The Daddy Plan Read online

  “I know how you feel about the project and me being involved in it,” she said with resignation.

  “I have nothing against a shelter for animals,” he protested. “I have nothing against you being part of it. But you being pregnant and being part of it, and you being a new mom and being part of it have me worried.”

  After she studied him, she asked, “Have you ever known me to be impulsive and unrealistic?”

  “You’re usually a planner,” he admitted.

  “Exactly. And I’m practical, too. That’s why I’m thinking about taking the job as director rather than being a live-in doggie and kitty housemother. I believe I could do a good job, but I want to make sure of that before I give Mr. Bancroft a definite yes.”

  Sam felt as if Corrie were slipping away from him and that was ridiculous. “You’ll definitely have a busy life, busier than it is now.”

  “I’ll have a full life, Sam, and a vocation rather than just a job. I’ve always wanted to take in animals and protect them. Now I have my chance.” She gave him a smile. “If I do this, I’ll need a vet on-call. Do you want to apply for the position?”

  Instead of becoming defensive, she was trying to convince him cooperation was better than confrontation. Reason told him that was true. “I’ll consider it. But I have to ask you something, Corrie. You want me to be this child’s role model. What if I want to be more than that?”

  He expected Corrie to flare up, but she didn’t. Rather she asked, “What kind of father do you want to be?”

  Suddenly he knew without a doubt. “I want joint custody.”

  Corrie’s eyes grew wide. Then her shoulders squared and her chin lifted.

  Sam knew he was going to have a fight on his hands.

  However, instead of arguing with him, Corrie zipped up her parka. “We’d better go.”

  “What about joint custody?”

  “Can we just table it for now?”

  “Table it?”

  “Yes. This isn’t something we can settle with one discussion. And the truth is, I need to think about it before I can talk to you about it. I have a lot to mull over right now. My dad’s coming to visit tomorrow for a week. I’m going to have to deal with him. Because we have some time, I’d like to just set this discussion aside for now.”

  Sam knew he only had an inkling of what was going on inside Corrie. She wanted full custody and he’d probably thrown her for a loop. He also knew she didn’t want to deal with her dad, and if he was going to be in close proximity for a week, she was probably worried about handling the situation. Shirley’s legacy was also a weight on her shoulders. He could almost feel the invisible walls Corrie was surrounding herself with so that she could deal with all of it.

  He wanted to reach through those walls and give her a helping hand if she’d take it. He didn’t want her to see him as the enemy.

  Draping his arm around her shoulders, he wanted to pull her into his arms. He longed to kiss her until she came around to his way of thinking. He understood that right now, however, that would not be the best thing to do.

  At first she tensed. But then as he gave her a squeeze, she turned to him with a grateful smile. With his face so close to hers he could see every one of her freckles, and he remembered freckles in many more intimate places.

  Blanking out those pictures, he assured her, “We’ll table a joint-custody discussion until your dad goes back to Minneapolis. But then we’re going to figure this out.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Are you going to stay in the same room with me for more than two minutes?” George Edwards asked his daughter as she returned to her town house after a walk with Jasper.

  Her father had been here for about four hours and already Corrie felt guilty. She wasn’t the one who had anything to feel guilty about. Granted, being with him was uncomfortable and she wanted to escape that, but she thought she’d been doing a good job of smiling and chatting, even though she’d fluttered from one thing to the next since he’d arrived.

  Unzipping her parka, she hung it in the living-room closet. She could feel his gaze on her and considered how he’d changed in the past few years. There were more lines on his face than there used to be. At almost sixty, his brown hair had thinned and now rimmed his balding head. Lean most of his life, he’d gained a few pounds, but the weight gain just made him look more substantial.

  As an answer to his question, she replied, “I’m going to cook dinner…a stir-fry. Do you like stir-fry?”

  “Sure, as long as we can sit down and have a conversation over dinner.”

  Instead of running off to the kitchen to start supper, she sank onto the arm of the chair. “What do you want to have a conversation about?”

  “Why I’m here.”

  Rehashing the old baggage made her defensive. “I thought you came for a visit.”

  “I did, but something pushed me into it.” Her father motioned for her to sit in the chair instead of on its arm. “Settle in for a couple of minutes, will you, Corrie? You look like you’re going to fly away.”

  Doing as her dad asked, she sat on the chair but didn’t relax into it. She waited.

  “I had a scare recently. I thought I was having a heart attack.”

  With the tightening in her throat, a little voice whispered, He’s the only family you have left.

  “I got into an argument with one of my customers over a bill. I had chest pains, at least that’s what I thought they were. I can’t tell you how scared I was when I thought I was having a heart attack. That whole life-flashing-in-front-of-your eyes business? It’s true. I was lying there in the E.R. having blood work done, getting an EKG, and I looked at the scope of my life. I wasn’t pleased with a lot of it, starting with what happened with your mother. I never should have left her.”

  “That was your choice.” Corrie tried to keep her voice from being cold, but she’d always detached herself from these emotions. She knew how her mother had suffered, how she’d cried, how she’d hurt. She’d loved her husband. Not only had he stopped loving her, but he hadn’t told her he’d stopped loving her. Instead he went out and found someone else. Then he’d left and divorced her, pushed her aside as if she hadn’t mattered at all. Corrie had been there for every minute of that and had experienced it with her mom. Erasing the memories wasn’t a possibility.

  “You told Mom you didn’t love her anymore.” One day when Corrie had found her mother crying, that’s what she’d confided to her daughter.

  George wove his hands together and dropped them between his knees. “I told her that, but it wasn’t true. I just thought I loved Elaine more. I thought she was the one who could make me happy.”

  “No one can make you happy, Dad. You have to make yourself happy.”

  Looking sad and regretful, he nodded. “I found that out. Elaine didn’t need me like your mother did. If two people don’t need each other, what point is there in being together?”

  Although Corrie wanted to refute that conclusion, she thought about it first. There was an element of truth to it—whether the bonds were friendship or love. She didn’t want to need anyone so she was alone most of the time. She hadn’t had a real woman friend since she’d moved to Rapid Creek. Sara was quickly becoming that friend because they had a lot in common. Maybe not on the surface, but inside. Sara had support from her husband—he loved her deeply, that was obvious—but she needed Corrie, too, for that bonding only women can give each other. And Corrie felt the same need.

  Then there was Sam. She didn’t want to need him. But the problem was, even though she felt she was self-sufficient, she did.

  “Mom learned not to need you. She learned how to make herself happy.” But deep down, Corrie knew her mother hadn’t been happy. After her divorce, she’d longed for the relationship with her husband she’d once had.

  “Elaine and your mom weren’t at all alike. I thought she was what I was looking for. But I was stupid and just fell into the adventure of new love.”

  Except for
a few confidences in her most vulnerable moments, her mother hadn’t discussed her divorce. “Did you ever tell Mom you were wrong?”

  “No, I didn’t, because I knew she’d never forgive me. I knew once I’d broken her trust, she’d never trust me again.”

  That was true enough. Her mother had once warned her that if a man was unfaithful once, he’d be unfaithful again. Was that really true?

  “Will you be honest with me about something?” she asked.

  “I’ll try.”

  “If you and Mom had gotten back together, would you have stayed faithful for the rest of your life?”

  “I don’t know. That’s as honest as I can be.”

  That wasn’t good enough for Corrie. If she made a promise, she intended to keep it, no matter what. Why couldn’t men be the same? Why couldn’t her dad be sure he’d never stray again.

  “Honey, you’ve always wanted me to be perfect. Few parents can live up to that. I can’t pretend I’m not who I am. I could just tell you what you want to hear, but you asked for honesty. When I look back over my life, I regret so many things. But what I regret most is the distance between us.”

  That took Corrie by surprise.

  His gaze never wavered from hers. “I know you felt if you had a relationship with me, you’d be betraying your mother. But isn’t it time we get beyond all that? Isn’t it time we really become father and daughter again?”

  She couldn’t give him an answer to that, so instead she went another route. “You said you thought you were having a heart attack. What was wrong?”

  “I have an ulcer…and acid reflux. The condition can mimic a heart attack. I’ve had all the tests, seen too many doctors. I have to watch my diet and take medication.”

  “If you need special food while you’re here, just let me know—”

  He interrupted, “Corrie, I’m not worried about what I’m going to eat while I’m here. I’m worried about you being uncomfortable with me, afraid to talk to me. How can I get through that resentment you’ve always used as a barrier between us?”

  “I can’t just pretend you didn’t leave! I can’t just pretend that didn’t hurt.”

  “I know that. But can we can put it aside? Maybe if we can have a real conversation, it won’t seem so important any more.”

  “What do you want to have a real conversation about?” she asked warily.

  He leaned against the sofa cushions and stretched his arm along the back. “Tell me about work. When I ask you about it on the phone, you tell me it’s fine. I don’t even know exactly what you do.”

  “As a veterinary assistant, I see the animals first, take down any necessary information, weigh them and help the vets in any way I can. I enjoy it, but I guess I’ve always wanted to be more and finish my degree.”

  “You still can. If you need money—”

  Her pride had always been more important than taking any help from her father. Or maybe her mother’s pride had been more important. Corrie wasn’t sure. “I could, but something else has come up.”

  “Here in Rapid Creek?”

  “Yes.” She told him about Shirley Klinedinst and Colin Bancroft coming to her with the offer. She ended up with, “I went to Shirley’s house yesterday and ideas are just floating in left and right. I think I’d do a good job as the director.”

  “So what’s keeping you from taking it?”

  She hadn’t intended to tell him yet. In fact, she hadn’t been sure she’d tell him at all. At least not on this visit. But this conversation had just led into her news.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Her father went altogether still and she could tell he was trying hard not to react.

  “I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. Are you dating someone seriously?”

  “It’s not like that, Dad. I decided I wanted to have a baby without being married. I want a child and I want to be a mom. So I used a sperm donor. I did it through artificial insemination.”

  “Did you go to a clinic? You chose someone out of a catalog?” He looked stricken by the thought.

  “No. Someone at work. He’s a friend. He donated his sperm.” She felt a bit embarrassed talking about this with her dad, but she shouldn’t be. They were facts…only facts.

  “And you’re worried the job will be too much with a baby?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to think I can handle both.”

  “If anyone can handle both, Corrie Edwards, you can. You’re the most independent woman I’ve ever seen, and the most competent.”

  “How do you know? I mean, it’s not like we’re around each other very much.”

  “I know. But I was at your graduation even though you didn’t know it. I knew you graduated with honors not only from high school but from college. Afterward, you could have stayed at veterinary school and finished your training, but instead, you nursed your mother. A weak woman doesn’t do that.”

  After the silence between them started to become uncomfortable, he suggested, “If you really intend to finish your degree, maybe you should relocate to Minneapolis. Live with me after your baby’s born and go back to school.”

  “You wouldn’t get any sleep,” she joked, surprised and touched by the invitation.

  “I’m slowing down. My hours are more my own. I really could help with your baby. I remember taking care of you.”

  Corrie and her dad had been close once. She remembered him carrying her to bed, roller-skating with her, reading her stories. So many emotions ran together she didn’t know what to do with them all. Could she become friends with her father after all the troubled water that had flowed between them?

  She rose to her feet. “I’m going to start supper.”

  “Corrie?”

  She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “We have a week to get to know each other again. I’m sorry if I tried to do it all in one day. Over supper we can stick to the weather if that’s what you want to talk about.”

  The weather would give them a nice break. But the weather wouldn’t catch them up on each other’s lives. Maybe they could find neutral territory in between.

  On Tuesday morning, Sam was working with Corrie less than five minutes when he realized something was on her mind. She helped him prep animals for surgery and assisted him expertly as always. But he was so attuned to her now, so aware of the way she avoided or met his eyes that he was sure she was mulling over something. Her dad’s visit? Her job at the clinic? Having the baby? Working with him?

  It was almost one o’clock before he finished with surgery. He knew Corrie would be watching their post-surgery patients closely while he called their owners to let them know their animals were doing fine.

  “Did you eat lunch?” Sam asked her as she came into the lounge.

  “I wasn’t hungry. I made a big breakfast for Dad.”

  “Did you eat it, too?”

  “Actually, I did. I’m ravenous in the mornings when I get up. No signs of morning sickness yet. It’s this time of day that I—” She shrugged. “Lose my energy and feel a little queasy.”

  “Then take a few minutes. We’re caught up for the moment.”

  “I have to make the midafternoon notations on charts.”

  “Corrie, it can wait.” After his gaze locked to hers, she was the first to look away.

  “I take it your dad arrived okay? How’s it going?”

  She paced over to the window, peered out, and answered his question. “He wants to bridge the distance between us.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yeah. He plunged right in on the day he arrived. But I’m not sure how to react. I’m not sure how I feel. Have you forgiven your mother for leaving?”

  “You start out with the hard ones,” he teased gently, then went to her because this discussion wasn’t one to have with a room between them.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” she murmured.

  He had the feeling Corrie might bolt on him, and he didn’t w
ant her going anywhere. Standing by her shoulder, noticing the sun catch the redder strands in her hair, he responded, “I don’t know if I made a conscious decision to forgive her. I was the youngest, so my memories were the vaguest. One day she was there and the next she wasn’t. My dad was angry and bitter. Ben, Nathan and I felt bad. We banded together to try to do anything we could to make life easier for him. From what I remember about our mother, she wasn’t particularly happy. She talked a lot about life in London and going to school there. We all know she didn’t particularly enjoy being a homemaker and chores like the laundry and cooking were duties she felt she had to perform. I was in high school when our dad told us that she’d died a few years before in a skiing accident. When I found that out, I think I just shut out the fact we’d ever had a mother. Forgiveness never entered into it.”

  Corrie switched her attention from the scenery outside to him. “My dad said he was sorry he left my mother.”

  “I think some people always want what they can’t have, or they think they know what they want and they really don’t. Or else they don’t have the courage to fix what they mess up.”

  “I just wish…” Corrie began.

  “What do you wish?” he asked when she stopped.

  “I wish I knew what my mother would want me to do now.”

  “I think you know what that is.”

  In all the time he’d known Corrie, he’d never seen her this vulnerable. But her eyes became shiny when she said, “I guess I wish Dad had fought harder after he and Mom separated to keep in contact with me. I didn’t want anything to do with him and he just accepted that. He accepted it for years, and during that time my resentment grew. But now, maybe it is time to let it all go.” She gave him a small smile. “I think he’s excited about the idea of being a granddad.”