Mad For The Dad. Terry Essig

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СКАЧАТЬ with one hand while he reached down with the other and grabbed her arm. He brought it up and wrapped it around Todd’s back before letting go.

      Rachel looked down at her arm in surprise then at Daniel, then back at her arm. It had tingled when he’d touched her to make her hold—what was his name?— Todd. That kind of electrical impulse upon contact sort of thing hadn’t happened to her since early high school. How bizarre. If it hadn’t been August and humid as all get-out, Rachel would have been convinced Daniel had been scuffing his feet and had zapped her with static electricity.

      Her eyes narrowed. No wonder he knew nothing about caring for small children. If Daniel could do that to a relative stranger, he’d probably fried his wife’s brain out making love to her ages ago. No doubt she was nothing but a shell of her former self by now, unable to think for herself and doing anything and everything Daniel bid. How disgusting.

      Daniel, meanwhile, began to grab cans and toss them haphazardly into the wagon as quickly as he could. He’d never realized how freeing it was to have two hands for a task—not until two days ago. “Don’t be silly. I’ve never been married in my life. I lived with a girl briefly right out of college, but nothing permanent came of it, certainly not a child.”

      Rachel cringed as Daniel flipped the apples in after the cans. Didn’t he know they’d be so bruised from the rough treatment as to be inedible? “Todd’s not yours then?”

      Daniel straightened and wiped his forehead with the inside of his arm. “He is now.” He stood and absentmindedly brushed his hands off on his pants, then grimaced as the grit-embedded scrapes on his palms made contact with the fabric. Thoughtfully he examined the gift from God in front of him. The woman-Rachel, wasn’t it?—had shifted Todd onto one softly padded hip and gently bounced him there. For the first time in forty-eight hours the child looked—if not happy, close enough to it for government work. He’d definitely stopped wailing and was staring, fascinated at Rachel’s silken tresses. Daniel snapped his fingers and pointed. “It’s the right color,” he said.

      Rachel frowned at him as she twisted her head to one side to keep Todd from reaching her hair and pulling it. “What is?”

      “Your hair.”

      “The right color for what?”

      “For Todd. It’s the right color for Todd,” Daniel said, apropos of nothing as far as Rachel could determine. Evidently he’d burnt out his own brain as well as his former girlfriend’s.

      “Fine,” she said, determined to hand Todd back to Daniel and get out of there. The child was absolutely darling—when he wasn’t yodeling at top volume, but as far as Rachel could tell, the situation was rapidly deteriorating. So much for meeting the new neighbors. She’d think long and hard before getting involved with strangers—emphasis on strange—next time.

      Daniel took a step backward while shaking his head. He wasn’t taking Todd back on a bet. Not while this woman with the magic touch was here. “Listen, just carry him down three houses. That’s not so much, is it? Just three houses. Keep showing him your hair, it’s just like his mother’s was.”

      Was? Past tense? Rachel looked down on the child in her arms with newfound empathy. “If he accidentally gets a hold of it, he’ll pull it out,” she warned.

      And that would be a shame, Daniel couldn’t help thinking. Rachel had gorgeous dark sable hair shot through with threads of some very light color. She wore it shoulder length, turned under in a gentle bob. Under ordinary circumstances he’d—but no, these were not ordinary circumstances. He couldn’t afford to digress or get distracted—some things transcended mere incidentals like bald spots on otherwise beautiful women. “I’ll buy you a wig,” he promised, then rashly went on, “I’ll buy you anything you want if you’ll just stick with me for the next half hour or so.”

      The man was pathetic, Rachel decided then and there. Absolutely, totally, one hundred percent pathetic. It was her moral responsibility, her civic duty even, to make sure this poor child happily tugging on the extremely low carat gold chain around her neck—whomever he belonged to—was fed, changed and put down for a humor-restoring nap.

      Daniel read her wavering in her eyes. Wanting to consolidate any ground he might have just gained, he decided to start walking. She’d have to follow, wouldn’t she? What would he do if she didn’t? He was a desperate, desperate man. It would be a mistake—a sign of weakness to turn and look. Daniel pulled the wagon another two feet. He couldn’t stand it. He turned and looked anyway. Rachel was reluctantly following. Todd still straddled her hip and he was still complaining, but the greatly lowered volume showed that the sincerity of the complaints was now in serious question. “Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you very much.” The first was directed to the heavens, the second to the angel in human disguise following him down the sidewalk.

      Rachel stepped up onto the front stoop of the corner brick bungalow and waited for Daniel to unlock the door. It had been a long time ago and she’d been a younger woman when she’d last carted a heavy toddler around in her arms. They ached and she wished Daniel would hurry. Finally he got the door opened. Daniel’s manners at least couldn’t be faulted. He held it while she preceded him over the threshold.

      “This is nice.” Rachel said as she took in the decorating with surprise. Not that it was totally feminine— although a woman’s touch was evident—it just wasn’t ultramasculine. No sofa made of leather cushions slung over shiny metal frames. No ultramodern framed graphics on the wall. And no heavy generic male-on-his-own brown and black against white walls color scheme.

      Where was Daniel’s bachelor-on-the-loose decorating statement? And where, oh where, did Todd fit in to all this?

      This house screamed of a married couple, not a single dad. It was a home Rachel could be comfortable in, decorating she might have chosen herself. Cream painted walls with cream-colored sheers and window scarves softened the views of the street. A sofa and love seat at right angles to each other were done in an eye-pleasing sherbet-toned tapestry fabric. Both pieces sat in front of a fireplace with a beautiful carved stone mantel and surround.

      Rachel shook her head in bemusement. Daniel didn’t seem like the type to collect antique lace and have it framed on sherbet-colored matt boards. And the dusty rose carpet set off the sofa and accessories to perfection, but—well, suffice it to say no man she knew would have ordered it. Weirder and weirder still.

      “The kitchen’s through here,” Daniel said, taking the lead.

      Rachel followed. “Did you, um, have somebody do the decorating for you?” And did you pay the bill after you saw what they’d done?

      “What? Oh, my sister did the decorating. She even reupholstered the sofa herself. I still can’t believe it. All that work and for what—?” Daniel shook his head, grief and sadness showing briefly in his eyes before determination once again glinted there. “Here’s the high chair.”

      Gratefully Rachel tucked her burden into the seat and fastened the lap strap before pushing the tray snuggly against his little baby potbelly. She rolled her shoulders in relief. “Okay, so what did you buy to feed monster man here?” Rachel asked.

      “Hot dogs,” Daniel announced. “Hot dogs and cheese. What kid could turn up his nose at that?” With a flourish he reached into the bottom of a bag, which was ripped down both sides, and handed her the plastic shrink-wrapped packages of hot dogs and a brick of cheese.

      And he couldn’t have figured out Todd was hungry? “They have bite marks in them,” she said. “Both packages. Right СКАЧАТЬ