Johnson Family 1: Unforgettable by Delaney Diamond Page A

and made a chomping sound.
    They laughed as they started down the hall. As they passed the office where she and Lucas had talked, Katie peeked in. “Is the man gone?”
    Ivy’s fingers closed just a little bit tighter around her daughter’s hand. “Yes, he’s gone. We won’t be seeing him again.”

Chapter Eight
    Seated at the boarding gate in Los Angeles International Airport, Lucas swallowed the last of his sandwich and crumpled the wrapper. After he’d left Seattle, he’d flown to LA for three days of radio spots, a newspaper interview, and a photo shoot for a regional magazine. The fatigue was starting to catch up with him. He felt it more often lately.
    “You’re not as young as you used to be,” he told himself.
    He licked a drop of mustard off his finger and caught the faint smile the woman in the chair across from him sent his way. He smiled in return, but looked away.
    Not today, sweetheart.
    He couldn’t even think about hooking up with anyone right now, and it was all Ivy’s fault.
    Because of her, he was a father. He had no idea how to be one, didn’t have one and didn’t want to be one. He’d taken great pains to avoid fatherhood, and part of him was still stunned by the realization that he’d been hit by the bullet he thought he’d dodged all of his life.
    How could she not tell him? And now he was supposed to drop everything and become the father he never wanted to be in the first place?
    His thoughts were all jumbled because actually, she’d said the exact opposite. She’d let him off the hook and taken the news quite well that he didn’t want to take on his parental responsibilities.
    He rested his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face. He had a foster family, five brothers and sisters he’d grown up with in Mama Katherine’s house, but otherwise, he had no known blood relatives. Mama Katherine had told him he may not know who he was or where he came from, but that didn’t make him a nobody. But when he compared his life to Ivy’s, he came up short. She knew her heritage. She could trace her lineage.
    The only memory he had, faint though it was, was of a woman with a large Afro leaning over him and singing the lullaby “Rock-a-Bye-Baby.” He wondered if it was real or a false memory. It could be a dream, but he could almost swear his smile mirrored the one she wore as she sang to him.
    The social workers had told him there was no way he could remember any such occurrence because he’d been so young when they found him, but he held on to the memory nonetheless. It was a connection to his past, no matter how fragile.
    The image of her face was fuzzy and its clarity remained just out of focus. Yet he wanted to believe she was his mother. It gave him something to hold on to, no matter how small, no matter how unlikely. His throat tightened painfully, as if someone had closed their hand around his neck and he straightened in the chair, fighting the suffocating sensation. He hated the drowning feeling that sometimes came over him—as if he were tossed into the abyss and told to sink or swim.
    He’d felt this way all of his life, along with a restless emptiness, not unlike being out to sea in a small vessel without a paddle or motor to propel him along. Just…drifting, without purpose or direction.
    He thought again about Katie, his own flesh and blood. They shared similar traits. She liked to write just like him. Imagine that.
    With a wry smile, Lucas surveyed the bustling crowd at the airport.
    His foot bounced up and down as he thought.
    Maybe he could do it. Maybe he could do the father-thing. The more he thought about it, the less crazy the idea seemed.
    Katie didn’t have a father right now. Why couldn’t it be him? After all, he actually was her father.
    Ivy had obviously wanted to get rid of him. She’d made it ridiculously easy for him to walk away, but he’d show her he was not so easy to get rid of.
    His jaw hardened with resolve and he picked up his