Page 19 of Baby Nanny

Jack released a harsh laugh, one that had Isabella stirring in his arms. He traced a reassuring hand along his niece’s back and forced himself to calmness. With a small, inarticulate murmur Isabella settled. “Not even close,” he stated quietly. “My father would have considered this sort of activity a complete waste of time.”

“Oh.” That single word spoke volumes. “And your mother? Would she have considered it a waste of time, as well?”

He hoped the darkness concealed his expression, but he could hear the pain creep into his voice. “She was different than my father. Before their divorce she tried not to show her emotions, since he’d use any sign of weakness against her. She changed later on.”

“How old were you when they broke up?”

“Eight. Nine, maybe. Joanne was two years older.”

“And how did your mother change, afterward?”

“She softened, became more openly affectionate. Of course, it’s hard to say if she acted like that all the time . Ican only base it on the time I saw her.”

“What do you mean?” Annalise straightened, and he could feel her attempting to penetrate the darkness in order to read his expression. “Didn’t your mother have custody of you?”

“No, only Joanne. My father took me.”

He caught Annalise’s soft gasp. “They split you up?”

“Yes.” A wintry coldness settled over him. With that one single decision, every scrap of love and kindness had been removed from his life. He still felt the loss to this day. “My mother never spoke to me about that time, but Joanne once explained that our father threatened to take both of us and prevent our mother from ever seeing us again if she didn’t agree to his terms.”

A strobe of brilliance flashed across the screen, allowing him to see Annalise’s stricken expression. “Could he have done that?”

“Considering I didn’t see either my mother or my sister again until I turned thirteen, I’d say not only could he, but he did precisely that.”

“How…?” Her voice thickened, betraying her emotional reaction to his response. “Why…?” She shook her head, unable to formulate the questions she clearly wanted toask.

Jack leaned his head back against the couch cushion and stared blindly at the old Star Trek movie, Isabella’s current favorite. “How? With some of the most powerful lawyers moneycould buy. Why? Because he was—and is —atotal bastard who used me to hit out at my mother.”

“But you did finally get to see her,” Annalise said on a note of urgency.

A smile of satisfaction tugged at his mouth. “That I did.”

“I assume he finally relented?” she asked tentatively.

“Not a chance in hell. The summer I turned thirteen, Dad took off overseas on an extended honeymoon with his latest trophy wife. He’d sent me to summer camp. That lasted precisely one day before I broke out and hitchhiked to Colorado, where my mother lived with her second husband.”

“Dear God, Jack!” She reached for him, her hand clutching his arm. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Anything could have happened to you.”

He regarded her with a hint of amusement. “That’s what my mother said. It was worth it, though . Istayed with them for most of that summer.” A summer filled with magic and hope . Asummer unlike anything he’d experienced before or since . Asummer that had ended in the death of dreams. “Until my father found out, that is. But those couple of months were quite eye opening.”

“In what way?”

His brows tugged together reflecting a hint of the bewilderment he’d experienced during that time. “They were all so happy. They laughed almost all the time. And when they fought…” He struggled for the right words to explain. “I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did.”

“You mean when they fought, you weren’t worried they were on the verge of divorce.” Her hand shifted, rubbing his arm ina soothing motion. He doubted she even noticed her actions. “They were never nasty toward each other.”

“Exactly. They were—” he reflected on it for a moment “—casual. As though the way they interacted—the laughter, the tears, the squabbling, the open affection—demonstrated a normal, everyday occurrence.”

“It probably did.” She tilted her head to one side, sending a swath of curls tumbling across her shoulder. “How often did you get to visit after that?”

“I didn’t. My disobedience that summer earned me a trip to military school . Ididn’t see Joanne again until I turned eighteen and my father no longer had any say in where I went or who I saw. Unfortunately, my mother and her husband managed to drive themselves off an icy mountainside a few months beforehand.”

“Oh, Jack! How awful.” He caught the betraying glitter of tears and felt something shift inside him, something deep and powerful. Something he wanted to protect himself from because it came from a wellspring of emotions he preferred to deny. “What happened to Joanne? Did she move back to Charleston to live with you and your father?”

“No. She was in college by then and flat out refused to have anything to do with our father.”

“Or you?” she dared toask.

---