All-American Father

“I wish.” What would uneventful feel like? “He’s not your dog?”

“Looks like he is now.” Selena’s smile widened as Leslie pushed a shopping cart full of snacks into the store. “Hey, kiddo, how’s it going?”

“Is my dad with you?” Leslie tried hard to look like she didn’t really care.

“No, sorry,” Selena commiserated as the twelve-year-old’s shoulders slumped. “Drew and I were out this way for his baseball team’s pre-season meeting. I thought we’d stop and see how things were going. Nice threads,” she added with a wink.

“Yeah, they’re swell.” Leslie shuffled toward the half-empty rack of snacks. “Everything’s just peachy.”

“Tell her father she’s doing great,” Bailey offered, still trying to place Selena in her Western High memories. But Bailey had been four years behind Derrick’s class, and all she could seem to remember was him.

“You’ll probably talk to Derrick before I do,” Selena said. “He only shared that Leslie would be spending afternoons here because I nagged him about it. He told me not to bother you while I was in town. That he trusted you, which was unusual enough to make sure I wouldn’t pass up the chance to snoop. He’s one of my closest friends, but that man doesn’t trust much of anyone these days, women most of all.”

“Oh, well…” Bailey caught Scott Fletcher hanging on every word. She stared him down, and he finally turned back to the sitcom blaring from the small TV Drayton kept behind the register. “I guess I should get back to the office. I have to balance the weekly accounts before heading over to Margo’s later.”

“How are things going at the Gables?” Selena snooped on, undeterred.

Bailey hesitated, finally deciding the best response to the out-of-the-blue question was saying nothing at all.

“I know,” Selena conceded. “I sound like a hopeless busybody, but I’ve always loved that old place. I actually stopped in the middle of the street the first time I laid eyes on it. The Victorian architecture… The picture the house makes on the edge of that bluff overlooking the bay… It’s really something. I have Langston clients who bring me out this way a few times a month, and everyone around the community admires how hard you’ve worked keeping the inn going for your grandmother.”

“Yes, well…” Everyone? “The bank still lets us live there.”

For now.

“Derrick mentioned how great it looks inside. It impressed the hell out of him, when I told him you’d stayed on after your father died, instead of heading off to college.”

“Bailey, you gonna be here for a few more minutes?” Scott brushed by without waiting for an answer. “I’m going out back for a smoke.”

Stunned by the idea that someone like Derrick Cavenaugh, not to mention her tiny community, was impressed enough to gossip about her paycheck-to-paycheck existence, Bailey let Scott go—when she’d made it a firm rule not to enable the teenager’s determination to flirt with lung cancer. Stepping behind the register, she put several feet between her and the woman smiling at her inability to respond to the most unexpected compliment she’d ever received.

She’d blown every expectation she’d ever had for her life. She’d made such a success of the last eleven years, her grandmother’s business was on the last of its nine lives.

“Mom?” Selena’s son poked his head inside. He held the panting, drooling dog by the collar.

“We should get going,” Selena said. “Say hi to Derrick for me. See you later, Les.”

She waved and headed after her son.

Leslie pushed the now-empty cart to the front of the store.

“Selena seems nice.” Bailey tidied the various promotional displays crowded around the register.

“I guess.” Leslie drooped against the counter in a display of preteen sulking.

“So, she and your dad been friends since high school?”

“I guess.” The kid studied Bailey for a minute. “They’re not dating, if that’s what you mean.”

Bailey knocked over the carton of dollar-store-quality penlights. “What? No, I wasn’t…I mean, I’m not—”

“He hasn’t dated anyone since my mom screwed him over for his best friend.” Leslie fiddled with a loose thread on her T-shirt’s hem. “The way I figure it, my mom started stepping out right after Savannah was born. The Mighty DC never pulled his nose out of his work long enough to notice. Not until she filed for divorce.”

“Looks like you’ve got him noticing now.” Bailey gave the kid’s shoulder a friendly nudge. “But working here is nothing compared to the price you’re going to pay if you don’t rein in some of the acting out. You don’t want to spend the rest of the year needing a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card just to leave your house.”

“So what if I don’t get to go anywhere? I hate this nowhere town. Things were better back in Atlanta. As soon as my dad sees that, we’ll be out of here.”

You had to admire how hard the girl was willing to fight for what she wanted.

“You’re not giving the Bay area a chance,” Bailey reasoned. “Your dad didn’t live here very long when he was a kid. Maybe he’s forgotten what a good time San Francisco can be.”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t care.” The girl turned on the heels of her borrowed sneakers, and shoved the cart toward the storage room for more not-quite-fresh snacks.

Bailey checked her watch and sighed.

She’d been supervising Leslie Cavenaugh for all of half an hour, and she was already growing more attached to the kid than was wise. Not to mention that she suddenly had an itch to stop by the pound and pick up a puppy to bring home. Then there were the memories of Derrick smiling down at her, touching her, that wouldn’t stop replaying in her mind.

Selena had said he’d been impressed. Leslie had thought Bailey was interested in dating the man, assuming Derrick Cavenaugh saw her as anything more than a convenient babysitter.

Meanwhile, Bailey needed a man in her life as much as she needed a puppy.

What she needed was to finish the store’s books, and to keep her contact with Derrick focused on his kid. He was too much of a reminder of what she’d once dreamed of having. Dreams that would only hurt her, if she let herself want them now.

CHAPTER SIX

PRAYING FOR THE OUTCOME of football games was strictly off-limits in Derrick’s world. God had better things to do than care about football.

But Derrick figured asking for a miracle for his family, one that didn’t involve getting himself fired from his law firm, wasn’t totally over the line.

He’d skipped out of a conference call to give himself a shot at making it over the bridge in time to pick up Leslie. But he was still almost a half hour late.

So much for divine intervention.

Braking at the curb in front of the convenience store, he got out of his car and jogged through the rain. Leslie was waiting just inside, her backpack slung over her shoulder, and her “bite me” expression at full tilt.