Tall, Dark and Fearless: Frisco's Kid

She sat down on it and went into Russian princess mode. Frisco was so tired, and his knee and head ached so badly, he sat down, too.

“Kneel in front of the Russian princess,” Tash commanded him sternly.

Frisco put his head back and closed his eyes. “Not a chance, babe,” he mumbled.

After Tash’s bath at Mia’s place, he’d taken her home, then they’d both suited up and headed to the beach for the kid’s first swimming lesson. The current had still been quite strong, and he’d kept his fingers solidly locked on Tash’s bathing suit the entire time.

The kid was fearless. Considering that she hadn’t even seen the ocean before yesterday, she was entirely enthusiastic about the water. At the end of the week, she’d be well on her way to swimming like a fish.

Frisco shook his head. How on earth had Sharon’s kid managed to live to the ripe old age of five without having even seen the ocean? Historically, the Franciscos were coastline people. His old man had worked on a fishing boat for years. Vacations were spent at the water. Frisco and his two older brothers had loved the beach. But not Sharon, he remembered suddenly. Sharon had damn near drowned when she was hardly any older than Natasha was now. As an adult, Sharon moved inland, spending much of her time in Las Vegas and Reno. Tash had been born in Tucson, Arizona. Not much beachfront property there.

After the swimming lesson and a forty-five-minute lecture on why Tash had to follow Frisco’s rules, they’d dragged themselves home, had lunch, changed and gone shopping for furniture for Frisco’s second bedroom.

They’d found this particular store in the Yellow Pages. It was right around the corner, and—the advertisement boasted—it had free, same-day delivery. Frisco had picked out a simple mattress, box spring and metal-framed bed, and Tash had chosen a pint-size bright yellow chest of drawers. Together, they’d found a small desk and chair and a petite bookshelf.

“Can we get this, Frisco?” Tash now asked hopefully.

He snorted as he opened his eyes. “A pink couch? Man, are you kidding?”

As usual, she answered his rhetorical question as if he’d asked it seriously. “No.”

“Where the hell would we put it?” He glanced at the price tag. It was supposedly on sale, marked down to a mere small fortune.

“We could put it where that other icky one is.”

“Great. Just what that condo needs.” Shaking his head, Frisco pulled himself to his feet. “Come on. If we don’t hurry, the delivery truck is going to beat us home. We don’t want them to deliver your new furniture to some other kid.”

That got Tasha moving, but not without one final lovelorn glance at the pink sofa.

They were only two blocks from home, but Frisco flagged down a cab. The sun was merciless, and his knee was damn near making him scream with pain. His head wasn’t feeling too great, either.

There was no sign of Mia out in her garden in the condo courtyard. Her door was tightly shut, and Frisco found himself wondering where she had gone.

Bad mistake, he told himself. She had been making it clear that she didn’t want to be anything more than a neighbor. She didn’t want the likes of him sniffing around her door.

Mia actually thought he was a drunk, like his old man and his sister. It was entirely possible that if he wasn’t careful, she would be proven right.

No more, he vowed, pulling himself up the stairs. Tonight, if insomnia struck, he’d tough it out. He’d face the demons who were at their ugliest in the wee hours of the morning by spitting in their faces. If he awoke in the middle of the night, he’d spend the time working out, doing exercises that would strengthen his leg and support his injured knee.

He unlocked the door to his condo and Tasha went inside first, dashing through the living room and down the hall to the bedrooms.

Frisco followed more slowly, each painful step making him grit his teeth. He needed to sit down and get his weight off his knee, elevate the damn thing and ice the hell out of it.

Tasha was in her bedroom, lying down on the wall-to-wall carpeting. She was flat on her back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

As Frisco stood in the doorway and watched, she scrambled to her feet and then lay down on the floor in another part of the room.

“What are you doing?” he asked as she did the exact same thing yet a third time.

“I’m picking where to put the bed,” Tash told him from her position on the floor.

Frisco couldn’t hide his smile. “Good idea,” he said. “Why don’t you work on that for a while? I’m gonna chill for a few minutes before the delivery truck comes, okay?”

“’Kay.”

He headed back into the kitchen and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer. He moved into the living room and sat on his old plaid couch, swinging his injured leg up and onto the cushions. The ice felt good, and he put his head back and closed his eyes.

He had to figure out a way to move those boxes out of Tash’s room. There were a half a dozen of them, and they were all too ungainly for him to carry with only one arm. But he could drag ’em, though. That would work. He could use a blanket or sheet, and wrestle the boxes on top of it, one at a time. With the box firmly trapped in the sheet like a fish in a fishing net, he could pull the sheet, sliding the box along the rug out of Tash’s room and into his own and…

Frisco held his breath. He’d sensed more than heard the movement of Tasha crossing the living room floor, but now he heard the telltale squeak of the front door being opened.

He opened his eyes and sat up, but she was already out the door.

“Natasha! Damn it!”

His cane had slipped underneath the couch and he scrambled for it, grabbing it and moving quickly to the door.

“Tash!”

He supported himself on the railing near his rope and pulley setup. Natasha looked up at him from the courtyard, eyes wide. “Where the hell are you going?” he growled.

“To see if Thomas is home.”

She didn’t get it. Frisco could tell just from looking at the little girl that she honestly didn’t understand why he was upset with her.

He took a deep breath and forced his racing pulse to slow. “You forgot to tell me where you were going.”

“You were asleep.”

“No, I wasn’t. And even if I was, that doesn’t mean you can just break the rules.”

She was silent, gazing up at him.

Frisco went down the stairs. “Come here.” He gestured with his head toward one of the courtyard benches. He sat down and she sat next to him. Her feet didn’t touch the ground, and she swung them back and forth. “Do you know what a rule is?” he asked.

Tasha chewed on her lower lip. She shook her head.

“Take a guess,” Frisco told her. “What’s a rule?”

“Something you want me to do that I don’t want to do?” she asked.

It took all that he had in him not to laugh. “It’s more than that,” he said. “It’s something that you have to do, whether or not you want to. And it’s always the same, whether I’m asleep or awake.”

She didn’t get it. He could see her confusion and disbelief written clearly on her face.

He ran one hand down his face, trying to clear his cobweb-encrusted mind. He was tired. He couldn’t think how to explain to Natasha that she had to follow his rules all of the time. He couldn’t figure out how to get through to her.

“Hi, guys.”