Return to Virgin River (Virgin River #19) - Robyn Carr Page 0,25

little hysterical.

“Kaylee, where the hell are you? I’ve left messages, you haven’t returned my calls, so I stopped by the house and there’s a strange couple living there! They said you’d moved to Northern California for the rest of the year! Call me or so help me God, I’ll come looking for you.”

She sighed deeply. It was tempting to just ignore the message, but clearly he was going to keep calling. She didn’t understand the urgency. He seemed to have spent much of his life avoiding her until Meredith got sick. Then suddenly he was calling frequently, wanting to see her, wanting to form a family with her.

There just didn’t seem to be a polite way to tell him he was much too late.

Kaylee had grown to hate the words, “Well, he is your father.” From the time Howard had left them, he had not been an attentive or doting father. In fact, he rarely visited her. He would come to the house occasionally, and even at the age of seven or eight she knew he was coming more to see Meredith than her. It became more evident as the years passed that he regretted leaving Meredith, and on his visits he would spend a great deal of the time visiting with her, not Kaylee. Kaylee would say hello and then go watch TV, and Howard and Meredith would sit at the kitchen table and talk like old friends. By the time Kaylee was a teen she had come to understand Howard wanted to talk to his ex-wife about his unsuccessful relationships.

“Doesn’t that make you mad, that he complains to you about his wives or girlfriends?” she once asked her mother. And Meredith said, “No, sweetheart. It makes me very grateful that he left me.”

Meredith was fine with his visits, given they weren’t too frequent. Because Meredith was classy. Her heart no longer ached for the marriage that fell apart and she’d had plenty of gentlemen friends in the years since the divorce. She had a good social life.

But then Meredith got sick and Howard amped up his visits, causing Kaylee to be jealous of the time he spent with her mother. Whenever Kaylee complained, Meredith would say, “Go easy on Howard. He is your father.”

And to be fair, Howard had paid child support and helped with her college expenses. He’d done well for himself in the real estate business, which was lucky since he had to pay a lot of support. He’d had a total of four children.

She decided to get it over with and called him back. “Hi, Howie,” she said in greeting because she knew he hated it. He always instructed her to call him Dad. But for some reason she kept forgetting... “No need to panic. I wanted a change of scenery for a few months so I could finish a book.”

“Where exactly are you?” he demanded. “And why didn’t you tell me you’d be out of town?”

“I’m in Humboldt County, and I didn’t mention it to you because I’m thirty-five years old, we’re not close, you don’t tell me where you’re going all the time. In fact, I don’t expect you to.”

He sighed. “Okay, I deserved that,” he said. “I wasn’t there for you when I should have been and there seems to be no way to make up for it now. But with your mom gone, I wish we could spend a little time together. I was going to invite you out to dinner. I think we’re both missing her.”

The last thing she needed was an evening of reminiscing with Howie. “Sorry, but I came here to work and that’s what I’m doing. Maybe when I get back to Newport.”

“Are you getting a lot of work done?”

“I’m trying,” she said. “I...I still find it hard to focus, hard to concentrate. But I’m giving it everything I’ve got.”

“Maybe I’ll come up in a few weeks,” he said. “You can show me around and we’ll have dinner.”

“I don’t have a guest room, Howie.”

“I can make arrangements,” he said. “Think about it and we’ll talk about it later. I’ll give you a call next week.”

“All right. Take care.”

“You, too. Love you.”

“Goodbye.”

She never said she loved him. She wasn’t sure she did. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

* * *

Kaylee took Kitty to the vet that Jack recommended—Dr. Lynne Murphy. “Well, Kitty turns out to be a boy,” the vet said. “And I’d guess about eight weeks old. He’d have to be that old to eat solid food