Angel's Peak (Virgin River #10)(33)

“How’m I gonna do that?!”

“Show up. Talk to her. Play with her. I let Ellie’s daughter put ribbons and clips and stuff in my hair. It’s a bonding experience for us both—I get to look stupid and she gets control.”

“What if she asks…?”

“Tell her before she asks,” Noah advised. “If you know for sure you’re her father, you better tell her the second you meet her. There’s a period of adjustment for both of you. Get started on it. All that stuff that went before? That separated you from Franci? You don’t have to work on that with Rosie. You and Franci will work that out. I’m available if you need me. I can help with that.”

Sean just stared at him for a long moment, silent. Finally he asked, “Do you really know what you’re doing here?”

“I do,” Noah said. “I actually studied and practiced counseling before the seminary. I have a degree and everything.”

“What am I going to tell Luke?”

“Everything or nothing,” Noah said. “The most important thing right now is not what you tell other people, it’s what you tell Rosie. She’s a little girl. Whether she knows it or not, she wants a father. She needs a father. You’re that person. Good luck—you’re going to have to learn fast to fully understand what that means.”

“The next person who needs to know about this has to be my mother. In case you haven’t noticed, my mother is a very strong woman with very firm ideas.”

“I’m not as good with mothers,” Noah admitted. “You’ll be fine. I bet she loves you.”

Sean shook his head. “It never kept her from whacking me in the back of the head if I didn’t do what she liked. Strict. My mother was strict. All five of us were altar boys. She’s wanted grandchildren for a long, long time. The fact that she’s had one for this long without knowing? Oh, man, I’m never going to hear the end of that.”

Noah chuckled. “Just duck,” he advised.

On Sunday mornings after church, it wasn’t unusual for Paul Haggerty to set up a work station at Jack’s Bar. He had an on-site construction trailer and a small office in his home, but he liked getting a little work done here. He’d set up his laptop at the end of the bar, jump on Preacher’s satellite for the Internet connection, kibbitz with Jack a little. It wasn’t quite as dreary as the trailer and there weren’t a couple of toddlers running around calling Daddy this, Daddy that. At home, he’d have one, if not two, kids on his lap.

So after church, Vanni promised to take the kids home, give them lunch and put them down for naps. Then she winked at him and said, “Naps,” again. Paul intended to get a few things done at the bar and then hurry home.

Jack brought him a cup of coffee. “Big project?” he asked.

“Small project made big. Remember Ian Buchanan’s old cabin? His sister-in-law, Erin, wants to spend some time there next summer, but she is definitely not the outhouse kind of chick. She wants it completely renovated, enlarged and furnished. She sends me pictures of her ideas and I send her pictures back of what I have available.” Paul shook his head a little, looking off at nothing. “She doesn’t plan to be on site even once before she arrives for the summer. Busy lawyer type.” He grinned. “One tough taskmaster. Not much gets by her.”

“You have to buy her furniture?” Jack asked.

“No.” Paul laughed. “It’ll be shipped from Robb & Stucky when the interior is done.”

“Robb and who?” Jack asked.

“Top-end furnishings, pal. Ms. Foley will be living in style out on that mountain. We’re moving real fast right now to get an add-on bedroom and bath, the roofing and wiring done and a hole dug for a septic system before the first snowfall up there. I’d say we have another month and then we’ll be close to having the big stuff done. We’ve been at it since September. And there’s always spring if we get pushed. We’ll do some interior work during the winter.”

“I remember her,” Jack said. “Kinda uppity.”

“Never met her,” Paul said. “Her e-mails, which are pretty frequent, are real businesslike, but I figured her being a lawyer, they’d be that way. She definitely knows what she wants,” he said, clicking on a picture and turning the laptop toward Jack. There on the screen was a beautifully furnished rustic living room with rich leather furniture, shining wood floors, rough wood paneling, classy window treatments and a big, stone hearth. Included were accessories from rugs to throws, from artwork to bric-a-brac.

Jack whistled. “I thought Ian had himself an old wood-burning stove.”

“Uh-huh. Stonemason’s been out there for a week building the fireplace. That old place is not the same, if I do say so myself.”

“I hope she’s paying well.”

“She put the work out for bid,” Paul said with a laugh. “The girl knows what she’s doing. But this is the first time I’ve ever completely rebuilt a house via e-mail.” He pushed Send on something and said, “That ought to do it for today.” He closed the laptop. “I have to get home before I miss nap time.”

“Pretty soon you’ll have cartoons. Well, they used to call ’em cartoons,” Jack said. “Now it’s something else, but they still look like cartoons. Mel says they were invented so the parents could have sex.”