“You’ll do fine.” One thing was for sure: It was hard for her to face her father, but she wasn’t backing out.
Laurel walked into the hall, opening the front door as Jase stepped onto the porch. Her heart fluttered. In jeans and long-sleeved shirt, he looked like the quintessential western hero. And judging by the mud he was scraping off his boots, he must have been checking out properties in the morning sun again. How Texas could you get?
He swept his hat into his hand and took off his dark glasses as he stepped into the foyer. His eyes checked out the shadowy hall. “Where’s the canine?”
“Hugo? I thought it would be better for him to stay outside while you and Lolly talk.” Laurel closed the door, but didn’t bother to lock it.
His voice dropped to a near whisper. “How’s she doing?”
“A lot better.”
They entered the drawing room. Back straight, hands folded, feet together on the floor, Lolly was the picture of a prim, well-mannered schoolgirl. She moved over to give Laurel room beside her on the sofa, pointedly leaving the ribbon-back chair across from them for her father.
Laurel sat down and nervously ran hand across the wale of the sofa. This was where she and Jase had sat and talked before his appointments with Daddy and, more recently, where he had sat when he came to the house looking for Lolly. Every time she looked at the sofa, she thought of Jase. For her own peace of mind, she’d better ship it out on consignment quick.
Jase didn’t say a word, just gazed at his daughter with an easy smile on his face.
Laurel gave him points. He was playing it smart, waiting for Lolly to take the lead. It was hard for any child to be slapped in the face with a parent’s sexuality—as she very well knew—but Lolly should know that her father was a lot more than Marguerite Shelton’s prize stud.
Lolly swallowed hard and leaned forward.
“Dad, I have something I want to tell you.” Her eyes were glued on her father’s face, and her voice was strong and determined.
“First of all, I want to apologize. I will never, never, question your judgment again. You tried to warn me off looking for my mother, and you were right. I should’ve listened to you. And I shouldn’t have gone to…to San Antonio.” Her chin quivered, but she recovered quickly. “I thought it would be wonderful, like on TV. You know…the reunion specials.” Lolly moved her hands in demonstration. “But it was horrible, and I don’t…I don’t ever want to see that woman ever again.”
The backyard resounded with barks.
Lolly raised her voice to be heard over the noise. “Second. I know I should feel sorry for her because she’s sick or something, but she’s mean and nasty, and I didn’t like the way she talked about you.”
Hugo cut loose with a second fusillade of barking.
Jase waited for the tumult to die down before he spoke, his voice calm and cadenced. “I love you very much, Lolly, and I wish things had been different for you.” He opened his hands in a gesture of inadequacy. “I wish you’d been welcomed by Marguerite and that she’d told you what a lovely young lady you are. I wish she’d told you that she regretted not seeing you grow up and would keep up with you from now on. But things don’t always work out the way they should, and you have to move on and forge ahead.”
Lolly’s shoulders hunched, and her voice became very small. “But I’m afraid, Dad…I’m afraid I’m going to be just like her—like Marguerite.”
“No way, baby. You’re not like her and you’re not going to become like her—ever.”
Lolly’s face squeezed up into itself. “You don’t understand, Dad! It’s in my DNA! She said I was like…like her clone! It’s—it’s as if I were bitten by a vampire! I don’t have a choice!”
“No, honey.” Jase’s voice went even softer. “We all inherit physical traits from our parents, maybe some psychological traits, but it’s up to us to decide the way we live our lives. You’re someone new and wonderful—not your mother and not me either. Marguerite may have given birth to you, but you’re your own person, just like we all are.”
“You’re just saying that!”
He looked down for a second, then right at her. “I know so.” He inhaled deeply. “I’ve never told you much about my father, have I? Maybe I should have.”
“Well, you said that after he got out of the navy, he became a pro wrestler, then he retired and ran a tavern called Beat Down. His name was Roland, but everyone called him Growler because his larynx had been injured when he was in the ring. I wrote that into my roots report. The other girls thought he was, like, supercool.”
Jase’s grimaced at the idea of teenagers finding Growler Redlander cool.
“There’s more to it than that, honey—a lot I didn’t tell you.”