She couldn’t speak for a full two seconds.
“Maybe so,” she said breathlessly. Her voice hoarse.
And there followed a little pinprick of fury, like a lit cigarette brushed against her skin: how could he justbailon her like that? When the notion of him had reached little tendril-like roots into her dreams and plans for the future, and she hadn’t realized how deep they’d gone until they’d been yanked out.
Maybe he’d beenlookingfor an out.
No. She didn’t believe it. When she’d walked out of his office, his face was as white and stunned as Jude’s was that time he broke his collarbone.
“Is my dad Jasperyourdestiny, Mom?”
She took a cleansing breath.
“Well... it’s not like with Auntie Avalon and Uncle Mac, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was my destiny to be your mom, baby girl, and he was... he... kind of helped me along the way.”
“Like how broccoli’s destiny is to be nutritious, and the cow poop Uncle Mac puts on it helps it grow?”
“Um—”
“Or like how when Auntie Avalon bought the big house and Uncle Mac was already living there so they had to get together? Because of the house?”
That was a pretty amusing interpretation of events. She’d have to remember to tell Avalon.
“I’d say Jasper’s role in my life has been somewhere in between cow poop and the house and Devil’s Leap.”
They sat side by side in silence on Annelise’s eye-searing counterpane, her arm looped around Annelise, who cuddled up against her, burrowing her head in a bit. They were both a little drained. Eden had to admit that in exchange for a whole raft of potential complications she’d won a certain peace she didn’t know she’d been craving.
Why, then, despite the newness, did her life feel like it had constricted instead of expanded?
Annelise put a hand on Eden’s knee and looked earnestly into her face. “My dad Jasper is famous, Mom,” she said somberly and sleepily, as if breaking the news to her. “Really famous.”
“He is, indeed.”
“So, Jasper... where did you grow up?” Her mom began the friendly questioning.
The old Harwood dining room—the heavy old round oak table that had belonged to their great-grandmother was set with a platter of roast beef, tureens of mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed broccoli, a typical Sunday dinner, even if it wasn’t Sunday. Hearty and basic.
The only exotic thing was their guest. Jasper had politely taken a big helping of everything on the table and made yummy noises when he tasted the roast under the watchful eyes of her mom and dad, Annelise, Avalon, and Jude. Her dad had taken an inordinate amount of time carving the roast at the table with a big glinting knife while everyone silently watched. For the first time it occurred to Eden that Jude’s surgical skills might have been passed onto him by their dad.
“Well, I was born in upstate New York. Small town. Moved around a lot with my mom, though. Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, Reno, San Francisco. I grew up on the road, I guess,” Jasper told her.
“Some of those are cities,” Annelise pointed out. “And some of those are states.”
“That’s true. You’re pretty smart, Annelise.”
“Yep,” she said easily. No one in the Harwood family had much patience for stating the obvious.
He grinned at her.
She smiled back. Pleased. But it was pretty clear Annelise was comparing and contrasting Jasper with the rest of her family. Working things out in her head in her way.
“Went to Los Angeles when I was eighteen to get into the music business, and that’s been home ever since. I don’t know who my dad was. And look at me now!”
Everybody was already looking at him, so his point was a bit unclear.
“You can be anything you want, Annelise, no matter how many parents you have,” he explained.
“Ah,” said Jude, nodding, sagely, but with great irony, when it seemed as though no one else would say anything.