Chapter Twenty-four
“TAKE them to the formal parlor so you can talk in private,” Harmony said, becoming his voice of reason. “I’ll ask Gilda to make you a snack.”
“This way,” King told the girl, who picked up the little boy he hadn’t answered yet, because frankly, he didn’t know the answer. He didn’t know what his own daughter looked like. “What happened to your mother?”
“She kicked me out when I came home pregnant.”
“Wait, I need to know your last name.”
She stopped. “Paxton. Reggie—Regina Paxton. Are you my father?”
“Your mother’s full name?”
“Belinda Brewer Paxton,” the girl said, handing him her son’s birth certificate with her name, Regina Paxton, as his mother.
King reeled from the knowledge, which seemed nothing compared to what this girl must have gone through. “Yes,” he said. “I am your father.”
“Why did you stay away?”
He took her arm as they skirted the fallen chandelier. “Before you were born, your mother got a court order to keep me away.”
“Figures.”
The girl—his daughter—sat on the sofa, and the boy climbed into her lap.
King sat opposite them. “What’s the boy’s name?”
“Jake. Jake Paxton.”
“And his father is?”
“A senior in high school this coming fall.”
“Jake is what, two? So you got pregnant around . . . ninth grade?”
The girl shrank into herself.
“I thought Belinda would do a better job.” King got up to pace.
Harmony brought in quartered sandwiches and chocolate cookies.
Regina and Jake looked at him—for permission to eat, King supposed, and his heart about broke. “Eat, eat,” he said. “They need milk.” He turned to Harmony, who was pouring a glass. “Good. Thank you.” He handed it to his daughter.
She gave her son a sip and put the rest aside. He guessed, by her skeletal size, she fed the boy and went without.
Harmony gave him a second glass before he asked. He stood before his daughter. “This one’s for you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered and set it aside.
“Drink it. There’s more where that came from. We won’t run out.”
“Harmony, please stay,” King said when she turned to go.
She sat on the sofa beside Regina and took Jake on her lap.
“Oh, no,” Regina said. “I think he needs changing.” She slipped a bag off her shoulder and took out a plastic diaper thingy, and right there, his baby girl changed her baby boy.
King swallowed the very big lump in his throat and wondered how he’d screwed up so badly. “Where have you been since your mother threw you out?”
“Looking for you.”
As if he’d been struck, King wilted against the chair back. “I didn’t know.”
“For three years?” Harmony asked.
“She crossed the country,” King said. “Belinda lives in Malibu.” A pregnant teen crossing the country looking for her useless father, who could have picked her up in his blasted helicopter in a few hours. “Did you try to call me?”
“Every big city I hit, I’d look you up,” Regina said, “but I didn’t know where you were, and the castle isn’t listed. One of Mom’s former friends took me in until Jake was nearly a year old. She took good care of us, even got a midwife to deliver Jake. She was like a mother to me. A nice lady. But her son came home to live, and well, he wasn’t a nice man, so we left.”
“Smart girl,” King said, an undeserved paternal pride swelling his chest.
“I concentrated on taking care of Jake. Sometimes people took us in. Some good people. Some not. Most of the time, I lied about my age and stayed in shelters. I look older than I am, and I’m very responsible, so nobody questioned me. ‘Who wants more kids in the system anyway?’ I heard somebody say that, once. I think she was talking about me.”
“Maybe the system would have found me for you,” King said.
“Not before it took Jake away from me.” Her son moved back to her lap, proving how wrong that would have been. King hated himself for abandoning his daughter to the mercies of a system, overworked on its best days. “How did you manage?”
“Sometimes I’d wait tables, if I found an owner who didn’t mind Jake in the back room. He was a good baby.” She combed his hair with her fingers. “Always quiet. I think he knew he had to be, didn’t you, pup?”
“I was good so Mama could work,” the boy said.
Regina tapped him on the nose with a finger. “I put every dime into feeding him, keeping him warm and safe. I made good choices and bad, but we made it. I knew about your island because Mom had a thing about the castle. She was really mad she couldn’t take it away from you, by the way. So I headed for the only place you ever called home: Paxton Castle.”
“Your mother threw you out on the street and didn’t call me?”
“Evidently.”
“My company phone number is on every check I send her. You should have asked her for it.”
“I asked. She said she didn’t have it.”
The bitch, King thought.
Jake got off the sofa and came to stand in front of him, a familiar hungry-for-love look in his eyes. King knew it well. He took the boy on his lap. “You got a question, buddy?”
“Are you my grampa?”
“I am.”
Jake looked at Regina. “I don’t have to be afraid of my grampa, right?”
“No, pup. No strangers on the island, just family and friends we haven’t met yet.”
Jake nodded. “Good.”
“How old are you?” King asked him.
“Two.” Jake held up two fingers. “But I’m gonna be free soon. I saw a tractor in your garden. Bunnies live in gardens. My favorite color is blue. I can write my name. Wanna see?”
“No baby, we don’t have any paper right now,” Regina said. “Later maybe.” Her expression questioned his plans for them.
“Oh, you’re staying,” King said, emotion forcing him to clear his throat. “We have to get the law on our side, but I’ll take up that fight with gusto and with every resource at my disposal, a considerable arsenal, I might add.”
Ignoring the misty sheen in Harmony’s eyes, King ruffled his grandson’s hair, and when the boy’s little head rested on his chest, something in King broke, and he had to swallow hard. “How come this one’s so smart? I didn’t think kids this small talked like him.” King bounced his . . . grandson—wow, did that put life into perspective. “Have you been home-schooling him on the road, Regina?”
“Reggie. He’s eager to learn. At my last job, they called him Baby Einstein.”
“How old are you, Reggie?” Harmony asked.
“Seventeen. Almost eighteen.”
Harmony turned his way in shock, and King shrugged. “Yep, it runs in the family. I was a junior in high school when Regina was born.”
“Reggie,” she said.
“That’s when I changed high schools,” he told Harmony. He didn’t want Regina to know that her imminent arrival had cost him a military school graduation.
His daughter, finally, with him after all these years. He wished he’d hugged her right away. Now he’d missed his chance, and he didn’t know how to get it back. Regret threatened to choke him.
Harmony took Regina’s hand, tugged her off the sofa, and brought her to him, so King got up with Jake and faced her.
Harmony stole Jake with a chocolate cookie, then she shoved Regina his way. King’s arms went around that girl so fast and hard, he was afraid he’d break her, but she didn’t seem to mind, because she held him in a bone crusher. At first she cried silently, then she all-out sobbed in his arms; his little girl, who’d lived though hell while he became a rich playboy with a sailboat and helicopter for toys. He was such a shit.
Through a mist, he watched Harmony carry Jake—his little head on her shoulder—from the formal parlor.
King picked up his daughter and carried her back to the sofa, where he sat with her on his lap, her face in his neck, and he let her cry her heart out. His own tears wet his face, no stopping them. He blamed Harmony for that. But maybe, for Regina’s sake, it was a good thing Harmony had taken a can opener to his ramparts.
He was a first-class jerk. Back when he’d screwed up, he’d been glad Belinda wanted a divorce. Glad to be rid of her. And his daughter? Well, he’d managed to put her out of his mind most of the time, except when he signed the monthly child support checks. Son of a bitch. He’d paid child support for three years while Regina supported herself. Belinda was a shit, too. “You sure didn’t luck out in the parent department,” King said.
“I always imagined sitting on your lap,” Regina said. “I dreamed about it for years, but maybe I’m too old now?”
“Your choice, but we could pretend this is the day you were born, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you—because it is—and I could hold you for a bit, just for today.”
She stayed where she was. “You never saw me?”
“I went to the hospital the day you were born, but your mother had me arrested before I saw you. Disobeying a no-contact order can do that to a guy. I came back to Salem when I got out of jail.”
“How long were you and mom married?”
“Long enough to give you my name and to give her the right to a great deal of my money. About two weeks.”
“Wow, you got off easy.”
King chuckled. “No kidding.”