Daniel's Daddy

“You never did like guys very much, did you?” he asked casually.

Did he honestly think that was the reason she hadn’t married? Because she didn’t like men? Dear Lord, if he only knew how many years she’d dreamed that some good man would ask her to be his wife. But it had never happened and it hurt too much to ever tell him such a thing.

Lifting her chin, she said, “I never liked them as much as you seemed to like women.”

To her surprise, he threw back his head and laughed. “Apparently, my old reputation is still alive in Lordsburg.”

Color flooded Hannah’s cheeks and she quickly looked away. Where was all this stuff coming from? How could she be saying such things to him? Just because she remembered a wild, teenage boy by the name of Jess Malone didn’t mean she knew the man across from her.

Clearing her throat, she said, “I don’t know why I—I shouldn’t have said that.” Still unable to look at him, she grabbed her coffee and took a quick gulp.

“So you work at a day-care center. Do you like it?”

She glanced at him, wondering if he was actually curious or if he was merely trying to keep the conversation going. He smiled at her and a funny little feeling unfurled in her midsection.

“Yes, I do. I used to have a job keeping books for a local insurance man. But I like working with children a lot better. And it’s something that didn’t require I get a college education.”

Hannah didn’t go on to tell him that children showed her unconditional love and affection, something her lonely heart craved. The last thing she wanted was for Jess Malone to feel sorry for her.

“It surprises me that you didn’t leave here to go to college,” Jess said. “In school, I remember you always had a book in front of your face and you nearly always made the highest grades.”

The fact that he had any memories of her at all warmed Hannah. During those years at school, boys had looked through or around her as though she were invisible. Except for Jess. He’d been the only one who’d taken the time to speak to her now and then. Hannah had never known why. In her teenage heart, she’d wanted to think it was because he’d liked her. But now, after all these years, she figured it was because he was the only boy confident enough in himself to speak to a girl like her. He’d never worried about his reputation. He’d pretty much done and said what he pleased and no one would have dared to suggest he do otherwise.

Oh, yes, Jess had been something back then, she thought. And from what she could see now, he still was.

“I used to think you’d end up like one of those women we had to read about in history class,” Jess went on when she didn’t say anything. “Like Madame Curie, or somebody like that.”

A shy smile curved her lips as she glanced across the table at him. “I was a simple girl. I still am.”

Not really wanting to say more, Hannah turned her attention to Daniel, who was nearly finished with his sandwich.

Jess took a drink of his coffee and quietly studied her from the corner of his eye. He doubted the day-care job paid her very much. But then, Hannah probably didn’t have many wants beyond the basic necessities. Maybe that explained her lack of motivation to go on to college, Jess thought.

Obviously, Hannah was far from the glamorous, socializing type who wanted to spend money on sexy dresses and lingerie, perfume and weekly visits to the beauty salon. The fact that she was still living in this desert town, in the same run-down stucco house she’d lived in with her mother, told him more about her than she could have told him herself.

“How is your mother doing these days?”

Hannah looked at him, and it dawned on her that he really had lost all contact with this place. “She died a little over a year ago.”

Jess didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t known that Rita Dunbar had died.

“I didn’t know,” he said quietly.

Looking down at her coffee cup, Hannah shook her head. “No. With your living away, you couldn’t have known. Besides, Mother was—”

With a small shake of her head, she broke off, as though speaking of her mother was anything but easy. Jess was surprised at the pang of compassion shooting through him. For years, it had been rumored that Hannah’s mother once worked in El Paso as a lady of the evening and as far as Jess knew, Rita had never denied it. He remembered how everyone in Lordsburg had been watching Hannah, expecting her to follow in her mother’s illicit footsteps. It was no wonder, he thought, that she’d gone to such extremes to be as unlike Rita as she could be.

“What happened?”

Hannah said, “She died from heart complications.”

Jess frowned. “So she’d been ill?”

Hannah looked at him with the realization that he hadn’t known about her mother. “She was partially paralyzed. I think being immobilized for so long contributed to her heart disease.”

He slowly shook his head. It was hard to imagine Hannah’s beautiful, vibrant mother being confined to a wheelchair, or even a pair of crutches.

“What happened?” he asked. “I mean, how did she become disabled?”

Hannah’s voice was quiet and matter-of-fact. “She was in a car accident about a year after you left Lordsburg.”

That had been fourteen years ago! No wonder Hannah was still in this town, Jess thought. She’d stayed because of her mother.

The information had him looking at her in a totally different light. “My father wasn’t one to talk much. He never gave me the news about what was going on around here. I’m sorry I didn’t know.”

The sincerity on his face touched her. More than she cared to admit. Strange, she thought, how she’d come over here to offer her condolences and had wound up talking about her own loss.

A sad little smile suddenly clouded her features. “So you see,” she told him, “I know what you’re going through now.”

Maybe she did, Jess silently acknowledged. Only her mother hadn’t chosen to die like his father, who’d slowly poisoned himself with alcohol.

Hannah pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. “Well, I really must go and I’m sure you have lots of things you need to do.”

Jess rose, too, surprised at the faint sense of disappointment running through him. Spinster or not, for a few minutes she’d managed to take his mind off the fact that his father was really gone. He could have talked to her longer. About what, he didn’t know. They had nothing in common except they’d both been raised hard in this desert town and both had lost their only parent.

Taking her coat from the back of the chair, Jess helped her into it. As he stood close behind her, he caught a subtle scent of lavender on her hair and skin. It reminded him she was a woman and told him that she wasn’t totally without vanity as he’d first imagined.

As soon as Hannah felt his hands leave her shoulders, she stepped away from him and struggled to keep a hot blush from spreading over her face. It shook her to have him so close to her. Men didn’t touch her. And to have one like Jess do so, even in a casual way, was very disturbing.

Walking around to Daniel, she passed her fingers gently over the top of his dark head. “I’m glad we met, Daniel. Perhaps before you and your father go home, you can come over and do that counting for me. I have a bird and a cat. You might like to see them, too.”

Daniel perked up and looked eagerly at his father. “Can I, Daddy? Can I go see Hannah’s house?”

“Maybe. If we have time,” Jess told him.

She told Daniel goodbye, then walked out of the kitchen. Jess walked close behind her.

“Thank you for the cake and coffee, Hannah. It was thoughtful of you,” he said.

Pausing, she turned to him. “I wanted to do it,” she explained simply.

“Not many people—” He stopped, looked away from her, then swallowed as the utter loss of his father swept over him once again. “When my father became a recluse, he lost touch with everybody around here. I’m glad you remembered him.”

He looked at her then and Hannah was surprised at the ache of grief she felt for him. “Like I said, I wanted to do it, Jess. And if you…need my help for anything, let me know. I go to the cemetery quite often, so I’ll keep an eye on your father’s grave for you…if you’d like.”

Once again, he was struck by her genuine kindness. There weren’t too many people like her left in the world. People who did things for others simply out of the goodness of their hearts and not for something in return.

“I’d appreciate that very much,” he said, feeling more awkward than he could ever remember. He’d never been around a woman like Hannah before and he wasn’t quite sure that he’d behaved as he should have. But what the hell, he’d be leaving in a couple of days. He’d more than likely never see Hannah again. Besides, when had it ever mattered to him what a woman thought about his manners? Women were something to be enjoyed, not worried over, he reminded himself.

She reached out her hand. He extended his and she quickly shook it. “Goodbye, Jess,” she said, her eyes shyly skittering away from his. “And good luck to you.”

“Goodbye, Hannah.”

She turned to continue toward the living room. Jess took a step after her. “I’ll see you out,” he said.

She shook her head. “No. That’s not necessary. Enjoy your coffee.”

Jess stood and watched her go on out the door. What a strange visit, he thought. And how different Hannah Dunbar was from the vague memories he had of the pale, skinny girl who sat alone in the school cafeteria and ate her lunch out of a brown paper bag. The girl he’d sometimes winked at just to see her blush.

The memory caused a corner of his mouth to curve into a wan smile. Maybe he remembered more about Hannah Dunbar then he realized.

Chapter Two

By nightfall the rain had stopped. Jess took Daniel to a nearby café where home-cooked meals were served smorgasbord-style. Jess was glad to see Daniel hungry and eating his fried chicken and accompanying vegetables. He’d been afraid the trip up here and the ordeal of the funeral might have upset Daniel, but thankfully his son seemed to be taking it all in stride.

They had ice cream for dessert, then Jess, deciding neither he nor Daniel was ready to go back to the old house just yet, drove the two of them out on the interstate for a few miles. The desert highway was more or less empty, other than a freight train headed west. Stopped at the railroad crossing, Daniel watched the long line of cars until it disappeared into the far darkness. After that, Jess turned their truck back toward Lordsburg. He still had a lot of things in his father’s house he needed to go through and the sooner he could get it done and over with, the better he’d like it.

“Can we go to Hannah’s house now?” Daniel asked, breaking into his father’s dismal thoughts.

Surprised by the request, Jess looked at his son. “You must have really liked Hannah,” he said.

Daniel nodded. “She was nice.”

“You think so, huh. Well, I think she thought you were nice, too.”

Daniel bounced his legs up and down on the vinyl seat. “I wish Hannah could be my mommy.”

Jess very nearly slammed on the brakes. “You what!”

“I wish she could be my mommy,” Daniel repeated with exaggerated patience. “You know I don’t have one.”

Jess let out a weary breath. Oh, do I ever know it, he thought guiltily. “I know you want a mommy, son. But I—” He stopped midsentence and glanced curiously at Daniel. “Why do you wish Hannah could be your mommy?”

The little boy shrugged one shoulder, then the other. “Just because. Because she’s nice. And she smells good. And she’s pretty.”

So Daniel thought Hannah was pretty and he wanted her to be his mother. Jess couldn’t have been more shocked. Not because Daniel had asked outright for a mother. He’d been hounding Jess for some time now on the subject. But he’d never gone so far as to pick out a specific woman for the role. And Hannah was very different from any of the women Daniel had been around, including Louise, the woman who’d been his baby-sitter since the child’s infancy. What was it about Hannah that had prompted Daniel to say such things?

“Well…I guess that is true,” Jess began slowly, knowing if he didn’t say something soon, Daniel would start to question him. “Hannah is nice and pretty.” Jess had never thought of her as pretty, but through the eyes of a child, people often looked different. And now that he thought about it, he had to admit that there was something about her that stirred him, too. Something soft and feminine and even sexy. “But I really doubt she wants to be a mommy.”

“Why?”

Jess stifled a sigh. He should have been expecting that. “Why? Well, she’s not married. And only married ladies want to be mommies.”

“Then you could marry her, Daddy. Louise says if you got married, I’d get a mommy.”

Jess silently cursed the older woman for opening her mouth about such things to Daniel. And how on earth could a boy who wasn’t quite four yet remember such a thing?

“Well, that’s true,” Jess was forced to agree. “But I don’t want to get married.”

Daniel folded his little arms across his chest and pushed out his lower lip. Jess braced himself for the whining and pleading to come. But after one, then three, then five miles passed and Daniel remained stubbornly quiet, Jess ventured a hopeful look at his son.

“We’re still buddies, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, but without much enthusiasm.

“You haven’t forgotten that we’re going to that baseball game when we get home. Tracie and Dwight will be there.”

Jess’s friend, Dwight, was also a fellow border patrolman and Tracie was his wife. Since they didn’t have any children yet, the couple doted on Daniel. And Daniel was crazy about them. But tonight, the mention of their names only brought a glum nod from Daniel.

After that, Jess decided the best thing to do was let the matter drop. In a few days, when Daniel was back at home with Louise, he’d forget all about this thing with Hannah. Jess couldn’t start worrying and fretting just because Daniel thought he wanted one certain woman to be his mother.

He wasn’t going to worry, Jess muttered to himself as he turned the truck down a residential street. Who was he kidding? He worried about Daniel all the time. He was constantly asking himself if he was doing the right things for his son, spending enough time with him, teaching him what he should know and more than anything, giving him the love he knew the child needed.

A kid needed love from two parents. Jess knew that better than anyone. So he made an extra effort to give his son his time and his affection. But that was hard to do when his job demanded he work long hours. And in two weeks, Louise was moving to Tucson to live with her sister.

Two weeks? No, it was less than two weeks now, he realized. That’s how long he had to find some kind, gentle, trustworthy woman to take care of his son. Lord, how was he going to do it? It had been so easy with Louise. She lived right next door to him. She was always home and available to keep Daniel at any hour Jess called upon her. He didn’t have to be told that it was going to be nearly impossible to find someone to replace her.

Daniel wants a mother. Yeah, he probably did, Jess answered the voice inside him. Not probably, he did want a mother, Jess corrected himself. But Daniel needed to learn he couldn’t go around picking a woman to be his mother just because she was nice and smelled good. Besides that, Jess wasn’t about to let some woman tie him up in emotional knots again. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let one into Daniel’s life, then have her tear his heart apart by leaving. No way. It was better for him not to have a mother at all than to have one who would skip out on them when the going got rough.

A few moments later, Jess pulled into the driveway of his father’s house. He and Daniel climbed out of the truck and started walking over to the porch. Lord, the place looked bleak. This was the place Jess had once called home, but now it seemed not much more than a run-down piece of real estate. A big part of the stucco was eroding, leaving shallow pits and holes in the outside walls of the house. The gables hadn’t seen paint in years, and the yard, what little there was of it, was nothing more than sand with a few clumps of sage and grama grass growing here and there. Looking the way it did, he knew it was going to be hard to sell the property.

Jess glanced over his shoulder at Hannah’s house. A couple of lights were on behind the lace curtains at the windows and Jess wondered what she did in her spare time. What would he find her doing if he went over there right now?

The question left him grunting with amusement. Whatever it was, he’d bet it wasn’t entertaining a man.

He unlocked the door, but before he pushed it open, he glanced over at Hannah’s once again. Daniel was right in one respect, he thought. Someone like her was just what he needed to take Louise’s place. He’d bet his life that Hannah would be dependable. She probably never raised her voice, and judging by the sweet bread she’d brought over today, she could obviously cook, so Daniel wouldn’t constantly be fed snack foods. Too bad she lived in Lordsburg instead of Douglas, he thought.

Hannah couldn’t sleep and she didn’t know why. She’d read for hours, drank herbal tea and watched a boring late-night talk show on TV, but she was still wide-awake.

She blamed her restlessness on Frank Malone’s funeral. She hated funerals. But then, who didn’t? However, she’d especially hated this one because it had reminded her of her mother’s funeral; only a handful of mourners there, no family except one lonely offspring.

Poor Jess. She hurt for him because she knew how alone he must be feeling. And poor little Daniel. He would grow up without his grandfather.

As if the lights across the street were beckoning her, Hannah walked over to the picture window and looked out. Jess was still up. Though she couldn’t detect him through the curtainless windows, she could see parts of the cluttered living room. What was he doing at this hour? It was after two in the morning.

Was he so upset over his father’s passing, he couldn’t rest? Hannah hated to think so. Although his son was with him, he was more or less alone and she wondered why. Surely he had someone to whom he was close. Someone who could have come along with him for emotional support.

For the umpteenth time, Hannah wondered if Jess was married. After all, he had a son. True, a man didn’t have to be married to have a son, she quickly reminded herself. But there had to be a woman somewhere, she rationalized. So where was she? Back at home, taking care of other obligations?

That idea made Hannah snort with disapproval. If that was the case, Jess Malone didn’t have himself much of a wife or lover. Now if Hannah were married to Jess, she would have never let him and Daniel come here on their own to deal with their loved one’s death.

Lord have mercy, she was losing it, Hannah thought with a self-deprecating shake of her head. Imagining herself as Jess Malone’s wife and Daniel’s mother! She’d never be married. Much less to a man like him!

The knock at the door had Hannah bolting straight up out of a dead sleep. Her heart beating wildly in her chest, she glanced around, disoriented, until she finally realized she’d fallen asleep sometime early this morning on the living-room couch.

The knock came again. Louder this time.

Hannah wrapped the white plissé robe more tightly around her and hurried to answer the door. When she opened it and saw that the caller was Jess Malone, she very nearly gasped out loud.

“Jess. Is—uh—is something wrong?” Her eyes darted quickly downward at Daniel, who was clinging to his father’s hand and smiling broadly up at her.

Jess stared at Hannah. He hadn’t expected to wake her at this hour. It was eight-thirty. He’d figured she was an early riser, even on Saturdays. But it was obvious from her appearance that he’d woken her. She looked different. Very different with her long red hair down and curling wildly around her face and shoulders. Although she was holding the robe tightly together at her throat for modesty’s sake, Jess couldn’t help but notice the way the white material was stretched against her breasts, outlining their feminine shape. Pure male attraction surged through him, blotting out that part of his brain that was telling him to quit staring.

“Uh—no. We were just—” he thrust the empty thermos bottle at her “—returning your thermos.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten,” she said, then quickly added, “But there was no need for you to bother.”

The early-morning breeze caught at her hair and blew it in her face. One of her hands let go of the robe to push it back, allowing the fabric to fall away and expose the smooth skin of her throat.

Needing no further invitation, Jess’s eyes slid downward, hoping the wind would do what his fingers were itching to do. Part the robe even more and expose the creamy swell of her breasts.

She blushed furiously as she noticed Jess looking at her. Suddenly, he felt ridiculous because she’d caught him staring. Dear God, he was in trouble when he started fantasizing about a thirty-three-year-old spinster!

“It’s—not a bother,” he said while inwardly wishing he could kick himself.

Edging behind the doorjamb as much as she could, Hannah said, “I was just waking up. Have you two had breakfast yet?”

Jess shook his head. “We were headed down to McKay’s. Would you like to join us?”

Join them! The last time a man had invited her to go out with him had been years ago. And that invitation had been from a man she should have never trusted. But she had, and in the end she’d regretted it. Since that time, she’d avoided men like the plague. If she suddenly showed up at McKay’s with Jess Malone and his son, she’d very likely put the whole town into shock.

“That’s very nice of you, Jess. But I—it would take too long to get ready.”

It was just as well, he thought. He’d only invited her on a crazy impulse, anyway, thinking it would please Daniel to have her company during breakfast. And him, too. Damn it!

“McKay’s isn’t fancy,” he said, trying again. “Just go throw on some jeans. I’ll wait for you.”

He was serious, Hannah realized, her heart hammering heavily behind her breast.

“I don’t know—if I should,” she stammered, a part of her hungering for a chance to act like any normal woman, while the other part was terrified because she didn’t know how.

Jess didn’t know why he was patiently standing here waiting for her answer when she was acting as though he’d just asked her to go to bed with him instead of to share breakfast with him. What could she be worried about? Daniel would be with them.

“Hellfire, Hannah Dunbar! You act like you’ve never had a man invite you out to breakfast before. Either you want to go, or you don’t. Which is it?”

She hadn’t been invited out to breakfast before. But she could hardly tell him that. If possible, her creamy white complexion grew even redder at the thought. “I—do.”

She pushed the screen door open wide and stood back to allow them entry. “Please come in while I change. I’ll hurry.”

Jess guessed she would hurry. By the time he and Daniel had stepped inside the house, she was scurrying quickly down the hallway, the white robe flapping against her long, slender legs.

Daniel moved away from his father and looked curiously around the room.

“Don’t touch anything,” Jess instructed as he, too, glanced around the living room, which was filled with antique furniture dating back to the forties. It was all very womanly, he decided as he took in books, flowers and candles scattered randomly around the room, but it wasn’t fussy. In fact, it was much homier than his living room back home in Douglas.

“Wow! There’s a bird!”

Jess turned around to see Daniel racing over to a bird cage by the picture window.

“He’s pretty! Look how pretty he is, Daddy,” Daniel exclaimed as he stood admiring a white cockatoo.