Daddy By Surprise

Should he go down and offer to help? Devin wondered. Last night, he’d helped her in the kitchen because he was curious about her more than anything else. She’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want his assistance, as she probably would again if he went down. If solitude was what he wanted, if noninvolvement was what he’d decided on, if being left alone to do his work was his primary goal, then he’d best stay away. After all, she had two guys to give her a hand.

Who were they? he wondered idly. People she’d hired? Relatives? Friends? Surely Molly wasn’t romantically involved with either. He watched as the teenager’s eyes followed her as she reached into the truck and hauled out a lamp. Devin couldn’t blame the kid. She was wearing another loose cotton shirt over jeans and white canvas shoes. Her face was free of makeup and her hair was pulled back and anchored with some sort of plastic gizmo. She looked about sixteen. Devin saw her smile at the boy before walking away and noticed the teenager’s face redden. Poor kid had a crush on her.

Stepping back, Devin decided he could spend his hours more gainfully than watching his neighbor move in. He walked into his office, pulled out his chair and stared at the computer. From somewhere below, he heard a laugh drift up. Female, smoky, mellow.

What the hell! They’d finish faster with another pair of hands. He started for the stairs.

Devin saw that the two guys were in the pickup untying a dresser before unloading it. “Hi. I thought you could use a hand.”

The kid wearing the baseball cap turned toward him. “Uh, yeah, sure, I guess.” He glanced over at his uncle.

Hank glanced at the newcomer. “We can handle it, but thanks.”

Real friendly, Devin thought. “I’m a neighbor,” he said by way of explanation.

“Uh-huh.” Hank concentrated on untying a snagged knot, obviously hoping the man would go away.

Annoyed, Devin picked up a kitchen chair that was standing alongside the truck and carried it onto the porch. The screen door had been taken off the hinges and placed off to the side. Giving a quick warning knock on the doorjamb, he walked in and spotted Molly in the kitchen. He strolled closer and saw she was setting up a small bowl that held an assortment of colorful stones, a hunk of fern and a blue fish nervously swimming around. “Hey, there,” he said, not wanting to startle her.

Wiping off the bowl, she looked up. “Hey, yourself. Meet Jo-Jo, my beta fighting fish. My niece named him.”

Devin set the chair down and leaned over for a closer look. “He doesn’t look very scary like a fighter should.”

“He would if you were another fish. These little guys are so mean you can’t put more than one in a bowl or they’ll kill each other.” She scooted the bowl into the far corner of the kitchen counter and stood admiring him.

“So you got him for protection, eh?”

She smiled at that. “Actually, I got him because I wanted something alive in the house…” She waved toward the other side of the room. “…other than my plants.”

She did have plants, Devin thought, gazing at two hanging baskets, a tall ficus in a red pot and several small containers along the two windowsills containing African violets. “They must keep you busy watering and trimming.” He didn’t have a plant or a fish at his place. Only his dog who right this minute was whining in the fenced yard wanting to inspect the men unloading the truck.

Devin set the chair he’d carried in next to a white pine table, noticing in the sunlight that poured in through the windows that she had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, something he hadn’t seen last night. They made her look even younger. “I came down to see if you needed another pair of hands.”

“Molly,” came a gruff voice from the open front doorway, “you wanna come show us where you want this dresser?” The burly older man was sweating profusely and staring at Devin none too friendly-like.

“Sure, Hank.” She hurried ahead of the men, moving into the bedroom and pointing to the wall where she’d decided her dresser would go. Stepping aside, she waited until they’d set down the heavy piece, Hank grunting with the effort. “That’s perfect. Thanks.”

Wiping his broad forehead with a soggy handkerchief, Hank made his way back to the living room. “We’re going back for the living room stuff. You coming, Molly, or are you staying here?” His eyes shifted to Devin as if reluctant to leave her here with him.

“If you don’t need me, I think I’ll stay and make up the bed and put things away.” She noticed Devin standing in the archway. “Devin, this is Hank Thompson, the owner of the Pan Handle, and this is his nephew, Jerry. They volunteered to move me. Hank, this is…”

“Yeah, I know, your upstairs neighbor. We met.” Wondering why this guy was so curt with him, Devin decided to give it one more shot. “You sure I can’t help? I’d be glad to go along.” He tried a smile. “I’ve got a strong back.”

“We’ve got things under control. Be back soon, Molly.” Stuffing his kerchief into his back pocket, Hank followed his nephew outside.

Frowning, Molly watched them get into the truck. “That was a little rude,” she commented softly, wondering why her boss was being so unfriendly. “Hank’s usually not like that.”

“Maybe we were enemies in another life.”

“He’s a little protective of his girls, as he calls the three waitresses who work for him.” Molly checked several boxes on the floor, searching for the one filled with linens.

Or maybe good old Hank had designs on Molly himself and wanted to issue a warning. “Is he married?”

“Divorced. The Pan Handle seems to attract divorced people. Every one of us except Hector, the evening shift cook.” Hoisting the box, she headed for the bedroom.

Curiosity had Devin following her. “Do you and Hank…you know…date?” The man surely was acting territorial. Of course, it was none of his business.

Molly removed the mattress pad from the box and tossed it onto the bed before raising her eyes to Devin’s face. Studying him, she recognized that unmistakable male-female interest in his eyes that she’d become aware of last night on the back porch, and wondered what to do about it. She didn’t want to be as rude as Hank, but that sort of thing could become a problem, living so close as they would be. And it had absolutely nowhere to go. Perhaps it would be kinder to lay it all out for him once and for all.

“No. I don’t date Hank. He’s a good friend and old enough to be my father. I don’t date anyone else, either, for that matter.” She waited for the disbelief, the inevitable questions. She’d been down this road before.

Moving to the opposite side of the bed, Devin automatically grabbed one end of the mattress pad and began pulling it into place. “You don’t date anyone? I guess your ex really did a number on you.”

Intent on making him see, Molly adjusted her side of the pad to fit. “Actually, my decision has little to do with him.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but close enough. “I simply don’t have time. My work at the café, including quite a bit of overtime some weeks, keeps me very busy. I take night classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Arizona State, except the summer session. During tax season, I work part-time for a CPA. With all that, I scarcely have time to get in six hours of sleep, much less a date.” She reached for the pale-peach fitted bottom sheet, wondering why she was bothering to explain herself to this stranger.

Maybe because he was so damn persistent. Grabbing his side of the sheet, Devin bent to maneuver it into the upper corner. “C’mon, Molly. Everyone needs a little R-and-R now and again. Haven’t you heard about all work and no play making Jack—or Jill—very dull?”

Why was it that men thought that their mere presence in a woman’s life would change dull to unbearably exciting? “I take time for myself. I have friends, two in particular, former college roommates, and Trisha. I go shopping with my mother, have an occasional dinner out with my sister, take my niece to the movies. Oh, and sometimes I baby-sit Trisha’s little boy when she goes out. I watch television, read, garden. I think my life’s pretty full.” She sent him a challenging look.

He didn’t let her down. “Were you always so reclusive, content with work, family, friends and TV? Don’t you get lonely for a one-on-one with a man? You probably dated a lot before your marriage. You had to have. I mean, a woman like you…”

Molly’s head jerked up from securing her corner. “What do you mean, a woman like me?”

Devin straightened, wondering why she was so defensive. “I mean a woman who’s very attractive and obviously intelligent. Why would you choose to spend all your free time with your mother, old college friends and a couple of kids?”

She had dated a lot in college and some after she’d first walked away from Lee. The problem was that by the second date, indeed if they’d waited that long, they’d been all hands and pressure and a wet, seeking mouth. So she’d stopped dating, stopped hoping there was someone out there who could care for her for all the right reasons, a mature man who was his own person. One who could love a flawed woman with a trampled heart.

After three years, she’d about convinced herself that no such man existed, and she didn’t want the other kind.

“It’s just easier, that’s all.” She picked up the top sheet and shook it out, then realized what she was doing. She was making up her bed with a near stranger, an intimate act if there ever was one.

Molly drew in a deep breath. “Listen, I can do this myself. Don’t you have some work to do?” Maybe rude was all he understood.

He’d watched the play of emotions revealed so clearly on her transparent face. “You really have a great deal of trouble accepting help, don’t you?”

Their conversation was exasperating her. “When I need help, truly need it, I’ll ask. But I’ve been making beds alone for years. Don’t you have a book you need to write, or is this part of your research?”

He smiled at that. “Are you worried you’ll wind up in one of my books?”

“Not really.” She began spreading out the top sheet. “My life is too dull to interest anyone.”

Despite her admonitions, he pitched in on his side of the bed. “I doubt that, not if someone were to dig deep enough. Readers like to read about people’s good points and bad. Genuine people, warts and all.”

“I have as many warts as a pondful of frogs.”

“Toads.”

“What?” She reached for two pillows, then their cases.