Mad For The Dad

Essig Terry

Rachel continued to stare at him. “Excuse me?” she finally said while absently rubbing Todd’s little back. His body already felt half limp. Another minute or two and he’d be conked out cold.

“I said—”

“Shh, not so loud. He’s almost asleep.”

It was comical how quickly Daniel lowered his voice. Now she could barely hear him. “You know the old saying about God always opening a window when he closes a door?” he whispered.

Warily Rachel nodded.

“Well, when Sarah and Michael died, that was a heavy-duty door to get slammed in poor Todd’s face.” Daniel leaned against the nursery door frame and raked his hand through his hair. “I’m sure not the open window. I’m trying as hard as I can, but all I remember of parenting is that my dad used to play ball with me. Todd’s too little to throw a baseball let alone catch one. It was a disaster when I tried the other day. The ball kept going right through his legs.”

Rachel arched a brow at him in disbelief. He hadn’t really pitched a baseball ata toddler, had he?

Daniel continued, “The thing is, right before this all happened I’d just quit the accounting firm I’d been with since graduating from college. I was all set to go out on a limb and out on my own. Do you know how much work that entails? The time commitment? I’ve got to get this thing set up and going—make it viable or Todd and I are cooked geese. There’ll be no income. I want to save the insurance money for his college fund. Even if I could take a crash course in child raising and was instantly expert at it, I haven’t got the time to lavish on him the way he needs and deserves, do you understand what I mean? I can’t stick him in day-care now. For crying out loud, as far as he’s concerned both his parents just deserted him. What does he understand about death? So what am I supposed to do? I’m no Mr. Mom.”

Todd snored gently in her ear. Rachel slowly rose and walked quietly over to the crib. She eased the boy off her shoulder and laid him in his bed. She picked the blanket with the satin binding to lightly cover him and made sure he’d be able to feel that comforting edging against his cheek and hand while he slept. Daniel followed right behind as she crept from the room. He spoke his next words as softly as the rest, but he might as well have shouted, they jarred her so.

“If God’s trying to open a window for Todd, it sure as all heck ain’t me. I barely constitute a crack in the glass or a missing piece of weather stripping. So I have to ask myself, Where’s the open window?” Then he sort of studied her out of the corner of his eye.

Oh, no. Oh, no. The last time she’d let some fasttalking male open her window, it had been eighteen years before she’d managed to get it shut again, and even then it hadn’t been without a kick start from her supposed loving husband—the very one who’d insisted on opening the damn thing in the first place. Uh-uh. No way was she going to go through any of that again, although he was absolutely right about one thing, Rachel thought as she walked as quickly as possible back down the hallway. Daniel Van Scott was definitely cracked.

Daniel followed her closely. “Don’t you think it’s a little bit odd you picked that exact moment to look out your window? You could have just as easily been, I don’t know, in the kitchen or the bathroom. Even in the living room, for crying out loud, but with your back to the window. You fit into this equation somehow, I just know it.”

“No,” Rachel stated emphatically, knowing she needed to be firm here. She did not like the way this conversation was headed. She was done with being dutiful. It was now officially her turn to play in the sun. Being footloose and fancy-free was supposed to be one of the few advantages of the empty nest stage. “I hate to be the stereotypical female, but I was never much good at math. Especially quadratic equations. They always threw me for a loop.”

Daniel caught Rachel’s arm and halted her flight. He thought fast. “All right. Okay. You probably work and can’t help me out yourself. But you’ve got a real way with little kids. Maybe you know somebody else with your knack?”

Rachel stopped and looked up at him. Those blue eyes of his were killers, especially the way they appeared now, both serious and sincere. She was in big-time trouble here and she was just bright enough to know it. She was not about to disabuse him of his faulty notion that she worked. “Daniel, what is it that you want from me?”

“Help,” he stated simply. “Either yours or somebody you could recommend. I know I haven’t known you long, but somehow I feel like I can trust you. I’m dying here.”

Her arm tingled where he touched it. Rachel knew it without a shadow of a doubt. That spark she felt was plain old sexual attraction, no getting around it. You’d have thought that by thirty-seven her body would have forgotten all about that special tingle. It was discouraging, downright undignified that it hadn’t. Imagine, at her age she was being suckered in by a pair of broad shoulders, blue eyes and a sob story that had absolutely nothing to do with her. If she didn’t get out of there, she’d do something stupid—like agreeing to do what he wanted whether it was in her own best interest or not. Shades of the past! This was ridiculous. It was mortifying. It was an insult to her intelligence. Hadn’t she learned anything over the past eighteen years? “Daniel, no one comes to mind off the top of my head, but I’ll think about it and call you if I come up with a name. But for now, I’ve got to get going. All those boxes aren’t going to unpack themselves, you know.” There was a hint of desperation in her voice and she hoped Daniel didn’t pick up on it.

He ran his hand up her arm and her arm broke out in goose pimples. Eighty degrees outside, and she had goose bumps, oh, puh-leeze!

“Rachel, don’t leave yet. Let me at least give you lunch. Come on, have a hot dog with me. It’s the least I can do.”

Rachel thought about those hot dogs with the bite marks she’d fixed for Todd. He was right. It was the very least he could do. “I don’t know—”

“Please?”

Oh well, what did she have at home? Low fat peanut butter and reduced sugar strawberry jam. Yummy. “Oh, all right.”

“Great! Good! Come on back to the kitchen.”

Daniel’s smile lit his face and Rachel knew without a doubt she’d just made a grave tactical error. She hadn’t agreed to anything other than lunch, darn it. Daniel’s problems were his. Rachel had enough of her own without borrowing more. She’d just have to keep telling herself that until she’d choked down her premasticated hot dog. Maybe she could still get out of there relatively unscathed.

Daniel steered her back into the kitchen and pulled out a chair at the round oak kitchen table. “Here. You sit down. I’ll handle this.”

Rachel refused to feel badly about letting him. For too many years she’d had meals waiting on the table and clean socks and underwear in her men’s drawers. For what? Her son had eagerly left for college without even a backward glance and shortly thereafter her husband had just plain left. Besides, anybody could boil a hot dog.

Even Daniel. Within a very few minutes he served her up a plate with not only the promised main course, but apple sauce and potato chips. Then he really went all out and dug the mustard and pickle relish out of the refrigerator as well. He poured her a glass of milk. Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she’d drunk milk. Oh well, at her age wasn’t osteoporosis just around the corner? Maybe the milk would hold it at bay a little while longer. Surprisingly Rachel enjoyed the meal. “This is good,” she told him, touched that he’d taken the trouble to find her a hot dog Todd hadn’t sampled in the store.