What she did remember about him was arguing. Yelling. Hiding in her bedroom under her blankets until it stopped.
Until the day her mother had stumbled into her room, drunk, and told Izzie she’d accomplished it. Izzie had driven him away to another kid. One who wasn’t as defective as she was.
Her mother had only been verbally abusive when she’d been drunk. In the six years that had followed her father leaving, her mother had been drunk more times than not.
Courtesy of the child support check, there was always plenty of alcohol in the cabinet. Never enough food, but plenty for her mother to drink.
She had always had Jake. “Thanks for your concern...Jeoffrey.” She couldn’t call him Dr. Stockton. She wasn’t about to call him dad.
“I know I don’t deserve it, but I’d like it if you called me Dad. At least…eventually.”
Well, apparently he didn’t have any problem making his wishes known. Even when it was never going to happen. It was probably best for her to just get it out there between them now. “I don’t have a dad. I have my uncle. He’s the closest thing to a father I’ve ever had. I won’t...cheapen what he is to me by calling another man Dad. Not when Jake was the one there for me every day that he could be after you left me.”
She’d teased her uncle countless times by calling him exactly that. There had been one particularly obnoxious girlfriend who had not wanted Jake to have a fourteen-year-old girl around. Izzie had confided to her that she was really his daughter. That he’d fathered her when he’d been thirteen. Izzie had been very convincing with a complex backstory and everything.
Jake hadn’t been too happy when he’d found out. She’d been grounded for two weeks. But that woman had left them alone. Apparently, she hadn’t wanted the joy of having a teenager around, after all.
“I’m glad you had him. Had I known that your mother had died I never would’ve left you alone. I would have come for you. But I didn’t know.”
He’d taken off without a backward glance. Izzie wasn’t stupid. For whatever reason his conscience had caught up with him now. Maybe he’d had a midlife crisis or something? She had been born when he was around twenty-two years old. He had to be forty-seven or forty-eight now. She thought. She wasn’t exactly certain. She’d not exactly gotten an opportunity to know.
“I was alone with her for six years after you decided you were finished being my father, and I survived. Barely, but I survived her. Once Jake was there, I did fine. Thank you for your concern.” She was so going to have to talk to Nikkie Jean about their suddenly returned absentee-fathers and what the two men expected. But for now… “I need to get in there. Allen...needs me now.”
“Are you serious about Jacobson, then? There are rumors that you’re involved with him. Strong rumors.”
She honestly didn’t give a damn about rumors now—they were so…trivial. She’d faced more important things in her life in the last handful of weeks. Things that truly mattered. A pang went through her.
She needed to be with Allen right now. That’s what mattered. Everything else…superficial. “Why is that any of your business?”
“He’s changed since he was in my classes at FCU. The young man I used to know...I’m not sure Dr. Jacobson is the kind of man I want for one of my daughters. He has a reputation.”
One of his daughters. Well, apparently she had at least one sister out there. That was nice to know.
“Seriously? You question him? Allen...Allen has never let me down. Not even once. He’s been there during the worst moments of my adult life. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him. Multiple times. Every single time I have ever needed him, he has been there. He is the one man I can count on to be there every single time I need him.” Even Jake. His job took him away so many times, but Allen…Allen had always been there when she’d most needed him.
She trusted him in that way. He always would be.
“That makes you feel indebted to him?”
“Hell, no. This isn’t your business at all. Allen is my business and has nothing to do with you. You forfeited your right to even care long ago.” She’d trust Allen with every part of her being. She’d depend on him in an instant. Had trusted he would always be there when she needed him. “I