The Real Father. Kathleen O'Brien

lacquered box. “They had the same dinner we had,” she said. “I sent food up on a tray hours ago.”

      Jackson declined to comment. Somehow he couldn’t see Lavinia’s culinary experiment du jour, spinach-and-chickpea casserole, appealing to a nine-year-old little girl. It had taken a good deal of character for this close to thirty-two-year-old man to swallow down his own portion.

      “Still, maybe I’d better check. See if they need anything at all.”

      Lavinia smiled at him archly. “Of course. How thoughtful. Maybe you’d better do that, dear.”

      Jackson kissed her cheek on the way out. “You are an adorable old termagant, did you know that, Auntie?”

      “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I do my best.”

      HALF AN HOUR LATER, a large, warm, aromatic box of mushroom pizza balanced on his forearm, Jackson climbed the stairs to the carriage house. The night had turned cold and clear. Stars glinted against the black sky, as sharp as bits of broken glass.

      He paused at the door, uncomfortably aware that he was rushing things. She was probably still unpacking—she was undoubtedly tired. He should have given her time to settle in. He should have waited until tomorrow.

      But how could he? He had waited so long already.

      Still, he wished he could shake this ridiculous sense of guilt. Why should he feel guilty? She wasn’t Beau’s girl anymore. Beau was gone. He’d been gone for ten years—long enough, surely, for his claim on Molly to fall forfeit. Surely the invisible walls behind which Beau had cloistered her had long since crumbled to dust.

      Damn it, no more guilt. He exhaled hard, his breath materializing, silver and ghostly, in front of him. He raised his hand and knocked twice. Low, in case Liza was sleeping. But definite. Unashamed.

      He heard her light footsteps as she came toward the door, and he ordered his heart to beat in even time.

      No more guilt. He was betraying no one. He had every right to be here, to offer pizza, to offer help, to offer friendship.

      To offer, in fact, whatever the hell he wanted.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “OH, YOU WONDERFUL, wonderful man.” As soon as she opened the door, Molly tilted her head back, closed her eyes and inhaled a long, deep, sensual breath of the pizza-scented night air. Her hair streamed unbound over her shoulders and twinkled in the light, as if she’d stood in a shower of glitter. “I could just kiss you.”

      Jackson gripped the pizza box a little more tightly, hoping he wouldn’t end up with tomato sauce all over his shoes. But the sight of her was enough to make his fingers numb.

      How could she have become even more beautiful? Ten years ago he would have said it wasn’t possible. But if Molly at eighteen had been a fairy princess, the woman before him was the Gypsy queen. Her coltish, utterly virginal body had softened in all the right places, and each curve seemed to be issuing wordless invitations to his hands.

      The pizza box buckled at one corner.

      “Well, by all means,” he said, somehow managing to keep his voice from squeaking like a kid’s. “Feel free.”

      She laughed, a low trickle of warmth that slid across his skin like sunshine. “It’s actually real!” She put one hand on the box and breathed deeply again, as if she couldn’t get enough of the scent. “I thought I smelled pizza, but then I thought, no, I must be dreaming. Like the man in the desert who thinks he sees water.”

      Jackson chuckled. “I gather you and I have approximately the same opinion of spinach-and-chickpea casserole.”

      “Please don’t tell Lavinia.” She stepped back, opening the door wider to let him enter. “I managed two bites, then I gave the rest to Liza. Believe it or not, she absolutely loved the stuff.”

      “Good God, what’s wrong with her?” Jackson grimaced. “I slipped mine under the table. Stewball and I have a pact. I won’t tell Vinnie he sleeps on the Chippendale sofa if he’ll clean my plate for me.”

      Molly was already opening the box and peeling apart the gooey slices hungrily. She handed one to Jackson. “Poor Stewball,” she said as she bit into the hot cheese. She moaned with delight. “Mmm. Mushroom. You remembered I love mushroom.”

      Jackson busied himself piling melting strands of cheese on top of the crust. Of course he remembered. Molly would probably never believe how little he had forgotten. He remembered how, back when they were kids, she used to sign her name with a smiley-face inside the O. He remembered the opening lines of the sonnet she’d written for senior English. He remembered how her mascara used to smudge around her lower lashes when sad movies or stray dogs—or Beau—made her cry.

      And about a million other things. It was a wonder he had ever been able to learn how to build buildings, considering all the Molly trivia that still cluttered his feeble mind.

      And yet, tantalizingly, he sensed that there were a million new things to learn about her, too. That womanly quality in her body, for instance. The faint shadows in her face, where pain had left its mark. The deep, satisfied glow in her eyes when she looked at Liza.

      The Gypsy queen knew things the fairy princess hadn’t dreamed of.

      “And thick crust. Jackson Forrest,” she mumbled, her mouth stuffed with cheese, “I positively love and adore you.”

      He grinned. “I’ll bet you say that to all the pizza delivery boys.” He grabbed another slice for each of them, tore off a couple of paper towels from the rack, and made for the sofa. She followed without hesitation, as if she were magnetized to the pizza.

      She plopped down beside him, curling her bare legs up under her. She swallowed the last bit of crust, reached for her second slice and dug in greedily.

      He stared at her, marveling. Though she wore only a long, grass-stained T-shirt, which had obviously been washed so many times it settled around the curves of her body like a second skin, she was completely uninhibited.

      She must not even realize how damned sexy it was to watch her slide that wedge of pizza between her teeth. Or perhaps she just never imagined that good old Jackson would be thinking about such things.

      “What?” She blinked at him over the pizza, hesitating midbite. She looked self-consciously down at her hands. “Oh, I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

      He looked, too, suddenly, noticing that she had stray smudges from multicolored markers all over her fingers. And, now that they were in a better light, he could see that the gold glittering of her hair was just exactly that—glitter. The sparkling flecks dusted her forearms and the backs of her hands, too.

      “What on earth have you been doing?” He rubbed his forefinger along her wrist. “You look as if you stood too close to a preschool explosion.”

      She drew herself up with as much hauteur as she could manage in that position, with that silly dab of oil from the cheese shining on her chin. “For your information, I have been in another galaxy,” she said loftily. “I come to you straight from the Planet Cuspian, where I just happen to reign as Queen.”

      He looked toward the kitchenette. He knew Lavinia had generously stocked a minibar before Molly’s arrival. “You don’t say. And exactly how many mint juleps does it take to blast you to that particular galaxy?”

      She smiled as she popped the last bit of the second piece of pizza into her mouth and wiped her hands on the paper towel.

      “None,” she said. “I’ve been decorating Liza’s room. Cuspian is her imaginary planet.” She pulled her hand ruefully through her hair, trying to pick out the glitter. “Unfortunately, it’s a very messy planet.”

      Jackson couldn’t stop himself from leaning over and smoothing his fingers across her cheek, brushing away one stray fleck of gold. “Well, if you’re the Queen,” he said, “why don’t