Second Chance Dad

Mackenzie returned Ashton’s grin. “Okay. As long as you make Bully Baer sit at a different table.”

THE EARLY-SPRING WIND popped the flag and clanged the cable against the flagpole in front of the school as Hanna shuffled Ashton toward the SUV. She couldn’t believe he’d actually gotten into trouble, much less a fistfight. At least nobody had mentioned involving the police. She folded the form she’d received explaining In School Suspension and the possible consequences if this did not resolve the behavior issue.

Now that the divorce was finalized, she was fighting to regain control of her own life. She hadn’t expected her control of Ashton to be tested so quickly.

Vince and Mackenzie stood on the sidewalk beside the macho motorcycle, both holding helmets. Was he actually going to drive his daughter home on that unsafe vehicle?

Ashton waved goodbye to Mackenzie, but Hanna pointedly ignored Vince Keegan. With any luck, Ashton’s friendship with Mackenzie would run its course quickly. Hanna had hoped he’d pick his friends more wisely.

He carefully placed his backpack in the backseat and buckled his seat belt. “Sorry, Mom.”

Staring in the rearview mirror at those deep-brown eyes, she wanted to reach back and ruffle his curls the way she did when he was little. “I’m sorry you had such a horrible first day.”

“It wasn’t that bad, just some of the boys kept messing with me. Walking by my desk and knocking my pencil off. No real biggy. Morning recess was okay. I was talking to Ms. Jones. But at lunch, I didn’t have anybody to sit with so I found a seat at one end of a table when Billy and these other guys crowded me. Billy knocked my milk over into my plate. He said he was sorry, but his grin was all full of meanness and the other boys laughed like it was a big joke.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Hanna stopped at a four-way intersection and looked back at Ashton.

He shrugged. “That wasn’t so bad, either. But then at afternoon recess Billy kept calling me names, and Ms. Jones wasn’t noticing since she was talking to another teacher.” Visibly brightening, Ashton continued. “So I’m standing there wondering what to do, and Mackenzie swoops in like Wonder Woman. She shoves Billy and tells him to back off. He shoves back, and I don’t know who hit who, but I couldn’t just stand there like a wuss and let a girl fight my battle, you know? So Billy grabbed Mackenzie’s ponytail, and I socked him in the nose.” Ashton’s eyes sparkled with pure male elation. “Blood spurted out like a fountain, just like in the movies. It was cool. He swung back and busted my lip against my tooth, but it didn’t hurt much.”

“Ashton, I do understand. But this behavior cannot continue. You should resolve your problems with your words and not with your fists. No exceptions. No excuses. Okay?” She didn’t mention that his lawyer father would twist such incidents to seal his argument that Ashton belonged in Dallas. “Your asthma didn’t flare?”

“No, Mom. Anyway, I had my inhaler.”

As they pulled away from the intersection, Ashton pointed to the Super Wal-Mart. “I need some new clothes before tomorrow.”

Snapping her gaping mouth shut, Hanna wondered who this boy was and what he had done with her son. “You want to buy clothes at Wal-Mart?” She hadn’t been in a Wal-Mart in fifteen years. To her knowledge, Ashton had never set foot inside one.

“Yeah. Mackenzie said they have jeans. I want the kind that looks like you’ve been playing in them already. And she said you can buy three-packs of T-shirts.”

Oh—my—God. “We can get you some jeans and shirts at the mall this weekend.”

“No!” He looked frightened, almost horrified at the thought of waiting four more days. “I have to have Wal-Mart clothes tomorrow or Bully Baer will smear me all over the playground.”

Wal-Mart. She cringed at Ashton’s ruined polo shirt. She hadn’t thought twice about paying fifty dollars for that shirt at the Galleria last summer. Only three days living back in Marble Falls and she was already considering updating her son’s designer wardrobe at Wal-Mart? Would Bluebonnet Books ever generate enough profit that she could again afford to buy her son designer clothes?

Chapter Two

Punching Billy Baer! Vince followed Kenzie’s little red electric bicycle into the garage and parked the Harley next to it. They both slid off and placed their helmets on the respective seats. It amused him that she mimicked everything he did. He tugged on her ponytail as she adjusted her backpack. She wrapped her arm around his waist, he wrapped his around her shoulders, and they headed across the backyard playing their game of trying to see who could put their foot in front of the other one as they walked.

He watched her small sneaker jab in front of his boot in the tall grass and figured he’d better mow tonight or old Mrs. Haythorn would be over here cutting the lawn for him.

Boo stretched his paws out in front of him and yawned from his afternoon nap, his rear end straight up in the air and tail wagging in excitement as they climbed the three stone steps onto the back porch. Kenzie turned Vince loose and squatted, throwing her arms around the gigantic red beast. “Hey there, Boo. You should’ve been at school today. Bully Baer was a total dweeb again.”

She giggled as Boo’s long pink tongue lolled out and licked her neck in unconditional adoration.

Vince headed into the kitchen, closely followed by Kenzie with Boo trotting along behind. The screen door slammed shut behind them, and the dog sat his butt on the floor and waited patiently while she tossed her backpack on the chair and handed him a doggie biscuit out of the daisy-painted canister on the bar.

The mutt stretched out full-length on the cool vinyl and made short order of the biscuit. Kenzie grabbed two sodas from the fridge and gave one to Vince on her way to the pantry.

Vince popped the top and dodged Boo’s flapping tail. If he’d realized he was allowing Kenzie to adopt a horse seven years ago, he might have been more insistent on one of the smaller pups. But she’d tossed a fit at the animal shelter for the red puppy with the huge feet. It had reminded her of her favorite TV show at the time, Clifford. Part Irish Setter and part Great Dane, Boo was a bottomless pit. Girl and dog were inseparable, leaving Vince to justify why half his grocery bill went for dog food.

“So, who’s the new kid?”

Rummaging through the pantry, Kenzie retrieved a package of cookies and plunked it and her soda on the bar. She hoisted herself onto the bar stool and waved a cookie. “Ashton and his mom just moved here from some fancy park in Dallas. His dad lives there with his new, very hot girlfriend.”

“Highland Park?”

Kenzie nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Highland Park is a ritzy, old-money neighborhood, not a park.” Vince grinned. “But what does his absentee dad and very hot girlfriend have to do with why you got in a fight over the kid?”

She took a drink and her blue eyes lit with mischief. “I couldn’t just stand by and let Billy pick on him. Then I’d have been no better than Bully Baer.”

Although Vince was proud she was willing and able to stand up for herself, and evidently others as well, he wasn’t sure that noble motive was entirely the root of this incident. “You used this new kid as an excuse to punch Billy Baer.”

Kenzie washed her cookie down with strawberry soda. “Stupid bullies tick me off.”

“Agreed. But next time you might give the new kid a chance to fight his own battle, or Billy and his gang of misfits will peg him for a sissy and continue to make his life miserable.” Vince tossed his empty can in the recycling bin and grabbed the pickup’s keys off the counter. “I’ve got to run over and check on the crew working on the Andersons’ dock before they skip out early and we miss our deliverable. Want to go with?”

“Come on, Boo.” She sealed the package of cookies, jammed her pink ball cap with the ridiculous logo Pink Is The New Black on her head backward and picked up the soda. “We need to stop for dog food.”

“Woof,” Boo chimed in, trotting out the door behind her.

Out of dog food already?

AFTER CHECKING ON the progress of the Andersons’ dock, Vince pulled into the crowded Wal-Mart parking lot. He loaded a fifty-pound bag of dog food, two boxes of breakfast cereal and other odds and ends into the cart and headed across the store for new socks for Kenzie. Where they disappeared to once inside the dryer was a mystery, but he’d never done a load of laundry and had the socks come out even. There had to be a huge cosmic black hole somewhere full of all sizes and colors of mismatched socks.

Of course, they didn’t make it past the video-gaming department without her spotting a game she couldn’t live without. “Dad, they have Wii NASCAR. Can we get it?”

“Forty bucks? You got that much saved from your allowance?” He flipped the game over and checked the rating.

“I have eighteen. Come on. You’ll play it as much as me, you know you will. If we get it, you can deduct the other two dollars for my half from my allowance this week.”

Her keen rationalization always suckered him into helping fund her plans. He tossed the game in the cart. “Fine, but don’t try to hit me up for the full ten dollars when you only get eight Friday.”

“Thanks, Dad.” She gave him a hug and headed toward the girls’ department. “I’m going to wipe you off the track when we get home.”

“In your dreams.” He should count himself lucky that she had only asked for one game this trip. “No games until all your homework is done. And you get me called up in front of Principal Montgomery one more time and the Wii goes in the closet until school’s out. It’s been years, but I distinctly remember graduating sixth grade. I’ve got no desire to go back.”

“It’s okay, you’re cool. You still like to play games. And you slowing down in your old age is what gives me the edge so I can win.”

Picking through the bins, she selected a plastic bag of assorted socks plus a new purple-striped sleep shirt and Vince herded her in the general direction of the checkout. His day had started at 5:00 a.m., and he still had to get home, unload the groceries, throw something together for dinner, make sure Kenzie did her homework and took her bath, and only then could he get time to work up the bid for the two docks on Lake Travis. He grinned. And now there was NASCAR to work into the schedule.

“Ashton! Hey!” Kenzie called out, making a ninety-degree turn into the boys’ department.

“Hey.” The kid Kenzie had defended at school today stood in the boys’ jeans section grinning at her. His mom didn’t look nearly as pleased.

“Can you make Mom understand that these faded jeans are way cooler than those dark-blue ones?” he asked.