Darcy and the Single Dad

Nick was glad his daughter enjoyed her visits with her mother. If Maddie was happy, he was happy. Most of the time, he could even convince himself it was true; after all, it wasn’t Maddie’s happiness that worried him. It was how unhappy she was when she returned that had his gut tangled in knots.

He’d hoped his sister Sophia’s upcoming wedding and Maddie’s role as flower girl would give her something to look forward to, but she wasn’t nearly as excited as he’d expected. He couldn’t figure it out. With her recent fascination of all things girly, he’d thought she’d jump at the chance to be in the wedding party. He just didn’t get little girls.

Nick snorted. Hell, it wasn’t like he got women, either.

Maybe that was what happened when a man was single for too long.

His jaw tightened, and he half expected a lightning bolt from the approaching storm to strike him down. Hadn’t he said it’d be a cold day before he ever took a chance on another relationship?

But watching Sophia and Jake together, he’d envied their courage to risk heartbreak for the reward of finding love again. He felt as though something had hit him in the chest in that moment, striking the emptiness inside him like a blow to a bass drum. Even now, weeks later, the reverberations still vibrated inside him, urging him to … do something.

But Nick wasn’t a man to give into rash impulses. He’d learned his lesson after trying to turn a heated, whirlwind affair into a long-term relationship. If that hadn’t already made him cautious, he also had Maddie to consider. Word of his first date would spread throughout town before he’d glanced at the dinner menu, and the woman would likely have nieces or nephews—if not a son or daughter—who went to school with Maddie.

The idea of putting his daughter through that kind of speculation—of putting himself through it—had kept at bay any thoughts of trying to date as a single dad. Until now.…

The buzz of Nick’s cell interrupted his thoughts. A glance at the screen showed his office number, and he cringed. If Jarrett Deeks was having trouble with the horse, he’d have called him directly, so Nick could only hope that whatever his assistant needed could wait until tomorrow.

Answering the call on speaker, he said, “I’m on my way home, Rhonda. Unless this is an emergency—”

“Oh, but it is,” the forty-something woman replied with a hint of amusement in her voice.

The first splatter of rain hit the windshield, and Nick bit back a curse. “If this is some kind of a joke—”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, Doc.”

Nick sighed, mentally kissing his beer and ball game goodbye. “What’s the emergency?”

“Darcy Dawson called. She said she ‘needs the doctor right away.’”

Personal experience reminded him Darcy Dawson’s voice sounded nothing like his assistant’s pack-a-day rasp. Darcy had a just-out-of-bed-sexy murmur and a laugh that stroked like fingernails down a man’s spine.

“Better watch out,” Rhonda was warning him with a fair share of teasing in her tone. “I’m surprised Darcy hasn’t tried making a play for you or one of your brothers already. The three Pirelli boys are some of the best catches in town. You’re all young, successful, single—”

“Give me a break, Rhonda,” Nick said with a snort of laughter at his assistant’s joking and the implication that he, like his brothers, was free to have the kind of fling Darcy Dawson had become known for in her less than two months in Clearville. He had Maddie to think about, and even though she was still a little girl, he was painfully aware how the decisions he made could affect her.

Doubly aware, he felt, since Carol wasn’t always as discriminating as he thought she should be. He’d made it more than plain to his ex-wife a few years ago—when Maddie came home talking about the “sleepovers” her mother had—that he didn’t want any of Carol’s casual boyfriends around his daughter.

Carol had turned his words back on him, insisting he, too, keep his girlfriends away from Maddie, and Nick had immediately agreed. He hadn’t known any women in Clearville he’d want to have a casual fling with then.

You still don’t know any, he mentally berated a libido that had taken immediate notice the very first time he heard Darcy Dawson’s laugh.

He’d been standing one row over at the grocery store, trying fruitlessly to decide on the hair bands his daughter had sent him to the store to buy. But the moment he’d heard that laugh, he’d forgotten all about them. Heaven help him, for a moment he’d forgotten all about being a single father, and before he knew where he was going, he’d sought out the woman behind that laugh.

Fortunately within the first glance, he’d come back to his senses. Well, mostly, since he hadn’t been able to get Darcy Dawson out of his mind since. Still, it had only taken that first look to know Darcy wasn’t the kind of woman he was looking for. Wasn’t the kind of woman a man ever found, not in Clearville, at least.

A pair of expensive oversize sunglasses propped on the top of her head held back a tumble of shoulder-length red hair and she carried a purse that likely cost more than the monthly payment on his SUV. Her clothes—a tailored white shirt belted over narrow black trousers that hugged a pair of legs that seemed to go on forever before ending in spiky heels—spoke of a fashionable, sophisticated woman. Not the kind he was looking for, he’d determined, and that was before he’d learned of her reputation.

Single or not, he didn’t have the freedom his younger brothers did. Sam especially enjoyed the opportunity to have a good time. He’d dive into a fling with Darcy Dawson headfirst and come out smelling like roses on the other side. Women could never stay angry at Sam.

Normally, Nick could never stay angry at Sam, but just the thought of his youngest brother and Darcy Dawson together made his jaw clench tight enough to crack.

“Did Ms. Dawson say what the emergency is?”

“Nope. Her cell phone started breaking up before she could say. Funny thing, I didn’t even know she had any pets.”

Deciding he was having some cell problems of his own, Nick hung up on his assistant’s chortling laugh.

Having his name even temporarily linked with Darcy Dawson’s would only scare off the right kind of woman. His ill-fated marriage to Carol was already something of a black mark against him. He didn’t need to be down two strikes before he even came up to bat.

Maddie needed a positive female influence. Sure, his mother had been around her entire life, and Sophia had recently moved back to town, but a grandmother and aunt weren’t the same as a mother. Someone who could be a constant, consistent, solid presence in Maddie’s life. Someone who was small town, with Clearville roots dug deep in her soul. That was the kind of woman Nick was looking for.

This time, he was going to be damn sure he made the right choice from the start. He couldn’t risk jumping on and off some kind of dating-go-round, asking out any woman who happened to spin by. His failed marriage and Carol’s desertion had made him cautious, but Nick knew once he found the right woman, he’d have to jump in with both feet, hang on and not let go. Because try as he might, after looking at the idea from every angle—up, down, inside and out—he couldn’t work his way around one simple fact.

If Maddie needed a mother, then he needed a wife. Because God help him, he couldn’t figure out how to get one without the other.

The dog hadn’t moved.

Crouched down at the back stairs, Darcy Dawson squinted toward the far side of the crawl space beneath the porch. Every now and then, in the flashes of lightning that lit the darkness, she could see the reflection from the dog’s eyes, her only indication the animal was still there. Worry trickled through her, and she shivered, pulling up the collar of her coat closer around her ears.

She’d tried using the lure of the kibble, but the dog refused to come out of hiding. Refused, too, to eat from the bowl Darcy had shoved as far as she dared in the cramped space. She might have blamed fear of the storm for the dog’s behavior except it had holed up before the lightning and rain had begun.

Even though Darcy didn’t know anything about dogs, she knew something was wrong. But she didn’t know what it was or what she could do to offer any comfort.

Helplessness rose up inside her. “It’s just a dog,” she muttered against the lump in her throat. “You don’t even like dogs.”

The words echoing through her thoughts for the past half hour were a lie, and saying them out loud didn’t help convince Darcy they were true. She didn’t dislike dogs, but she was afraid of them. Had been since she’d been bitten by a neighbor’s dog when she was little.

Her fingers slipped past the collar of her sweater and she traced the scars along her shoulder, reminders from that long-ago day. As a kid, she’d shied away from dogs, and as an adult living in an apartment in Portland, she hadn’t been around them much. She simply didn’t go places where dogs were likely to be, and if she saw one in passing … Well, she just passed quickly.

But her move to the small town of Clearville, California, was supposed to be about making a new start and living in the moment. So when a stray dog wandered into her backyard after she’d left open the gate, she decided that maybe it was time to put her fear of dogs in the past, as well. Not that she planned to keep the dog; she wasn’t that certain of her ability to let go of a twenty-year-old phobia, but something in the animal’s crouched, uncertain posture spoke to her.

And, she had to admit, the dog was … interesting. A mix of silver and black from its alert ears down to its tail with brown and white spots on its face and legs. And its eyes—one brown and one blue—fascinated Darcy with their watchful intelligence. Of course, she’d only noticed thanks to the zoom feature on her digital camera. She hadn’t actually gotten near enough to see the dog’s two-toned eyes up close.

But she printed the pictures she’d taken, placing “Found Dog” posters around town. She’d also bought a bag of dog food and some toys at the grocery store and folded up an old comforter for a bed in the sheltered corner of the porch. None of which nominated her for Pet Parent of the Year, but just knowing the dog was in her backyard pushed Darcy out of her comfort zone.

Still, she’d been certain, in a town the size of Clearville, the owner would come forward in no time. Or that someone would recognize such a unique dog and know who it belonged to. She’d even imagined the scene—reuniting the poor lost dog with its grateful, tearful owners. Darcy would wave off their praise and offer of a reward, content to see owner and pet back together again.

But after a week, no one had called, and Darcy had started to wonder what she would do if the dog’s owner never showed.

Sometimes facing your fears is the only way to escape them. Her mother’s encouragement rang in her head, strong and sure.

But then her mother had always been brave.

The ache wasn’t as sharp as it had been following her mother’s death a year ago, but time had done little to lessen Darcy’s sense of loss. She blinked back tears. Her voice was rough around the lump in her throat as she whispered, “You always did say we should get a dog.”

Alanna had raised Darcy to be confident, strong, proud. Lessons Darcy tried to live by, but ones she’d failed recently. She’d been devastated by her mother’s death. Feeling so alone, she’d reached out blindly to grab hold of the first lifeline she could find. But Aaron Utley hadn’t helped her out of her misery as much as he’d taken advantage of it.

It was the only explanation Darcy had for falling so hard and so fast.