Page 1 of Healing Hope

1

Paul never would have expected to be in this position. He prided himself on being smart and ahead of the game. Why then, was he feeling like the biggest, most gullible schmuck that had ever walked the planet?

“Daddy, I think she loves me!”

Paul glanced back at his beautiful daughter, and her radiant smile. The car seat wasn’t very big, but she’d made enough room on her lap for the hairy little brown and white dog to fall asleep. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her smile recently, but this was definitely the biggest. All because of some little mutt.

Erin would probably scold him for taking the animal out of her cage, but there was only so much whining he could listen to on the drive back to California. At the rest stop he’d gotten Hope out to use the bathroom and walk the dog, and when they returned to the car, he could feel her gaze on him. He knew what she wanted. Child and dog both shut up when he let them be together.

“Thank you for letting me have her,” she whispered. “She’s so beautiful.”

His heart thudded in his chest. Okay, maybe he was okay with being a gullible schmuck if it made her this happy. He didn’t know what she saw in the scrap of fur and dark eyes, but it eased the sadness in his little girl.

They hadn’t had an easy time of it over the past couple of months, so he could be flexible.

It was the first genuine enjoyment he’d seen in her expression since her mother had died.

Tara, Hope’s mother, had been a setup by a friend of a friend. As soon as Paul met her, he’d known she wasn’t long-term relationship material. Tara expected the world to revolve around her. She was too self-centered. He didn’t think she’d come from a bad family, but she acted like everything bad in life had happened to her. It had been beyond tedious listening to her complain about how unfair her boss was, or the landlord not giving her more time to get the rent. Eventually he’d read the writing on the wall and made his escape. He planned on not calling her after that single, horrible date.

A week later she’d shown up on his doorstep crying, giving him a sob story about her father disowning her. Paul had tried to comfort her and one thing had led to another, then to them in bed. She’d been determined and he’d been lonely. The next morning she’d disappeared without a word and a month later she’d notified him she was pregnant.

What a mess that had been. Talk about gullible schmuck. He had a feeling she’d slept with him deliberately to get pregnant.

Tara hadn’t even considered staying with Paul. He was a handy bed-warmer, she said, but she never professed to love him. It was only later when he found out that her actual boyfriend was in jail, convicted of some major drug offense. Paul couldn’t even remember if she’d told him exactly what the charge was, he only knew that the guy had been convicted and was serving a ten-year sentence. Immediately, his estimation of Tara had gone down, but by that time she’d been several months pregnant. What was he supposed to do?

She’d allowed him to pay for the doctor’s appointments, but he hadn’t been allowed to attend the appointments with her. She’d given him a copy of the ultrasound when she’d gotten it done, and he’d been able to see his daughter for the first time, but that had been the extent of their communication. The speed with which she’d removed herself from his life had left his head spinning.

Though she hadn’t cut him out completely. Whenever she’d been short of funds, she’d give him a call, and sucker that he was, he would help her out, hoping he could see his daughter later. He should have talked to a lawyer sooner, but hindsight was twenty/twenty.

When Tara had the baby, she hadn’t even bothered to let him know. It was only when the baby was a couple of weeks old that he could see her. Angry with the entire situation, Paul had gone over to Tara’s apartment and tried to be civil, but it was difficult.

All of that anger and angst faded when he looked down at his daughter. Dark-haired and pale-eyed, even he could see how much she looked like him. Paul had never been the type to be able to look at a baby and see its heritage, but in his own daughter he could, and he felt such a sense of pride and love. With her dark hair and bluish-grey eyes, he could see parts of his own mother and father. He could see nothing of Tara’s blond hair and brown eyes.

Tara, of course, had derailed their connection. On his second visit with his daughter, Tara informed him they were moving across the state. The smug expression in her eyes had confused him because he had done nothing to Tara to hurt her, but she was taking incredible satisfaction in making it as difficult as possible for Paul to see his daughter. When he asked her where she was going, she’d given him a town name but no address. Tara had promised to let him know as soon as she got settled and they would set up visitation. The very next day, she left.

Tara never let him know where they landed. She turned off her facebook page and social media and disconnected her cell phone number. Paul was left with only dead ends, and no thought where they could have gone. The city where she’d supposedly been heading had no record of her. Paul had hired an investigative group out of Denver to find her and the baby, but it had taken them months to find her.

The Lost and Found Group had given him more than he’d asked for, though. They’d given him hours' worth of footage of Tara moving around. She was in California now, in a small artist community in the mountains. They were off the grid, mostly, which had been part of the reason the detectives had such a hard time finding her.

As soon as he got a bead on her, Paul had filed court papers for visitation. His lawyer had been encouraging, but when they’d walked into the hearing several months later, Tara had unleashed holy hell on him, claiming he was aggressive with her and domineering. Every feminine wile she’d learned in her life, she used on the kind, older judge.

“I can’t even go out to my brother’s house in California without him hiring detectives to track me down. They stalked us for weeks, videotaping us and making us uncomfortable.”

“Your Honor,” Paul’s lawyer had stood, shaking his head. “Mr. Jameson was only concerned for the welfare of his child when the mother left town without telling him where she was going.”

“I told him I would tell him, eventually.”

Tara burst into tears and Paul had been with her long enough to tell they were fake, but the rest of the men in the courtroom were taken in by her false distress. The judge’s eyes softened and Tara, strategist that she was, made her final play. “Your Honor, he seriously has some issues. His arm was blown off in the war and I think it damaged something inside him, mentally. He is so controlling, and when he doesn’t get his way, he gets mad. And I get scared.”

Paul was fuming at her unfair words, and she pointed an accusing finger. “Look at him. He’s so mad! I won’t subject my tiny daughter to that.”

Quicker than he could believe, Paul had lost every chance of being with his daughter. He could have supervised visitation once Tara settled permanently, but that would be arranged through the court.

He was in a daze as he walked out of the courthouse, and he could still remember the complete desolation in his heart. He’d lost his little girl.

By the time she ‘settled’ in Oregon, Paul was ensconced in his new director job at La Jolla Rehabilitation Center. He’d seen his daughter eight times in her life, about twice a year, before Tara was killed in the crash, making him a father in truth, finally. Tara’s former boyfriend was still incarcerated and there were no other family willing to take the toddler. Paul tried not to be happy about that, but in a way he felt vindicated. Fate had given Tara a chance to take care of the baby. Now it was his turn. And he was loving it. Hope was an amazing little person and he could see both aspects of himself and Tara, but her personality was uniquely her own. Paul could lose himself in watching the emotions play over her tiny face, especially her joy.

That was why he’d agreed to the dog, even though it would be a pain in his ass. Nothing else had given his daughter joy like the little animal, and he planned on keeping that expression there.

---