Daddy By Surprise

Though he had his back to her, Molly sent him an incredulous look. “You’ve got to be kidding? Do you honestly do that in your kitchen?”

Still smiling, he began unpacking cans. “Yeah, but it’s real easy at my place. I have two cans of soup and one box of microwave popcorn.” He studied the can he held. “Spaghetti sauce. Funny, I’d have bet you made your own sauce from scratch.” His mother always had, even while raising six kids and working full-time.

Carefully, Molly stretched to fit the shelf paper she’d cut in place. “Fast and easy, that’s my style. Actually, I’ve never mastered the fine art of cooking. Growing up, my mom cooked, then at college, our landlady was a terrific cook.” And when she’d married Lee, he’d tasted one or two of her efforts and hired a cook, but she decided not to mention that. “Today, with all the shortcuts available, you can eat really well and not know how to do much besides read the labels.”

He glanced over, taking in those incredibly long, sleek legs. “Yeah, but I thought all women knew how to cook, like it was in the genes or something.”

“Sorry to explode that little myth.”

Devin finished emptying one sack and went searching for another from where they were stacked on the floor while Molly went to work on the second shelf.

“Where in California are you from?” she asked. All right, so she was a little curious about him.

“The L.A. area.” He unloaded boxes of crackers, pancake mix, pasta. “How about you? Are you a native? It seems everyone I talk to in Arizona was born somewhere else.”

“Not me. Born and raised in Phoenix.”

“Never lived anywhere else?” He found that hard to believe. She didn’t look small-town and, by Los Angeles standards, Phoenix was almost backwoods.

“I lived in Tucson during my college years. And, for a while, in Colorado.”

He caught the change in her tone at the mention of Colorado, the reluctance. “Not a happy time?”

Her head swiveled to him. He was too quick, a man who actually listened, not just to words but to voice inflections. It was unnerving. “No, it wasn’t.”

Molly was grateful that he apparently decided to let that alone. They worked in silence for awhile, until she finished papering the shelves and bent to retrieve the dishes she’d carefully wrapped last night. She stretched to reach the top shelf while her sore muscles protested, but she ignored them, as usual. When there was work to be done, Molly just did it.

She’d almost forgotten he was there when he spoke up. “Are you just off a divorce?”

Surprise and irritation warred for dominance in her blue eyes. “What makes you ask that?”

Devin shrugged. “You’re skittish, kind of secretive, touchy. And you have a sad expression around your eyes when you think no one’s watching you.”

Stopping with a dinner platter in her hand, Molly frowned. “What are you, a psychiatrist?”

He had the decency to look sheepish. “Worse. I’m a writer.”

“Figures. Well, save your psychoanalysis for your characters.”

“I’m right then. You’ve just gone through a bad divorce.”

“Your vibes are a little off. It’s been three years.”

“Whoa! Three years and you’re still so testy. Must have been bad.”

Molly had had enough. “Let’s turn the tables here. What about you? Are you married? Have you ever been? Divorced? Children? How is it that you’re probably at least thirty and still renting furnished apartments? Bad relationships or just bad judgment? And how do you enjoy the third degree?” Letting out a whoosh of air, she ran out of steam. Turning aside and brushing back a lock of hair that had come loose from her ponytail, she set the platter on the counter with unsteady hands. “Oh, Lord. I’m sorry. I have no right to go on the attack. I hardly know you. I must be really tired.” One hand braced on the counter, she stood with her eyes downcast.

He stepped in front of her. “It’s all right. I goaded you and I deserved your tirade. I apologize. Occupational hazard. I have this insatiable need to know everything about everyone I meet. Gets me into a lot of trouble, as you can see.”

She still hadn’t looked up, so he went on. “To answer your questions, I’m not married, never have been, and no children. I’m thirty-three and I left California mostly because I have this big, overwhelming family and I need a quiet place so I can write without interruptions. I’ve had a few relationships, one in particular that lasted quite awhile, but when she realized I meant what I said when I told her I didn’t want the house, the picket fence or the two-point-five children she had in mind, we parted quite amiably. Bad judgment? Yeah, I’m guilty of that occasionally, but who isn’t?”

“Certainly not me,” she said so softly he had to move closer to hear the words.

Devin dared to reach up and touch her chin, forcing her to face him. “I’m sorry if I was out of line, Molly. Don’t be angry, please.” The word fragile came to mind. He hadn’t figured under all that bright energy that she’d be fragile.

His eyes were the color of jade tonight in the glare of the overhead kitchen light. So deep a green they were almost black. Maybe she was being taken in, but they also seemed sincere. “I’m not angry, just tired. Let’s forget it.”

Turning to gaze about the kitchen, Molly saw that only two boxes of dishes remained unpacked on the floor. “I think it’s time to call it a night. I’ll get to the rest tomorrow.” She walked over and picked up her canvas handbag, then snapped off the overhead light.

Standing in the moonlight on the back porch, she locked the door, then made a mistake. She looked up at him again and their eyes collided and held. Molly saw far more than she wanted to see in those green depths.

Slowly, Devin trailed a fingertip along the silk of her cheek and saw the pulse in her throat leap. “You’re going to be a distraction I don’t need, Molly Shipman.”

“No, I’m not. I don’t want to get involved with you, with anyone. I want you to ignore me as I plan to ignore you.” She stepped away and didn’t look back. “Good night.”

Walking to her car, Molly wondered if she had the fortitude to stick to her guns.

Chapter Two

Devin turned off his computer with a nod of satisfaction and leaned back. It was working just fine, thank goodness. His computer was the only item he’d carried up the stairs and into his spare room with the same care he might have shown delicate bone china, if he had any. In a way, computers were just as fragile. Unexpected jarrings or, God forbid, a near-drop and all that intricate wiring inside could cause the loss of a great deal of important data. Whole files could be erased or be extremely difficult to retrieve.

With all the many moves in his travels, fortunately he’d never had a problem. But he’d heard horror stories about systems crashing and motherboards that needed replacing after relocation. So he babied his equipment as if his livelihood depended on each and every component part. Because it did.

Stepping back, Devin gazed around his new office. The computer desk was in place along with his lucky chair, a somewhat beat-up old leather swivel that he’d sat in to pound out his first fiction pieces back when he was writing short stories on an ancient portable Smith-Corona. He had a sleek electric typewriter now as backup on the long table that also held his printer, copier and fax machine. Amazing the machinery a person had to have to write today. He’d read that Ernest Hemingway had carted an old portable Underwood all over Europe and done fairly well on it. But this was the nineties.

Devin strolled over to his bookcase filled to overflowing with reference material, books dating back to his college days and a shelf of well-read paperbacks he couldn’t seem to give up. With a sense of awe that was still very present in him, he reached to the top shelf and picked up his first published book, Murder at Oak Creek Canyon. Never had he seen anything more beautiful than his name above the title or his words and thoughts inside.

For as far back as he could recall, Devin Gray had wanted to write. And he had—essays, a journal, stories, even some very bad poetry—for his eyes only. Then, as a student at the University of Southern California, he’d met a professor who’d recognized his talent and encouraged him. In the beginning, he’d written short stories, nine his first year after graduation as he’d traveled all over the southwest, working all sorts of odd jobs to pay for rent and food. After two years, they’d finally begun selling. The income wasn’t much but the euphoria of seeing his name in print kept him going.

Devin lovingly ran his hands over the dust jacket. He’d kept moving, traveling, learning, researching. A hundred short stories later, he decided to try a novel. His love of the west combined with his fascination with mysteries led him to concentrate on western mysteries, which only a handful of authors were writing at the time.

He’d hired an agent who’d begun submitting his work to various publishers. It had taken three years—three long, hard years—before his first book sold. The following year, he’d published the second just as the first was published in paperback. Now, at long last, he was on his way, contracted for two more for more money than he’d dreamed possible.

Replacing the book alongside his second novel, Devin anchored them between two brass owl bookends, gifts from his father. He strolled into his living room, stopping to look out the large double windows. He could see Camelback Mountain in the near distance, serene as always under a clear, sunny sky. He’d visited many parts of Arizona in his travels, and fallen in love with the redrock country he used as the backdrop for some of his books.

Recently, when he’d decided it was time to leave the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles for a variety of reasons, he’d picked Scottsdale on the eastern border of Phoenix. Because it was small enough, western yet hardly provincial, classy yet homey. And it was only an hour’s flight to visit his family if he got the urge.

Here he could live quietly with a minimum of interruptions and only an occasional pang of guilt for not being at the beck and call of his huge clan. Devin loved his parents and five siblings and their spouses and his eleven nieces and nephews. But there was total bedlam when all the Grays got together, which was often enough to distract him big-time. They all seemed to thrive on chaos where he preferred quiet solitude. He’d decided to rent for a while and see if he liked the area well enough to build his dream house here. Already Scottsdale felt like home.

The almost constant sun rose early these days, and he’d been up with it, arranging his television set across from another old favorite, a stretch-back leather lounger. He’d hooked up his stereo in his bedroom and unpacked a few family pictures he set out in every apartment he’d ever occupied. Devin took a moment to study one framed photo of the entire clan taken at his parents’ anniversary party last year. There was no denying the Grays, for they all resembled their father with his black hair, green eyes and that prominent cleft in a square chin.

His mother was a lovely woman, but not one of her six offspring had inherited her blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes. Yet she’d been the guiding force of the family, working long hours alongside her husband at the family hardware store, making sure it succeeded, then grew from one store to two, then three and finally six. She’d run the household of six children strictly, relying heavily on the help of her eldest, Devin. She’d piled a lot of responsibility on him at an early age and he’d come through, always there for household chores, baby-sitting, often discipline. Even attending college, he’d lived at home because the family had needed him. Perhaps that was why he’d escaped into travel soon after graduation.

It had felt good, being on his own. Yet even on his travels, he’d been constantly called home for this emergency or that disaster where his help was needed. When he’d settled down in an apartment clear across town, they’d taken to inviting him over or dropping in constantly, hanging on the guilt if he begged off. He’d felt hounded, smothered. He’d simply had to get away.

At the moment, he didn’t even have a phone, though they’d promised him service Monday. He’d put in an address change at the post office, but he was going to guard that information for awhile. He wouldn’t put it past several members of his family to come charging over to check out his new digs. An unmarried son, no matter what age, was always fair game.

Through the window, he saw Molly’s Honda turn into the drive followed by a truck stacked high with furniture. Molly pulled up close to the back door, then quickly jumped out and walked over to the two men getting out of the pickup. One was tall and thin, young enough to still be in his teens, wearing a baseball cap backward. The other was middle-aged and balding with the start of a pot belly. Quickly the three of them began unloading furniture.