“Not tonight,” J.D. told her. “It’s a school night. You know the rules.”
“Screw your rules! I hate you! I hate living here with you!” She scrunched up her face, glowered at him, and then went back into her room, slamming the door behind her.
J.D. heaved a deep, labored breath.
What had he ever done to deserve this?
You got Carrie Davidson pregnant, that’s what.
J.D. took a hefty swig from the beer bottle as he walked back to the kitchen. He wasn’t cut out to be a father. Although he was doing his best with Zoe, his best wasn’t good enough. She was miserable and she made him miserable. She was his daughter. The DNA tests proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. He should love her. She should love him. But she hated him and he tolerated her.
He finished off the first beer as he made himself a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches and then drank another beer with his meal.
He wondered what Dr. Audrey Sherrod would think of his relationship with Zoe. They were a dysfunctional family if ever there was one. Neither had known the other existed until eighteen months ago when Carrie, dying from breast cancer, had called J.D. to say, “Congratulations, you’re the father of a bouncing baby girl.”
Burrowing into his worn leather lounge chair, J.D. picked up the remote and channel surfed, finally pausing on CNN.
Why was he thinking about Audrey Sherrod? Why had she suddenly popped into his head?
He had gotten the distinct impression that the lady didn’t like him. She certainly had looked down her nose at him. And she had a cute little nose and a rather pretty face. Not beautiful, but pretty enough if you liked her type, which he didn’t. She was tall for a woman, a good five-nine. Slender, but not quite skinny. He had noticed the way her breasts filled out the neat pin-striped jacket she had been wearing. Sufficient but not large by any means.
If you had gotten laid recently, you wouldn’t find Audrey Sherrod the least bit attractive.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Just because he had always preferred his women hot and eager didn’t mean it might not be interesting to see just what it would take to defrost Dr. Sherrod’s icy façade.
What the hell was he thinking? He sure didn’t need another woman in his life. The casual relationship he shared with Holly suited them both just fine. He didn’t think Audrey Sherrod was the type for casual, and that’s all he wanted from a woman, all he could ever offer, especially now that he had Zoe in his life.
J.D. was ashamed of the way he felt, that he considered Zoe a nuisance. What kind of parent was he?
Think about what the Scotts are going through tonight. They’ve lost their daughter, and here you are moaning and groaning about your kid. You should be thankful that she’s alive and well and creating havoc in your life. I’d bet Charlie Scott would tell you that you’re one lucky SOB.
Two hours later, after consuming his third beer and falling asleep in front of the TV, J.D. woke, gathered up his shoes, jacket, and holster, and headed down the hall. He paused outside of Zoe’s closed door. He knocked softly. She didn’t respond. He turned the doorknob and to his surprise found the door unlocked. He eased open the door and peered inside the semidark room. With her hair still damp from her recent shower and wearing an oversized Jeff Gordon NASCAR sweatshirt, she lay asleep atop the covers.
J.D. slipped into the room, freed one hand from the load he was carrying, and then drew the folded bedspread up and over his daughter. He stood there for a few minutes and watched his little girl sleep. In the looks department, she’d gotten the best of Carrie and him. Actually, she looked a lot like J.D.’s sister Julia.
I’m sorry I’m not a better father. I’m sorry that I never knew you existed. I’m doing the best I can, kiddo. I promise that I’ll try not to screw things up too bad.
He reached down and ran his fingertips across her forehead, brushing aside a strand of long black hair.
You deserve better than me, Zoe. But you’re stuck with me. Like it or not, I’m your dad.
Chapter 3
For most of her life—certainly after the car wreck that had claimed her mother’s life when she was six—Audrey had enjoyed a close bond with Tam’s parents, Geraldine and Willie Mullins. Geraldine was the type of mother every little girl should have—loving, caring, attentive, putting her child’s needs before her own. A mother to her child, not a girlfriend. Tam had been raised with a strict set of rules and regulations, but at the same time her parents had trusted her completely.
“I trust Tam to always do the right thing,” Geraldine had said. “And until she proves to me that I can’t trust her, I will always believe what she tells me is the truth.”
Audrey was pretty sure that Tam’s parents felt that she had never disappointed them. She’d been salutatorian of her high school graduating class, graduated magna cum laude from UT, and had gone on to graduate first in her class at the police academy. Although Geraldine would have preferred her daughter choose a less dangerous profession, Willie had been a very proud papa when his only child chose to follow in his footsteps and join the CPD. Willie had worked his way up the ladder from patrolman to chief of police.
Audrey envied her best friend her parents and the nurturing environment in which she had grown up. And even if they had known about Tam’s one and only fall from grace, they would have forgiven her and not loved her any less. Audrey’s earliest memories were of her parents arguing. Wayne Sherrod’s job as a Chattanooga policeman had come first with him. His wife and daughter had come in a distant second. Why the bubbly, sweet-natured social butterfly Norma Colton had married a stoic, cynical, hard-nosed cop, no one understood, least of all Audrey. Maybe it had been nothing more than opposites attracting.
She had always believed that if she’d been a boy, her father would have paid more attention to her. And that theory, one she had formed early on, had been proven correct when his second wife had presented him with a son. From the moment he was born, Blake had been the center of Wayne’s life, even more important to him than his job.
She had been jealous of her baby brother and had sometimes resented him terribly. But she had also loved him. Blake had been so sweet, so adorable, so very precious. When, a month before his second birthday, he had disappeared—assumed kidnapped—she had been consumed with guilt. Had it been her fault in some way because she had resented that her father so obviously loved Blake more than he did her? In her nine-year-old mind, she had felt somehow at fault. It hadn’t helped that, in his desperate grief, her father had accused her and her stepbrother Hart of being glad that Blake had been abducted.
As an adult, she had come to realize that her father had known what he’d said wasn’t true, that later, he had probably regretted the harsh, unjust accusation. And although her father had never apologized, Audrey had long ago forgiven him for lashing out at two innocent children. But she hadn’t forgotten, couldn’t forget no matter how much she wished she could. She wasn’t sure her father even remembered that day in detail. But that one moment in time, that one unjust accusation, had erected a barrier between father and daughter that still existed.
Audrey saw her dad infrequently—holidays, mostly. She called him occasionally—on his birthday and on her birthday—but he seldom called her. Her dad’s relationship with his stepson Hart wasn’t any better, but at least Hart had his uncle Garth, who had stepped in and become a surrogate father to him. And even though she thought Garth was a brash, cocky, womanizing SOB, she respected him for being a dedicated policeman and for looking after Hart, for always being there for his nephew. Her stepbrother practically worshipped the man.
Audrey would have felt completely alone in the world if not for the love and attention Tam and her parents had shown her over the years. But that was only one of the many reasons she adored Geraldine and Willie Mullins.
It was her