“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He kissed the side of her head, then pulled back. “Why don’t you and Lexie have dinner with me and Amber?”

Georgeanne grabbed her purse from behind the kitchen counter that served as part of the studio set. “Can’t. John is picking up Lexie tonight for their first visit.”

Charles’s brows drew together over his gray eyes. “Do you want me to be there with you?”

Georgeanne shook her head. “I’ll be okay,” she said, but she didn’t think she would. She was afraid that after Lexie left, she’d fall apart, and she wanted to be alone if she did. Charles had been a very good friend, but he couldn’t help her now, not this time.

Three days after her return from Cannon Beach, she’d told Charles about the trip. She’d told him everything except the part about the sex. He hadn’t been happy to hear she’d spent time with John, but he hadn’t asked a lot of questions either. Instead, he’d given her the name of his ex-wife’s attorney and reoffered the half-hour television show. She’d needed the money and had accepted with the conditions that the shows be taped instead of live and that Lexie be welcome to accompany her.

A week later, she’d signed a contract.

“What does Lexie think about spending time with her father?”

Georgeanne hooked her leather bag over her shoulder. “I don’t really know. I know she’s a little confused about her last name now that it’s Kowalsky. She has a hard time spelling it, but other than that, she doesn’t say much.”

“She doesn’t talk about him?”

For several weeks after Lexie had learned that John was her father, she’d been cold and distant toward Georgeanne. Georgeanne had tried to explain why she’d lied, and Lexie had listened quietly. Then she’d directed all of her anger at her mother, hurting them both before letting it go. Their lives would never be the same. But for the most part, she was the same little girl now that she’d been before she’d learned of John. Although there were also times when she was unusually quiet. Georgeanne didn’t have to ask her what she was thinking, she just knew. “I’ve told her John was coming to pick her up for a visit tonight. She didn’t say much about it, just asked when he’d bring her back home.”

Lexie returned from the bathroom and the three of them walked from the studio toward the front entrance of the building. “Guess what, Charles.”

“What?”

“I’m in the first grade. My teacher’s name is Mrs. Berger. Like hamburger without the ham. I like her ‘cause she’s nice and ’cause she gots a gerbil in our classroom. He’s brown and white and has little tiny ears. Everyone named him Stimpy. I wanted to name him Pongo, but I didn’t get to.” She kept up a steady stream of chatter all the way through the building and out into the parking lot. But in the car on the drive home, she was very quiet. Georgeanne tried to talk to her, but she was clearly distracted.

From a block away, Georgeanne noticed John’s Range Rover parked in front of her house. She saw him sitting on her front porch, his feet apart and his forearms resting on his thighs. She pulled her car into the driveway and glanced over at the passenger seat. Lexie stared straight ahead at the garage door and sucked her top lip between her teeth. Her little hands tightly gripped the clipboard Charles had given her so she could write down her ideas for future shows. On the paper she’d drawn several misshaped cats and dogs and had written the words “pet sho.”

“Are you nervous?” she asked her daughter, feeling her own butterflies take flight.

Lexie shrugged.

“If you don’t want to go, I don’t think he’ll make you,” Georgeanne said, hoping she spoke the truth.

Lexie was silent for a while before she asked, “Do you think he likes me?”

Georgeanne’s throat constricted. Lexie, who was always so sure of herself, always so sure that everyone just automatically loved her, wasn’t so sure of her daddy. “Of course he likes you. He liked you the very first time he saw you.”

“Oh,” was all she said.

Together they got out of the car and moved up the sidewalk. From behind her big black sunglasses, Georgeanne watched him stand. He looked casual and at ease in a pair of beige twill pants, white T-shirt, and plaid dress shirt left unbuttoned and untucked. His dark hair had been cut shorter than the last time she’d seen him; the front fell in spikes over his forehead. His gaze was riveted on his daughter.

“Hey there, Lexie.”

She looked down at her clipboard, suddenly engrossed. “Hi.”

“What have you been up to since the last time I saw you?”

“Nothin‘.”

“How’s first grade?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “Okay.”

“Do you like your teacher?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s her name?”

“Mrs. Berger.”

The tension was almost tangible. Lexie was friendlier to the mailman than she was to her own father, and they both knew it. John lifted his gaze to Georgeanne, his blue eyes accusing. Georgeanne bristled. She might not like him, but she hadn’t said one word against him-well, not within Lexie’s hearing anyway. Just because she wasn’t willing to lie down and let him walk all over her anymore didn’t mean she would try to influence Lexie in any way. She was surprised by Lexie’s uncharacteristic bout of shyness, but she knew the reason. The cause for her reserve stood in front of her like a big, muscular giant, and she didn’t know how to behave around him now.

“Why don’t you tell John about your gerbil,” she suggested, introducing the subject of Lexie’s most recent fixation.

“We gots a gerbil.”

“Where?”

“School.”

John couldn’t believe this was the same little girl he’d first met in June. He looked down at her and wondered where the chatterbox had gone.

“Would you like to come inside?” Georgeanne asked.

He would have preferred to shake her and demand to know what she’d done to his daughter. “No. We need to get going.”

“Where?”

He looked into those big sunglasses of hers and thought about telling her it was none of her damn business. “I want to show Lexie where I live.” He reached for the clipboard and slid it from Lexie’s grasp. “I’ll have her back at nine,” he said, and handed the clipboard to Georgeanne.

“‘Bye, Mommy. I love you.”

Georgeanne looked down and pasted on one of those fake smiles of hers. “Give me some sugar, precious darlin‘.”

Lexie stood on her tiptoes and kissed her mother good-bye. As John watched, he knew that he wanted what Georgeanne had. He wanted his child’s love and affection. He wanted her to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him and tell him she loved him. He wanted to hear her call him daddy.

He was sure that once he got Lexie to his house and she relaxed, once she was away from Georgeanne’s influence, she would turn back into the little girl he’d come to know.

But it didn’t happen. The little girl he picked up at seven was the same girl he took back home at nine. Talking to her was like skating across soft ice-slow and as aggravating as hell. She hadn’t had much to say about his houseboat, and she hadn’t immediately wanted to know where all the bathrooms were located, which surprised him because in Cannon Beach, bathroom locations had seemed like serious business to her.

He’d showed her the spare bedroom he’d cleared for her, and he’d told her that he’d take her shopping and she could furnish it any way she liked. He’d thought she’d like the idea, but she’d just nodded and asked to go out on the deck below. She’d showed a spark of interest in his boat, so they’d jumped in the Sundancer and slowly cruised the lake. He’d watched her check out the cabin and open the compact refrigerator in the galley console. He’d put her on his lap so she could steer. Her eyes had widened and the corners of her mouth had finally tilted up into a smile, but she hadn’t said much.

By the time he pulled in front of her house two hours after leaving it, his mood matched the storm clouds quickly gathering overhead. He didn’t know the little girl he’d just spent the evening with, but she wasn’t Lexie. His Lexie laughed and giggled and talked water upstream.

The Range Rover had barely rolled to a stop before Georgeanne was out of her house and walking toward them. She wore a loose-fitting lace dress that swayed about her ankles when she moved, and her hair was piled up on top of her head.

A little girl standing in a yard across the street called Lexie’s name and frantically waved a Barbie with long blond hair.

“Who’s that?” John asked as he helped Lexie unbuckle her seat belt.

“Amy,” she answered, opened the door, and jumped out of the four-wheel-drive vehicle. “Mom, can I go play with Amy? She gots a new Mermaid Barbie, and I can show it to you ‘cause that’s the one I want, too.”

Georgeanne looked up at John as he walked around the front of the Range Rover. Their eyes met briefly before she dropped her gaze to her daughter. “It’s going to rain.”

“Please,” she begged, bouncing up and down as if she had springs in her heels. “Just for a few minutes?”

“For fifteen minutes.” Georgeanne reached for Lexie’s shoulder before she had a chance to run off. “What do you say to John?”

Lexie stilled and stared at his middle. “Thank you, John,” she said at practically a whisper. “I had a nice time.”

No kisses. No I love you, Daddies. He hadn’t expected love and affection so soon, but as he looked down at the part in Lexie’s hair, he knew he would have to wait longer than he’d anticipated. “Maybe next time we’ll go to the Key Arena, and I’ll show you where I work.” When his offer didn’t get an enthusiastic response, he added, “Or we can go to the mall.” John hated the mall, but he wasn’t a patient man.

The corners of Lexie’s mouth tilted upward. “Okay,” she said, then walked to the curb. She looked both ways, then dashed across the street. “Hey, Amy,” she hollered, “guess what I did. I went on a big boat, and we drove by Gas Works Park, and I saw a fish jump out of the water and John ran over it. John has a bed and a fridge in his boat, and I got to drive for a real long, long time too.”