Chapter 6
Chapter 6
“H ow did it go—your talk with Gideon, I mean?” Harper asked quietly, as Jack swung a leg over the picnic table bench and sat down beside her. “Is he okay?”
By then, the other diners had drifted away, empty plates and cups in hand, and a soft breeze whispered through the leaves of the cottonwood trees rimming that part of the yard.
Jack’s heart tripped over a beat as he met her gaze. “He’s fine. A little worse for wear, as my dad used to say.”
She smiled, scanned the crowd, and pointed. “There he is, watching the horseshoe competition.”
Jack looked in that direction, picked up his plastic knife. “Gideon’s on his honor to keep the peace,” he said, after buttering a biscuit, taking a bite, chewing and swallowing. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was—breakfast had worn off a long time ago, and he’d missed lunch, too. By then, the caterers were gearing up to serve supper. “He wasn’t seriously hurt. I doctored him up and, hopefully, got him thinking about how we need to cut other people—and ourselves—some slack now and then.”
Harper’s pretty green eyes glistened a little, and her smile was both gentle and, somehow, sad. “You’re going to make a very good father, Jack O’Ballivan,” she told him.
His throat thickened, and he took a swig from the draft beer he’d snagged earlier as he passed by the bar. Without it, he figured, he might have choked on the forkful of potato salad he’d just swallowed.
“You think so?” He paused. Sighed. “I sure hope you’re right.”
“You have doubts?” she asked, touching his arm again, the way she had when he was about to break up the fight between Gideon and Riley.
Jack shrugged, wishing she’d hadn’t pulled back so quickly. “Sometimes,” he admitted. It was strange, how easy it was to confide in this woman, even though he barely knew her. “It isn’t as if I’ve had a lot of practice raising kids. Especially angry, damaged ones, like Gideon. I didn’t even know I had a son until Loreen showed up wanting money and a place to dump the kid.”
“You have full custody, though?” Harper paused then, and a look of chagrin crossed her face. “I’m sorry—that was intrusive. Too personal.”
He turned and regarded her in fond silence for a few long moments. “Truth is,” he replied, “it’s good to have somebody to talk to besides the therapist. So, yes, I have full custody—”
Harper was beautiful even when she frowned. “But?” she prompted.
“ But,” Jack replied, resigned, “we probably haven’t seen the last of Loreen, unfortunately. I gave her a little cash the day she came here, and, on the advice of my lawyer, a fairly good-sized check, after the papers were signed. Soon as she’s run through that—and it won’t take long—she’ll be back.”
Harper nodded with glum conviction. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“You sound as though you speak from experience.”
She smiled wanly, and it was clearly an effort. “Not personal experience—I’ve never had children of my own, never even been married—but from a professional standpoint, yes. I’m familiar with this kind of situation.”
Jack merely raised an eyebrow in question, unable to speak because his mouth was half full.
“I was a social worker,” she told him.
“ ‘Was?’ ” Jack asked, when he’d finished gulping down the bite of pulled pork he’d just shoveled in.
“I wimped out,” Harper said, in the tone of someone making a shameful confession. “There were some other things going on in my life when my brain went into overload. Too many toddlers carried away, screaming and straining for their oblivious mothers, most of whom were high on coke or meth, and screeching obscenities. And that’s just one of about a thousand similar experiences.”
“My God,” Jack muttered.
“Yeah,” Harper agreed.
“And you think you ‘wimped out’?” he asked.
She nodded. “These children, and their parents, too, need more people who have the guts to step up and do something about the problems they’re facing, not fewer—not quitters like me.”
Jack put down his knife and fork and turned to face Harper Quinn head on. “I don’t know a whole lot about you,” he said, “but I’d bet dollars to road apples that just about the last thing you are is a quitter.”
Harper said nothing, though her cheeks turned pink.
“Sometimes,” he went on, after waiting in case she wanted to answer, “a person has to step back. Untangle themselves and regroup. You’ll be working with kids again as soon as school starts, right?”
“Right,” she managed to reply, in a voice so soft that he sensed her response, rather than heard it.
“Sounds like a contribution to society to me,” Jack said. “There are all kinds of ways to help out, Harper. Maybe you ought to just do what’s in front of you, for now, and leave the toughest kind of social work there is to people who feel called to do it.”
Tears welled in Harper’s eyes then, and Jack wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her, bury his face in her rich chestnut hair, whisper words of reassurance, but that would be too much, too soon, he knew that. And he didn’t want to make a wrong move.
Something special was happening between him and Harper Quinn, and he meant to let it unfold in its own way and time.
She sniffled, worked up a rather watery smile. “You’re a good man,” she said. “Did you know that?”
He grinned. “Not for sure,” he replied.
“What were your parents like?” Harper asked, out of left field.
“My mother died when I was little, and I don’t remember her very well,” Jack responded. “My dad was a regular hardworking guy with a big heart. He would have walked through fire for me, and I never doubted that. He loved me as much as any father ever loved a son, and that was more than enough.”
“I knew it,” Harper said, with a kind of proud modesty. “When it comes to being a father, Jack, you’ve had the best possible training. It’s isn’t going to be easy, but if you raise Gideon the way your dad raised you, everything will turn out all right. Loreen or no Loreen.”
Jack wanted to kiss Harper more than he’d ever wanted to kiss a woman before, and that was saying something, considering his lively romantic history, but this was different. She was different.
So he held back.
“Tell me something,” he said, and his voice was a little on the husky side.
“What?” Harper asked.
“Is there a man in your life? I’m not asking about your Uncle Bob or that nice old fella you always run into in the post office or at the supermarket. I mean—”
Harper laughed, a little nervously, but an old sorrow rose in her eyes, then, mercifully, faded away again. “I know what you mean,” she interrupted. “And the answer is no. I was engaged once, but it didn’t work out.”
Jack’s heart surged upward like a beach ball held too long under water. “That’s good,” he said.
“Fair is fair, Jack O’Ballivan,” Harper challenged good-naturedly. “What about you?”
Jack shook his head. “Totally single,” he said. “Like you, I’ve never been married. Which is not to say there haven’t been plenty of women—Loreen included, to my profound embarrassment.”
“You’re a confirmed bachelor?” Harper teased.
A whimsical image entered Jack’s mind just then, out of nowhere. He saw himself and Harper engaged in a lively pillow fight on top of a mattress.
No great mystery where that would lead.
He was glad he was sitting at the picnic table and thus covered where it counted.
“Nothing of the kind,” he replied. “I’d like nothing better than to have a wife and family—brothers and sisters for Gideon, et cetera. But so far, I haven’t clicked with a woman in the right way. And for me, that’s vital.”
Harper was thoughtful. “I guess my former fiancé and I didn’t ever really ‘click,’ as you put it. We had very different ideas about some very basic things. In fact, looking back, I realize I wasn’t in love with George at all. I was in love with the person I thought he might turn into, given enough time and encouragement.”
Jack chuckled. Picked up a potato chip and crunched on it, well aware, the whole time, that he was stalling.
“I think that probably happens a lot,” he reflected, eventually.
“Me, too,” Harper agreed.
By then, it was getting dark.
All over the grounds—the barnyard, in real time—fairy lights flickered on.
Music rose and fell as people headed in the direction of the low wooden platform that would serve as a temporary dance floor.
Gideon appeared, with Trey, as Jack was gathering the refuse of the meal he’d just eaten and trying to figure out what he ought to say next.
He didn’t want this time with Harper to end.
Didn’t want her to walk away—go home—or head for the dance floor and wind up slow dancing with some other guy.
“Can Riley spend the night?” Gideon asked eagerly.
Sure enough, Riley was there, right behind Gideon. And just as eager.
Jack made a point of looking stern, though he was pretending, of course. “Well, now,” he said, rubbing his chin in a considering way. “I thought you two were sworn enemies.”
“We’re over that,” Gideon said dismissively, as though the battle had occurred years ago, rather than a few hours back.
“Yeah,” Riley agreed. “That’s old news.”
“I see,” Jack ruminated. Slanting a sideways glance at Harper, he saw that she was smiling up at him, obviously pleased by this development.
And he took her hand, careful to keep a loose grip, just in case she was about to walk away. “You’re sure you two can get along for a whole night?” he asked the boys.
They nodded vigorously.
Jack emitted a dramatic sigh. “If it’s all right with Riley’s mother, it’s all right with me,” he said.
Gideon and Riley whooped in celebration and ran away.
“That’s the boy Gideon fought with earlier, isn’t it?” Harper queried.
Jack smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s him.”
“What did you do ?” Harper asked, giving Jack a pretend poke in the ribs.
“Nothing special,” Jack replied. “I just pointed out that the two of them might just be more alike than different. I guess that did the trick.”
“You’re amazing.”
“In that case . . .” Jack began, as the music drifted over them, carried by the night breeze. They were alone again, under the cottonwood trees.
“In that case what?” Harper asked.
He dumped the plate and cup into a nearby trash bin, returned to Harper, and extended a hand to her.
She looked at his hand, then his face, apparently confused.
“May I have this dance?” he asked.
Harper hesitated, bit her lower lip. “Here?” she wanted to know, after casting a glance in the direction of the dance floor, where couples were already coming together, laughing, talking, enjoying the warmth of a fresh summer night.
“Here,” Jack confirmed.
After another moment—the longest moment Jack could remember—Harper smiled up at him and moved into his arms.
It seemed perfect that the first of the evening’s fireworks whistled high into the navy-blue sky and burst there, spilling multicolored light.