What Happiness Looks Like (Promises) Read online

  Praise for Karen Lenfestey and A Sister’s Promise:

  “Kate’s journey is always intriguing, sometimes humorous, and also heartwarming. The plot kept me guessing and I loved the characters.”

  —Nicole Green, Author of Holding her Breath and Love Out of Order

  “The books I love have characters that hook me and a voice that strikes a chord with me. . . All in all, A Sister’s Promise was a great combination—likeable characters and an interesting plot, along with strong writing.”

  —Judy Post, Author featured in Horrors! 365 Scary Stories

  What Happiness Looks Like Summary:

  Joely Shupe had a vision of what her thirties would look like: she’d be the mother of two, finger painting with her kids during the day and cooking dinner for her loving husband at night. Instead, the onset of lupus robbed her of her optimism and her chance for happily ever after. Now she’s a single mother unable to provide for her daughter.

  To make matters worse, her ex-fiancé, Jake, shows up—unemployed and reeling from a personal tragedy. He claims he’s ready to parent the daughter he abandoned five years ago. Joely is more interested in Dalton, a devoted father to his own son, who offers to take care of her the way no man ever has. Should she risk her daughter bonding with someone new or with the man who broke her heart?

  Meanwhile, Joely’s sister, Kate, has the husband and the home, but no baby. After several failed attempts at fertility treatments, her husband is ready to give up. Kate believes his solution to their problems will tear them apart.

  For Joely and Kate, one thing is for sure: this is not the life they expected. Is it time to adjust their idea of what happiness looks like?

  Visit Karen Lenfestey’s webpage at karensnovels.weebly.com

  & check out her semi-humorous “Thoughts on Motherhood” blog.

  You can also follow Karen Lenfestey on Facebook, Twitter and GoodReads.com

  Copyright © to Karen Lenfestey 2011.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  JOELY

  Joely couldn’t stop thinking about the fortune cookie she’d had with lunch—the one that suffered from a translation error. She ran her tongue over the sweet, crunchy bits of cookie still stuck in her back molars. It had read: “When opportunity calls, answer.” She’d always heard that opportunity knocked. Feeling cheated, she’d selected another cookie from the basket on the buffet. That message was even worse: “Your past will determine your future.” She clenched her teeth. One thing Joely knew for sure: she regretted her past and had no interest in revisiting it.

  Through the bank of windows she could hear kids laughing, sometimes screaming, on the playground. As she sat alone in her daughter’s kindergarten room, she looked at its dramatic colors: the red apple and the striped zebra on the alphabet above the chalkboard, the splattered paint smocks hanging on pegs, and the children’s watercolors of scarlet poppies, purple irises and blue morning glories. The teacher had recently finished a unit on Georgia O’Keeffe, contrasting the way the artist filled the canvas with something small, while Grandma Moses took something large, like a house, and painted it tiny. Joely adored the way most elementary teachers embraced art just as they did reading, writing and arithmetic.

  The phone behind her trilled. She flinched, banging her knee on the miniature table. Her long legs were always bumping into things.

  “Shouldn’t you get that?” came a deep voice from the hall.

  She looked over and saw a man, dressed in jeans and a burgundy button-down shirt, standing in the doorway. They made eye contact and he smiled.

  When the phone trilled again, she shrugged. Before the teacher left for recess duty, she hadn’t mentioned what to do if the phone on her desk rang. It never had before when Joely volunteered, which she did twice a week. Besides, it seemed wrong to answer someone else’s phone.

  The man closed the distance between them and shook her hand. “I’m here to help. My name’s Dalton.” He had wavy chestnut hair and a dimple in his chin.

  “I’m Joely. Whose dad are you?”

  He headed toward the windows. She took her place beside him, noticing that he smelled like the country sky—clean, fresh, exhilarating. He peered out the glass a moment before pointing toward a boy with brown hair and round glasses.

  “He’s cute.” Rrrrring. That darn phone. She wished the teacher’s voicemail would kick in. She spotted her daughter on the swing, her long, blond curls trailing behind her. “There’s my Anna Jo.”

  He nodded. “She’s pretty. She has your face.”

  Joely’s heart hop-scotched a few beats. Men used to nod or flirt with her all the time. But that was before. . . . Acting as if his comment hadn’t flustered her, she returned to her seat and explained that they needed to cut poodle silhouettes out of black felt.

  Finally, the phone went silent. Joely’s shoulders relaxed.

  Dalton sat across from her and struggled to cut the felt with the dull, safety scissors. “What do you think of this sock-hop theme for Dads' Night?”

  “I’m not sure the kids get it.” She edged her blades around the dog’s hind leg. “My daughter asked me what a jukebox was and after I explained, she asked me what a record was.” They both laughed.

  “The truth is, my only frame of reference for the 1950s is the movie Grease.” He paused to look at her. “Did you ever see that?”

  “Of course.”

  “You don’t look that old.”

  Joely smiled. “I saw it on video.” He didn’t look that old either. Maybe twenty-nine or thirty. A few years younger than she. “I may not look old, but I sure feel it.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.

  He arched his back. “Tell me about it. Couldn’t they give us regular sized chairs?”

  “And regular scissors?” She held hers up and snipped the air twice.

  He nodded, then rose and walked to the teacher’s cluttered desk. He searched amongst the papers, pencils and books. A moment later, he slid open the desk’s center drawer. “A-ha!” He raised a pair of pointed Fiskers in the air.

  She felt like clapping. “Awesome. Is there another pair?”

  He continued opening drawers along the side of the desk. He scanned the contents, but didn’t disturb anything. “I guess not.”

  “Too bad.”

  He walked back to Joely and offered her the scissors.

  “No, you take them.”

  Clasping the blades, he placed the orange handles in her palm. “What kind of gentleman would do that?”

  “Well, thanks.” Her focus dropped to the pointed toe of a cowboy boot peeking out from under his Levi’s. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No ma’am. Just moved from Oklahoma.”

  A memory came to her. “When I was little, my grandfather went to a convention in Tulsa and brought me back a pair of red cowboy boots. I loved them, but when I wore them to school, I got teased.”

  “That’s too bad. No one’s had the nerve to say anything to me yet. At least not to my face.” He winked at her.

  “I wish now I hadn’t hidden the boots under my bed.” As a child, she’d grown weary of being teased—usually for the small mole above her lip and the matching one on her neck. “Back then I cared so much about what people thought.”

  “Not anymore?”

  She gestured toward her outfit, a blue and white polka-dotted dress she’d picked up in a vintage store, adorned with a neckl
ace a friend had made for her out of glass beads. A navy fedora perched on top of her head. “What do you think?”

  He grinned. “I think you look like a woman who knows who she is.”

  Her heart fluttered. Before they went to lunch at China Buffet, her older sister, Kate, had begged her not to wear the hat, saying it was too much. Kate accused her of having “orphan syndrome,” claiming Joely didn’t care what the neighbors thought. Her sister, a counselor, loved to diagnose people. Joely believed the label was a little extreme and suspected it wasn’t even a real diagnosis. Besides, she did care what people thought; she just figured if you yielded to everyone else’s opinion, you’d become a watered down version of yourself. How sad would that be?

  Dalton sat down and continued cutting with the small scissors. They worked in silence for a while until he cleared his throat. “Is Anna’s dad excited about tonight?”

  His words stabbed her in the ribs. Anna had never met her dad. He’d been too preoccupied with his other family to care about them. “No. My sister Kate’s husband will be her escort.”

  “Divorced?”

  Joely shook her head. “Never made it down the aisle.”

  His lips squeezed together as he nodded. “Maybe it’s better that way.” Sadness flashed through his eyes.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  Just then the phone on the teacher’s desk rang. Dalton and Joely looked at each other. Her fortune popped into her head. Perhaps it was bad luck to ignore the call.

  She stood. “Maybe it’s important.” She lifted the receiver in mid-ring. “This is the kindergarten classroom. Joely Shupe speaking.”

  An elderly woman’s voice crackled over the line. “There’s a man here in the main office. He says he’s Anna’s father.”

  Joely’s insides bottomed out like an elevator with cut cables.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JOELY

  Joely dropped the receiver and bolted out of the classroom. Could it really be Jake? What was he doing here?

  She rounded the corridor corner. Through the office window she saw a man with dark blond hair leaning against the receptionist’s counter on one elbow, his back to her. She recognized the confident stance. The air of a man used to getting what he wanted—in his career and in his personal life. Unfortunately, Joely wasn’t one of the things he’d wanted for very long.

  Sadder still, Anna had never even been on his radar.

  Anger coursed through her body. She jerked the office door open, ready to strike.

  Jake turned his head and straightened to his commanding six foot two height. Joely remembered how rare it was to stand next to a man who made her feel small, feminine.

  She took in his face. He’d changed. He’d grown a beard, which made him look like the sexy villain in a soap opera, and the shadows under his eyes aged him beyond his thirty-five years. He dared to smile at her, the edges of his lips twitching.

  She spoke without thinking. “What the hell are you doing here?” The silver-haired receptionist gave her a dirty look, no doubt for her use of foul language. Joely motioned for Jake to follow her out into the hallway.

  In the vacant hall, he smirked. “Hello to you, too.”

  “How did you know where Anna’s school is?”

  He held out a folded piece of baby blue construction paper. On the cover was a stick figure drawing of a man holding hands with a smiling little girl. Joely opened it and saw that Anna had written in big letters “DADS NITE—Pleez come”. Today’s date could be read, but the time looked like a seven and an eight written on top of each other.

  Joely heard herself sigh. “I didn’t know she sent this to you. Kate’s husband is going to take her, so don’t worry about it.”

  “Can we go somewhere to talk? Let me buy you lunch.”

  Would his whiskers scratch if she slapped him? “I already ate.”

  “I came a long way to see you.”

  “Well, I don’t want to see you.” Her heart boom-boom-boomed in defiance.

  He reached for her hand and she caught a whiff of his cologne, a lethal combination of cedar and musk. Her resolve started to melt into a puddle. Some things never changed.

  At that moment, Dalton marched toward them in his black boots, concern etched across his brow. “Are you alright?”

  She pulled her hand away from Jake’s. “Yes. I have to go, though. Can you finish up without me?”

  His eyes surveyed Jake in his preppy polo shirt and chinos. “No problem. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She shook her head. “No. Everything’s fine.” Even though that couldn’t have been further from the truth. When Jake was around, nothing was ever fine.

  # # #

  Jake and Joely sat across from each other at the Artist’s Café as if they were old friends. But they had never been friends.

  Each wall in the café was painted a different color—eggplant, goldenrod, lime, indigo. A copper sculpture with sharp corners hung above their heads.

  Joely stirred the contents of her cup so hard it looked like a miniature brown tsunami. “How’s your wife?” Bitterness tinged every word.

  “I. . . got divorced.”

  “Am I supposed to care?”

  He hunched forward, staring into his coffee. “I get it that you’re mad.”

  “You get it? You abandoned me when I was pregnant. You’ve never even seen your daughter’s face. Don’t act like it’s no big deal. You’re a horrible, heartless person.”

  His blue-gray eyes flashed. He sipped from his white ceramic mug, pursed his lips in disapproval and added a packet of sugar. “You’re right.”

  She took a drink and burned her tongue.

  He sighed as he stirred. “I can’t believe Anna’s in kindergarten already. How old is she now?”

  “Five.” Joely’s posture softened slightly. He wanted to know about Anna, her favorite person in the whole world. How she had longed for this.

  “What’s she like?”

  She stopped blowing on her coffee. “She’s the only one in her class who can count to one-thousand.” After all, it was easy once you saw the pattern, Anna had explained. Joely smiled at the memory.

  “Wow.” He moved his chair a little so a woman pushing a baby stroller could get by, then he refocused on Joely.

  Even though she knew she should hold back, Joely couldn’t wait to share more about her daughter. “Every week she reads a new book. And she loves to paint.”

  He tipped his chin toward her. “She gets that from you.”

  She is like me. A chill crawled up her arms. I hope she didn’t inherit my condition. Hopefully Jake’s hearty genes dominated mine, in utero as they did in real life.

  She sat up straight, remembering how this man had hurt her. “What’s your plan? You swoop in for Dads’ Night then break your daughter’s heart by flying back to California? I don’t think so.”

  “No. I’ve got a few days.”

  “A few days mean nothing in a little girl’s lifetime.”

  He gazed at her, his eyebrows raised. “Just give me a chance. Doesn’t Anna ever ask about me?”

  Of course she did. “Did I have a dad?” “What happened to him?” Ever since Anna had entered kindergarten, she’d become keenly aware that her family didn’t look like most everyone else’s. Eventually Joely had shown Anna Jake’s picture, but that had only made things worse. “Why doesn’t he want to see me?” Joely didn’t have an answer.

  She chose to deny him the reply he sought. “It isn’t fair. She doesn’t understand how much it will hurt to meet you and then lose you.” It had torn Joely apart. Twice. “I won’t let you do that to her.”

  “She’s the one who invited me, remember?”

  That troubled her. “How in the world did Anna get your address?” He shrugged and she gripped her coffee cup tighter. She needed something to hold on to. “You can’t see her.”

  Red blood vessels rose to the surface of his cheeks, betraying the anger he tried to hide. “I’
m her father.” His voice remained calm yet stern. “I have the right to see my own daughter if I want to.”

  “Rights? If you want to talk about rights, how about I have the right to child support? But I never asked for it. Because if you didn’t want us, we didn’t want you. And we’ve done just fine without you.” Not exactly the truth, but close enough.

  He nodded. “I’m sure you have. You always made the best of a bad situation.”

  She knew he liked to use flattery to win people over and she wasn’t falling for it. “That was my downfall. I put up with a bad situation for far too long.” She could hear her sister’s voice in her head: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

  She pushed away her cup. “There’s no way I’m giving you another chance to screw up my life.”

  “I understand. But this isn’t about you. This is about Anna. I need to see her and apparently she wants to see me, too.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. “My cell’s number is on here. Give me a call when you’re ready.” He tried to hand it to her, but she wouldn’t take it. He placed it on the shellacked table top and pushed it toward her.

  Joely picked the card off the table and dropped it into her nearly-full coffee cup. Then she marched out the door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  KATE

  Kate rolled back onto her shoulders and stuck her legs up in the air, feeling like a clumsy gymnast. The bed lacked support, so she had learned to place her feet on the wall above the headboard.

  Mitch offered her a pained smile. When she’d first started doing this move, anything to help the sperm and egg connect, he’d laughed. But now, five years later, they’d both lost their sense of humor. He pulled on his pants, buttoned his shirt and re-tied his striped tie. “I’d better return to the office.”

  “You’re going back to work?” She thought he’d take the rest of the afternoon off just like she had. But things were a bit slow for her right now. A few parents, due to financial restraints, had recently decided to end their children’s counseling sessions with her. Mitch’s job demands, however, never seemed to lighten up.