An Unexpected Addition Read online

  Especially her father.

  Sighing, he clicked on the safety of his .38 and snapped it back into its holster, then righted the dollhouse. Spindled on a roof spire, a sheet of paper fluttered and crackled, catching his eye. He should be grateful, he supposed, that she’d at least left him a note this time.

  He turned the bit of paper right side up, though he could read the cryptic message upside down. At Li’s. Damn, he should have figured. She always ran to the Andens’ house after they’d fought, took refuge with Li and her mother and siblings whenever she was frightened or unsure. Had ever since Gen died.

  She wanted to move out there, live with Li and her family, leave him behind.

  She’d first started asking if she could within a month of Gen’s death. He’d tried to gently point out that they had a house, had a place to live together. She’d screamed at him that she didn’t want to live with him; she wanted to live with Li and Tai and David and Bele and Kate-who-loved-and-understood-her and who had room for lots of kids and liked lots of kids and was always fostering some, and not with him, because he was never home anyway and she didn’t know him because he was always working and never home the way Mom had always been home and she didn’t want to live with a stranger.

  Disbelief, denial, anger.

  At the time he’d put it down to her being distraught over losing not only Gen but her unborn sister. Even five years ago, at eleven, Megan had understood enough of what the doctors at the hospital said to realize that if Gen hadn’t been pregnant, she probably wouldn’t have died when she did. Instinct let her blame Hank for killing her mother, let her run from him, refusing to hear anything further, it was safer than learning only Gen’s own selfishness had caused the aneurysm that killed her. And Hank found he couldn’t burden Megan with the truth so soon after. Later he hadn’t had the heart to tell her that if Gen hadn’t wanted another child so badly, if she hadn’t been so opposed to adoption, if she hadn’t lied to him about her doctor’s warnings not to become pregnant, if she’d told him how likely it was she wouldn’t survive to term, then he never would have...

  Never would have slept with her again if he’d known, if she’d told him, if that was what it took.

  But she hadn’t and he had and that was what the present boiled down to: if.

  If.

  Disbelief, denial, anger.

  Now he had a sixteen-year-old daughter in constant and escalating trouble, a child-woman who hated him on her best days and whom he couldn’t reach even on his best; a career he’d gradually whittled back to nothing in order to be home with—and for—Megan as much as possible; and the desperate sense that he’d not only run out of ideas but options; that the next step he and Megan would take, no matter how badly he—and, who knew, maybe even she—wanted to avert it, would be juvenile detention, jail, drug rehab or worse.

  And God help him, blind and naive as it might make him seem, he wanted to believe they needn’t go that far, that she would come out of this...phase the better for having been through it. Trust that under all Megan’s teenage angst, defiance and hell was a terrific, responsible kid he was too close to see.

  His colleagues, most of whom had seen similar stories played out over and again, called him an idiot; the psychiatric counselor who worked with him and Megan—or just him when Megan didn’t show up for sessions—fed him the say-nothing pap that all parents wanted to believe the best of their children.

  He’d laughed in the counselor’s face, suggested their time was short and within it she’d better tell him something he freaking well didn’t know. Only he hadn’t been quite so polite.

  He gave her credit for keeping her cool, for simply stiffening and asking him if he’d ever been a hostage negotiator.

  “I know the drill,” he’d said. “Feed ’em lip service, but create trust. Stall for time, but don’t lie. Request a show of faith, gain ground, find out what they want and use it to take ’em.”

  She’d nodded. “Exactly,” she said, and waited for him to put it together with Megan, with discussions in past sessions, with the dawning knowledge of what he’d refused for far too long to see: he was his daughter’s hostage, as she was his. Negotiating the path to their future as a family was the only hope they had.

  Bargaining.

  As the therapist suggested, in his fear of losing her—Judas H. Priest, what a laugh, huh? In his fear of losing her he’d lost her long ago—he’d flat out avoided giving Megan what she’d spent the past five years asking for: sanctuary with Li’s family. It seemed wrong to him to involve anyone else in his travails, but God help him, he was at the point with Megan where if it would help get her back, he’d get down on his knees and beg the universe.

  Acceptance.

  She was his daughter. From the moment she’d been conceived, she’d owned his heart. But maybe she didn’t know that anymore, couldn’t know it. Maybe he’d forgotten how to tell her.

  And maybe if he learned to stop isolating himself from her, to accept the terrible thing that had happened to them, she could, too.

  In defeat he reached for the phone and tapped out the number for the most irritating and opinionated goody-two-shoes he’d ever met in his life: Li’s mother, Kate Anden.

  Acceptance.

  Chapter 1

  First of June

  A pushmi-pullyu shoved at the screen window beside his bed, with both noses trying to get a better look at him.

  Groggy and disoriented, Hank shook his head and blinked at the beast, wondering what a fictional creature from the pages of one of Megan’s old Dr. Dolittle books was doing in his dream.

  Nothing constructive apparently.

  Shaped like a llama, but with a head at both ends—myth was a creative business, after all—Hank watched one delicate black nose find a weak spot at the side of the screen, then push hard enough for the lightweight mesh to tear. Immediately the nose on the head at the other end of the body enlarged the opening and shoved inside; the first head hummed inquisitively at the second head, which hummed conversationally back. As though reassured, the black head joined its red counterpart underneath the mesh. Two pairs of intelligent long-lashed liquid brown eyes studied him curiously; two sets of long banana-shaped ears twitched. Then the split reddish-brown lip below the blackish-roan-colored nose lupped up the cotton sheet covering his legs, pulling it off him.

  “Hey,” Hank muttered and yanked the sheet back over himself. Dream or not, no mythical creature—especially not one out of a child’s book—was going to see him nude. He turned over and covered his head with his pillow, hoping that ignoring it would make the dream go away.

  It didn’t.

  Instead the pushmi-pullyu’s nearer nose flipped the pillow off his head and whuffled warmly in his ear.

  “Hey!”

  Startled, Hank jerked and rolled instinctively away, banging his hip hard on the bed frame before he hit the floor. So much for the hope that he was dreaming.

  “Maizie, Clarence, get out of there,” a sharp, youthful male voice called from somewhere just beyond Hank’s window. “You’re not supposed to be out here.”

  Guiltily, the pushmi-pullyu withdrew from the window, then apparently folded itself neatly in half and departed swiftly, both heads facing in the same direction. Which meant either he’d seriously gone round the bend imagining the two heads belonged to one animal, or there was one seriously double-jointed twoheaded beast running around out there. In a moment the curious beast faces were replaced by the face and body of a slight-built Asian-American youth in his early twenties.

  “Sorry for the intrusion, Mr. Mathison,” this new apparition said, “but the crias didn’t get to meet you last night when you and Megan moved in. They think they’re supposed to meet everybody, so they decided to introduce themselves.” Fine-boned hands reached through the torn screen to pull the levers that released the screen’s frame from the window. “I’ll fix this and have it back in a jiff.”

  Without another word he disappeared, leaving Hank almost
more perplexed and unenlightened than he’d felt when the pushmi-pullyu heads first appeared in his window. Before he could gather himself back together sufficiently to either sort out his confusion over where he was or get off the floor, the youth who’d taken his screen reappeared as suddenly as he’d gone.

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t have a chance to meet yesterday, either, so you don’t know who I am, do you?” He extended a friendly hand through the screenless window. “I’m Tai, Li’s oldest brother.”

  Hank stared blankly at Tai’s hand, desperately attempting to orient himself. He always knew where he was, always. He never got taken by surprise, never forgot himself, ever. It was too dangerous, one of an undercover agent’s worst nightmares. But damned if he could figure out where he was or what was going on here. Tai? Li? Pushmi-pullyus and crias? Wasn’t cria what llama babies were called?

  He was pretty certain he hadn’t been to Peru, Bolivia or anywhere else in South America where they used llamas for at least two years now. In which case, where the hell was he and how the devil had he gotten here?

  As though reading Hank’s mind, Tai turned his hand sideways and used it for punctuation when he prompted patiently, “Stone House Christmas Tree Farm, Stone House Originals? The Andens? Your daughter’s my sister’s best friend since kindergarten? You talked to my mother about some problems you were having with Megan, then rented our guesthouse and moved in last night—”

  Light dawned—no mean feat in a cabin thickly surrounded by oaks, maples and towering pines.

  “I remember.” Wincing at the twinge in his bruised hip, Hank pushed himself back up onto the narrow bunk and extended his hand toward the window. “Tai, yeah. Hi. Heard a lot about you from Megan and Li. Nice to finally put a face on you. Excuse the, uh...” He gestured at the sheet. “I usually wear pants to meet Meg’s friends.”

  Tai grinned. “No prob. We’re not much for ceremony around here.”

  Hank grimaced. “I noticed. Meg didn’t tell me you keep llamas.”

  “Llamas, alpacas, a couple of vicunas we managed to find and import...” Tai shrugged. “They make a great security patrol, but mostly we raise them for the fiber, er, the wool. As to who keeps whom...that’s a toss-up.”

  “Hmm,” Hank commented, noncommittal, aware that some observation seemed necessary, but unsure what might be appropriate. “That’s...interesting.”

  “No, it’s not.” Tai’s frank grin widened, his dark eyes amused and wise to Hank’s ploy. Almost automatically Hank filed away the knowledge that to underestimate this man on the basis of his youth and appearance of innocence would be a mistake he’d be well advised not to make—if he valued what remained of his ego, that is. “It’s a fact you’d rather learn later when you’re more awake, if at all.”

  “Mmm,” Hank agreed before he caught himself, then shrugged, sheepish, and shoved unruly hair off his forehead. “You always do this to people you don’t know?” he asked.

  Tai nodded. “Pretty much. Ma says it saves time and establishes the ground rules without a lot of fuss.”

  Ma, Hank reflected darkly. The unsettling, wild-strawberry-haired, stubborn, tact-is-a-four-letter-word-so-I-leave-it-home Kate. He should have guessed. “Does Ma have a lot of ground rules?”

  “One or two.” Tai straightened away from the windowsill and collected the screen again. “Well, better get to work.” He started to leave, then turned back, snapping his fingers. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Ma said to tell you Megan snuck up to the house and spent the night in Li’s room, and since you probably haven’t had time to stock your pantry, if you want breakfast it’s almost on the table, so you better come on up before everybody with hollow legs gets there and grabs the choice bits first—I’m quoting.”

  Hank yawned, at once covering unreasonable annoyance and sleepiness with the back of his hand. Of course Kate Anden had ground rules all the kids around here—including Megan, blast it—followed and repeated. He only need remember the list she’d handed him when he’d asked to rent this place: nice, neat and straightforward, positive, clear and concise, every “don’t” preceded by a “please” and followed by a “thank you,” and every “do” preceded by a warm “be our guest and...” Damned ornery woman would probably hand a list of ground rules to the Almighty on judgment day and expect them to be followed.

  Damn it, what made Kate always appear to be so much more competent a single parent than he was?

  She chose to be a single parent from the get-go, fool, that’s what.

  And Megan wanting to be here with Li, her siblings and Kate—Megan willing to follow Kate’s rules enthusiastically, damn it!— was the reason he’d shut up their house, Gen’s house, and moved out here for the summer after all. It wouldn’t accomplish anything if he didn’t start out by making the best he could of a situation he didn’t want to be in.

  He knew it was fear that lay behind this unfamiliar sense of pettiness, fear of a future devoid of Megan. His daughter was old enough to make choices, and by her actions she found Kate the perfect antidote to life with him. But he couldn’t lose her. Megan was his life, his last connection to the wife he’d loved to distraction but had never understood.

  Quashing dissonance with effort, he nodded at Tai. “Yeah, okay, appreciate it. Let me get dressed and I’ll be along. Thanks.”

  Maybe later he would mean it.

  Kate Anden stuck out her lower lip and puffed air at her perspiring forehead. Glued into the sweat, strands of loose hair fluttered about her eyes, refusing to give ground.

  Irritably she let go of her spade and swiped the back of her forearm across her face. Blasted stuff, always in the way. Where she’d ever gotten the idea it might be fun to grow her hair out she’d never know. An un-nunly vanity, no doubt, after years of wearing it tight cropped around her ears for the sake of practicality and health during the time she’d spent working in refugee camps in South America, Vietnam, Cambodia and Nigeria. But enough was enough already. She really was going to cut the blasted stuff this time, the very instant she had more than five minutes in a row and a pair of scissors.

  Finding more than five minutes in a row and a pair of scissors in the same place at the same time was something of a family joke, however. Between Christmas-tree farming and llama ranching, custom handcrafting and parenting, 4-H sponsoring and a little of thising, a little of thating, the requisite items never did seem to quite get the hang of meeting.

  ’Course, it probably would help if she’d at least braided it this morning, like she usually did, instead of leaving it loose. What had possessed her to commit the rash act, she hadn’t a clue—or rather, she told herself she didn’t.

  Believing herself was another matter entirely.

  She’d told herself it was a cool morning and let it hang around her shoulders and back to her waist—she’d grown it out for a lot of years now—for the warmth it provided. But she didn’t believe that, either. It was that man she’d rented the guesthouse to, Hank Mathison, who had her behaving like an irrational middle schooler or some female peacock spreading her feathers to show off for whichever male peacock happened to be in the area.

  The fact that it was generally the male who preened for the female didn’t help in the slightest. Heaven help her, she’d never behaved like this in her life. What the dickens was wrong with her now? Especially since she was pretty certain she and Hank Mathison didn’t even like each other. At all.

  Sighing, she spread gloved hands over the backs of her hips and stretched her back. In front of her lay an acre of freshly mulched and cultivated Douglas fir transplants; to her left and right, the fifteen acres of five- to ten-year-old spruce, firs, cedars and pines Tai and the boys would mow and cultivate over the next week for spraying in the following week; behind lay the house, llama sheds, toolsheds, workshop and recently-planted kitchen garden where she could see her two youngest sons playing with the hose. Mike and Bele, her eight-year-olds. From separate gene pools and different parts of the world entirely, but two of a kind nev
ertheless. She grinned and stretched forward, unkinking muscles from another direction.

  A hawk screamed overhead, circling the empty field across from the house in search of prey. Around him the sky was clear and blue, sans even a wisp of cloud fluff. It had been on such a day nearly a decade and a half ago that she’d left the convent for the last time to take up life in an unsettling, unsheltering world. The clarity of a blue sky on a beautiful morning had not prevented it from being a scary day, however. Not because she’d been forced to desert the life she thought she’d been called to, but because she’d chosen to leave it, known in her heart she had to. Realized—with some regret—that her true place in life was outside the contentment and cloister a religious order had to offer.

  But where she’d been headed, she hadn’t a clue.

  And now there was here, right now, this morning: three kids successfully adopted; one adoption in the works, nearing completion; two Ukrainian foster sons here indefinitely; one Finnish exchange student who would leave at the end of the summer; a dozen 4-H members here to work with the Ilamas and the trees; and one bent-on-self-destruction teenage girl who happened to be her only daughter’s best friend. And the teenager’s widower father: a too-pretty-to-have-a-brain, arrogant, brutish—according to Megan—know-it-all, pain-in-the-butt sonofagun who’d been too busy risking his life cowboying after bad guys to be around his daughter much when she was still young enough to learn to trust him. A cretin with the sensitivity of a gnat when it came to women—and particularly adolescent women who were really still little girls in “hot babe” bodies; who was unable to appreciate good sense when Kate was willing to give it to him. And willing to give it to him free at that.

  She glanced toward the narrow, dark tree-cluttered drive that veered off behind the equipment sheds en route to the guesthouse and grinned suddenly, laughing at herself. Well, maybe Hank Mathison was right after all when he called her a self-righteous goody-two-shoes. She wasn’t certain how goody-two-shoes she was, but he did have a point when it came to her bouts of self-righteousness. It had never been any secret that she and the absolute conviction that she knew what was best for everybody—especially everybody else—were on excellent terms.