His Long-Lost Family by Brenda Harlen

Author:Brenda Harlen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

On Saturday, Jack invited Ava and Kelly to go hiking at Eagle Point Park. He didn’t know if either of them was the outdoorsy type, but it was a perfect day to be outside, as evidenced by the numerous other groups and families on the trails. The sky was a brilliant blue and nearly cloudless, and though the sun was high in the sky when they started, the canopy of trees offered some respite from the heat.

There hadn’t been much rain in the past couple of weeks, so the trail was dry, the dirt packed hard from all the boots and shoes that had stomped upon it. Sometimes, if he wasn’t in a hurry, Jack would look for animal tracks, but he knew they wouldn’t find any today.

They started along one of the easier routes with the thought that a less strenuous hike might help facilitate conversation. But after a brief discussion of the weather and an even briefer discussion about the local flora and fauna, Ava plugged in her earbuds. Obviously she preferred her music to the sounds of nature—and conversation with her parents.

After a few minutes, Kelly said, “Lukas never told me that you coached soccer.”

“I’m not actually the coach—I just help out.”

“Still, I would have thought that a man who’d shared that basic connection with kids wouldn’t freak out at the news that he had a kid of his own.”

“But they weren’t kids to me,” he admitted. “They were soccer players. And if I ever did think of them as kids, there was comfort in knowing they were someone else’s.”

“Are you still freaked out?”

“No. Just terrified.”

She smiled. “Good.”

“Why is that good?”

“Because you wouldn’t be scared if you didn’t care. It proves that she matters to you.”

“I didn’t expect that she would matter so much so fast,” he admitted. “I mean, I barely had my head around the fact that I was a father and suddenly she was my child.”

To his surprise, Kelly’s eyes filled with tears.

“What did I do?” he asked warily.

She shook her head. “You said ‘my child’ without any hesitation.”

“Yeah, well.” He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.

Kelly laughed. “So what have you been doing with your life besides practicing law and helping-but-not-coaching girls’ soccer?”

He was grateful for the change of topic. “Work doesn’t leave me a lot of time for anything else.”

“How long have you been on your own?”

Obviously she knew that he was practicing independently now, because she’d been to his office and the name “Taylor & Ross” wasn’t on the door. He thought Lukas might have told her the details of his decision to leave his father-in-law’s firm, but maybe she’d never asked about him, as he’d been careful not to ask his brother about her.

“Almost ten years,” he said in response to her question.

She stopped in the middle of the path. “You left Taylor and Ross ten years ago?”

“Yeah. About two years before Sara left me.”

“Why?”

“Because I did want my name on the door, but I wanted to know that I’d earned it.

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