The Real Father. Kathleen O'Brien

old girlfriend,” he said curtly. Annie knew all this. What was she playing at? “Not mine. Beau’s.”

      Annie tucked her hand cozily into the crook of Jackson’s arm. “Right. Whatever,” she said. “If you say so.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      IT WAS A TYPICAL late-winter morning at Everspring Plantation—dull, lifeless, the doldrums season for gardeners. Too late for the red blush of berries, too early for the yellow splash of bulbs. Brown grass slept, still exhausted, under gray skies.

      But Molly, standing on the mossy brick steps of the old plantation kitchens staring down toward the banks of the slow-moving river, didn’t see winter. Everywhere she looked, she saw flowers. She saw spring days banked high with azaleas, sprinkled with candy-colored tulips, crocus and lilies. She saw green summer acres bordered with pink phlox, white candytuft, blue columbine and crimson dianthus. She saw fall afternoons lit by chrysanthemums as fiery gold as candles.

      And if she closed her eyes very tightly, she could see Beau, too, walking across those flower-filled lawns, coming toward her with the summer wind ruffling his silky blond hair, the sun lighting the intense green of his eyes. And a smile on his lips.

      “Mom! Come quick!” Liza’s eager voice broke into Molly’s yearning daydream. “It’s a maze, just like in the puzzle books!”

      Opening her eyes, Molly shook away the images, forbidding tears to even think about forming. How absurd of her to give in to maudlin sentimentality the very first moment she set foot on Everspring earth. This was why she had left Demery in the first place, why she hadn’t come back in ten long years. She knew that here at Everspring, where Beau had lived, where she and Beau had loved, the memories would be as overpowering as quicksand.

      But she could resist it—and she would. She refused to live in the past, no matter how beautiful its gardens might have been. She was lucky. She had a life, a career, a future….

      She had a child.

      And she intended to give that child her full attention.

      “Mom!” Liza stood at the opening to the thick, six-foot high maze, her fists planted on her boyish hips with exaggerated impatience. “Come look! It’s so cool!”

      Molly smiled. “It’s boxwood,” she said. “Little-leaf box, actually. It’s from Japan.” She always used playtime to teach Liza about plants. And at least half the time, Liza listened.

      This wasn’t one of those times. Ignoring the botany lesson, Liza grinned as her mother drew closer. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. Suddenly, she reached out and tapped Molly’s arm.

      “You’re it!” she cried triumphantly, and then she started lithely into the maze, disappearing immediately behind its leafy walls.

      Molly hesitated only a second before taking off after her. Liza’s legs might be younger, but Molly had the advantage of familiarity. She knew every twist and turn, every blind end, and every secret pass-through. At eleven, she had cleverly eluded Jackson, who was always chasing her through the maze with a tree frog, a lizard or a garter snake in his hand.

      And at sixteen, she had allowed Beau, sexy, laughing Beau, to catch her.

      She heard Liza just ahead, giggling. The sound was infectious. She laughed, too, giving herself over to the pleasant adrenaline rush of the chase, the cool, invigorating feel of wind across her cheeks.

      “You can run, dearie,” Molly called out in her best movie-villain voice as she rounded the second left turn, scuffing the boxwood with her shoulder in her haste, “but you can never hide!”

      An answering squeal told her Liza was just around the next turn. She turned up the speed, and she was already stretching out her hand for the capture when she heard a sudden thump, and a small, high shriek of fear.

      “Liza!” She took the corner with her heart knocking at her throat. Liza…

      She froze in her tracks, which, she realized with numb horror, was actually quite fortunate, because if she had kept running she would have collided with the man who stood there, holding a shocked Liza in his arms. Just as Liza had obviously collided with him.

      She looked at Liza first, caring only if her daughter was safe. Then she looked at the man.

      A small, breathless voice in her mind whispered the name on a sudden leap of joy.

      Beau.

      Her dreams had seen him just like this. The vivid-green eyes, the dark, proud arch of eyebrow. The squared chin, the shining thickness of waving blond hair. The long, capable fingers. She felt a sudden, familiar lurch of pure physical desire.

      But finally, probably in no more than the space of a heartbeat, common sense clamped down on the wishful madness.

      Of course it wasn’t Beau. Beau was dead. It would never be Beau again.

      It was Jackson.

      Her gaze clearing, she began to see the details. Like Beau, Jackson had always been devastatingly handsome. It was his birthright. Forrest males were always glamorous far beyond normal men.

      And today he was, if anything, even more attractive than he had been at twenty-two. His athletic body was still lean and rangy—a runner’s body. While Beau had been the football hero, Jackson had been the high school track star. Quite natural, the gossips had suggested. He got plenty of practice running from sheriff’s deputies and outraged fathers.

      He smiled now, watching her study him. The grin was as deeply dimpled and rakish as ever, but it was subtly different. It was as if the years had erased just a little of the defiance that had once been his hallmark.

      “Hi, Molly,” he said, using that voice that was so like Beau’s—and yet so different. He bent down to Liza. “Are you okay? That was some crash. You must have been going about a hundred miles an hour.”

      Liza grinned up at him. Molly winced at the sight of that familiar, dimpled grin. “Yes. I’m a fast runner,” she said proudly. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

      He massaged his ribs dramatically. “I think I’ll live.” He straightened and met Molly’s gaze over the little girl’s head. “It’s been a long time, Molly. How are you?”

      Her throat felt strangely dry. It seemed to take away her powers of speech to look at him like this. It was like looking at a ghost. A ghost who made her tingle, remembering things that hadn’t ever happened—at least not with him.

      “Liza,” she said, touching her daughter’s hair softly. “Would you go out to the car, please, and get my purse?”

      Liza looked confused. “What do you need your purse fo—”

      “I’d really appreciate it,” Molly interjected, her voice still soft.

      Liza got the message. She looked from Jackson to her mother once, curiously, but without anxiety. She smiled. “Okay.”

      Molly watched her disappear back through the maze, and then, clearing her throat, she turned to Jackson.

      “I was so sorry,” she said. “So terribly sorry about Beau.” She knew that wasn’t the best way to begin, but she couldn’t think of anything else. She hadn’t expected to find Jackson at Everspring. Lavinia had hinted that, as Jackson’s main address these days was New York—where he’d moved as soon as he’d been released from the hospital—he probably wouldn’t be in town during her own stay here. She wondered now whether Lavinia had deliberately misstated the case.

      Whatever the reason, she had no speeches ready. Still, why was this so hard? It was just Jackson, the boy she’d played with since she was a child, the boy whose shoulders she had soaked in tears whenever Beau’s careless ways had broken her heart.

      “I can’t appreciate the magnitude of your loss, of course, but I—” She took a deep breath, hating the stilted expressions that seemed to spout unbidden from her lips. “I loved him, too, Jackson.