Daddy In Dress Blues. Cathie Linz

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t want to talk about the past, but his question was so innocuous that it would raise a red flag if she didn’t reply. “Only Amy Weissman. I wasn’t exactly the most popular girl in school.” She was pleased to hear that her voice sounded matter-of-fact and displayed no bitterness.

      Instead of commenting on her statement, Curt said, “So I guess you went on to college just like you planned? The University of Illinois was it?”

      She was surprised he’d remembered that much. “That’s right.” She didn’t want to talk about the past any longer. It was a part of her life she’d put into a sealed box and stored in a distant part of mind. That had worked until this man had walked back into her life. “But that was a very long time ago.”

      “Yeah,” he agreed. “It was.”

      He gave her no indication that he remembered what they’d shared, that night of passion in the back seat of his car. He’d probably had so many women since then that he couldn’t keep track of them all, she thought tartly. What had been a momentous occasion for her had clearly been nothing much to him.

      That all-too-familiar stab of pain pierced her heart, as it had when he’d first walked into her classroom.

      Get over it, she fiercely ordered herself. Keep your mind on the goal here, make things better for Blue. The pain lessened, and she gazed at him without revealing her inner turmoil.

      “I’ll see you on Sunday then,” she said in a dismissive voice.

      “You certainly will, ma’am,” he drawled, unfolding his lean body from the chair to give her a mocking salute before heading toward the door.

      She couldn’t help herself. She stuck her tongue out at him. It was juvenile and impolite, but it sure felt good.

      Until he said, “I saw that.” Not bothering to stop or turn around, he indicated the mirrorlike reflective surface of the window next to the door into her classroom. “Nice tongue,” he added before exiting.

      This time she waited until he left before throwing a crumpled ball of paper after him.

      Just when she thought it was safe, he popped his head around the door frame to say, “Nice toss. For a girl.”

      “Nice compliment. For a marine.”

      His smile indicated his appreciation for her quick comeback. “I think we’ll get along just fine.”

      She’d thought so at one time. But not now, not again. Not in this lifetime.

      Curt frowned at the pile of books strewn across the living-room couch. Who knew there was so much to learn about a three-year-old?

      He shuddered with relief that he didn’t have to deal with the chapters marked Potty Training. He was sure that would have brought even a tough guy like him to his knees. He could have managed if Blue had been a boy. Heck, the suggestions for boys had sounded like target practice, only this time the targets had been floating Cheerios in a toilet bowl instead of enemy forces in a battlefield.

      But girls were different. Different in so many ways that it was all he could do not give in to the doubts prowling around the pit of his stomach, just waiting for him to screw up as he’d done so many times as a teenager. Being in the marines had rid him of those feelings, or so he’d thought until Blue had shown up on his doorstep.

      He refused to surrender to fear. Marines never surrendered. They survived. They overcame. They succeeded. Over all odds.

      Or they regrouped to fight another day.

      Jessie the Brain was coming here tomorrow. He tried to view the place through her eyes. It was clean. Scrupulously so. No easy feat with a kid who seemed determined to leave her toys all over the place, even stuffing things in his shoes and his briefcase.

      At first he’d been pleased that she’d liked the set of small trucks he’d bought her. It wasn’t as if trucks were a girly thing. Maybe he should have gotten her dolls or stuffed animals. But she’d liked the trucks and had played with them for hours. When she wasn’t hiding them in his shoes or briefcase.

      One thing was for sure, Jessie wouldn’t be able to give him any demerits on the safety front. He’d had the entire place childproofed—from the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and drawers to the electrical outlets and the pull strings on the venetian blinds covering the windows.

      Of course he had yet to master the art of bypassing the kidproofing to open some of the cabinets or drawers himself, but he’d learn. Just as he’d learned how to open childproof bottles of aspirin without taking a hacksaw to them.

      Who knew an apartment could hold so much danger for a curious kid? And Blue was certainly curious. He couldn’t even count the number of questions she asked him each day. How do tigers roar? Why are we people and not tigers? Why does your mouth go up when you smile? He just told her to ask her teacher.

      Which led him back to Jessie again. It seemed a majority of his thoughts led him back to her. Looking down at the book on his lap, he tried to focus on the words. Play patterns. Good manners. Social graces. Yeah, right.

      Turning the book over, he gazed at the title again. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Parenting a Preschooler and Toddler, Too. Was this Jessie’s way of telling him he was a complete idiot? He supposed when it came to parenting, he was. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. He was accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. Read these books. She’d issued the order like a drill sergeant.

      As for this Daddy Boot Camp thing, he hoped she didn’t expect him to hop to it like some raw recruit. Because he had no intention of playing that game. A man had his pride. And a marine had ten times that much.

      That was one of the reasons he loved being a marine. His fellow officers understood him. His recruits obeyed him. Rules and regulations left no wiggle room for things like taming tantrums. And a part of him still didn’t see why he couldn’t apply the marines way of doing this to this parenting deal. Discipline and order were good things. Things that needed to be learned early in life.

      Maybe if his father had had a little discipline he wouldn’t have abandoned Curt when he was born. There were times he wondered about the blood he’d inherited from his unknown father. What kind of man walked away from his responsibilities that way?

      A man not worthy of the name.

      Which didn’t change the fact that Curt not only had no parenting experience, but he had no family-life experience. Not that there was necessarily such a thing as a normal family in today’s world of divorce and step-families. But even those families had some kind of experience of love.

      Curt had no such experience. His mother had considered him to be a burden, she’d told him so often enough before the state had stepped in and put him in foster care when he was nine.

      He’d never thought of being a parent himself. Absently rubbing his aching leg, he refused to be intimidated by the prospect of what might lay ahead. He’d pick up some pointers from Jessie and move on.

      All he had to do was think of this as a new form of training. As a marine, he’d completed boot camp when he’d first enlisted. Since then he’d completed additional training in everything from surviving behind enemy lines to advanced infantry training schooling.

      He knew СКАЧАТЬ