How could he not care enough to ask about his daughter?

“Nothing changes, does it?” The words shot out before Hannah could think about them. “Your daughter’s doing fine, by the way.”

He stared at her. “My daughter?”

“Yes, your daughter. Who will be six on Saturday. Probably just slipped your mind, huh?”

“You…you ended the pregnancy. You had an abortion.”

Hannah blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Your mother told me you had an abortion.”

“My mother?” She gaped at him. “My mother told you that! And you believed her?”

“You were very upset the day you told me you were pregnant,” he said, his voice devoid of inflection. “You said we were too young. We had a fight and you left. When you didn’t come home that night, I went to see your mother. She said you’d gone away and she wouldn’t tell me where. But she definitely gave me the impression that you’d gone to have—”

“My God, Liam. Why would she tell you that? There was never any thought of having an abortion.”

“Obviously, that’s a question you’ll have to ask her.”

Dear Reader,

As a parent or grandparent, we want only the best for our children and grandchildren. But conflicting opinions can result in a painful and emotional tug-of-war. In Keeping Faith, six-year-old Faith is the center of a universe that includes her mother, Hannah, her grandmother Margaret and three aunts. All would do absolutely anything for her. And so would Faith’s father, Liam.

In this book I’ve tired to explore issues of trust and boundary setting, and the complexities—and, of course, the numerous joys and rewards—of the mother-daughter relationship.

I love to hear from readers and try to write back whenever possible. Please visit my Web site at janicemacdonald.com and let me know how you enjoyed this book.

Best wishes,

Janice

Keeping Faith
Janice Macdonald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my mother, Dorothy, my daughter Carolyn and my granddaughter Emily.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

HANNAH RILEY HAD NEVER actually experienced a gun going off at close range, but when she opened the Long Beach Press Telegram Monday morning and saw Liam Tully’s picture, she figured the effect would have to be pretty similar. Around her, all sound and movement ceased. Oxygen seemed sucked from the room. The picture blurred.

Liam Tully? It couldn’t be.

It was. A little older than the last time she’d seen him—six years older, to be exact—but definitely Liam. Thin face, too thin to be conventionally handsome. Deep-set eyes. Terrific smile.

The caption beneath the picture read: Liam Tully, lead singer for the Celtic folk group, The Wild Rovers. The group from County Galway will perform next Friday through Sunday at Fiddler’s Green in Huntington Beach as part of a four-week California tour.

Hannah read and reread the announcement. Stared at Liam’s picture as though it might reveal something the caption didn’t. Stared at the picture and saw herself as she’d been the last time she’d seen Liam. Twenty-five, pregnant and scared to death. Of everything. God.

Carefully, as though it might detonate, she set the newspaper aside and smiled up at the dark-haired woman who had just walked into her classroom. Hannah stuck out her hand and searched through her brain, suddenly gone blank, for the woman’s name. Becker.

“Hi, Mrs. Becker.” She glanced at her watch. “You’re a little early, but if you give me a minute, I’ll find Taylor’s assessment results.”

Four-year-old Taylor had flunked a mock prekindergarten screening test two days ago. The real test, in which he would be put through his paces—skipping, hopping, wielding scissors and filling in the blanks to questions like “A bed is for sleeping and a table is for…”—was a few weeks away, but his mother had called to ask Hannah what could be done to improve her son’s performance.

As she retrieved Taylor’s folder, Hannah had an insane urge to propose to Mrs. Becker, a brittle-looking blonde in a black pantsuit, that Taylor be allowed to be himself. An easygoing child who delighted in running through the sprinklers on La Petite Ecole’s manicured lawn and showed little enthusiasm for mastering the alphabet.

She resisted the urge. Parents who paid thousands of dollars a year to send their children to La Petite Ecole, who crammed their kids’ schedules with extracurricular classes in early math and classical music appreciation, did so in order to crush the competition when it came time for kindergarten.

And, as Hannah continually had to remind herself, most parents—however misguided their motives might seem—really only wanted the best for their children.

Most parents.

She dragged her mind back to Taylor Becker’s mother, who had just asked her a question and was waiting for an answer.

“Sorry.” Hannah smiled at the woman.

“I was asking if there’s anything else we can do.” She hesitated, her face coloring slightly. “I bought him this darling T-shirt to wear for the test. I’m sure it sounds silly to you, but I started thinking that if he were dressed in a really hip shirt it might set him apart from the others.” Another pause. “We don’t want him to fail again.”

Hannah looked at her for a moment. “If I can give you a piece of advice, Mrs. Becker, I would strongly suggest that you don’t use the word fail. Especially to Taylor. And I’d also suggest that you try to relax. If he sees you’re stressed, he’ll get anxious and maybe not do so well. Children pick up on negative emotions.”

IT WAS CRAZY, but all afternoon—ever since she had read the article about Liam—she’d had the fantasy that when she got home, Liam would be waiting for her. At one point the feeling was so strong she’d actually picked up the phone to make an appointment at the beauty parlor—this was not one of her better hair days. And then, remembering that he was probably still a few hundred miles to the north, she’d put the phone down and revised the scenario. There would be a message to say he’d called. She could still recreate the sound of his voice. Even after six years, she could conjure it up. Let’s get together, he’d say in her fantasy. Let’s talk about what happened. I miss you, I still love you. But as she opened the front door, Hannah knew Liam wouldn’t be waiting inside and, as she stood in the kitchen doorway watching her daughter, she knew, too, that there had been no call.

Faith, a week shy of her sixth birthday, sat at a large wooden table in the center of the room. Brow furrowed, she was squeezing pink icing onto a row of cookies. A California girl, all tanned limbs and sun-bleached hair, worn now in a tightly controlled ponytail that set off her clear skin and blue eyes.

Liam’s eyes.

Children pick up on negative emotions.

Most parents only want what’s best for their children.

Liam wasn’t most parents.

Hannah didn’t need Liam in her life.

Faith didn’t need Liam in her life.

Children pick up on negative emotions.

Hannah consciously slowed her breathing, stayed in the doorway, smiling now as she waited for either her daughter or her mother, who was on the phone, to look up and see her.

Her parents had moved into the large Spanish-style house a block from the ocean in Long Beach just after Hannah’s first birthday and, of all the rooms in the house, the huge square kitchen figured most prominently in her childhood memories.

She’d learned to walk by pulling herself up to the cabinet edges, knocked out a tooth on a pantry shelf after roller-skating across the polished floor on a dare from her sister Debra. A large cast of dogs had eaten from various bowls that were always set out by the back door, and litters of kittens had taken their first breaths under the kitchen sink.

Nothing much had changed. After her father died, her mother had traded in the avocado-green appliances and ditched the old wallpaper with its repeating pattern of yellow kettles and orange teapots. The walls were peach now, or as Margaret insisted, apricot bisque; the refrigerator and stove stainless steel, but something was always in the oven or on the stove and, until last week when he’d gone to doggy heaven, Turpin, the family’s elderly black Lab, had still been eating from the bowl by the door.

The henhouse, her mother called it these days. Hannah and Faith and Margaret lived there. Sporadically, Margaret’s sister Rose and her own sister Debra came to stay. Helen, the youngest of Hannah’s aunts, had her own coop, a guest cottage behind the rose garden, but always joined them for meals. Males were conspicuously absent.

“Who needs them anyway?” Margaret would say. “We’re just a bunch of hens cooing and clucking around our baby chick.”

So while Margaret’s friends were dealing with the empty-nest blues and converting extra bedrooms into sewing areas, Margaret kept busy as she had all her adult life—cooking, cleaning and caring for her brood. “My family is my life,” she’d say when Hannah or Debra would urge her to expand her horizons with a part-time job or volunteering. “This is what makes me happy. My daughters and my granddaughter. Why would I want to do something else?”

If there were times when Margaret’s fussing and clucking made Hannah question the living arrangement, Deb made no secret of the fact that Margaret drove her nuts. Deb’s biggest fear was that she’d turn out like Margaret. “If you ever catch me acting like Mom,” she’d say to Hannah, “just shoot me, okay?”

And Deb in turn drove Margaret nuts. Deb was the problematic chick in the nest; prickly and demanding, always flying away only to return a few months later, torn and tattered but still defiant. Margaret had been thirty-eight when she gave birth to Debra and had once, in Deb’s hearing, referred to her youngest daughter as “an afterthought.” Debra had never forgiven her.

Still the relationship had a weird kind of synergy. Debra could tell herself that however screwed up her life might be, at least she wasn’t like Margaret, leading some nutso June Cleaver existence, ironing sheets and baking pies while her husband cheated with women half his age as Hannah’s father had done. And Margaret’s tales about her problematic daughter always got a sympathetic hearing from the women in her Wednesday Weight Watchers group. “I give Mom a sense of purpose,” Deb would say, only half in jest.

So, too, did Faith. In fact, Faith was so thoroughly the center of her grandmother’s life that Hannah worried what Margaret would do if she and Faith ever moved away. Not that she had any plans to do so. She was happy. Sort of, kind of, basically. A job she enjoyed—well, maybe she would rather be a landscape gardener, but somehow that hadn’t worked out. A guy she liked. Allan was sweet and thoughtful and if he didn’t make her heart beat faster, so what? Chemistry wasn’t everything.

More importantly, Faith was happy.

And if Liam didn’t care that his little girl was just about to turn six, that was his loss. Hannah tiptoed into the room and came up behind her daughter. Arms wrapped around Faith’s shoulders, she nuzzled her neck.

“Hey, baby. Who loves you more than anyone else in the world?”

“Ow, Mommy, you’re squeezing too hard and don’t call me ‘baby.’” Faith wriggled away. “Look.” She held up a large colored tin for Hannah to see. “Grandma bought me these cookie cutters. They have all the letters of the alphabet. See, I’m writing my name with cookies.”

“Wow, that’s terrific.” Hannah pulled up a chair and sat down next to her daughter. The cooking gene had skipped a generation, gone from her mother to her daughter. Both loved long days in the kitchen, Margaret’s cookbooks spread out across the table, the KitchenAid whirring. Impulsively Hannah brought her face up under Faith’s. “I’m the kissing monster.” She puckered her lips. “And I won’t go away until I get ten thousand kisses.”

“Momeee.” Faith pushed Hannah’s head away. “I can’t see what I’m doing.” Up on her knees, she began fishing small vials of silver balls and candy confetti from the tin. “Look. Grandma bought me all these decorating things. We’re having so much fun.”

“I can tell.” Hannah glanced over at her mother, still on the phone. Margaret, sixty, and the oldest of the three sisters, had wiry, gray-blond hair tied up with an orange scrunchy. From Margaret’s careful tone and turndowned mouth, Hannah guessed that the caller was Deb and that the crisis du jour was gathering strength.

“God.” Margaret carefully set the phone back on the wall holder, leaned against the sink and folded her arms across her chest. “I swear Debra will drive me to an early grave.”

“No!” Eyes wide and troubled, Faith looked at her grandmother. “I don’t want you to go to an early grave, Grandma.”

“Oh, honey,” Margaret laughed, and hugged Faith. “That’s just one of those silly things grown-ups say. Grandma isn’t going anywhere. She’s having too much fun with you. Did you tell Mommy what a great day we had? We shopped and baked and talked girl stuff,” she said, addressing Hannah now. “And next week—”

“We’re making all the cookies for Grandma’s friend’s party.” Faith sprinkled blue sugar onto a pink cookie and sat back to look at the results. “Six kinds. Chocolate chip, lemon bars and I forget the rest.”

“Oh, all different kinds.” Margaret started clearing the knives and spoons from the table. “Poor Bella, she’s got the garden club coming and she’s overwhelmed so I offered to make the desserts. Somehow I’ll manage to squeeze it between the birthday cake I promised to bake for Rose’s friend and…damn, I know there’s something else. Please God don’t let it be something I promised to do for Deb. She’s already upset because I forgot to ask what happened with that job interview she went on…” Margaret wiped the table and waited until Faith had gone to watch cartoons, then slowly shook her head at Hannah. “Tell me where I went wrong with Deb. Why can’t I do anything right for that girl?”

Hannah carefully set Faith’s decorated cookies into a tin, resisting the urge to bite into an extra letter A. Deb was twenty-two and she was thirty-one, but to Margaret they were always the girls.

“So what’s up with Deb now?”

“She says she’s moving in with Dennis.”

“The bartender who sells marijuana?”

“This isn’t funny, Hannah.”

“I’m not laughing, Mom.” Actually she’d been wondering whether or not to mention the news about Liam. “I thought she was through with Dennis.”

Margaret reached for a jar of hand cream on the windowsill and began massaging it into her elbows. Margaret was always slapping alpha hydroxy on her neck and face and complaining that everyone called her ma’am.

“I thought she was through with him, too,” Margaret said. “Now she tells me she’s moving in and when I start asking her about it, she accuses me of nosing into her business. I swear to God, I can’t win. Either I’m not there for her—her words—or I’m nosing into her business.”

“She knows she can jerk you around and get away with it.” Hannah reached into the cabinet for a box of chamomile tea. Easier to analyze her mother’s problems than to figure out why she kept looking at the phone and willing it to ring. “Listen, don’t we need to get this chicken going?”

“I’ll take care of it.” Margaret removed plastic-wrapped chicken from the fridge and carried it to the stove. “Rose said she had indigestion all night after that last thing you made.”

“Tuna casserole?” Hannah looked at her mother. “How could she get indigestion from that? I used the same recipe you always use.”

Margaret grinned. “Well, doll-baby, no one ever accused you of being Julia Child. Faith made me promise that I’d never get old because she didn’t know who would make the kind of food she likes.”

“Little brat.” Hannah shook her head. “I tried really hard with those potato skins she wanted.”

“I know.” Margaret’s smile turned conspiratorial. The chicken breasts flattened out on a cutting board, she began slicing them into strips. “Don’t worry, Hanny, you have plenty of other talents, my love.”

Feeling disgruntled now, Hannah resisted the urge to ask Margaret to name the other talents. She knew Margaret would list qualities like sweet and generous, which had never struck Hannah as much to crow about. They certainly hadn’t been enough to keep Liam interested. Margaret was back on Deb again.

“…and she just didn’t sound happy about Dennis, so all I said was I’d like to see her married and she immediately flew off the handle and went on and on about how she’ll get married when she’s ready and she’s not about to do something stupid like…well, you know what I’m saying.”

“Yeah.” Hannah put her teabag in a cup of water, put it in the microwave and stood passively, watching the seconds count down. She knew only too well. Something stupid like Hannah did when she ran off with Liam Tully, then compounded the foolishness by marrying him in a Las Vegas chapel, only to return home three months pregnant and on her own.

Debra could run off with an Elvis impersonator and set up housekeeping in a Ralph’s supermarket parking lot and no one would be surprised. But not levelheaded, dependable Hannah. If she spent the rest of her life in chaste contemplation, she would never live down what the family referred to as her Liam Lapse. Her father’s death from a heart attack had been blamed on it and Margaret, who had never previously touched alcohol, dated the start of her evening consumption of wine to that time. “We all suffered,” her aunt Helen frequently reminded her.

“Just talk to Deb, will you?” Margaret asked. “At least she won’t yell at you.”

Hannah took her tea from the microwave. The temptation to remind Margaret that it was up to her to work out her problems with Deb blazed briefly, then died. Even feeling as she did right now, kind of let down and confused about Liam coming back, her inclination was not to cause an argument. Ms. Congeniality, Deb called her. The downside was that Hannah often did things she didn’t really want to do. Like last Saturday, when she’d gone with her aunt Rose to the World’s Largest Singles Mixer because Rose hadn’t wanted to attend alone.

God, what a nightmare that had been. A guy with a toupee that looked exactly like a small furry animal napping across his scalp had refused to believe Hannah didn’t want to dance with him. She’d stood her ground, though, and eventually he and his furry friend had disappeared into the crowd. It wasn’t quite so easy to say no to her mother.

“I’ll talk to Deb,” she said. “This time. After that, you’re on your own.”

Lately, Hannah reflected, it seemed as if she and her mother had reversed roles. As a kid, Hannah had needed constant reassurance from Margaret that one day boys would pay attention to her, that the pimples would go away and that, as unlikely as it had seemed at the time, she would actually get breasts. Now she was constantly doling out reassurances to Margaret and monitoring her mother’s wine consumption much as Margaret had once sniffed for signs of teenage drinking. She hoped to God that by the time Faith needed monitoring and reassurance, Margaret would need less.

She decided not to say anything about Liam.

AFTER THE GIG, Liam shoved the sweaty clothes and boots he’d worn during the performance into a duffel bag and joined the other musicians making their way to the bus. The equipment had been packed up and stowed while he and a few of the others had gone next door for a couple of pints. The mike stands, lights and speakers. The guitars and drums, the audio effects and mixing console, T-shirts and merchandise. Packed up, stowed away, ready to start all over again.

In the bus, he sat up front for a while chatting with some of the others, then made his way down the aisle to the lounge in the middle. Yawning, he stretched out on one of the couches, hands pillowed behind his head. As buses went, this one was pretty plush. Microwave cookers and hi-fi. Mood lighting and couches. A far cry from the VW van they’d use in the band’s early days. That one had been reliable only for breaking down at least once a day.

But now they were touring internationally. The Wild Rovers, all eight of them. No chartered jets yet, but this wasn’t bad. Three days out and, as always, he felt the rhythm beginning to develop. Another day, another town. Pile off the bus, pile onto the bus. Stopping sometimes in the wee hours to traipse into an all-night place in the middle of nowhere for hamburgers and chips. Blinking in the fluorescent lights, bleary-eyed and half-asleep. Then back on the bus, collapsing into the bunk to fall asleep, rocked by the motion of the road. Waking to blinding sunlight creeping in around the black window shades. On the bus, off the bus. Set it up, tear it down. Different day, different town. He loved it. If there was a better way to live, he didn’t know about it.

Someone pushed his feet off the seat, and he looked up to see Brid Kelly, long red hair streaming down her back and skin so white that in the murky light of the bus she looked luminous. She had on jeans and a thin sleeveless top. If there’d been enough light, he knew he’d be able make out the outline of every bone in her rib cage. Brid could be a poster child for famine relief. He worried about her and not just—as she sometimes claimed—because he’d never find another singer who understood his music the way she did.

She was holding a large plastic bowl and a beer, which she held out to him.

“Thanks.”

She smiled and dropped down beside him. “How you doing, Liam?”

“All right.” He sat up and eyed the bowl. “Is that cabbage salad you’re eating again?”

“It is.” She waved the plastic fork. “D’you want some?”

He drank some beer. “Have you eaten anything but cabbage salad in the last three days?”

“I have.” She grinned. “Yesterday, I ate a carrot and three radishes.”

He shook his head. She’d nearly collapsed after yesterday’s show and he hadn’t bought her excuse that it was the heat. “You’re a skeleton, already, for God’s sake. You’ll make yourself ill, the way you’re going.”

“Ah, come on.” With a wave of her hand, she dismissed his concerns. “I’ll be fine. Nice and slim for when I walk down the aisle with Tommy Doherty.”

“Tommy Doherty.” Liam swung his feet back up on the couch and over her lap. “You’ve been talking about walking down the aisle with Tommy Doherty ever since I’ve known you.”

“This time I mean it. I’ve had it with all this.” She dug her fork into the cabbage. “I’m ready to start making babies.”

“Another thing I’ve heard at least a hundred times.”

“Right, well, it’s time now.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

“You’ll see, Liam. I’ve had enough of it. On the road for weeks at a time. What kind of life is it anyway? Always away from your friends and family.”

He didn’t answer. He’d heard her sing the same song so many times he could recite it by heart. She’d get back to Ireland and insist she was through. They’d have to find a new singer. But then plans for the next tour would get underway, and he’d see her wavering. The truth was, the music was as much a part of her life as it was Liam’s. She was every bit as addicted to the life.

“What about you then, Liam? You never feel like putting down roots somewhere? You don’t miss being close to someone?”

With an elbow on the windowsill, he watched the road. “If I do,” he said, “I take a couple of aspirin until the feeling goes away.”

Brid pushed his leg and he turned to smile at her, then went back to watching the white lines flash past. Only one time had he ever considered packing it all in. About six years ago now. A marriage, brief as a blip in time. She’d missed her family, hated the long absences and frenetic craziness of his life. Because he’d loved her, he’d seriously considered settling down. Until he’d found out what she’d done.

He’d channeled his anger into the music and the following year he made the UK charts for the first time. Betrayed. That was the name of the single. And now, in a nice bit of irony, his next gig was in her hometown, where it had all started.

CHAPTER TWO

THE DAY AFTER HANNAH read about Liam coming back, she was standing in the kitchen making a salad for dinner when her sister Debra announced that she was pregnant.

“Don’t tell Mom,” Deb said. “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it.”

“You’re kidding.” Hannah dropped into the chair opposite her sister.

“Well, God, you don’t have to say it like that. It was okay for you to get pregnant but no one else can?”

Hannah held up her hand. She wasn’t in the mood for Debra. “If you want to talk,” she said, “we’ll talk. Otherwise, you can take your damn attitude and leave.”

“Zowee.” Debra’s eyes widened. “Chill out, Hannah. What are you so steamed up about anyway?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on.” Debra peered at her. “It’s something. You had a fight with Allan? You had a fight with Mom? You got fired?”

“For God’s sake, Deb.” She got up from the table, filled a glass with water from the fridge dispenser and sat down again. “Tell me what’s going on with you.”

“I missed two periods and I threw up twice this week at work. Dennis freaked when I first told him, but once he got over the shock he thought it was kind of cool. Now he’s saying I can move in with him until the baby’s born. After that, who knows?”

“What do you want to do?”

Debra shrugged. “Not what I’m doing right now, that’s for damn sure. ‘Hi, my name’s Debra,’” she said in a mincing voice. “‘And I’ll be your waitress tonight.’ God. I am so sick of that job. I just want to have a decent job where I’m making some money and I don’t have some jerk telling me to push the desserts and smile more. At least if I have the baby, it’s something different, plus Dennis is being a whole lot nicer since he found out.”

Hannah counted slowly to ten. Where did she even start? She traced the moisture on her glass and looked up at her sister. “What’s happening with your classes at State?”

Deb rolled her eyes. “The instructors were such a bunch of idiots, I swear I couldn’t even listen to them. I mean, I could learn more from surfing the Internet.”

“But you’re not going to get a teaching credential that way.”

“Don’t start on me about that, I’ve already heard it from Mom.”

“Deb.” Hannah put her elbows on the table. “You hate working where you are now, you hated working at Marie Callender’s, you hated worked at Denny’s—”

“Shut up, Hannah.” Debra jumped up from the table, stomped over to the pantry in her clunky black waitress shoes and emerged with a bag of Oreos that she ripped open. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” A cookie in one hand, she regarded Hannah as though she’d suddenly recognized something that hadn’t been clear before. “You think you’re so damn perfect.”

Hannah snorted. “Right.”

“No, you do. And Mom does, too. I am so sick of hearing how hard Hannah worked to get her degree, how wonderful Hannah’s job is, what a great boyfriend Hannah has. ‘Allan’s an attorney,’” she said, mimicking Margaret’s voice. “‘And he lives on Riva Alto Canal and he’s just so wonderful and Hannah’s so wonderful—’”

“Maybe that’s your interpretation, but it’s not the way I feel…”

“Yeah, whatever.” Debra eased the top off a cookie and bit into the cream filling. “I don’t give a damn. Maybe you’ve got it figured out now, you know damn well the whole reason you got pregnant was to keep Liam around.”

“No, I don’t know that.” Her face suddenly warm, Hannah held Debra’s glance. She heard Margaret’s car pull into the driveway and lowered her voice. “Look, Deb, having a baby is a huge decision—”

“Well, duh…” Debra was up from the table again. “Like I don’t know it’s my decision, too? God, I don’t even know why I try to talk to you. Just because Liam was a jerk doesn’t mean all guys are that way.”

“Whoa…” Rose walked into the kitchen just as Debra stormed out. “What’s the matter with her?”

WHILE MARGARET WORRIED aloud about Debra all through dinner, Hannah thought about Liam. Twenty-eight hours since she’d seen the article. Twenty-eight hours of thinking about practically nothing else. She didn’t know his schedule—except for next Friday—but he was somewhere in California and it was making her crazy. Thinking of him in Ireland was one thing, thinking of him maybe just an hour or two away was something else. He could call. Of course, he could have called from Ireland, too. But he hadn’t called. And he wouldn’t call.

“Dennis is not a good influence on Deb,” Margaret was saying now. “I mean a bartender, for God’s sake. And he bleaches his hair. What kind of guy would do that?” Her brow furrowed, she dug a fork into the gooey custard on her plate. “What is it with my girls?” she asked, glancing at Helen. “Why is it they both seem to have this thing for irresponsible men?”

“Well, hey, bad boys are more fun, huh, Hannie?” Aunt Rose, in a loose black silk shirt printed with beer bottles from around the world, winked at Hannah. Rose, a cosmetologist, was divorced from her second husband and staying at the house just until she got her credit card bills paid off. She’d recently had her eyelids tattooed with permanent liner because, she confided to Hannah, she hated to wake up beside a man and look washed-out. Rose was absolutely certain Mr. Right would turn up one of these days—for her and for Hannah. Rose had her money on Allan.

Aunt Helen shot Rose a disapproving look. “I’m quite sure that Hannah has already learned her lesson with…immature young men and I have no doubt that, before long, Debra will, too.”

The youngest of the three sisters, Helen was small, pink and fair with a large soft bosom and a similarly proportioned bottom. Faith, who adored Helen, once confided to Hannah that hugging Aunt Helen was like hugging a great big marshmallow. Helen taught junior high school and everything she said had a sweetly reasoned tone as if she knew that, even under the most obnoxious and intractable behavior, goodness was just waiting to shine. Helen’s husband had died years ago in a freak lightning storm back in Missouri where they’d gone to see his mother. Afterward, Helen had moved into the small guest cottage on Margaret’s property and decorated it with Laura Ashley fabrics.

“What about that nice attorney?” Helen asked Hannah now. “Are you still seeing him?”

Rose shot up her hand. “If you’re not, I get first dibs.”

“Rose,” Margaret and Helen said in unison.

“Hey, I like younger men.” Rose grinned. “And he lives on Riva Alto Canal. What’s not to like? Do your old auntie a favor, Hanny. See if he has an older brother.”

“Well…” Helen smiled as if to say that particular subject was over. She looked at Faith. “Listen, sweetie, if you’ll go bring me my purse over there on the couch, I’ve got a little surprise for you.” Faith darted across the room and returned with a large canvas bag. “Let’s see what we have here.” Helen reached into the bag. “James and the Giant Peach and Sleeping Beauty.”

“Oh, wow.” All smiles, Faith clutched the books. “My absolute favorites.”

“I knew they would be.” Helen dropped a kiss on Faith’s nose. “Now why don’t you run off and read them? The grown-ups want to talk about really boring things.” She gave Faith a few moments to leave the room, then produced a newspaper clipping from the bag. “This is probably something we should discuss.”

Hannah felt her stomach tense. She watched Margaret, who was sitting next to Helen, reach for the clipping. Waited for the shock to register on her mother’s face. The room felt hot and still suddenly. Margaret carefully set the clipping down on the table. Fingers over her lips, she looked at Hannah.

“Did you know Liam was coming back?”

“I just saw the announcement in the paper yesterday.” She drank some water. They were all watching her. “It’s no big deal, Mom.” She looked at Margaret. “Really, don’t worry about it.”

Margaret drank some wine. “You’re not planning to see him, are you?”

“Of course Hannah doesn’t want to see him,” Helen said.

“Why would Hannah give a hoot about Liam?” Rose asked. “She’s got this hotty attorney boyfriend. Liam’s ancient history. Right, Hannah?”

“ANY PLANS FOR A WEEK, Saturday?” Allan asked Hannah Wednesday morning when he dropped off his son at La Petite Ecole. “I have symphony tickets.”

“Saturday?” She’d been sitting at one of the small painted tables selecting books for the afternoon’s story session and she stood so that he wouldn’t tower over her. Actually, she could stand on a table and he’d still tower over her. Allan was tall. She wasn’t. Flustered now, mostly because next Saturday was Faith’s birthday party and she was wavering back and forth about inviting him, she tried to find a way around the question. “Saturday.” She frowned as though trying to picture her extensive social calendar. “Let me think.”

Allan smiled indulgently. Allan always smiled indulgently. It was one reason she had trouble picturing them walking into the sunset together. That, and he called her “Kiddo.” On the plus side, he was thoughtful, patient and sweetly romantic. As her Aunt Rose would say, she could do a lot worse. And, as her mother would add, in a not-too-subtle jab, she already had.

Allan and his ex-wife shared custody of four-year-old Douglas, who was in Hannah’s class. A fastidious little boy, Douglas disliked getting his hands dirty and insisted on using a straw to sip his milk because he worried about germs on the glass. She’d been talking to Allan about his son’s phobias during a parent-teacher conference and then somehow they’d moved on from Douglas to foreign films and she found herself accepting Allan’s invitation to a festival. Half a dozen or so dates later, he was talking about moving in together. She felt him watching her, waiting for an answer.

“Actually, next Saturday is Faith’s birthday party,” she finally said, because she couldn’t think of any way around it. “If you weren’t busy…”

His smile broadened. “I’ll give the tickets away. I’d love to meet your family and get to know your daughter.”

“Well, I’m not sure you’ll have much opportunity to get to know her. At last count, I think there were about fifty kids coming.”

“Hey, it sounds like fun,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

She smiled back at him. He really was kind of sweet, even if he didn’t exactly make her heart turn over. “Okay, but don’t pay any attention to my mother and aunts. They have this thing about me getting married, so they’ll start asking you pointed questions about your intentions.”

His expression turned thoughtful. “Really?”

“Yeah, so tell them you’re just out for a good time and the last thing you’d ever want to do is settle down.”

“But what if that’s not true?” His eyes searched her face. “What if I tell them you’re exactly what I’m looking for?”

“Uh…” She felt her face go warm. “Please don’t, okay?”

He smiled. “Are we a little gun-shy, kiddo?”

“Not a little, and Allan…please don’t call me ‘kiddo.’” She picked at a piece of skin on her finger. “Look, I screwed up once. I’m not about to jump into it again.”

“Perhaps you just married the wrong guy.”

Hannah shrugged. Inviting him had definitely sent the wrong message, she could see that now.

“One bad apple doesn’t mean the whole barrel is bad.” Allan also mangled metaphors. “Any man who could just turn his back on a daughter like Faith obviously has a severe character flaw. She’s a wonderful young lady.”

“You’ve never even met her,” Hannah pointed out.

“She’s your daughter. How could she be anything but wonderful?” With a quick glance over his shoulder, he kissed Hannah softly on the lips. “And I’ve always wanted a daughter.”

AFTER ALLAN LEFT, Hannah couldn’t get his words out of her head. I’ve always wanted a daughter. And he probably would be a terrific father to Faith. Attentive, conscientious. There for her. Everything her real father wasn’t. With a sigh, she opened the book she’d selected to read to the kids. A story about a cow who decides to be an opera singer and moves to New York to take voice lessons from Placido Domingo. As she held up the book to show the kids the picture of the cow, all dolled up in a sequined evening gown and warbling an aria, she sneaked a quick glance at her watch.

Nearly noon. Right now, Liam was probably setting up the instruments. No, he’d be sleeping still. Liam always slept late.

“Timothy is picking his nose, Ms. Riley,” Morgan Montgomery said. “It’s revolting.”

Hannah put aside the book to look at Timothy. He sat cross-legged on the floor, hands clasped on top of his copper-colored curls, an expression of angelic innocence on his freckled face.

“He was, Ms. Riley. I think I’m going to vomit.”

Morgan clutched her stomach dramatically. She had glossy brown hair, a heart-shaped face and, at four, was frighteningly precocious. Her parents were both psychiatrists and when they came to school to discuss Morgan’s progress, Hannah always had the feeling they were analyzing her.

“He flicked it at me,” she said.

“Did not,” Timothy said.

Hannah watched Morgan pick up her floor pillow and move ostentatiously to the opposite side of the room, where she settled back on the floor with a flounce of her GapKids tartan skirt. After a moment, Hannah started reading again. She had discussed Timothy’s nose-picking problem with his parents and knew she hadn’t handled this latest incident very well. The La Petite Ecole method would have been to engage him in open discussion of social manners, but she felt distracted and irritable and in no mood for talk about boogers. Why the hell did she really want to see Liam?

At noon, she sat with Jen Bailey on the steps in the sun, eating a microwaved Lean Cuisine lunch and watching the kids wrestle around on the grass, hitting each other with paisley-patterned beanbags. Jen was the other teacher for the three-to-four-year-old group. She had cropped burgundy hair and a nose ring and lived in a funky apartment in Huntington Beach with her boyfriend who played in a band and designed surfwear. The only reason Jen was hired, she’d told Hannah, was her fancy degree in French Literature from Vassar.

Dr. Marberry, head of La Petite Ecole, was quite the snob when it came to fancy academic degrees. She hadn’t exactly sniffed at Hannah’s Cal State Long Beach credentials but Hannah felt pretty sure one reason she was hired was that her father had, at the time, managed the bank where Dr. Marberry had her business loan.

“I’m thinking about doing something really dumb,” she told Jen.

“How dumb?” Jen asked.

“Really, really.” Hannah hacked at a piece of glazed chicken. “I want you to talk me out of it, okay?”

“You told Allan you’d move in with him?”

“Dumber.” She mashed the back of her fork into the overcooked wild rice. “Faith’s father is in Long Beach. He’s playing at Fiddler’s Green next week. I want to see him.”

“Faith’s father?” Jen turned to look at her. “I thought he lived in Ireland.”

“He does. He’s here on tour.”

“Cool.” Jen jumped up to stop Timothy from flicking a booger at Morgan. “Someone needs a time-out,” she told him. “Please go and sit in time-out, Timothy, and think about why you need to do this.” She dropped down on the step beside Hannah. “So he called you?”

“No, I read about it in the paper.” Admitting aloud that Liam hadn’t even bothered to call her made her stomach tense. “It’s crazy, I know it. I mean, I can come up with a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t, but I want to. Tell me it’s a bad idea, okay?”

BUT JEN HAD THOUGHT a Friday evening at Fiddler’s Green, drinking beer and listening to Irish music sounded like a hoot. In fact, she wanted to go, too. And Friday also happened to be Grandma’s Night Out, a weekly excuse for Margaret to shamelessly indulge Faith with ice cream, movies, or whatever Faith wanted to do. Indulgence, Margaret always said, was part of the fun of being a grandma. Bottom line, it removed not having a baby-sitter as a reason to stay home and watch a cheesy movie instead of standing here in the Fiddler’s Green washroom twenty minutes before the performance and feeling sick to her stomach with nerves at the thought of seeing Liam again.

Actually, Margaret hadn’t even mentioned Liam as they all ate breakfast that morning. Hannah guessed that Debra’s call, just as Margaret was pouring her second cup of coffee, had been a sufficient distraction. As soon as she heard Margaret utter the word pregnant, Hannah had gathered up Faith and made a quick retreat. Margaret and Debra could manage their problems on their own, she’d decided.

Damn. She looked at herself in the mirror. Why hadn’t she worn something a little more hip than khakis and a white shirt? She rolled the sleeves up, undid another button, peered at her face. She screamed suburbia. Light brown hair cut in this wispy, tousled style around her face. “Blow and go,” said the girl who had cut it. Easy and practical.

It had been white-blond and nearly down to her waist the last time she’d seen Liam. She’d bleached it herself one night while he was performing. The girls who were always hanging around his dressing room and throwing flowers up on the stage all had long white-blond hair. He’d been furious with her for doing it. “I thought you’d like it,” she’d said.

It no longer matters, she told herself as she dug in her purse for a lipstick, dropping scraps of paper and grocery receipts and a stale Famous Amos cookie still in its crumpled foil wrapper into the washbasin. You have moved on from Liam Tully. Way, way on. You do not care about Liam Tully. You have no emotional investment in Liam Tully. You have moved on. Look at me! She looked at her reflection again. You are attractive, you are well-adjusted and, Hannah, you are calm.

Right. Deep breath. God, this lipstick was too dark. She grabbed a paper towel from the holder, scrubbed it across her mouth, dug around in her purse for a different color and knocked her compact off the edge of the sink. The mirror shattered into a cobweb of silver spikes.

Back at the table, she gulped down half a glass of wine. Their table was closer to the stage than she would have preferred, but the place was small and already packed when they arrived.

Liam would see her.

There was no way he couldn’t see her. Maybe she should leave. On the other hand, maybe he wouldn’t even recognize her. What if he didn’t recognize her? She drained the glass and glanced at the door. Jen gave her a quizzical look.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking this wasn’t such a great idea.”

“You still have a thing for him?”

“No way.” She picked up her glass, remembered she’d finished the wine and glanced around for the cocktail waitress. “How could I? I haven’t seen him for six years. I don’t even know why I’m doing this.”

“How come you guys split up?”

Hannah picked at the edge of the coaster. “Jealousy.”

“You or him?”

Hannah laughed. “What did he have to be jealous of? I was this mopey, insecure, basket case. Whenever I think about being married to him, all I remember is lying awake in some apartment or hotel room, watching the clock, waiting for him to come home. Then he’d come in smelling like perfume.”

“He cheated on you?”

“I never caught him, but…” She traced the rim of her wineglass as she considered Jen’s question. “There was so much temptation all around, how could he not?”

“So how long did you know him before you got married?”

“Not long. I met him in Ireland.” She smiled. “God, I was so…smitten. We had this whirlwind thing and then I went back home. He told me all this stuff, he’d call, he’d write, but nothing. And then one day he just knocked at the door. I was blown away.”

“He came over just to see you?”

“Not just to see me. He was on a six-week tour of California, all these small clubs and college campuses up and down the coast. He asked if I wanted to go with him. Did I want to go with him? It was like this fantasy. I’d wake up every morning beside him and pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.”

“So who’s idea was it to get married?”

“I can’t even remember. Probably mine, but it was one of those spur-of-the-moment things. We just decided to do it. No thought about the future, or him going back to Ireland. It was all just in the moment. For a while, anyway.”

“So what went wrong?”

“I guess we didn’t really know each other. Everything was fine while it was this big adventure, but then that started to wear off…. When I look back on it, it feels as though I woke up one day and the dream was over. He was totally into his music and I sort of tagged along. There were always girls fawning over him. I’d wonder why he was with me when he could have any woman he wanted. And then I found out I was pregnant and the dream really was over.”

“He didn’t want to be a daddy, huh?”

“Well, it wasn’t just him. He had to go back to Ireland and he expected me to go with him…. I mean, he wanted me to go, or I thought he did, but the idea of having the baby so far away from home terrified me. Plus, he didn’t really seem ready to settle down—”

“Yeah, that’s like Rocky.” Jen lit a cigarette. “I mean there’s no way he’s ready to do the family thing.”

Hannah nodded sympathetically, although she was pretty sure Jen wasn’t in any hurry to go the kids-and-suburbia route either. The difference was that Jen and Rocky were in agreement. Jen understood what Rocky wanted, recognized his limitations. With Liam, she’d always had this idea that he would magically turn into a responsible father figure. She’d wanted it so much she couldn’t see that it was clearly not what Liam had wanted.

“Everything probably turned out for the best,” she said. “Faith’s really happy and well-adjusted, and…” The lights dimmed and the crowd was looking expectantly at the stage. Her heart started banging so hard she felt dizzy.

Transfixed, she watched a slim dark-haired guy in black jeans and shirt walk slowly across the stage, his face caught in the white pool of a spotlight. Liam. Without a glance at the audience, he sat down on the stool, picked up a guitar and began to sing.

“Wow.” Jen leaned close to whisper in Hannah’s ear. “What a babe.”

SOME SHOWS WERE MAGIC, Liam knew that. The energy of the crowd, the music, voices from the audience singing along, filling the room until it literally seemed they could raise the roof. Others never really got off the ground. Something was missing. He would go through the motions, sing the songs that had always worked, but the magic wasn’t there. Before he’d finished the first set, he knew that tonight was one of those times.

“Thanks.” He smiled out at the audience, acknowledging the subdued applause. The club was smaller than most they’d played on this tour, the crowd jammed against the far wall or seated at the small tables in front. Intimate, but the lighting made it difficult to pick out faces.

“It’s good to be in California again,” he said, trying to warm them up. “You’ve some very strange weather here. That hot wind as though the devil himself is breathing down your neck. We’ve nothing like it back home. Except for my dog’s breath, that is.”

Polite laughter. He glanced over his shoulder, nodded to Brid to join him. Worrying about her wasn’t exactly helping things. Half an hour earlier she’d had another fainting spell and he’d thought they might have to cancel the show, but she’d insisted she was fine. As she came over to stand beside him, he felt the crowd respond to her as they always did. Smiling, he held out his hand to her.

“A few years back,” he told the audience, “I met a beautiful woman who completely changed my life. Brid Kelly.” This time the applause was much louder. From the back of the room, someone whistled.

And then they held hands to sing a song they’d written together. Face-to-face, bodies swaying. She had on a filmy white dress that he’d joked looked like the lace curtains in his auntie’s parlor, but it swirled around her and her red hair streamed all over her back and shoulders and she looked as if she’d just floated down from a cloud to join him.

She smiled into his eyes as they sang and he knew that at least half the audience would decide they were lovers. The press back home had come to pretty much the same conclusion, which meant that whenever he was seen with another woman, he was accused of cheating on Brid. It didn’t exactly make for long-lasting relationships. Brid found the whole thing hilarious. “You’re like my brother, for God’s sake,” she’d say. Still the stories persisted. Finally, he’d stopped trying to deny them.

They did a couple more songs together and then he brought Brid’s hand to his lips and the audience applauded enthusiastically. As they broke for intermission, he heard a crash from the side of the room and looked over to see what was going on. A woman in a hurry to leave the room had toppled one of the small tables, sending glasses crashing to the floor.

“Obviously not a fan,” he said with a grin at Brid as they left the stage.

HER HEART THUNDERING, Hannah stood in the lobby, back against the wall, waiting for Jen to come out of the rest room. All she wanted now was to get the hell out. Forget the second act. She’d seen all she needed to see.

At that moment Liam walked through the swinging doors of the bar and looked straight into her eyes. Her brain froze. Had he recognized her? His eyes flickered and widened.

“Hannah?” He shook his head slightly. “Hannah. My God, I don’t believe—”

“Hi, Liam.” Suddenly she didn’t know what to do with her hands. Liam. She was talking to Liam. Close enough to touch him. His hair was different. Shorter, trendily mussed on top. A few lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Wiry still, with the same street-smart look that used to excite her, even though she’d never seen him in as much as a scuffle. Her parents, sensing the same quality, had been less enamored of it. He wore a watch now—something he hadn’t done then—with a heavy black leather strap. Other than that, he looked pretty much as he had the night she had told him she was pregnant.

God, she couldn’t think of a thing to say. None of the dreams she’d had of what she’d do if she ever saw him again—what she’d say, how she’d look—had her just standing there, tongue-tied.

She found herself studying his mouth, something vulnerable about his upper lip that had always gotten to her; the lower lip she’d once taken in her teeth. How was she supposed to talk calmly and rationally to him? The bar was emptying, people milling around, talking in clusters. The red-haired singer and a couple of the band members drifted by, cast glances at Liam, then at her, and disappeared. Jen emerged from the washroom, started over, saw Liam and stopped. With a wave at Hannah, she made her way back through the swinging doors.

“So…” Liam nodded slightly. “It’s been…how long?”

“Six years…thereabouts.”

“I didn’t recognize you at first.” He kept watching her, as though he were cataloging the changes the years had produced. “The last time I saw you, your hair was down past your waist.”

“It’s been short for a long time now,” she said. “Easier to take care of.” He nodded again, his gaze fixed on her. Self-conscious under his scrutiny, she touched her hair, remembered how he’d always liked it long. All her old insecurities were bubbling away just below the surface. She’d been thinner then. Younger. Was he thinking that? Comparing her to the redhead? Damn it, what did it matter what he thought? Someone with a hell of a lot more going for him than Liam Tully wanted to marry her. That said something, didn’t it?

“So why are you here?” Thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans, he rocked slightly on his feet. “You’ve developed a taste for Irish music you didn’t have a few years back? Is that it?”

“I’ve always liked Irish music, Liam.” Her face went warm. “That wasn’t one of our problems.”

“Right.” His mouth hardened, then he glanced over his shoulder at the double doors to the bar. “Well, I hear the band starting up again. I’d better get back. Good to see you again.”

Stunned, she stared at him. He looked so much like Faith, it was unnerving. His mouth curved exactly like hers so that even when they were serious, a smile always seemed to be lurking. The identical way they both held their heads off to the side, a little quizzical. The same dark, dramatic brows. A total stranger would immediately see the resemblance. How could he not even care enough to ask?

“Nothing changes, does it?” The words shot out before she could think about them. “Music always came first. Obviously it still does. Your daughter’s doing fine, by the way.”

He stared at her. “My daughter.”

“Your daughter. Who will be six on Saturday. Probably just slipped your mind, huh?”

“You had an abortion,” he said.

“An abortion?” She blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Your mother told me you had an abortion.”

“My mother?” Incredulous, she gaped at him. “My mother told you I had an abortion?”

“The day you told me you were pregnant,” he said, his voice devoid of inflection. “You were more than a bit upset about it. Something about being too young for the responsibility, as I recall. We had a fight and you left. When you didn’t come home that night, I went to see your mother. You’d gone away, she said, but she wouldn’t tell me where. The impression she gave me was that you were off having an abortion somewhere.”

“My God, Liam. I…I can’t believe this. There was never any discussion about an abortion. Why would my mother tell you that?”

“Obviously that’s a question you should ask her,” he said. Then he turned and walked back into the bar.

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER THE SHOW, there was a party at a big house on the beach. The friend of a friend of a friend. Liam stood out on the deck drinking a beer and watching the palm trees and the play of lights on the water while the festivities roared on in the lighted room behind him. The music had turned Paddywhack Irish, a great deal of whooping and diddly-diddly dooing. Mick, the Wild Rovers’ fiddler, had launched into “McNamara’s Band,” a tune he would never deign to play sober, and the accompanying clapping and foot stomping was so enthusiastic, Liam could feel the vibration under his feet.

He had a daughter. He repeated the words to himself, trying to make them seem real. A daughter. And he didn’t even know her name. Hadn’t asked her name.

“I have a daughter,” he told Brid when she came to see what he was doing out there all by himself.

“God, they’re banging saucepan lids in there.” She cupped her hand around her ear. “You have a what?”

“A daughter.”

Brid looked at him for a moment, then disappeared and returned a moment later with a plate of carrots. With a nod, she directed him down to the far end of the deck, away from the noise. “All right, what’s this about?”

“That girl I was talking to tonight.” He drank some beer. “We were married for about a year. She got pregnant, and I thought she’d had an abortion. Tonight she tells me that wasn’t so. Apparently, her mother lied to me.”

Brid leaned her elbows on the railing, staring out at the water. “So this girl,” she said after a minute, “what’s her name?”

“Hannah.” Actually, he’d always called her Hannie. Now he thought of her as Hannah. He eyed the plate of carrots. “You didn’t eat any of the barbecue stuff?”

She wrinkled her nose. “The chicken had a sweet sauce all over it, and I don’t eat beef. So Hannah didn’t know what her mother was telling you?”

“That’s what she claims.” He forced his mind away from Hannah and her news. “Brid, you’re worrying me with this food thing. There’s enough in there to feed an army. If you don’t like the chicken, find something else. Some bread or cheese or something.”

“For God’s sake, Liam.” She tossed the carrot she’d picked up onto the sand. “What’s it to you what I eat? You’re getting on my nerves, always watching me.”

“Who will, if I don’t? You’re not exactly doing much of a job yourself.”

“I’m fine. Leave off, will you? I swear, you’re like the bloody food police.”

Liam said nothing. Inside, they were singing “The Belle of Belfast City” and someone yelled for Brid to join them. She glanced over her shoulder but didn’t answer. Moments passed and then she put her arm around his shoulders, pressed him close.

“Sorry.”

He shrugged. She was a grown woman and it wasn’t his role to watch over her, but he couldn’t help how he felt.

“Do you believe that she didn’t know?” Brid asked.

“I’m not sure.” His thoughts back on Hannah’s bombshell, he picked at a bit of peeling paint on the railing. “You’d have to know her family. When one of them sneezes, the others not only know about it, they’re there with hankies and cough mixture. Hannah was always close to them. I can’t believe she didn’t know all about her mother’s conversation with me.”

“But she came to the club to see you,” Brid pointed out. “And she told you about your daughter. If she’d wanted you to think she’d had an abortion, why would she do that?”

Liam looked at her. Brid had a point. On the other hand, if Hannah wasn’t in on it, why had she never tried to communicate with him? She’d never sent so much as a single picture. Nothing. A daughter—and he had no idea what she looked like.

“It sounds to me as though the mother was trying to get rid of you,” Brid said. “Probably thought the abortion thing would do it.”

He considered. It wasn’t hard to imagine Margaret’s thinking. The family—to put it mildly—had never been particularly fond of him. Being a musician was bad enough, being an Irish musician was worse. Easy enough to imagine their thinking. He would take Hannah back to Ireland, leave her barefoot and pregnant in an unheated shack while he traipsed off around the world drinking and womanizing. Maybe they’d thought rescuing her from him was their only option.

“Did you love her?”

He shrugged.

“Come on, Liam. It’s me, Brid.”

“I used to.”

“Not anymore?”

“I don’t know. It’s been a long time.”

She laughed. “You should see yourself. Furiously picking the paint off the wood because this whole thing makes you squirm, doesn’t it? Talking about feelings?”

“‘Feelings,’” he sang, trying to distract her. There was nothing he hated more than rambling on about what was going on in his head. It was one of the things he and Hannah used to fight about. She was always trying to drag him into long, drawn-out talks. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she’d say. “Tell me you love me. Why is it so hard for you to say it?”

He eased off another chip of paint, realized what he was doing and stopped. Hannah. He’d spent years hating her for what she’d done, or what he thought she’d done. Seeing her tonight was…he couldn’t believe it. She looked different…great, really. Enormous green eyes and a wee little face. He used to pull her leg about looking like a kitten. Now she looked all grown-up. The way you’d expect the mother of a six-year-old to look, he supposed.

“What now, then?” Brid asked. “What will you do?”

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to get used to the idea I’m a father.”

“Does she know about you? Your daughter, I mean?”

“I’ve no idea what they’ve told her.”

Brid lit a cigarette, waved out the match and tossed it onto the sand. “Want to know what I think you should do?”

He grinned. “Have I a choice?”

“No.” She spoke through a cloud of blue smoke. “If you’ve any sense, you’ll forget tonight ever happened. Getting involved will only cause trouble. The child’s here. You’re in Ireland. Music is your life. You spend half of it on the road and you know nothing at all about being a daddy.”

“That’s your opinion, is it?”

“It is. But from the look on your face, I’ve the feeling I might as well be talking to the wind. You’ll regret it though, Liam. I’m telling you. You’re not a daddy sort of fellow.”

HANNAH STOOD OUTSIDE her mother’s bedroom, trying to tell from the sounds inside whether Margaret was sleeping. The house had been in darkness when she got home from Fiddler’s Green. A note from Margaret on the kitchen table said she’d dropped Faith off at a friend’s house for a slumber party. Hannah raised her hand to knock, then stopped. Back in her own room, she sat on the bed. Maybe she needed to sort things out in her own mind before she spoke to Margaret.

Including why seeing Liam tonight made her want to run around locking windows and doors. She got up, went down to the kitchen and microwaved a cup of chamomile tea, carried it up to her room and set it on the bedside table. Fully dressed, she lay down on the bed. Even in the familiar security of her room, she felt shaky and anxious, as though the stability of her life had been physically threatened.

Jen had advised her to move out immediately. “Your mother lied to you, Hannah. She told Liam you’d had an abortion. There’s no way you can go on living there.”

Most parents really only want to do what’s best for their children.

However misguided their motives. How many times had she had to remind herself of that when dealing with the parents of her students? But she hadn’t been a child. How was she ever supposed to trust Margaret again? She picked up the phone to call Deb. Changed her mind and set it down. Swung her legs off the bed and wandered over to the window. Stared out at the dark night.

The room overlooked the rose garden her father had started shortly after she was born. There were something like thirty or forty plants out there. He would mark special occasions with a new variety. She’d lost count of all the roses planted for her and Deb. A pink Tiffany when she graduated from high school, a yellow one whose name she could never remember when she got her degree from Cal State. Three or four, all white, to mark Faith’s various milestones.

The only occasion never commemorated with roses was her marriage to Liam. When she’d asked her dad about it, he’d said something about poor-quality roses that year, but she knew the real reason.

Liam. His music still played in her head, but the evening had already taken on a dreamlike quality. One minute he’d been there, close enough to touch. And then he was gone. Elusive as smoke.

It had always been that way with Liam. She’d met him during a trip to Ireland, a birthday present from her parents. He’d been playing in a Galway club that she’d wandered into one evening. During a break in the session, he’d come over to talk to her. He’d quoted poetry, made her laugh, hummed songs in her ear. Looking back, she knew she’d fallen in love with him that night.

Still, she’d left the club never expecting to see him again. The next morning her landlady had knocked on her door to say she had a caller. Barefoot, in a red tartan robe, she’d walked out to the top of the stairs. Liam stood at the foot, smiling in the pale sunlight, a bunch of daisies in his hand.

On her last day in Ireland, the countryside had bloomed with hawthorn hedges and primrose and the air had smelled of mowed hay and turf smoke. They’d taken a boat to Clare Island and stayed until dark. On the beach, with the moon beaming down on them, they’d made love. Afterward she’d looked up at the crescent of a new moon, like a fairy tiara in the dark sky; watched the silvery light on Liam’s face. Felt the fine sand slip between her fingers.

They’d kissed goodbye at the airport and, despite all his promises to stay in touch, she’d again had the feeling that this was it. That as magical and wonderful as the whole experience had seemed, it wasn’t quite real. Like trying to hold on to the memory of a dream. But, once more, Liam had surprised her. The day she’d opened the door to see him standing there had been as mind-blowing as opening the paper to see his picture. “Come with me,” he’d said.

In a celebratory mood after a show one night, they’d driven to Las Vegas. The wedding chapel was so hideously tacky, they’d both dissolved into fits of laughter. As they walked back out into the garish night, Liam had dumped a bag of silver paper horseshoes on her head. Her father had been incensed. Margaret had cried for days, a mini nervous breakdown, according to Helen.

After Liam went back to Ireland, the family quietly and efficiently fixed up the wreckage of her life. A family friend had taken care of the divorce. Helen had arranged the job at La Petite Ecole. The nursery, where Faith had slept until she was five, had been decorated by Margaret and her sisters who, when Faith decided she was too old for rainbows and kittens, had redecorated it to look like a tree house.

Liam’s name was seldom mentioned and, except for Faith, it sometimes seemed to Hannah that she’d dreamed the whole relationship.

Until tonight. She got up from the bed, padded out into the hallway and tapped on her mother’s door. Nothing. She started to knock again, then stopped. It was nearly one. Margaret would be groggy. Better to wait.

THE NEXT MORNING, Saturday, Hannah doubled her usual three-mile run. At the bottom of Termino, she glanced both ways at the traffic then sprinted across Livingstone Drive and Ocean Boulevard, past La Petite Ecole, around the end of the pier and the new Belmont Shore Brewery with its ocean-view patio; down along the footpath that paralleled the edge of the beach.

She’d started running soon after Faith was born, and her route never varied. A sprint along the beach then up the slope that led to the art museum on Ocean Boulevard, twice around Bixby Park where, as kids, she and Debra had been taken by their parents to hear Sunday afternoon concerts on the grass, then back down the slope for the return trip.

Helen and Rose had given her an expensive headset for her last birthday so that she could listen to music while she ran. She’d used it a couple of times, but preferred the natural fugue of ocean sounds: the steady crash of the waves, the screeches and coos of gulls and pigeons and the slap of her feet on the asphalt.

These morning runs were hers alone, a time to think. Anything, from musings on what she’d eat for lunch to more profound matters such as whether she really wanted to spend the rest of her life teaching overprivileged and precocious four-year-olds.

This morning, her thoughts were dominated by Liam.

When she jogged up Termino twenty minutes later, she could see her mother outside the house, down on her knees, using a trowel to dig around the bird-of-paradise plants along the steps leading up to the front door. Margaret saw her and leaned back on her heels, trowel in hand.

“Damn nasturtiums, they run wild.” Margaret gestured with the trowel at the offending pale green tendrils. “Every year I pull them all out, and every year they come back more than before. God knows why your father ever planted them in the first place.”

Panting from her run, Hannah looked at the pile of orange calendulas and green nasturtium leaves her mother had yanked out. Neither plant, in Margaret’s opinion, was in keeping with the Spanish architectural style of the house and she waged an ongoing and futile battle to eradicate them. Hannah bent and picked half a dozen blooms. “We need to talk, Mom,” she said.

Still on her knees, Margaret glanced up. “Debra called this morning. I guess you know she’s pregnant.”

Hannah nodded. Dennis had refused to put Deb on the phone when Hannah called earlier.

“Now she’s saying Dennis doesn’t want her to have the baby. She’s come back here with her suitcases.” Margaret gathered up the discarded plants and dumped them into the trash can at the side of the house. She ran her hands down the sides of her sweats, brushed the back of her arm across her face. “I don’t think she has the vaguest notion of what she really wants—”

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about Debra right now.”

Margaret eyed her warily.

“I saw Liam last night.” Arms folded across her chest, she looked at her mother. Margaret’s face was unreadable, her eyes hidden by the baseball cap she wore, but Hannah sensed that there was a battle brewing. “I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

“Then don’t, okay?” Margaret’s stance mirrored Hannah’s, arms folded, feet slightly apart. “I’ve got enough on my mind with Debra. I don’t need you giving me a hard time about something that happened years ago.”

Hannah stared at her mother, incredulous.

“I know for sure I’m not paying for her to have an abortion,” Margaret said, “but she’s so headstrong, I don’t even want to think what she might try. Rose and Helen are in there talking to her now. I had to come outside, I couldn’t listen to her anymore. This is my grandchild she’s casually talking about destroying.”

“For God’s sake, Mom. This isn’t about you. It’s about Debra and what she needs to do for herself.” Hannah took some deep breaths. Debra could fight her own battles. “You lied to Liam.”

Margaret looked at her for a moment. “You know what, Hannah? I don’t intend to discuss this with you. I’ve got enough on my mind.” She started for the house. “Helen put a coffee cake in the oven and it’s probably done now. It’s a new recipe she clipped from the Times. You mix up sour cream and—”

“Damn it.” Hannah grabbed her mother’s arm. “You are not just walking off. I want some answers.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong?” Margaret jerked her arm from Hannah’s grasp. “I’ve never seen you so worked up.”

“You told Liam I’d had an abortion, Mom. That’s what’s really wrong. Do you even realize the consequences of what you did? By lying to him—”

“Okay, Hannah, we’ve covered the lying issue. Let’s talk about the consequences of your going to see him last night. Let’s talk about the fact that he now wants to take Faith back to Ireland.”

“What?”

“He called this morning while you were running.”

“He said he was taking Faith back to Ireland?”

“Not in so many words. He said he wants to talk to you. But it’s like Rose was saying, he’s a troublemaker. If he tries to get Faith… Well, Helen gave me the name of an attorney who specializes in this sort of thing. When you’ve calmed down a bit, we need to give him a call.”

“Mom.” Hannah held her hands to her face for a moment, then took them away. “I don’t believe this, I just don’t believe it. You lied to Liam, deprived him of his daughter. Deprived Faith of her father and you’re talking about legal action?”

Rose called from the kitchen, and Margaret glanced up at the house. “I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. “Listen, Hannah…” Her voice broke, and she swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “Don’t make me the enemy, okay? Any of us. Helen, Rose—”

“So they were in on it, too?”

“Don’t say it like that. We were out of our minds with worry about you. Your father, too, to the point that it killed him. Imagine how you’d feel if Faith’s life was in danger. Wouldn’t you do whatever it took to save her?”

“Faith’s a child, Mom. I was a grown woman. It’s not quite the same thing.”

“We found you walking along the side of the freeway,” Margaret said. “Distraught, irrational, talking about killing yourself. And for what? For a fly-by-night musician, a womanizing jerk who wasn’t aware enough to recognize the state you were in.”

“That still didn’t give you the right to lie. To me, or to Liam.”

“To hell with Liam.” Margaret’s voice rose. “Liam isn’t my concern. You are. You’re my daughter and I was scared to death for you. You were clinically depressed. That’s the term the doctor used. Maybe it was wrong, maybe I should have stayed out of it and just thrown up my hands and said ‘oh well,’ but I couldn’t do it. If you’re mad at me, so be it.”

“Margaret,” Rose yelled from the doorway. “Hannie. Come and have some coffee cake. Debra has something to tell you.” She winked at Margaret. “Good news.”

“Come on, sweetie.” Margaret touched Hannah’s arm. “Please understand that this worked out for the best. You’re happy now. You’ve got your life back together. Faith’s happy. All of this other stuff is in the past. Just let it go. It’s not important.”

Hannah shook her head. What was the point? Her mother absolutely couldn’t see the enormity of what she’d done.

“Hannie.” Margaret peered into her eyes. “Please tell me you’re not going to see him again. What possible good can come out of that?”

“Liam deserves a chance to know his daughter, that’s all I know. And I’m going to see that he gets it.”

THE DOCTOR IN THE E.R. had a high forehead and a pinched-looking mouth and he wanted to know if Brid was Liam’s wife. Dazed and groggy from too little sleep and God knows how many black coffees, Liam shook his head.

“No, but I’m her best friend.”

The doctor raised a brow. “Then you should have gotten treatment for her long before this.”

Liam swallowed the words he’d been about to say. He didn’t like this doctor with his condescending attitude. He was in a foul enough mood that it was all he could do not to pick up the little prat by the lapels of his starched white coat. He’d been on the phone with Hannah’s mother when someone yelled out that Brid had collapsed. In an instant he’d dropped the phone and, ignoring Brid’s protests, had driven her to the emergency room.

“What are you?” the doctor asked. “Some kind of band?”

“That’s right,” Liam said. “Some kind of band.”

“She said you’re on tour.”

“She’s right,” Liam said. “How is she?”

“She needs treatment,” the doctor said. “She has an eating disorder. I’d suggest you get her into some kind of program or she won’t be doing much touring anymore.”

“AH, THAT’S A LOAD OF COD,” Brid said when Liam told her what the doctor had said. “I’ve let myself get a bit run-down, that’s all. I’ll start taking my vitamins again.” She sat up on the narrow cot, reached for the tie at the neck of the cotton hospital robe. “Now, clear out of here, Liam, while I find my clothes. We’ve got a show tonight.”

“The show’s canceled tonight,” he told her. “Probably the next few nights, too. No more shows until you’re well enough.”

“CANCELED?” Hannah stared at the bartender, who was polishing glasses in the dimly lit main room of Fiddler’s Green. A couple of guys sitting at the bar looked her way then returned their attention to the televised basketball game. “But I thought they were supposed to be here for three nights.”

“They were.” The bartender picked up another glass. “One of them called a while ago to say the girl singer was sick. Strung out on drugs, or something, would be my guess. Anyway, tonight’s going to be karaoke.”

Hannah bit her lip. Okay, this was a sign. A warning that maybe her mother was right. Maybe nothing good could come from seeing him again. Margaret had been crying when Hannah left the house. “Think of what’s best for Faith,” Margaret had begged her. “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” she’d replied.

Now she wasn’t so sure. What was the point of having Liam breeze in and out of Faith’s life? And why risk all the rebuilding she’d done of her own life? Why upset everyone and everything? Because she owed it to him. Simple as that. He’d been lied to and the least she could do was try to make some kind of amends.

“Do you have any idea where I can find him?” she asked the bartender.

“Him?” The bartender grinned. “The singer? Liam something or other?”

She nodded and felt her face heat up. God, this was embarrassing. “Look, it’s not what you’re thinking…”

“Hey.” He flicked the towel across the top of the bar. “I’m not paid to think. All I can tell you is what I told the other girls who came in asking about him. I think the band’s staying at some place in Huntington Harbor.

Hannah checked the urge to ask, What other girls? How many other girls? Liam had always drawn girls. Well, so what? He could bed a different girl every night, and she wouldn’t care.

“Do you have the address?” she asked.

“Yeah…” The bartender grabbed a napkin and drew a map of Huntington Harbor. “There’s a party there tomorrow, that’s how I know where they are. Huge house on the water with a yacht the size of the Queen Mary on the dock outside. Some big cheese from L.A. owns the place. A record promoter, or something.” He winked. “Told me to invite hot-looking chicks.”

Go home, Hannah thought. You don’t need this.

“Hell…” With a sigh, he threw down the pen he’d been using and reached for another one. “I should probably photocopy these damn directions.” He handed her the napkin. “You’ll probably have to take a number.”

“BRID WILL BE FINE, Liam.” Miranda Payton, the record producer’s wife, sat next to him, feet dangling in a pool that had been built to look like a tropical lagoon. “I sent my own daughter to Casa Pacifica when I realized she was spending half her life in the bathroom with her finger stuck down her throat. They straightened her out in no time. Quit worrying about her and enjoy yourself.” She brought a frosted glass to her lips, eyed him over the rim and smiled. “You could be in a lot worse places.”

Liam laughed. An understatement if he’d ever heard one. Beyond the purple bougainvillea-covered wall that separated the property from the private beach, he could see the Pacific Ocean. The sun was hot on his back, and Miranda had brought out a jug of something icy that tasted like rum and bananas. The exotic scent of it mingled with the suntan lotion she was massaging into her legs. If he had to take a week off in the middle of a tour, this definitely wasn’t a bad place to while away the time. Certainly none of the band had complained. A couple of them were off taking surfing lessons, the others had gone to see the sights.

He’d thought about calling Hannah again. Thought constantly about his daughter, whose name he still didn’t know. Off on a trip, Hannah’s mother had said. Another lie?

“You’re soooo serious.” Miranda trailed one perfectly manicured fingernail down his arm. “Are you always this way?”

“Always,” Liam said. “A right wet blanket, that’s me. I cast a pall on any party I go to.”

Miranda laughed with disproportionate enthusiasm. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re just deep.”

“Wrong,” Liam said. “Shallow as a puddle. Ask anyone who knows me.” He reached for his shirt. Miranda was making him uneasy. She was about forty, thin, tan and attractive in what Brid would call a high-maintenance way. Lots of curly hair streaked in different shades of blond, plum-colored lips and nails. She was Bert Payton’s third wife, considerably younger and obviously bored. Which definitely wasn’t his problem. He got up and started for the house.

Miranda followed him. Her hand at the small of his back, they made their way through the open French doors into the blue-and-white living room just as a housekeeper was leading Hannah into the room through a door off the hallway.

Startled, they all eyed each other. Hannah’s focus went from Miranda, who was clutching her bikini top as though she’d been caught in risqué underwear, to Liam’s opened shirt and bathing trunks.

Hannah had on a short, sleeveless cotton dress patterned with small pink and orange flowers. Her hair was pulled back in a band and she looked young and a little uncertain. He wanted to tell her the thing with Miranda wasn’t what she thought it was, which was a bit stupid because he had no idea what she thought and what difference did it make anyway?

He started to speak just as Hannah did, and then Miranda chimed in and there was a flurry of introductions. Hannah, he noticed, was avoiding eye contact with him.

“I wanted to talk to you.” She addressed his left shoulder. “If this isn’t a good time…”

“It’s fine.” He looked at Miranda, who fluttered her fingers at him and disappeared. “So…” He waved at the cluster of wicker armchairs upholstered in blue canvas. “Pick a seat.” She did and he sat down opposite her. Music drifted in from somewhere in the house. Hannah sat with her knees close together, her hands in her lap. A silence hung in the air between them, thick with ghosts and recriminations. Hannah. Hannie. Hannah. Formal as a stranger now.

She cleared her throat. “Look, I just want to explain—”

“What’s her name?” he asked. “What’s my daughter’s name?”

“Faith.”

Faith. He said it again to himself. Then he looked at Hannah. “Why? Where did that come from?”

“When I was in the hospital having her…everything seemed so hopeless. You’d walked out—well, I thought you had—and my world was falling apart. And then I saw her and…” Her face colored. “I know it sounds kind of hokey, but she gave me the faith to believe in myself again.”

He leaned his head against the high back of the wicker chair and stared up at the white-painted ceiling beams. So many questions were rattling around in his brain. Where to start? Finally he looked back at Hannah.

“Do you have any pictures with you?”

She pulled an envelope from her bag and handed it to him.

“She looks like me,” he said after he’d studied the first one. “A right little terror, I bet.” He looked to Hannah for confirmation.

She smiled. “She can be pretty strong willed.”

Slowly he leafed through the stack. Pictures of a baby Faith in a cradle, on a rug gazing wide-eyed at a Christmas tree. School pictures of a little girl, smiling obediently for the camera. A snapshot—recent, he guessed—of Faith riding a red bike. Laughing, the wind in her hair. Unable not to, he smiled at the image. God, how incredible to look at this child and see his own face reflected in hers. And yet, beneath the wonder, an old anger, smoldering now with new intensity. She’d been stolen from him.

He should have been there. He should have been the one teaching her to ride the bloody bike, not sitting here now looking at pictures. They’d stolen her from him, robbed him of her childhood. And then a voice in his head spoke up. Ah, catch yourself, it scoffed. Can you really see yourself playing the suburban daddy? Bikes and kiddies and lawn mowers. Telly and slippers and “keep the music down, love, you’re waking the baby.” That’s not you and it never will be. Without a word, he returned the pictures to the envelope and held it out to Hannah.

“They’re yours,” she said. “I brought them for you.”

He stuffed the envelope into the pocket of his shirt and felt her watching him as he did. In the first few weeks of their marriage, he’d come home one day and found her ironing his shirts. He’d started laughing. Never in his life had he worn an ironed shirt, and the sight of her carefully pressing the creases in the sleeves struck him as so touchingly funny, he couldn’t help himself. Now he had an urge to apologize for hurting her feelings.

“What does she know about me?” he asked. “What have you told her?”

Hannah looked at him for such a long time that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “She thinks you’re in heaven,” she finally said.

“In heaven?”

“See, we didn’t think she’d ever see you and—”

“No…” He shook his head, no explanation needed. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the scenario. Given the lie he’d been told, he could well imagine that her family had believed they’d seen the last of him. Certainly his parting shot to Hannah’s father would guarantee he’d never be welcome in their home again. And truth was, it was probably kinder than letting Faith think she had a father who had no interest in her. But heaven. Of all the places to pack him off to. He felt a grin spread across his face. “My God, Hannah. Wouldn’t it have been more like them to tell her I was in hell?”

“Yeah, well…” She smiled back at him, clearly relieved by his reaction.

“That’s no doubt where your da would consign me.”

“My father died,” she said. “A few months after you left. A heart attack. Needless to say, my mom was pretty devastated. The family were all there for her, of course, but she still gets lonely.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.” He recalled meeting her father for the first time, the look of clear disapproval on the man’s face. A tall, imposing man, obviously accustomed to having control over most things, including his family. Which must have made it pretty tough when his daughter ran off and married a ne’er-do-well Irish musician.

“You never tried to contact me,” she said.

“I was too furious with you. I thought you’d had an abortion. Why didn’t you ever try to reach me?”

“Because…” She shrugged. “I just figured it was over. I didn’t especially want to hear you confirm it. I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “For everything.”

So am I, he thought. For everything. They sat in silence for a while. The memories were all coming back to her, he guessed, just as they were for him. The cheap apartment, the car that spent more time up on blocks than on the road, tins of beans and fried-egg sandwiches for supper. Happy enough until those last few weeks, or so he’d thought. One night he’d woken from a dream about Ireland, starving for the sort of lamb stew he remembered his gran making. He’d roused Hannah out of sleep, and at two in the morning they’d found an all-night market and spent all the money they had on the stuff to make it. By the time they’d got everything home, he was no longer in the mood for stew, and they’d made love on the kitchen floor instead.

“What happened?” he asked her now.

Hannah traced a bit of the wicker weave on the arm of the chair. “Short version?”

“Let’s begin with that.”

“I fell apart, and my family had me hospitalized. That’s where I was when you came to look for me.”

“Let’s hear the longer version,” he said.

She covered her face with her hands, took a deep breath then took her hands away. “Oh God, Liam, I don’t know. I was such a mess. I hated your being gone all the time. I hated the clubs and the girls always hanging around. I was miserable, lonely. I missed having my family around me. Mostly I was terrified of going back to Ireland where I didn’t know anyone. My life would have been tagging around after you, or staying home by myself.”

He looked at her, wanting to argue but resisting. He knew his version of what went wrong; he wanted to hear hers.

“Not that we didn’t have some good times,” she said. “I don’t mean that. It was just…I felt like I was disappearing. That last tour you had in San Francisco, I stayed home, remember? In our apartment, I mean. Anyway, I started going through the drawers in your dresser, and I found these letters from some girl…”

“God, Hannah—”

“No, let me finish. It’s a chapter in my life that I’d just as soon never think about again, but I want you to know so you understand…about Faith and everything. I just went to pieces. Everything is a kind of blur. I guess I called my mom and she was on her way over to pick me up, but I’d already left. I don’t even know what I was thinking. She found me walking along the freeway. At that point, she decided to take matters into her own hands.”

He thought of those last couple of months with her. He’d come home late from a gig to find her sleeping. She’d be sleeping still when he went off again the next day. When she wasn’t sleeping, she was crying. For days on end it seemed she’d do nothing but sleep or cry. He’d alternate between racking his brain to figure out why she was unhappy and losing patience with her for doing nothing to help herself. “For God’s sake, snap out of it,” he’d say. “Stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself.” And then he’d blow money they didn’t have on hothouse roses.

Her expression clouded, and she picked at the fabric on her dress. “The thing is, my family still worries about me and Faith. My mom especially. Although lately, the tables have kind of turned and it seems I’m always worrying about her…” She smiled slightly. “Another story. Anyway, they all know how bad things were after we split. I mean if it hadn’t been for them…”

If it hadn’t been for them, he’d know his daughter today. On the other hand, he hadn’t recognized the severity of her depression and they had, so maybe he didn’t deserve to know his daughter. He stood, restless, fighting a barrage of competing emotions.

“I was a real mess,” she said again. “I couldn’t even take care of Faith. So now, every time I feel smothered by my family, I remind myself of that.” She laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Or they do.”

“But you’re all right now?” He turned to face her again, studied her for a moment. There was a confidence and strength about her that she hadn’t had before. “You look great,” he said. She smiled and he was reminded again of all the good times they’d shared. “No, I mean it. Back then, a good wind would have blown you away. You’ve…filled out.”

Her grin widened. “Are you saying I’m fat?”

“No, not at all. And I like your hair the way you have it now. It suits you.”

“You used to like waist-length, white-blond hair.”

“Ah, well, we all change.”

“Listen, Liam…” She leaned forward in her chair. “About Faith. It’s her birthday next Saturday, a week from today. We’re having a party for her. If there’s some way you can make it…”

He looked at her for a moment, tried to imagine himself in a room full of six-year-olds, one of them his daughter. Tried to imagine what he would say to her. Happy birthday! You don’t know me, but I’m your daddy. Thought I was in heaven, didn’t you? Well, surprise! Sorry I can’t stick around to see you grow up. Nice meeting you though. Drop by if ever you’re in Ireland.

Hannah was watching him. He felt the tension, hers and his own, as she waited for his response. “Listen, I um…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s better we leave things as they are.”

“You don’t want to see her?” A moment passed. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“Right.” He hardened himself against the look in her eyes. “Thanks for inviting me, though.”

CHAPTER FOUR

LIAM HAD REJECTED HIS DAUGHTER. The thought lodged in Hannah’s brain for the rest of the weekend and was still there Monday even as she sat through another session with Taylor Becker’s mother, who absolutely could not understand why she wouldn’t be allowed to sit in on her son’s prekindergarten readiness test.

Hannah tried to keep her voice free of irritation. Her personal problems didn’t belong in the classroom, but it just seemed so damned ironic that she was dealing with parents who made themselves crazy trying to be perfect while her own daughter had a father who didn’t give a damn.

That night, she took Faith to see Harry Potter, a movie Faith had been clamoring to see since the day it came out. Afterward they went for Faith’s favorite cheese-and-sausage pizza with extra mozzarella. Dairy Queen brownie sundaes, another of Faith’s favorites, were planned for dessert. A splurge, but tonight Hannah wasn’t dwelling on economics. Liam had rejected his daughter.

Hannah sprinkled hot pepper flakes onto her slice of pizza. Not that Faith knew anything was wrong, but it seemed important to compensate for Liam’s lack of paternal interest. She smiled across the table at her daughter. You don’t need him anyway, sweetheart. I can love you enough for both of us.

Faith, in a pair of sixty-dollar denim overalls purchased by Helen “Just because she’s our own little princess,” grinned at Hannah across the table, a study in perpetual motion. Up on her knees to carefully pick up a piece of pizza, then down to a sitting position, her head swiveling to watch a man with two small children in the booth on the other side of the aisle.

And then her smile dimmed and the slice of pizza in her hand dripped a sticky stalactite of mozzarella. She lifted the pizza high above her head and opened her mouth wide to catch the cheese. Her expression contemplative, she chewed in silence for a while. Then she put the pizza down. “Mommy, Grandma was sad today.”

Hannah sipped at a glass of Diet Coke, thought guiltily of Margaret’s tearful entreaties not to be mad at her. “My only thought was what was best for you,” she’d said last night and again this morning. And then Rose had taken up her sister’s cause. “Give your mom a hug and tell her you love her,” Rose had urged. “Between Debra’s pregnancy and your no-good ex-husband, the poor thing’s going out of her mind.”

“People get sad sometimes, sweetie, for all kinds of reasons,” Hannah told Faith.

“I was sad two days ago,” Faith said.

“You were?” Hannah thought back over the last couple of days to what might have made her daughter sad. Nothing came to mind. “How come?”

“Because Beth wouldn’t play with me. It made me feel sad.”

I hate Beth, Hannah thought. She reached for another slice of pizza, then decided she wasn’t hungry. I hate Liam, too. She watched the man who had caught Faith’s attention a moment ago bundle a small child into a sweater, watched Faith staring at him buttoning up the sweater. The child said something and the man bent down and kissed the end of her nose. Something squeezed at Hannah’s heart, and she looked away.

“Maybe Beth just felt like playing with someone else that day, honey,” she said.

“But I’m her best friend.” Faith stabbed at her chest. “She’s supposed to play with me. She hurt my feelings.”

“Ah…” Not trusting her voice, Hannah reached across the table, and caught her daughter’s face in her hands. “People do that sometimes, sweetie,” she said as Faith wriggled out of her grasp. “They behave in ways that hurt and make us feel sad. We don’t always know why they do it, but it’s kind of how life is.”

“I have another best friend now.” Faith’s expression cleared. “Her name is Tiffany.”

“Tiffany’s a pretty name,” Hannah said. God, it was uncanny how exactly like Liam Faith looked right then. Serious one moment and then a smile like a sudden burst of sunshine dissipating the clouds. She banished his image.

“Don’t be sad, Mommy.” Faith leaned across the table, bringing her face up close to Hannah’s. “Tiffany’s only my friend. I still love you best.”

“And I love you best.” Hannah felt her voice crack and she covered with a wide smile. “You’re my very best sunshine girl, and I love you better than anything else in the world.”

“Better than three million chocolate bars?”

“Three million chocolate bars with almonds,” Hannah said.

Faith grinned. This was her favorite game. “Three million and one hundred million chocolate bars and two million Little Debbies?” she asked.

“Well, now you’re making it difficult.” Hannah pretended to consider. “What kind of Little Debbies?”

“Raspberry Zingers,” a voice behind her said. “Or maybe Pecan Sandies.”

Hannah turned to see Allan holding the hand of a scowling Douglas. She smiled at the boy, then looked up at his father. “Someone obviously doesn’t know his junk food,” she said. “Raspberry Zingers are not Little Debbies. And, if I’m not mistaken, Pecan Sandies are actually cookies.”

Allan grinned. “Hey, kiddo.”

Hannah bit back the urge to remind him how much she hated the nickname.

“My mommy’s name is Hannah,” Faith chimed in as though she’d picked up on her mother’s irritation. “And my name is Faith.” She smiled up at Allan. “I know what your name is. It’s Allan. Want to know how I know?”

“Because I’m wearing a name tag?” he suggested.

Faith gave him a scornful look. “I don’t see any name tag.”

“Then I give up,” he said. “How do you know what my name is?”

“Because my mommy has a picture of you by her bed, except you’re wearing a blue shirt in the picture and now you’ve got a…” Clearly stumped by the color, she frowned over at Hannah. “A green one?”

“Kind of green,” Hannah said, sorry that Faith had told him about the picture by the bed. Allan had insisted that they exchange pictures. She’d left his on her dresser and forgotten about it until she noticed that the housekeeper had set it by the bed. She couldn’t decide whether or not she was pleased to see him. Allan had what Jen referred to as a high irritation factor. Extremely solicitous, he always opened doors, pulled out chairs and held her arm as they crossed the street. Rose couldn’t see how being polite was a problem, and she’d just rolled her eyes when Hannah complained that she felt smothered by him.

Still, as she kept reminding herself, he really was a nice guy. And definitely cute. Blue eyes like his son, sandy blond hair a shade or two lighter; sun-bleached from his hours on the tennis courts. Preppy in khakis and Top-Siders. She shifted her glance to his casual but obviously expensive shirt. “More olive, I think,” she said, referring to the color. “Or sage, maybe.”

She noticed the children casting wary glances at each other and made the introductions, aware as she did of Allan watching her. Her face felt warm. Maybe she needed to squelch this before she got swept into something she didn’t want. Helen had once confided that she’d married her husband because the family liked him. By the time she realized she had some serious doubts, the wedding invitations were in the mail. Never underestimate the power of family pressure, she’d told Hannah.

“Hey, Dougie—” Faith slid out of her seat “—want to go play?” Douglas moved closer to his father, his expression doubtful. “Come on.” Faith grabbed his hand. “I’ll show you something really cool, but you have to take off your shoes.”

After the kids had disappeared into a giant plastic tube through which other children were crawling, Allan slid into the seat Faith had vacated.

“Neat little girl,” he said. “Lots of confidence.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “I’m kind of attached to her.” Her father doesn’t give a damn, but that’s his loss. She sipped her Diet Coke. “Your week to have Douglas?”

Allan nodded, started to speak then stopped as the kids came running back. Breathless, her cheeks flushed, Faith addressed Hannah.

“Mommy, I invited Douglas to my party. And he wants to come.” Her ponytail had come loose from the red scrunchie, which she was now wearing around her wrist. “Actually, that’s good because three other boys are coming.” She pushed back a long strand of hair. “Holden Baxter and Timothy Jones, except that Timothy might not come.”

“You said three boys,” Allan pointed out.

“Oh, right.” She thought for a minute. “James Bowen, that’s the other one. And his sister Michaela. Mommy, please fix my hair?” She scooted into the seat next to Hannah and handed her the scrunchie. “It keeps getting in my eyes.”

“Okay, sit still for a minute.” Hannah pulled her daughter onto her lap and tied the ponytail. “There you go.” She grinned as Faith slid back out of the seat and darted across the room. “Hey,” Hannah called. “Wait for Douglas.”

“Oh, right.” Faith returned to grab the boy’s hand. “You know what, Mommy? He’s just like my little brother. Come on, Dougie. Let’s go check out this really neat video game.”

“Maybe a little brother would be good for Faith,” Allan said after the kids had gone again. “And a big sister would definitely be good for Douglas.” He held Hannah’s glance for a moment. “Not to mention how much I would personally enjoy an expanded family. Or a wife. What you might call a win-win situation all around, don’t you think?”

“Allan…” Tell him, for God’s sake. There’s no connection, no chemistry. We’re not destined for togetherness. “Look, we’ve talked about this before. We’ve known each other, how long? A couple of months?” It was a cop-out, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. “It’s way too soon.”

He smiled. “For you, maybe. As far as I’m concerned, I knew the first day I saw you in the classroom.” A moment passed and he gazed off toward the video area where the children were playing. “I do worry about Douglas,” he said. “He needs to socialize with other children a little more.” With a look of distaste, he glanced down at the congealing pizza on the table. “Which is why we came here instead of going to Felippi’s, where at least you get edible crust and a decent Chianti to wash it down.”

Hannah smiled. “The pizza’s okay. A little overpriced, maybe.”

“It’s revolting.” He smiled back at her. “But, hey. No sacrifice is too great for my boy. Even plastic cheese and cardboard crust.”

Hannah started to speak, then realized she was on the verge of tears. She excused herself to check on the children. God, she was surrounded by models of fatherly behavior. Over there, a guy in blue jeans was hoisting a small boy up on his shoulders to give him a better look at the screen. Another man, down on his knees, was urging a tyke in a cowboy hat and boots to blow his nose. Allan, talking to Douglas now, was enduring cardboard pizza so that the boy could be around other kids.

Everywhere, reminders of what fathers were supposed to be and what Liam wasn’t.

MIRANDA’S HOUSE WAS a nonstop party scene. Booze and, Liam assumed, pretty much anything else a person might want. Girls coming in and out at all hours. Twice over the weekend, he’d started to phone Hannah then changed his mind. That afternoon he’d finished the pitcher of banana rum punch that Miranda had made, then wandered up to his room and fallen asleep. When he woke up, it was dark outside and the party was going full swing downstairs.

He rolled over onto his back and held the pillow over his head, trying to block out the noise as well as the image of Hannah climbing into her little red car and driving away.

But nothing blocked out the noise or the thoughts. Hannah and Faith, hands extended, had even invaded his dreams. He stumbled out of bed, splashed water on his face and wandered, bleary-eyed downstairs.

Miranda spotted him immediately and thrust a cold beer in his hand.

“Party pooper.” She wore black leather trousers and a black silk shirt, and her hair was piled up on her head, strands of it down around her neck and shoulders. “Where have you been, you naughty boy?”

“Escaping,” he said.

“Escaping?” She gave him a pouty-mouthed smile. “Not from me, I hope.”

“From me.”

She laughed. “Why would you want to escape from you?”

“Because I’m a no-good, lily-livered coward.” He’d heard John Wayne or someone say it on a Western. It seemed applicable. “A pathetic, quivering mass of indecision,” he added for good measure.

Miranda laughed louder. “Oh my. Well, not to worry. No-good, lily-livered cowards are my favorite type of men.”

Liam drank some beer. Through the windows on the far end of the room he could see the sparks from bonfires on the beach, glowing and sputtering like fireworks in the dark night. Miranda had invited half a dozen or so bands, including his own, and the music throbbed from everywhere in the house. He stared at a girl with long, white-blond hair, who was drinking tequila straight from the bottle. She looked very young, sixteen or seventeen maybe. A thought buzzed across his brain. Someone’s daughter. Abandoned by her father, too?

“Okay, I’m dying of curiosity.” Miranda smiled her sultry, insinuating smile, keeping her voice low so he had to move closer to hear. “Who was that girl who came here to see you?”

“She used to be my wife,” Liam said.

“Your wife.” She took a step backward, her eyes widened. “Oh my. I wouldn’t take you for the marrying kind.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Which is why she used to be my wife.”

Miranda appeared to be absorbing this new piece of information. “She’s cute,” she said after a moment. “Although I wouldn’t have thought she was your type.”

“How is that?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Miranda’s eyes narrowed as she considered. “She seemed sweet and wholesome. A homebody. You strike me as a more adventurous type. Dark and mysterious.”

Liam laughed. “Right, that’s me all over. But terrible husband material.” Terrible father material, too. I have a daughter who is going to be six tomorrow. She’s having a birthday party, but I’m scared to meet her. “My wife’s lucky she got out when she did,” he said.

“Oh, I think perhaps you’re being a little too hard on yourself,” Miranda said. “You’re obviously concerned about Brid. That says something.”

“All it says is I need her for the band. If it weren’t for that, Brid could starve herself to death for all I care.” It wasn’t true, but he felt so bloody awful about himself at the moment, he didn’t want Miranda, or anyone else, trying to make him into something he wasn’t.

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