“You said you’d always care about me.”
“I’m not likely to care about a person who uses me. Taking what little I have, Laura? That’s not generating a lot of goodwill. Think about it.”
He disconnected and sat in his shop, seething. Eventually he got out his clay and began to sculpt. By midafternoon he was feeling better and he had the beginning of a small statue of an old man, then wondered what the significance of that was. He carved and shaped the old man’s head with his loop and ribbon tools, wet it down with sponges, bent his stooped frame and added detail to the old man’s shapeless sweater with modeling tools.
He heard his front door open and realized he’d pretty much used up almost a whole day. The sun was sinking. Kaylee came into the shop and he smiled at the sight of her. She was tired. And beautiful. He lifted his arm to her and she came to him, standing beside him.
“Wow, Landry, look what you’ve done. That’s unbelievable. Someone you know?”
“Me, I think. In about forty years.” Or four years, depending on the stress level in his life, he thought.
“It’s magnificent,” she said. “Oh, what I’d give for your talent.”
“You don’t need my talent. You have your own.”
10
IN HER SUSPENSE NOVEL, the model-detective was being held captive by her photographer’s jealous brother and no one knew where she was or that she was missing—a very stressful scene. In the other book, Caroline and Landon were madly in love and couldn’t keep their hands off each other, kind of like another couple Kaylee knew intimately, but Caroline and Landon were having a little trouble in one department—they didn’t know where they were going as a couple. Or if.
Kaylee was getting her contracted book closer to the end but she was addicted to her love story. Both her own and her fiction.
There was a knock at her door and she wondered what time it was. She hardly ever wore a watch; looking at her computer she saw it was only three. It was not likely to be Landry. He respected her work time and space to a fault. He waited for her to come to him.
She opened the door and there stood her father. “Howie, what are you doing here?”
He winced. “I wanted to see you,” he said.
“I’m on a deadline here!”
“I know that. I also know you’d say that even if you weren’t. Look, this is my problem and not yours, but you’ve been putting me off for months. I know we both miss your mother terribly. I thought maybe we could lean on each other a little bit. I’ll do whatever it takes to make amends, Kaylee. We’re family.”
She turned from the door and walked into her house. She picked up Tux and held him close. “You have more family than you know what to do with.”
“I have two ex-wives, both have remarried, but I’m working on mending things with my kids as best I can. It’s not the same with them, though. They didn’t lose their mother, for one thing. They don’t really need me and I don’t blame them, but I’m trying. I see them, at least.”
“You should,” she said. “But Howie, I don’t say this to be cruel, but I don’t really need you, either. Not that you’re such a bad guy, it’s just that you were never there for me before. I got over the fantasy of having a daddy a long time ago.”
Howard had three other children. Two with his second wife—they were now in their twenties and one was engaged to be married. There was a third child, also a daughter, with his third wife. She was in college. Kaylee didn’t keep up with them and they hadn’t made any efforts to have a relationship with her.
“You’ve made that pretty clear. I’m going to keep trying. With you and with them. I’ve wasted enough time.”
She sat down on her couch. “Do you have a terminal disease or something?” she asked.
“What a thing to say!” he said.
“Not to be mean, but it’s like you never worried about your relationship with me until my mom was literally dying. What’s the deal?”
“Kaylee! I care about you very much. I wasn’t such a good dad after your mother and I divorced, but I still cared. And I came around when I could.” He stepped farther into the room. “May I sit?”
“You should have called,” she said. “How did you find me?”
“I called the Templetons,” he said. And he sat. “Bonnie told me where you were staying, though she didn’t have an address. I had your landlord’s name. The guy at the bar in town gave me directions.”