Angel's Peak

Back then Franci realized she was listening to those two calls over and over, alternately planning his death and praying he would come for her. She knew she was in trouble. After several weeks there hadn’t been any more contact from him so, to save herself, she had the cell shut off and got herself a new number. She changed her e-mail address. Then she started looking for a new job and a path out of Santa Rosa.

She had always known, from the time she’d said goodbye to Sean four years ago, that she would have to deal with him eventually. She wasn’t sure exactly when or how, but she’d thought she would have a little more time.

Her daughter, Rosie, three and a half and as precocious as an only child can be, had just recently asked, “Where is our daddy?” Funny she would say our daddy, but then the whole concept was new to her as she had just noticed that they didn’t have one. Preschool had its share of separated families, but almost all the other kids seemed to know where both their parents were. Most were being picked up alternately by their moms and their dads.

And Rosie hadn’t asked who is our daddy, but where.

“He’s flying a very fast, very high jet in the air force,” Franci answered. “It goes all over the world and he’s busy doing a very important job.”

Rosie had said, “Oh.” She probably didn’t understand much beyond the important fact that Franci knew where Rosie’s daddy was. But what Franci knew was that in a few months, maybe a year, maybe two, as her world became larger, Rosie would ask things like, “What’s his name?” “Why doesn’t he come to see us?” And eventually, “Why aren’t you married?” These would be increasingly difficult questions to answer. And those questions formed the primary reason Franci had not wanted to face this—she couldn’t imagine how she would tell Rosie that her daddy just didn’t want anything to do with her because he absolutely, positively did not want to be a father.

Franci didn’t tell her mom about Rosie’s question because her mother had asked her so many times how she intended to handle her situation. From the beginning Vivian had disapproved of this approach. “Fine, don’t marry him,” she had said. “Don’t have expectations of him. Don’t be disappointed in his behavior. But he deserves to know he has a child.”

Under any other circumstances, Franci would agree. “Mom, he was adamant! He did not want children. He didn’t want marriage, either.”

“All that has a way of changing when there’s a child actually on the way,” Vivian had said.

“Exactly,” Franci argued. “That’s why I want to handle this on my own, at least for now. Because I’m only interested in marrying and having a child with a man who loves me as much as I love him, who wants our child as much as I do. Don’t you get that?”

“Of course I get it. But, like it or not, when you accidentally get pregnant, you have a responsibility to tell the other parent and let the cards fall where they may. Deal with his response however you must, but you have to at least tell him.”

“I will. Eventually,” Franci had said. The problem wasn’t that she found the concept of informing him so unreasonable. It had just been that when she found out she was pregnant, and then when Rosie was a new baby, she wasn’t emotionally strong enough to have Sean in her life. She’d thought that, in time—time that so quickly stretched into four years—she would be ready to confront the reality without it completely disrupting her very existence. She knew what it could mean—Sean rejecting Rosie altogether, and that would hurt too much to contemplate. Or, best-case scenario, an arrangement of his visits and, too soon, of Rosie going to spend time with him. Ultimately it could be Rosie spending time with Sean’s new family, because eventually he would find the woman he could commit to. Being separated from Rosie was going to be so hard, and seeing Sean regularly? Seeing Sean happy with another woman would be sheer torture.

When she’d seen him in Arcata, she should have made a date for coffee; she shouldn’t have shut him down like that. But she just wasn’t ready to face it yet.

To her own embarrassment, she had fantasized a reconciliation. But Franci was, above all, practical and logical. And if there was going to be a reconciliation, it would have come long before now. As well, it was a horrible prospect to imagine that Sean would decide that, since they had a child, he would do the right thing and be with the child’s mother. Franci didn’t feel like being a consolation prize now any more than she had when she was two months pregnant.

When she ran into him again at the grocery store, her anger with him had erupted out of surprise. If she’d known she was going to see him, she would have been better prepared. Sane. Reasonable. But she hadn’t been ready for him a second time.

Ever since Rosie was born, Franci had assumed that eventually she would have to go to Sean, explain as best she could why she chose to have the baby alone. For her it was such a simple decision, though not an easy one. If he didn’t love her enough to make a commitment before he learned about a child, she didn’t want him just because there was a child. And yet, knowing herself and how powerful her feelings were for him, she feared saying no would have been impossible. And living in a marriage that wasn’t real and genuine would ultimately be too painful…for all of them.

Right now, the most important thing was Rosie—more important than Franci and Sean. Franci would have to take it slow, keep Sean from going off the deep end, make sure Rosie had a safe and normal life. They’d start with a couple of talks, she and Sean. She’d get him used to the idea that she’d moved on, that she’d accepted his decision to move on.

And then, when the groundwork was laid, Rosie would meet her dad.

Later that evening when Sean walked into his brother’s house, Luke, Shelby and Art were just dishing up takeout from Jack’s Bar. This was, of course, because Sean had failed to bring home the groceries. In he walked with a bruised cheek, black eye and swollen nose, which the paramedic said was probably not broken. None of it enhanced his killer good looks. Not to mention his hand, which he kept in his jacket pocket because he’d have so much trouble gripping a fork.

Everyone turned when he came through the door and they went completely still, staring at him with wide eyes and open mouths. Finally Art said, “Hey, Sean. Didn’t that girl want to date with you?”

“Can we not talk about this, please?” Sean asked.

So the not talking about it hung over the dinner table like a shroud. While Shelby and Art did up the dishes, Sean took a beer out of the refrigerator, put on his jacket and stepped out onto the porch. About two minutes later Luke joined him, holding his own beer. There were five boys in the Riordan family. Luke was six years older than Sean and, when they weren’t fighting, they were close.

Sean explained running into Franci in the grocery. After getting the story, Luke asked, “So, if I have this right, a great big hulk, who had about six inches and a hundred pounds on you, decided to protect Franci from you, and you attacked him?”

“That’s about it,” Sean said.

“And why would you jump someone who was obviously bigger and stronger than you? You can usually talk your way out of anything.”

“Because, Luke,” Sean said. “He was trying to keep me away from her.”

Luke thought about this for a second and then said, “Oh, boy. There’s trouble, right there. What is it with this woman? Huh?”

“I don’t know,” Sean said miserably. “I thought I could just forget about her, but there’s something about her. Maybe I was more into her than I realized.”

“And why, just out of curiosity, didn’t you know you felt this way about her four years ago?”

“How the hell do I know?” After some silence, Sean finally said, “I thought I had it all under control.”

Four

A couple of days after the fight in the grocery store, Franci kept her word and made a coffee date with Sean. She needed to get this situation handled. When Sean showed up at the coffee shop, his face looked bad and his expression still worse. His cheek was bruised, his nose slightly misshapen, one eye blackened and closed more than the other—which unfortunately didn’t mar his otherwise good looks quite enough. And he was scowling. His right hand was wrapped in an Ace bandage, which Franci consoled herself was better than a cast, but still not good. He walked up to the small round table she occupied and frowned down at her, his eyes glittering through mere slits. She recognized that look. She hadn’t seen it often from the perpetually playful Sean, but she had seen it. He’s had enough, she thought. He was done fooling around. Time to ratchet these emotions down to a manageable level if she hoped for him to actually listen to her when she found the right moment to own up to everything. She needed him reasonable. Understanding. Sympathetic to her concerns.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“I’ll live. Can I get you anything?”

She lifted her cardboard coffee cup. “I’m fine, thanks.” And then she took a deep breath while he went for his own coffee. When he sat down across from her, she asked, “How bad is it?”

“I have a headache,” he said irritably. “It’s probably just a minor skull fracture with brain damage.”

She struggled not to smile. “Did you have that xrayed?” she asked, indicating his hand with her eyes.

“Sprain. It’s bruised and sore, that’s all. You’ll probably be very disappointed to know I’m going to completely recover.”

“Hm. Good. Well…I think we should both concentrate on not letting things get out of control.”

“You first,” he said. He took a sip of his coffee and jerked his chin up, pinched his eyes closed and moaned deep in his throat. When eyes opened both were watering; he’d burned his mouth. Oh, Sean was having a rough couple of days. Franci’s hand covered her mouth so there wouldn’t be even the hint of a smile.

And she immediately thought, Crap. She didn’t want to find him cute and funny! She wanted to be repulsed by him! Furious and bitter! Completely unaffected, except maybe with some hatred. She remembered what had hooked her in the first place—he was so good-looking and he made her laugh. Then later, when they were alone, he could make her beg. He could be darling and fun; he could be passionate and powerful. And she did not want to remember that!

She gave him a moment. He was probably blaming her for his burned mouth, too. “So, Franci,” he finally said. “What’s up with the uniform you were wearing?”

“I work for an emergency medical airlift unit, assigned to their helicopter transport.” His eyebrows lifted. “I’m a flight nurse.”

“I guess that’s why I couldn’t find you at any clinics or hospitals,” he said, blowing on his coffee.

“You were looking for me at clinics and hospitals?” she asked. “Since when?”

“Since I ran into you in Arcata and you said you’d prefer to never speak to me again.”

“I didn’t exactly say that, did I?”

“Close enough. I found your address right away because you bought a house, but decided I’d better take it slow, since you’re obviously still pissed off. I thought it might irritate you if I showed up at your front door. Back when I knew you, you had a gun—you were a military officer flying into a war zone. I was willing to brave that. That’s how much I wanted to see you.”

She sat back in her chair. “I no longer have the gun. But when did you decide you wanted to see me again?” she asked. “We bump into each other after years and everything changes for you?”

“Here’s how it went,” he said without even thinking about it. “We both walked away mad back then. I distracted myself by going to a new aircraft, a new training program, a new base and squadron, but after a few months of that, I couldn’t leave it alone anymore—we ended badly and I couldn’t believe it was what either one of us really wanted. So I called you. You didn’t call back, so I tried again—the cell phone was shut off. Your e-mail bounced back—undeliverable. After another few months of licking my wounds I called your mother’s house to see if she’d put us in touch with each other and she was gone. Phone disconnected. House sold. Moved away. None of your best girlfriends were around at Luke AFB anymore and I couldn’t remember their last names, so I had no one to ask.”