Mad For The Dad. Terry Essig

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СКАЧАТЬ turn.” Daniel yawned and draped his arms along the bench back.

      The tips of his fingers were very close to touching Rachel’s shoulders and she’d never been more aware of a man. Not even when she’d been sixteen.

      “I got up early,” Daniel admitted, more pleased than he was comfortable with to find Rachel in the park. “Worked for a couple of hours before the champ woke up. I found a playpen in the back of his closet and set it up in the study. He played pretty happily in there for a little while, too. I figured we both deserved a break before lunch. I’ll get more done during his nap. Did you see that kid hit Todd? Where’s his mother? Why isn’t she watching that monster more closely?”

      “Todd took his truck.”

      “Oh, well, uh, Todd,” Daniel called out, “give the little boy’s toy back. I guess next time I better bring a couple of our own sand toys for him, huh?”

      Rachel shrugged more casually than she was feeling. “You seem to be getting the feeling for this pretty quickly. It sounds like you managed just fine this morning.

      Daniel stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. He gave an expansive, contented sigh. “Yeah. I even had a couple of inquiries already from former clients who knew I was going out on my own.” He gave Rachel a sidelong glance. He must have been more harried than he’d thought yesterday. This woman was positively beautiful. And he hadn’t noticed? He was slipping, definitely slipping. But she was here now and so was he. He—

      “Really? That’s terrific.”

      “Yeah, I just wish I could get my system up a bit faster so I could get some estimates out to people, but it’ll probably take a few more days. No, Todd, keep your shoes on. There might be broken glass or sharp stones in the grass.” After that admonishment, Daniel turned his head and studied Rachel through narrowed eyes. Whoa. Nice eyes. Big and a gorgeous warm brown. “You on vacation?”

      Rachel cleared her throat. “Well, actually I’m sort of between positions at the moment, I guess you could say.” Was she ever.

      Daniel perked up at that. Maybe persistence could pay off? “Yeah? Well, I haven’t had time to get an ad into the paper, let alone have anyone answer it. I know you said you didn’t want to take a job baby-sitting Todd full time, but what about a kind of temporary thing? You know, help me out until I can get somebody else. When you can, of course. It doesn’t have to be forty hours a week or anything. I’d appreciate whatever help I can get. Like this afternoon, if you’re not busy I could pay you to get my filing cabinets set up while I try to hook up my new printer. I wasn’t able to get to it yesterday.”

      He looked at her so hopefully, and once the full force of those sky blue eyes was turned on her, Rachel knew she was lost. She’d probably agree to sell her own grandmother if Daniel asked her to. She took a sip of her coffee and burnt the roof of her mouth. Great. Just terrific. Well, might as well get this over with. “I might come down after lunch. For a couple of hours during Todd’s nap” she cautiously allowed. Cautious? Hah! Rachel began to despair whether she knew the meaning of the word.

      Daniel was no fool. He cemented the deal quickly, before she had any opportunity to change her mind. “Great!” Then, evidently afraid to let her out of his sight, he hastened to offer, “You could eat lunch with us, if you wanted. I was going to make grilled cheeses.”

      Oh, no. Rachel was determined to limit her exposure to Todd’s sunny smiles and cute toddler ways. Right now, she was bent on damage control and would eat low fat peanut butter and reduced sugar strawberry jam if it killed her. Rachel stood and tossed her foam cup into a nearby dark green metal trash barrel. “Thanks for the offer, but I have a few things to do before I come down.” Like sit down and weep for a while over her own stupidity. “I’ll be down around one o’clock or so.”

      Daniel stood, too, unable to believe his good fortune. This was one fine-looking woman and she obviously had a tender heart. She was going to take pity on him. Daniel, the former lady killer, was both humble and grateful. Also extremely attracted to Rachel, although he knew enough to sit on that. He wasn’t about to do anything stupid and scare her off. ‘One o’clock. I really appreciate this, Rachel.” He snapped his fingers. “Todd will be down by then, so don’t ring the doorbell, just knock, okay? Or better yet, I’ll leave it unlocked and you can just come right in.”

      “Sure, fine,” Rachel said and waved to Todd as she went to leave the park. But it wasn’t fine, not really. Entering a home without knocking bespoke a certain intimacy Rachel would really like to avoid, especially since she seemed so bent on self-destruction.

       Chapter Three

      Daniel left the park shortly after Rachel. It was still a bit early for lunch, but Todd had decided that dumping fistfuls of sand on top of his head was nothing short of hysterically funny. When the first two explanations of how he could scratch his cornea, possibly go blind, have to go to the hospital and wear a patch over his eye for the rest of his life failed, Daniel packed in the logic. He simply picked the child up, tucked him under his arm and removed his nephew from the source of temptation.

      “You’re going to regret your precipitous course of action, little buddy,” he advised as he strode down the street. “Every bit of that dirt has to come out of your hair before you take your nap. It could still get into your eyes, you know. I wasn’t kidding about that patch. At the very least you’ll have sand in your bed and you’ll hate it.” And so would Daniel, who in order to get a peaceful, quiet naptime out of Todd was now going to have to shampoo the little one’s head, a thankless task Todd took as a personal affront. Daniel fully expected his eardrums to shatter someday during one of Todd’s bath times.

      Daniel stood out on his front lawn and held Todd as if he were a football. Todd’s body was horizontal and his head projected out in front of Daniel at waist level. Then Daniel ruffled his hand through the tot’s hair, gently massaging his scalp as he tried to dislodge as much of the sand as possible before going into the house. Todd thought it was pretty funny and spent his time squirming around as he attempted to grab Daniel’s leg and hang upside down and whoop. From that, Daniel assumed he’d managed to keep the gritty particles out of his eyes, thereby successfully avoiding any trips to the emergency room.

      “That’s about as much as I can take care of out here,” he finally told Todd. “We’re going to have to hit the tub to get the rest.” He went into the house, Todd still tucked under his arm and let the screen slap shut behind him.

      “Shoot,” he said and reversed himself, reopened the screen and swung Todd upright so he could reach his sneakers. Holding Todd’s feet just outside the front door, he pulled off his shoes and dropped them out on the porch into the small pile of sand that had poured out of the offending articles when Daniel had removed them. “Thank God I thought to do that,” he muttered as he reentered the house. “I wouldn’t want Rachel to see a mess like that inside the house. She’d think I was totally inept.” And he never thought to question why he cared one way or the other.

      Daniel got thoroughly soaked during Todd’s bath and shampoo. All he could think about was how his life had changed in two short months. “I was engaged to be married, made good money, had job security, decent insurance coverage and probably would have made partner by the time I was thirty-five.” Daniel shook his head. “How the mighty are fallen.” Hard to believe it had only been June when he’d decided to strike out on his own and excitedly so informed his fiancée. He’d thought she’d find it a great adventure—the СКАЧАТЬ