Dear Santa

So he did. Only to return a moment later with her forsaken glass of water.

“I’m n-not finished yet,” she said, honking loudly into the tissues.

“I’m not rushing you. Come on, sit back down,” he said, and she actually let him lead her back to the chair to finish her cry. In short order the sobs turned to sniffles, the sniffles to shudders, and the shudders to a small, trembly, “Sorry.”

“Feel better?” he asked, picking up his drink from a small side table.

Mia blew her nose, tucked her arms against her midsection, then nodded.

He took a sip. “Now. Aren’t you glad that didn’t happen somewhere in the middle of I-95?” When she glared at him, he added, with extreme patience, “So sue me for guessing you were ready to blow.”

After a moment, Mia sucked in a breath and sat up straighter, scrubbing her palm over first one cheek, then another. “Point to you,” she said, then shivered. “God, I must look like hell.”

She did, actually. Justine’s tears had always been delicately executed, just enough to trickle down a flawlessly made-up cheek, to spike her eyelashes. No red-splotched cheeks or raccoon eyes, ever. “Now that you mention it, you might want to avoid mirrors for the next little while.”

“Boy, you really are a gem among men, aren’t you?” she muttered, then waved away the comment. “Rhetorical question, no response necessary.”

Grant looked at her for a moment, then walked back to his desk, gently swirling his drink in his glass. “You weren’t at all surprised when our marriage fell apart, were you?”

“Once I got to know you? No.”

“Know me?” Unaccountably irritated, Grant let his gaze drift back to the splotchy, puffy-eyed woman still quietly hiccupping in his favorite leather chair, one foot now tucked up underneath her backside. “How often have we been in the same room, Mia? A half-dozen times?”

“Often enough to confirm what I’d already suspected—that you and Justine weren’t a good fit. But let’s clear something up right now,” she said, her brow pinched. “I didn’t take some sadistic pleasure in your marriage breaking up. It wasn’t about me being right, it was about my best friend being happy. If she’d been able to find that happiness with you, I would have been the first person to toast the two of you on your fiftieth wedding anniversary. But how we feel about each other is neither here nor there.” Her expression softened. “The only thing that matters now is getting Haley through this.”

Grant eyed her steadily for a moment before silently setting the glass on the desk. Facing her once more, he folded his arms across his chest. “Haley talks about you a great deal.”

“We’re best buds,” she said quietly. “There’ve been nannies, of course. And Jus had her in preschool during the day. But the three of us would hang out…” Her voice broke; after a couple of deep breaths, she continued. “And I’d sit for her from time to time, when Jus had to work late.” At Grant’s frown, she rolled her eyes. “She was on the fast track to becoming partner, Grant, she couldn’t exactly clock out at five on the dot every night. As anyone struggling for purchase in a huge law firm knows all too well.” He thought he saw a slight shudder before she continued. “Although Jus did take work home with her as much as she could, to do after Haley was in bed. Your daughter wasn’t neglected, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Clearly,” he said softly, even as he thought, At least, not by her mother. “Still. That was a lot to ask of you.”

Mia’s eyes narrowed. “She didn’t ask, I volunteered. I love kids and I’m crazy about the squirt. And the nannies…well. They came and went. Even if I didn’t see Haley that often, at least I was some sort of constant in her life. After her mother, I mean. And anyway—”

Grant noted her pointed exclusion of him from that equation.

“Considering everything Justine did for me…” Her eyes filled again, but she held up one hand, sucking in a steadying breath. “Babysitting was the least I could do to return the f-favor—”

At the wobbly last word, Grant plucked the box of tissues off the desk, but she shook her head. Then her words sank in. “What favor?”

“Okay, maybe ‘favor’ isn’t the right word. Support, then. When I walked out on my law career to start my party-planning business, not only was Jus one of the very few people who didn’t seem to think I’d lost it, she even got on the horn and called everybody she knew, lining up more work for me than I could have ever found on my own.” She almost laughed. “In some ways, she seemed more determined to see me succeed than I did. And then…”

“What?” he prompted when she hesitated.

Mia screwed up her mouth, as though trying to decide how much to say. “Around the time of your divorce, my fiancé broke up with me. You met him once, he was out here for dinner. Anyway, it was a few weeks before our wedding. I was a mess. But even though Jus was still dealing with the aftereffects of her own…stuff, there she was, literally and figuratively holding my hand through one of the worst periods of my life.”

Totally unaware that Grant’s drink had turned to vinegar in his stomach, Mia unfolded her legs, stretching the previously trapped foot in front of her and wiggling it. “She’d call or e-mail me to ask how I was doing, suggest we go shopping or to the movies, or go to the museum or zoo with Haley…ouch! Damn, my foot fell asleep!”

Leaning over to rub the prickles away, her long hair tumbled free over her shoulders, framing her much-less-swollen face with exuberant, shiny waves. A moment later, she lifted her eyes to his, only to frown. “Is something wrong?”

With a sharp shake of his head, Grant abruptly returned to the window, unable to look at that trusting, loyal face a moment longer. He’d known, of course, from the moment he’d answered her call, heard the concern in her voice, that somehow, amazingly, Justine had managed to keep her betrayal under wraps. Otherwise, he seriously doubted even someone as wide-eyed as Mia would have continued babysitting for her best friend’s daughter. Still, to hear it confirmed…

“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, willing the words to quash the anger flaring inside him, “I didn’t marry Justine expecting it to fail. I may be a risk taker in my professional life, but I’ve always erred on the side of caution about all things personal. So when things fell apart, I was definitely…disappointed.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he heard behind him. Inhaling deeply, he spared her an almost-smile.

“No response necessary,” he said, then returned his attention outside. “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do about me. From your standpoint, I made someone you cared about very unhappy. All I can say, in my own defense, is that it wasn’t intentional. Although I do shoulder the blame for believing that Justine more clearly understood what she was getting when she married me. That I’ve never been a fun-and-games kind of guy.”

“There’s an understatement,” he heard Mia mutter.

Grant turned, his mouth set, his gaze unwavering. Why he felt compelled to make this woman understand, he had no idea. Perhaps because Justine hadn’t understood. But Justine had been his wife. Mia was…

Mia was very likely the only person who could help him bridge the canyonesque gap between him and his daughter.

“I can’t help my nature, Mia. Even as a child, excessive shows of emotion made me cringe. However, I never promised Justine anything I couldn’t, and didn’t, deliver. That she still wanted more from me than I could give her…” He blew out a breath. “The marriage was a mistake. Or rather, the mistake was in my thinking I could somehow make a marriage work simply because getting married, starting a family, is what men my age, in my position, do.” He paused. “A mistake I won’t make again, believe me.”

“Yeah, well,” she said finally, getting up, hanging on to the back of the chair as she hobbled around it, “I could’ve told both of you that at the beginning and saved everyone a lot of grief.”

“Except then there wouldn’t be Haley.”

Her “oh, please” gaze slammed into his. Her eyes were a strange shade of green, he realized, almost an olive. “And wouldn’t that make your life a whole lot easier.”

At her direct hit, heat surged up his neck. Irritated—with himself, with her, with the whole damn mess—he turned to spare her the satisfaction of his discomfiture. “Hard as this may be to believe,” he said stiffly, “I do care about my daughter. About what happens to her. I always have. But I’ve never been comfortable around children.”

“Including your own.”

He hesitated, then said, “Especially my own. I seriously doubt we’ll ever have the same sort of relationship she had with her mother. I’m simply not made that way.”

“And I have zip tolerance for people who act like their kids are some kind of food they sampled once and decided they didn’t care for! For crying out loud, Grant—have you even tried? You took Haley twice a month. If that—”

“Because neither Justine nor I wished to disrupt her routine any more than necessary!” he said, the excuse lame even to his own ears. “She often had playdates and birthday parties on the weekends—”

“Which you decided were more important than continuing her relationship with her father.”

“That wasn’t solely my decision, Mia.”

Mia opened her mouth, only to press it tightly closed again. He guessed that as much as she’d dearly love to refute his statement, he doubted she could. Not if she’d been privy, as a close friend would have been, to Justine’s fabricating some excuse or other to keep Haley with her on one of Grant’s weekends.

Her eyes narrowed, but not enough to block what might have been the beginnings of doubt. “But you didn’t exactly fight Justine on it, did you?”

One side of his mouth lifted. “Guilty as charged.”

“Why not?”

And if he had a chance in hell of getting her to agree to his plan, he had to lay all his cards on the table, no matter how bad his admission made him look.

“Because Haley was barely two when we separated. A two-year-old who adored her mother and screamed whenever I tried to pick her up. Of course I tried to close the gap between us—contrary to popular opinion, I’m not a monster. But unfortunately Haley’s appearance didn’t magically transform me into one of those men who gets all sappy in the presence of babies. I suppose I hoped… well, that as she got older, I could make up for lost time, somehow.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this! Did it ever occur to you that maybe Haley wasn’t going to wait until you were ready to be her father?”