Twenty-four

Celina heard a key turn in Jack’s front door and walked to the top of the stairs. The door started to open, and she was tempted to retreat. This could be Tilly and Amelia. Jack had told her that if they arrived before he got back, Celina should say he’d been called away and had asked her to wait. She wanted to get back to Cyrus, whom she’d talked to on the phone. He was going out to meet Sally Lamar and Celina wanted to talk to him before he left.

First up the stairs came Amelia, her balding frog beneath an arm. She climbed so fast, she stumbled halfway up.

Jack bounded behind his daughter and caught her up. He carried Amelia much the same as Amelia carried her frog, and both father and daughter laughed.

Last, after closing and locking the door, Tilly clomped upward.

“Look what I found outside,” Jack said to Celina, and swung Amelia onto his shoulders.

“You are going to hit that child’s head one of these days,” Tilly said crossly. “She’s growing fast, Mr. Charbonnet. Growing taller. If your attention was where it should be, I wouldn’t have to point such things out to you.”

“Taller?” Jack said, arriving beside Celina and reaching up to find the top of Amelia’s head. “Why, Ι do believe Tilly’s right. My little girl is taller than her daddy. Will you look at that, Celina?”

“Daddy, you are silly!”

Celina folded her arms and smiled, watching them. This man’s love for his child beamed from him. And his child’s happiness was his reward for loving her without reserve.

“You’ll make Amelia sick, Mr. Charbonnet. Throwing her around like that.”

Tilly dropped a canvas shopping bag on the floor at the top of the stairs. She avoided looking at Celina.

“I want to tell you and Amelia something important,” Jack said to Tilly. “You’ll want to unpack your bag first. Take your time. I’ll send Amelia up to get you later.”

The woman didn’t have to say a word to convey her disapproval. She swept up her bag and left for her rooms.

“Is it okay if we talk in your bedroom, Amelia?” Jack said. He gave Celina a slight smile that didn’t lessen her apprehension.

They went into the very pink room and Jack plopped Amelia on the bed. She still kept her armlock on the frog, but her grin wavered and faded.

“Jack, maybe this isn’t—”

“Of course it is,” he said, cutting Celina off. “Is that a new dress, squirt? Nice. That granny of yours spoils you.”

Celina cleared her throat and said, “Yellow suits you. I love yellow.”

“Granny bought it. I don’t like it, but Daddy says it’s not nice to make someone else sad, so I said I did.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Jack said. He pulled a chair toward the bed and indicated for Celina to sit. He perched beside Amelia. “What do you think I’m going to tell you?”

She pulled her shoulders up to her ears and let them drop. The corners of her mouth turned down.

Celina took a deep breath to calm her jiggling nerves.

Jack put a finger under his daughter’s pointed chin and raised her face. “If you don’t think you know what I am goin’ to say, then why the soggy face?”

Amelia squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m not crying, so my face isn’t soggy. I don’t mind if you want a new mommy for me. Tilly told me you were probably going to get one soon.”

“Thank you,” Jack said. He kissed her nose and Amelia opened her green eyes to look into his. “You are so much like your mama,” he added.

Thickness closed Celina’s throat. In a rush she felt such longing to be part of this forever, and for them to want her just as much.

“We could have planned this better, sweetheart. Taken longer for you to get to know Celina. But we don’t want to wait, so we decided to go ahead now. You’re a grown-up little girl, but you’re still a little girl, and we don’t want you to worry about things you don’t have to think about. Celina and I are getting married. But that doesn’t mean you and I are going to do things differently. We’ll have our special time together, the same as we always have. But you’ll have a stepmama who will share a lot of things with us.”

Surely no other five-year-old could manage the magnificent frown Amelia produced. Her fine, dark brows came down in a straight line. She wrinkled her nose and regarded Celina with the kind of intensity few adults could achieve.

“Amelia?”

“Yes, Daddy. I might like a new mama, but how do I know she’s the right one?”

“That’s not an agreeable thing to say, young lady. Celina—”

“Hush,” Celina told him. “I’m a stranger to her.” And still a stranger to you in too many important ways.

Father and daughter looked at Celina. Their likeness was startling, yet in his child Jack saw the wife he’d lost. He always would.

“I asked Celina to marry me and she’s said she will,” Jack said. His gentle finality overwhelmed her. “By the end of this week we’ll be a family and she will live here with us.”

Amelia lowered her eyes. She pressed her lips together and leaned against Jack. He stroked her soft black curls.

There seemed nothing to say. Celina held very still. She heard her own breathing, and theirs. Was that the way their life would be? Her, and them, at least when they were together.

He wanted to marry her, and she’d told him she wanted it, too.

Their hours alone no longer seemed real. For an instant Celina saw the kitchen, Jack’s intent face above hers, the ceiling behind his head. She closed the visions out. They embarrassed her, now in the company of the child. That woman, the one naked in the kitchen, seemed a stranger, her actions inappropriate.

Jack kissed the top of Amelia’s head and hugged her. He winked at Celina. “I thought you could move in here today. There’s a spare bedroom next to Amelia’s.”

Celina felt something near panic. “I’m just fine in Royal Street at present.”

“I would prefer you here.” His pleasant expression slipped away. “You and Amelia need time together as soon as possible. I’d attend to the formalities while you two discuss how you’ll keep me under your combined thumbs.”

Celina wasn’t amused. This was a new side of Jack, a manipulative angle that intended to get its own way.

“Have you heard anything from Antoine?”

She stared at him. “No. You’d know if I had. We—” Her mouth remained open and she clicked her jaw. “I haven’t heard from Antoine.”

“You’re sure? Not a quick phone call, nothing?”

Why would he ask her these questions when he’d been with her all weekend? “No, Jack. How about you?”

He held his breath. She saw him. And his grip on Amelia tightened. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, forgetting the child.

“Not a thing,” he told her, but the slight shake of his head was a warning to be careful what she said.

Celina sat quite still. She watched for some hint of what was really on his mind, but his expression had closed again.

“Ι need to go out,” he said. “Stay with Amelia and Tilly, okay?”

“Ι want to go and talk to Cyrus.”

“Have him come here. I’ll call him.”

She gripped the arms of the chair. Something was very, very wrong. And it related to the telephone call that summoned him away earlier. He’d looked grim afterward, grimly angry. When he’d come back he’d managed to cover his true feelings with the playful greeting of Amelia. Then he’d used his announcement about his marriage to Celina as a temporary diversion—for himself as well as for Celina and Amelia. Now he couldn’t hide his agitation any longer.

“Don’t call Cyrus,” she told him. Jack could not be master of all he saw. “I’ll speak to him myself.”

“Good enough. Tell Celina all about us, squirt. Tell her about your school and your grandmother. And what you do each day—your tap lessons.”

He kissed Amelia’s hair again and got up. At first Celina thought he would walk out without as much as saying a word to her, but at the door he turned back and held out a hand to her. When she got up, he met her in the middle of the room and touched his lips lightly to hers. She wondered if he knew that the sweetness of that touch was a powerful weapon. It stunned her.

“Talk about being a family,” he told her, and glanced down at her stomach. “Families are good things if you trust enough to be honest.”

She should tell him about Rose, and what she had shown her.

“Daddy,” Amelia said. “Can I come with you?”

“You and Celina have a lot of talking to do. See you later, squirt.”

Even when his footsteps had faded and he’d left the house, Celina continued to face the door. She wasn’t going to “obey” him. That he’d assumed she would astounded her. If they were to go ahead with the marriage, the time to establish rules was now. The first rule would be that neither party issued orders to the other, or expected their desires would come first.

“Amelia, will you forgive me if we don’t talk now, darlin’?” She turned around. “I have a brother, Cyrus. He’s a priest and he’s staying with me at the moment. I need to go and see him.”

Amelia had left the bed. She stood at the window.

Celina smiled and walked to join the child. “Watching your daddy?”

“He’s gone now.” Such a controlled voice for one so young.

“But that ghost was looking at my room again. It went away when it saw me.”

It might be a good idea for Jack to dream up some stories that didn’t stir visions of ghosts and goblins.