Blue-Eyed Devil (Travis Family #2)(66)

Some men were partial to their daughters. My dad wasn't one of them. Maybe if we'd spent more time together, Dad and I could have found common ground, but he'd always been too busy, too driven. Dad had yielded the responsibility of daughter raising to Mother's exclusive control, and no matter how she whittled and chipped, she had never been able to make a square peg fit into a round hole.

My attitude had worsened the harder Mother tried to make me into the right kind of daughter. The possessions that had been deemed unfeminine — my slingshot, my cap pistol, my plastic cowboy-and-Indian set, the Rangers hat Joe had given me — had either disappeared or were given away. "You don't want those," she had said when I complained. "Those things aren't appropriate for little girls."

Mother's two sisters had been sympathetic to her plight, since it was obvious nothing could be done with me. But I thought they had taken some secret satisfaction in the situation. Even though their husbands hadn't been able to afford to buy them a mansion in River Oaks, they had managed to produce my cousins Karma and Jaci and Susan, all perfect little ladies. But Mother, who'd had everything in the world she wanted, had gotten stuck with me.

I'd always known that I'd never have gone to Wellesley if my mother were still living. She had been a staunch antifeminist, although I wasn't sure if she even knew why. Maybe because the system had always worked well for her, a rich man's wife. Or possibly because she believed you could never change the order of things, men's natures being what they were, and she hadn't been one to knock her head against the wall. And many women of her generation had believed there was virtue in tolerating discrimination.

Whatever the reason, Mother and I had certainly had our differences. I felt guilty because her death had allowed me to have my own beliefs and go to the college I wanted. Dad hadn't been happy about it, of course, but he'd been too grief-stricken to argue about it. And it had probably been a relief for him to get me out of Texas.

I called Dad on my way to River Oaks to make sure he was at home. Since my car had been totaled by the garage flooding, I was driving a rental car. I was greeted at the front door by the housekeeper, Cecily. She had worked for the Travises for as long as I could remember. She'd been old even when I was a child, her face lined with grooves you could wedge a dime in.

While Cecily headed off to the kitchen, I went to Dad, who was relaxing in the family room. The room was flanked by walk-in fireplaces on each side, and was big enough that you could park a personnel carrier in it. My father was at one end of the room, relaxing on a living room sofa with his feet propped up.

Dad and I hadn't spent any real time together since my divorce. We had seen each other only for short visits, with other people present. It seemed we both felt that getting through a private conversation was more trouble than it was worth.

As I looked at my father, I realized he was getting old. His hair had gotten more white than gray, and his tobacco tan had faded, evidence that he was spending less time outdoors. And he had a sort of settled-in air, the look of a man who had stopped straining and hurrying to reach the next thing around the corner.

"Hey, Dad." I leaned down to kiss his cheek, and sat next to him.

His dark eyes inspected me carefully. "None the worse for wear, looks like."

"Nope." I grinned at him. "Thanks to Hardy Cates."

"You called him, did you?"

I knew where that was leading. "Yeah. Lucky I had my cell phone." Before he could pursue the line of questioning, I tried to divert him. "I guess I'll have a good story to tell my therapist when she gets back from vacation."

Dad frowned in disapproval, as I knew he would. "You're going to a head doctor?"

"Don't say 'head doctor,' Dad. I know it's what people used to call mental health professionals, but now it has a different meaning."

"Like what?"

"It's slang for a woman who's good at . . . a certain bedroom activity.

My father shook his head. "Young people."

I grinned at him. "I didn't come up with it. I'm just trying to keep you updated. So . . . yes, I'm going to a therapist, and she's helped me a lot so far."

"It's a waste of money," Dad said, "paying someone to listen to you complain. All they do is tell you what you want to hear."

As far as I knew, Dad knew approximately nothing about therapy. "You never told me about your psychology degree, Dad."

He gave me a dark look. "Don't tell people you're going to a therapist. They'll think something's wrong with you."

"I'm not embarrassed for someone to know I have problems."

"The only problems you got are the ones you made for yourself. Like marrying Nick Tanner when I told you not to."

I smiled ruefully as I reflected that my father never missed a chance to say I-told-you-so. "I've already admitted you were right about Nick. You can keep reminding me about it, and I can keep admitting I was wrong, but I don't think that's productive. Besides, you were wrong in how you handled it."

His eyes glinted with annoyance. "I stood by my principles. I'd do it again."

I wondered when he'd gotten his notions of fathering. Maybe he thought it was good for his children to have the authority figure he'd never had. His fear of ever admitting he was wrong, about anything, seemed like strength to him. It seemed like weakness to me.