed his fingers. “Admit it.”

He watched her poke her tongue in her right cheek as that wicked light flashed in her eyes.

“A little bit set in your ways, a trifle conservative, maybe…” She spread her hands as if to suggest that his shortcomings could easily be remedied. “But…er…in the department that counts, there aren’t any flies on you, love.”

“In the department that…” He locked her in his arms and bent to her mouth.

“Mummy. Telephone. A man wants to talk to you,” Tara called.

A man! He released her, took her hand and walked with her to her room door. “I’ll wait out here. If he’s an admirer, tell him you’re taken.”
Let her digest that.

A
lexis rushed inside. A man. It couldn’t be Jack; he would have identified himself to Tara. An eerie feeling slipped over her. Something could have happened to Velma, or maybe to her father in Alaska. She quickened her steps.

“Hello. This is Alexis Stevenson.”

“Hi, babe. Thought I’d drop over there sometime tomorrow. I’m here in Frederick.”

She nearly sat on the floor. “You mean you didn’t tell your daughter who she was speaking with? How could you?”

“Easy there, babe. It’s been a long time. Be there tomorrow around noon.”

Not in this life! He’d bartered away his right to see his daughter at all, and she wasn’t going to let him set the visiting hours. She sucked air between her front teeth. “I don’t think so, Jack. Tara will be home around four. You may visit her from then until six. No longer.”

“You mean I’m not invited to dinner?”

She battled her rising furor. After ignoring his child for years, he’d decided to be a nuisance. “I work here, Jack.
Invitations to dinner are issued by the Harrington men, not by their housekeeper. I assume that if you wanted to speak with your daughter, you’d have done so when she answered the phone. See you around four.” She hung up.

Tara had resumed playing the piano, oblivious to the drama unfolding around her and in which she was about to become embroiled.

“That call didn’t make you happy,” Telford said when she rejoined him on the stone bench beside the pool.

He’d begun to read her moods and reactions. She kicked at a little mound of sod. “That was Jack. He’ll be here tomorrow around four for a two-hour visit with Tara. I’m not looking for ward to it.”

His face wore an expression of incredulity. “Didn’t she know it was he on the phone?”

“He didn’t tell her, and she doesn’t recognize his voice.”

“Damn!”

The next afternoon, after sculpting for an hour, she changed from the smock she wore into a pair of white cotton pants and a pale green T-shirt. Jack hadn’t wanted her to wear pants, claiming they weren’t feminine, and had demanded that she wear dresses and skirts. He arrived minutes before Telford and Tara returned from their daily trip to the warehouse, and the three of them met at the front steps.

“I’m Jack Stevenson,” her ex-husband said to Telford. “Which brother are you?”

From where she stood just inside the open door, she noticed that Telford’s top lip curved in what could only be described as a snarl. “I’m Telford Harrington, and this is Tara, your daughter.”

Ouch!
Tara, who knew no qualms about presenting herself to strangers, gazed steadily at the man who had sired her and didn’t say a word.

“Well?” Telford said to Jack.

Jack’s eyebrow shot up. Accustomed to deference and stunned by Telford’s put-down, Alexis wasn’t surprised when
Jack narrowed his left eye and said, “Looks like you’re full of attitude.”

“Yeah. I won’t say what you’re full of.”

Jack saw her then. “Well, hi, babe. You’re like fine wine, more heady with age.”

Before she could answer, Telford needled Jack again. “What’s the matter, man? Don’t you recognize your child’s name?”

That comment might have humiliated a man of greater substance, but it didn’t surprise her that Jack finessed the remark with the deftness of a self-satisfied person. He hunkered beside Tara and grinned his most charming grin.

“And you’re a big girl, too. Want to give Daddy a hug?”

As if she didn’t understand, Tara’s face darkened in a frown, and she looked up at Telford. “You want to hear my music lesson now, Mr. Telford?”

Telford’s face bore an expression similar to the pain in her heart. As a father, Jack had no meaning for Tara.

“We’ll have to skip lessons today,” he told her.

Tara’s bottom lip trembled, and she rubbed her index finger beneath her nose fighting off tears. “But I practiced, and I know the whole thing.”

She could almost feel his desperation when he gathered the child up, held her briefly and hugged her. “We’ll do it tomorrow. Okay?” With that, he set Tara on her feet, brushed past Alexis without speaking and trudged up the stairs.

“Now, wasn’t that a touching little scene? Playing house?”

She hadn’t imagined that he’d be discourteous, because that had never been his style, but she no longer knew him.
I’m not going to entertain him,
she said to herself. “Jack, you may visit with Tara in the living room and in the garden.”

“Not in your room?”

She imagined that the look she gave him would have curled a horse’s mane. “You’re two wives too late, buddy.”

“Mummy, can I go play the piano?”

“Not now, dear. Your daddy wants to visit with you. You may tell him what you do every day, what you’re learning in—”

She stared, wide-eyed, as Tara shot past her and raced to the kitchen.

“It will take time, Jack, so try to be patient.”

“Yeah. Look, babe, why don’t you and I go for a spin?”

If anyone had told her that her tolerance for Jack Stevenson had dropped to the point where it was practically nonexistent, she wouldn’t have believed it. Fired up with more anger than her religious beliefs permitted, she put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“I thought you came here to visit your daughter.”

Alexis spun around at the sound of Telford’s voice, harsh and wrathful. “Telford!” she exclaimed.

“May I speak with you, please?”

Now what? “Of course. Excuse me, Jack.”

She walked with Telford into the dining room, which he began to pace from one end to the other. “He’s got a right to see his child—more for her sake than his—but she’s in the kitchen crying her eyes out, and he doesn’t give a damn.” He balled his right hand into a fist and shook it. Unapologetic about his blatant furor, he stopped in front of her. “If he has your permission, he can visit Tara as long as she lives in my home, but you tell me this minute whether you want to…to be with this fellow.”

Stunned, she directed to Telford her annoyance at Jack. “What do you mean? He’s the father of my child. What should I do, pretend I never saw him before? I did what I thought was right. If Jack Stevenson’s a dunce, it’s not my fault.” She poked her right index finger against his chest. “Figure the rest of it out for yourself.”

From the expression on his face, one would have thought he’d never seen anyone or anything like her. However, dealing with the vagaries of the male mind wasn’t a priority right then. She charged into the kitchen, and it didn’t surprise her to find
Henry with one arm around Tara’s shoulder and his other hand holding a spoonful of black-cherry ice cream.

“If she won’t eat this, somethin’s wrong, and I bet it’s male, walks on two feet and ain’t got good sense.”

She took Tara’s hand. “Thanks, Henry, but she has to obey me. Come with me, Tara.”

The child hung her head and refused to move. She’d never known Tara to display protracted recalcitrance. Her occasional stubbornness rarely lasted longer than a few minutes, for she had learned that good behavior brought rewards.

“I want you to go in there and talk with your daddy. Do you hear me?”

“I don’t want to, Mummy.”

To her amazement, Tara dashed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, where she wasn’t allowed to go and never went.

“Mr. Telford,” she called. “Mr. Telford.”

Alexis reached the top of the stairs in time to see Telford open his door and step out of his room. She thought her heart would break when her daughter ran to Telford, locked her arms around his leg and sobbed. He gathered Tara into his arms and tried to soothe her. This man gave Tara the only fatherly love she knew.

Alexis whirled around and raced down the stairs to where Jack leaned against the mantelpiece in the living room.

“Quite a stunt this kid pulled off.”

Anger would solve nothing, she told herself, took a deep breath and dropped her hands from her hips. “We’ll have to do this gradually. I refuse to force her. You ignored her when we lived in the house with you, and she’s seen you less than half a dozen times since you walked out nearly three years ago. What do you expect?”

His face broke into the boyish smile she had once believed to be a promise of the gentleness and sweetness she needed. “Listen, now, babe. You and I have to talk. How about we get out of this dinosaur and go someplace else?”

So he still thought he could charm her. Well, she’d show him. “I’m not going anyplace with you. Next time, plan
on a half-hour visit, and we’ll increase it as she feels more comfortable with you.” She opened the front door and, as he sauntered out, it struck her that he hadn’t objected to the shorter visiting time.

She trudged back to the stairs wondering how to handle Tara’s disobedience. The child knew what daddies were, and she witnessed their relations with their children every day when they brought them to church school and picked them up when it closed. As Alexis started up the steps, she looked up and saw Telford coming down with Tara in his arms.

“Let’s you and I sit down and talk with him while she gets to know him. If we’re there with her, she’ll be more comfortable.”

“I sent him away. He’ll visit another time.”

“Then we’d better prepare her for it. All right? What happened today was a fiasco for both of them and doesn’t portend well for their relationship.”

Telford had served noticed that he wouldn’t abandon Tara, that he was there for her, no matter what or who, and Tara had known that. Alexis nodded her agreement. Jack possessed a mean streak, and she knew he’d stoop low to get what he wanted, but Telford’s presence lessened the likelihood that his tactics would succeed.

Still holding on to Telford’s shoulders, Tara asked her, “Mummy, is the man gone?”

Exasperated and uncertain as to the right course of action, she said in as stern a voice as she could muster, “That man is your daddy and, yes, he left. I’m going to have a talk with you about your behavior.”

“Can I go play the piano?” Already gifted in the art of deflecting the sword, Alexis thought.

She nodded. Tara kissed Telford’s cheek and, when he set her on the floor, she blessed them with her smile, radiant and loving, and dashed toward her room.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” Telford said. “Drake swears she likes any man who wears pants, and usually she does.”

“Not quite,” Alexis said. “She walked up to Allen Krenner and talked with him as if she’d known him all her life, though she’d never seen him before. Less than five minutes later, she disliked Biff Jackson on sight.”

“She has good instincts about people. But I can’t understand this absolute antagonism toward her father.”

She took a step backward. Even in her dilemma about Tara’s behavior, Telford’s nearness got to her.

She found a spot past his shoulder and focused on it. “When Tara was two and a half, he wanted an end to the marriage so that he could marry his boss’s pregnant daughter, and I gave him a divorce. But for a full year prior to that, she and I rarely saw him. He claimed to be on business trips, building a future for his family, but as I discovered, he was busy impregnating Loren Ingles.”

Telford shrugged both shoulders in a show of impatience. “The man’s missing a lot.” He looked away, draping his face in an unreadable expression. “A rotten father and a philanderer to boot. Enough about him.”

After supper that night, Telford sat with his brothers in the garden at the edge of the pool. “Pretty soon, it’ll be too cool to swim at night,” Drake said. “What’s missing around here is a good party.”

Russ stretched his legs out in front of him and locked his hands behind his head. “A party. Just what I need.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on his brothers.

“Don’t knock it, man,” Telford said. “It’s not a bad idea. We’ve finished the school, and in a couple of weeks, the warehouse will be behind us, too. I’d say that calls for a celebration.”

“Works for me,” Drake said. “Life’s too somber around here. I’ll bet Alexis can plan a great party, and if she can’t she’ll know someone who can. That dame’s first class.”

Russ got up, dusted off the back of his swimming shorts and stretched his long frame expansively. “Yeah. Which makes me wonder how she got tied up with a man who’d give up custody
and all rights to his daughter as a condition for keeping all of his wealth and property.”

Telford waved his right hand in dismissal. “The man’s a jerk.” Saying it gave him a better feeling than he’d had all day.

Russ’s head snapped around. “You’ve met him?”

“Yeah. Biggest bag of wind that ever blew into Eagle Park.” He looked at Russ. “Are we celebrating or not?”

“Sure,” Russ said, in an offhand manner. “Drake will be able to show off, and you need to take Alexis someplace special. Fine with me, so long as it’s top flight. If we’re going to do it, let’s go all out.”

“You’re asking me to plan a gala?” Alexis leaned against the blue refrigerator and gaped at Telford, a white-shirted silhouette against the monotonous blue of the walls around them. “For a group of more than fifty people, I’m out of my element. My sister’s a professional party and banquet planner. She can handle as many as two or three thousand.”

“I’m considering three or four hundred. Would you see if she’s available?” He gave her several acceptable dates. “And pick one on which you’ll be free to go as my date.”

She let that pass. “I’ll let you know what she says.”

“If she can’t do it, please find someone who can.”

After finishing her morning chores, she went to her room, started to work on the bust she was sculpting and remembered she had to call Velma. She wrapped the piece in a beach towel, put it in the box she kept for that purpose and covered it. She didn’t want anyone, including Tara, to see it till she’d finished it.

Velma answered the call immediately. “You bet I’ll do it. What kind of money are we speaking here?”

“Just make it first-class.”

“Standing up or sitting down?”

“Standing, but there should be small tables around for those who need to take the weight off their feet.”

“Better to make it all a seated affair. Waiters can pass the drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Classier that way.”