A Child Of Her Own. BEVERLY BARTON

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СКАЧАТЬ the time, the baby was really his. No kid deserved to come into this world unloved and unwanted, as he’d been.

      “Daddy, are the grilled cheese sandwiches ready?” Darcie asked.

      “Huh?” Rick’s mind jumped from the past to the present. He picked up the metal spatula and flipped the sandwiches in the electric skillet. “Any minute now, sweetie. Go ahead and start on your soup if you’re hungry.”

      “Shouldn’t I say grace first? They always say it at Aunt Eve’s before they eat.”

      “Sure. Say grace.” Rick bowed his head.

      “God is great, God is good. Now let us thank him for our food. Amen.” Darcie looked up at her father and smiled.

      Her two front teeth were missing. He hadn’t known a damn thing about the tooth fairy until Eve had explained all about the mysterious spirit who gathered up teeth from beneath children’s pillows and left money in their place. Darcie’s two front teeth had cost Rick four bucks—two dollars a tooth. Eve had told him that front teeth were more expensive, and in the future a dollar a tooth would suffice.

      Rick lifted a sandwich and placed it on a paper plate beside Darcie’s soup bowl, then repeated the procedure with his sandwich. He pulled out a folding chair and sat down across from his daughter.

      “Am I going to have to stay over at Aunt Eve’s tonight?” Darcie slurped her soup, then took a bite out of her sandwich.

      “I’m afraid so. I’ve got to work, and you’re just not old enough to stay out here in the apartment by yourself.”

      Rick hated leaving Darcie alone several nights a week, but he had no choice. If he wanted to earn enough money to buy Bobo’s half of the business before the old man retired, he had to work a second job, if only part-time. His and Darcie’s future depended on him, on his making a place for them in the community and earning enough money to give Darcie the kind of life he’d never had.

      He wanted his daughter to have every opportunity, and it was up to him to make sure she got the chances she deserved. If only the right people would accept her, allow her to become friends with their children and invite her into their inner circle, Rick would pay any price. But with his former reputation and past history hanging around his neck like an albatross, finding acceptance for himself and his daughter in Tuscumbia might prove an impossible task. But he sure as hell was trying. If they’d just give him a chance, he’d show the good citizens how much he had changed, how determined he was to be a good person, too. He’d do just about anything for Darcie’s sake.

      “What kind of car is it you’re fixing for that man?” Darcie asked.

      “It’s a 1959 Corvette,” Rick said. “And the man I’m restoring the car for is Powell Goodman. He’s a lawyer and a pretty important guy around these parts. His father and grandfather were both judges.”

      “Aren’t you an important man, Daddy?”

      Important? Him? To most people he was about as important as yesterday’s trash. “I’m just an ordinary guy, sweetie. A man trying to make ends meet and give his kid a better life than he had.”

      Darcie scooted out of her chair, walked around the table and, standing on tiptoe, flung her arms around her father’s neck. “You’re an important man to me, Daddy. Very, very important.”

      If Rick had been an emotional man, he might have teared up at his child’s sweet, loving proclamation. But Rick hadn’t shed a tear since he’d been younger than Darcie was now. He’d learned early on that nobody gave a tinker’s damn whether he was upset, lonely or hurt. Poor little A.K. Had his own parents ever loved him? Sometimes he wondered if his mother had given him only initials for a first name because it had been quick and easy, no bother for her. But by the time he was in junior high, all his buddies called him Rick, taken from Warrick. And to this day, he preferred the nickname over the solitary initials on his birth certificate.

      Rick hugged his daughter, kissed her on her forehead and nuzzled her nose with his. She giggled gleefully. “Thanks, big girl. I think you’re a pretty important person, too.”

      “Snooky-nose me again, Daddy.” Darcie pressed her tiny button nose against her father’s long, lean, hawkish nose.

      She loved to play what Rick had dubbed “snooky-nose,” where they rubbed their noses together. He repeated the nuzzling, then lifted her and set her down in her chair. “Eat your supper, young lady. I’ve got fifteen minutes to eat, clean up our mess and get you over to Aunt Eve’s.”

      “When you own all of Mr. Bobo’s business, then will you be able to stay home with me every night?” Darcie lifted her grilled cheese sandwich.

      “You bet.” Rick devoured his soup and sandwich, occasionally glancing at his daughter who nibbled at her food.

      He supposed he should see April every time he looked at Darcie. She had the same blond hair and blue eyes, but since she’d been a toddler, every time he looked at his daughter he saw himself—and Lori Lee. Darcie had his facial structure, his wide mouth with a thick bottom lip and his prominent chin, but she was all blond, blue-eyed loveliness like Lori Lee. Once he’d realized Darcie really was his child, he had fantasized that Lori Lee was her mother instead of April.

      More than anything, he wanted his daughter to become the kind of woman Lori Lee Guy was.

      “While I clean up here, you get your pajamas and your school clothes for tomorrow ready to take over to Aunt Eve’s.”

      “Okay, Daddy.”

      He knew he had to bring up the subject of enrolling her in the Dixie Twirlers, but he wasn’t quite sure how she’d react. Darcie was shy and had had a difficult time making friends at school.

      “Hey, Darcie, how would you like to take baton lessons from a very nice lady?” Rick dumped their disposable utensils, bowls, plates and cups into the garbage sack.

      “Do you mean Miss Lori Lee’s twirlers, Daddy?” Darcie clutched her footed pajamas to her chest. “The Dixie Twirlers?”

      “You’ve already heard about them, I see.”

      “Oh, yes, Daddy. Steffie Royce and Katie Webber are in Twinkle Toes. They get to go to contests and march in parades and—”

      “Do I take this enthusiasm to mean you’d like to enroll in classes?” Rick scoured the soup pot with steel wool, then rinsed the container and turned it upside down on the drainboard.

      “Can I really? You aren’t kidding me, are you?”

      “Tomorrow, after school, Aunt Eve can bring you by the shop, and when I take over an estimate to Miss Lori Lee on a new heating and cooling system, you can go with me. I told her about you today. She wants you to meet the other girls in her beginners’ class and see if you want to join them.”

      “I want to join them. I want to join them!” Darcie jumped up and down, then flew across the room and into her father’s arms. “You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world!”

      Dear God, what had he ever done to deserve this precious child? He knew he was far from the best father in the world, but if love and devotion counted for anything, then maybe he had a chance of someday earning that title.

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