Secret Dad

He gazed at her in wonder as she rose above him. No one had ever come that close to saying exactly the right thing before.

She leaned over him, tucking in the blanket, and as she did, the halter top gapped again, showing everything but the very tips of her breasts, and her hair slid down like a fragrant veil, brushing his face, and the world seemed to be spinning out of control. Like a man in a dream, he reached out, acting on pure instinct, and grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer. She was so soft, so light, and desire for her swept through him like a surge in the sea. She didn’t try to pull away. She looked startled, but not afraid. She stared into his gaze, her face only inches from his, and he searched her violet eyes, but he couldn’t read her real reaction. Still, he knew he could kiss her easily. It would take only a slight tug to pull her down on top of him and take her mouth with his. The urge to do it choked in his throat.

But he couldn’t. This wasn’t any woman he’d picked up in the forest on an afternoon’s walk. This was Charlyne Chandler, for God’s sake. What the hell did he think he was doing?

He released her without saying a word, and she drew back slowly. Was that regret he caught in her gaze? Or maybe disgust? He couldn’t tell. And maybe he didn’t even want to know.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he told her softly as she sat back on the coffee table.

“Do what?” she asked, brushing the hair back away from her face.

He watched her with narrowed eyes. “When a man’s been out on the desert for a few days, you shouldn’t wave a glass of water in front of him unless you’re going to let him take a drink.” He winced once the words were out of his mouth. It had seemed like a good metaphor when he’d thought of it, but out loud, it sounded very silly. He looked at her, wondering what she thought.

She stared at him for a long moment, and then she burst into laughter, holding her arms in close and rocking with it. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” she said.

He shrugged, suppressing a smile himself. “I’m just warning you. A man can only take so much temptation.”

“You’re not a regular man,” she protested, rising from the table. “You’re a wounded man.”

“I’d have to be a dead man not to react to—”

“Okay, okay,” she said quickly, not wanting him to describe what he was looking at. But she began to edge away from him. “Let me just slosh my way to my room and change into something else. Like a raincoat, maybe.” Turning, she left the room.

He lay back and berated himself. Well, that was just great. Now he’d offended her. He hadn’t meant to do that. He swore under his breath. He hadn’t meant to end up on a woman’s couch today, but here he was. And the sooner he got out of here the better.

She was back in a moment, and he noticed she’d changed her clothes. The air had turned chilly, unfortunately, and she’d put on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. There would be no more luscious vistas of smooth, clear skin, no more glimpses of cleavage. In a way, it was almost a relief. Maybe now the charged atmosphere would calm down a little.

She dropped to the floor in front of the embers that filled her fireplace and began to shove the glowing coals with a poker. He watched as she put on a log, stirred the ashes, and got a few flames to flicker at the wood. For just a moment he was tempted to give her advice on her technique, but he caught himself just in time.

But then he began to wonder—what was she doing here in these primitive surroundings? The Charlyne he remembered belonged in mansions, with graceful staircases climbing to the sky and gardeners trimming the roses and a woman who took your coat when you came in. This was a whole new side of her and he wondered where it had come from.

She went on talking, chatting about simple things, not expecting a response from him, and to his surprise, he was relaxing, feeling almost comfortable. She had a knack. He was soothed, just beginning to get sleepy, when there was a scratching sound, and a short bark from outside, and she rose with a smile.

“And now you’re about to meet the reason I don’t feel unsafe in this place,” she told him as she went toward the sound. “Here you go.” She threw open the door. “Meet Sabrina.”

Sabrina was a dark husky, big and furry and very, very curious. She knew Denver was there right away and raced to the couch, her nails scratching on the wood floor.

“Hold it, girl,” Charlie cried, coming after her quickly. “Sabrina has been known to take exception to some men who have been in this house,” she added, watching the dog and the man meet. “She’s never actually bitten anyone, but you never know.”

But the big dog didn’t hesitate. Rising up on her hind legs, she placed her paws right on Denver’s chest and began to sniff him all over. Charlie made a move as though to pull her back, but Denver reached up and gave her a rough caress, letting Charlie know he was perfectly willing to put up with Sabrina’s test. The dog let out a sharp bark, wagged her tail twice, and settled back down, almost seeming to give Charlie a nod as she went. Charlie laughed.

“You big old faker,” she told her pet, giving her a rub on the top of her head as she passed.

Denver watched her go. “Nice dog,” he said. “She’s got eyes like an old Indian sage. Like she’s carrying around the wisdom of the ages.”

Charlie shook her head. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s just a puppy at heart.” Moving quickly, she began picking things up, making small talk as she went.

He was hearing the sound of her voice more than the words. It was like music. She went into the kitchen and began fixing something. He assumed it was for dinner, though it was still early. He stared into the fire and listened to her talk. Her voice was quick, just like her hands. The sound she made was light and sunny, like the song a perfect stream sang as it danced over polished stones. He closed his eyes for a moment. He could almost taste her.

There was a clattering of pans and the sound of water running. Now she was humming a lively tune. He had an urge to see her and he hunched himself up higher against the arm of the couch so that he could look across the room and into the kitchen.

“Is it really that much fun to cook?” he asked her as the humming went on and on.

She glanced up, as though astonished he was still there. “You’d be surprised,” she said, laughing, her hair swinging about her shoulders.

“It does smell good,” he admitted.

“Do you like pot roast?”

Pot roast. How many years had it been since he’d had good old homemade pot roast? His diet over the last few years had tended toward hamburgers or a taco grabbed on the fly—that, or the native cuisine of whatever country he was working in. Pot roast took a long time. Mothers made pot roast. It was the sort of dinner that had love cooked right into it—along with Sunday afternoons and going to church with the family.

He twitched. Where the hell had that picture come from? It didn’t sound like any sort of life that he’d ever led. What happened? Were you born with some sort of stereotype in. your head that you tried to live up to your entire life? Tried, and failed. Kind of a great eternal joke on humanity.

“I didn’t realize that was such a hard question,” she commented.

He looked up, at a loss for a moment. Then he remembered what she’d asked. “Uh...sure. I like pot roast.”

“Good. I’m making plenty. You can have all you want.”

It seemed he was expected to stay for dinner. Suddenly the prospect of a homemade meal was overwhelmingly seductive. He sat back and contemplated his luck. He knew he should go. But one good old pot roast dinner wouldn’t hurt. Would it?

“You know,” she said, coming out of the kitchen. “I really think you should go to the hospital.”

He grimaced, shifting his leg. “What for?”

“They’ll fix you right up, put you in a cast, make sure you’re on the road to healing...”

He was shaking his head. “No. I’m not going to the hospital.” He’d already spent too many weeks in the hospital this year. “I’ve had worse than this before. The human body has a capacity to heal all sorts of things on its own. And mine’s had a lot of practice at it.”

She gazed at him curiously, but didn’t respond to what he’d said. “Okay, I guess I can’t force you.” Starting toward the door, she called back, “You’ll have to hold the fort I’ve got to go get Robbie. He gets out of school at three and....”

As though she knew this part by heart, Sabrina came running out of the back of the house to join her mistress. Charlie stopped at the door, her hand on the knob. “You’ll be here when I get back, won’t you?” she asked.

He looked at her. Her lips were curved into a slight smile and her eyes were alight with the question. Tiny wisps of blond hair flew around her lovely face. It was a good thing he’d learned to harden himself over the years. A weaker man wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptingly engaging picture she presented.

“Sure, I’ll be here,” he told her gruffly. “Where the hell would I go?”

Her face changed and she straightened her shoulders, taking a couple of steps back toward where he lay. “Okay, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. When my son is around, I’d appreciate it if you would watch the swearing. You seem to do an awful lot of it, and I don’t like it.” She paused. “On the other hand, it’s a free country. You can swear all you want. Only not around Robbie. That I won’t allow.”

She’d caught him off guard again. He hadn’t realized he’d been getting that careless—like some mountain man who didn’t know how to behave in civilized society. Great. Now he was so far gone he was swearing around a woman. He’d lived a tough life. He’d sworn a lot in his time. But he still had some old-fashioned values. He never used to swear around women and children. He was going to have to relearn that.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ll watch it.”

Her smile was back, as though she were glad he’d taken criticism so well. “I’d appreciate it,” she said breezily, spinning back toward the exit. “It takes twenty minutes to get to Robbie’s school. Twenty minutes back.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, and he didn’t give one. He only stared after the closing door, wondering how he’d managed to end up here when all he’d come for was rest and relaxation. Something told him rest was going to be hard to find with Charlie around.

Three

Charlie left her cabin and started toward town. Smoke was coming out of the chimney at Margo’s place, so she was home. Charlie had a moment’s unease, of wondering what the neighbors would think about her visitor, but she brushed it away. That was old thinking, from her past. She was a different person now.

She was a little late and she walked quickly, buoyed by some sort of sparkling in her veins. She didn’t know what it was, but she had energy to burn today.

“Could it be because I’ve got a man on my couch?” she muttered to herself, then laughed aloud, making Sabrina run back and dash about her ankles to see what was so funny.

A man—a pretty common item for most women to have around. But not her. She’d avoided men for so many years now, she hardly knew how to handle one now that she had him. She’d had a man in her life once before. He’d fathered her son. For that, she would always be grateful. But he’d also made life even more miserable than it had been before he came along and she’d run as far and as fast as she could to get away from him.

Some women were not meant to have a man. She’d decided that must be the case a long time ago, and that maybe she was one of them. Her experience with marriage had been such a disaster, she knew she would have a hard time risking it again. She’d been lucky to have gotten away, lucky that no one had found her in all these years. She and her son Robbie were together, and that was all she needed. She couldn’t imagine being any happier than she was right now.

So why had she brought the man home, like some wounded puppy who needed ministering to? She wasn’t sure. She’d thought at first, just for a moment or two, that he looked familiar. But that couldn’t be. The life she’d lived before she’d moved here hadn’t included men like Denver. Still, there was something m his face—something slightly familiar and yet not. Something that made her trust him, even though he’d given her no real reason to do anything of the kind.

She knew that if she ever did pick a new man to marry, it wouldn’t be a man like Denver. If she got to that point, she would be looking for a professional man, someone solid and reassuring. Denver was too rough, too... well, dangerous was a good word for it. There was something a bit intimidating about him. She had the feeling that he would do just about anything for someone, if he cared enough.

And those scars on his body! Good grief. She shuddered, thinking about them. She’d seen enough at the hospital to know those weren’t football injuries. The man had been knifed and shot and who knew what else? At some point in his life, he had obviously been involved in something very dangerous.

And then there was that moment when he’d taken hold of her wrist and pulled her close. She’d felt so strange—as though she’d almost been waiting for him to do it. She’d seen the raw hunger in his eyes and her heart had beat so loudly, she could hardly breathe. She’d thought he would kiss her. But it didn’t happen, and she caught her breath now, thinking about it. Did she want that? Did she? Shaking her head, she pushed it away. She couldn’t let herself dwell on that. It brought up too many conflicting emotions.

And the school was just ahead, a little wood frame building nestled in a clearing rimmed with ponderosa pine. The children were just coming out and she waved at Robbie, nodded and called greetings to a few friends, then he came barreling toward her and she reached down and caught her son up in her arms. She held him tightly, smelled his hair, felt the spirit that filled him, and thanked God for him one more time. Sometimes, life was good.

“We had worms,” he told her happily.

“Worms?” She eased him to the ground and gazed at him in trepidation, hoping it wasn’t a meal he was talking about.

He nodded, his eyes sparkling. “Big ones. They wiggled.”

“Oh.” Charlie was laughing again. “They wiggled, did they?”

“Uh-huh.” He began to walk along beside her. “We watched them go into the ground and then we dug them up again.”

“Lovely.”

He scrunched up his face and looked at her from under a stray lock of hair. “Could I have a worm for a-pet? Just a little one?”

Charlie hesitated. Worms as pets. Wonderful. “I’m afraid not, honey,” she told him calmly. “Worms don’t do real well in captivity.” She winced as she saw the disappointment on his round face. “But you know what? I’ll bet we have worms living right in our yard. Later on, maybe we could dig up some dirt and see.”

“Could we?” He was happy again. “Great! When I find one I’m going to name him Cowabunga,” he called as he ran off to chase Sabrina through the trees.

Charlie smiled. Being with Robbie always made her smile. He was the joy in her life—practically the reason she lived at this point. He was the only thing she’d taken with her when she ran away. He would be with her until he was grown and then she would finally be alone. But she didn’t want to think about that. That day was a long way off—and this day was too beautiful for melancholy thoughts. Right now, her heart was light as a breeze.

Some days she picked Robbie up with her little motor scooter, carrying him home clinging to her waist as they roared over the bumps. But she liked best the days when they walked home together and he told her about what he’d learned. They were close in ways she’d never been with her own family, and that was just the way she’d planned it from the beginning. As far as she was concerned, her relationship with her son was a golden gift she would treasure and work to maintain. She would do almost anything to make sure it never got to be the way it had always been with her own mother.

For some reason, that made her think about Denver Smith, and before she could stop herself, she shivered with anticipation, then gasped at her own foolishness. “Wow,” she whispered to herself as a bird cried in the tree above her. “The man really is dangerous, isn’t he?” And that made her shiver again. She had a dangerous man in her living room and she could hardly wait to go be scared of him. What nonsense!

A giggle rose in her throat. What if her mother could see Denver, could know the way Charlie was reacting to him? She could see her mother’s strong, handsome face grimacing in disgust.

“A hooligan!” she would say disapprovingly. “We don’t invite hooligans into our home.”

“No,” Charlie said, laughing in a way she would never have laughed in front of the woman. “No, Mother. You don’t. But I do. And that is one reason why I don’t live with you any longer.”

Brave words, she thought, sobering. Too bad she’d never be able to say them to her mother’s face. Well, there was no question about it. The man was dangerous. She could see it in his eyes and in the evidence that scarred his body. You didn’t end up with a body like that playing tennis at the club. She’d never dealt with a man who’d actually been shot before.

“No more shivering,” she told herself firmly, and then her smile was back.

Robbie came skipping out of the trees and slowed to walk beside her.

“Mom, how come your eyes are sparkling?” he asked.

She looked down at him. “What?”

“Like stars.” He nodded, gazing into them.

She laughed. “Oh, come on.”

He wrinkled his tiny freckled nose, his blue eyes wise. “Do you have a surprise at home for me?” he asked carefully.

She sighed, shaking her head, delighted with him as usual. “How did you guess that?”

He shrugged. “Because of your eyes,” he said sensibly. “Because you look like a surprise.”

Laughing, she pulled him up into her arms and gave him a very loud kiss on his flushed cheek.

“Is it a rifle?” he asked hopefully.

“Robbie!” she cried, dropping him on his feet again. “No, it’s not a rifle. And it never will be, you can count on that. I don’t think you should have a rifle. And I wish you would stop asking for one all the time.”

He took her small lecture patiently, then got back to business right away. “Then what kind of surprise is it?” he asked, pulling further away so that he could skip along beside her.

“It’s not a toy surprise, either,” she warned him. “More of a people-to-people surprise.”

He thought about that for a moment, frowning then shook his head and asked, “What does that mean?”

“You just wait. You’ll see.”

His eyes widened and he started to ask something else, but he quickly thought better of it, and instead put his head down and began to walk on ahead as fast as he could, with Sabrina dancing beside him, watching for something to chase. But Robbie wasn’t interested in the forest any longer. He seemed to be intent on getting home.

Charlie shook her head, watching him. She so often worried that it wasn’t fair to try to raise him all alone, that he really needed a dad in his life. That was something she couldn’t give him. The thought of going out and trying to find a man to take over that role made her cringe. Unfortunately, she was afraid Robbie was going to have to grow up without a father around. Not an ideal situation, but the best she could do.

She hoped he would like having Denver stay for dinner. There hadn’t often been a man in their house lately. Now and then she invited Robbie’s friend Billy to come to a meal and bring his parents. She had noted the way Robbie hung on every word Billy’s father uttered, and followed him with his eyes at all times. It was obvious how much her son longed for a dad of his own. She wasn’t sure what he would make of Denver, but she was pretty sure their visitor was made from the mold every little boy liked to think of his father as being from. That was the best she could do for him, it seemed—occasional and temporary male influences in his life.

Robbie was walking faster and faster and she almost had to run to catch up to him. He pulled her by the hand and she laughed as he forced her to trot, with Sabrina dashing around them and barking. In no time at all, they were home, running up the porch steps and bursting in through the front door.

The house seemed too still and she looked around quickly, her gaze darting from the couch to the kitchen and back again. The blanket lay neatly folded on the table. The fire had just about gone out. There was no sign of him. He was gone.

Something lurched inside her but she didn’t stop to analyze why. He was gone and she was disappointed, but she wasn’t going to let it show

Robbie looked around too, puzzled. “Where is it, Mom? I can’t find the surprise.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” she told him, letting her fingertips trail along the back of the couch where Denver had been when she’d last seen him, remembering how big and rough he’d looked when she’d had him there. “I guess your surprise has sort of... disappeared.”

He was gone. The disappointment welled up in her like a thundercloud pouring over the tips of the mountain range on a summer day. She’d brought home a lost creature, tended to him, grown to rather like him, and now he was gone. That left an empty spot in her soul.

The sound of something outside caught her attention. There was a noise from out back, a thump, the sound of an ax against wood. She stopped, frowning, and suddenly she realized it was made by someone chopping firewood. Her heart leaped up but she didn’t let herself notice that. Instead, she ran to the window and looked out. He wasn’t gone after all. There he was, ax in hand, chopping wood. That thing that had lurched inside her rose again, rose and poured something warm and sweet through her body, and she grinned, feeling suddenly light as air.

“Or maybe not,” she told her son, tousling his hair as she passed him on her way outside. “Let me go see.” She stepped quickly to the back door.

There he was, swinging an ax in a very unbalanced manner, his hair shining in the sun. Throwing open the door, she ran out.

“What are you doing?” she cried out as she neared him. “Will you cut that out?”

He turned and nodded to greet her. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” he told her, setting himself and taking another swing.

“You are in no condition to be doing something like this,” she said, frowning as he staggered back from the momentum of the ax. Reaching out, she put a hand on his arm, and he didn’t pull away, but he stiffened, and she knew he didn’t want her doing that. Quickly, she pulled her hand back.

“Come on in and sit down,” she said quickly. “We’ll be eating soon.”

He was leaning against the sawhorse that held the wood in place and it was obvious he was going to have to take her suggestion, whether he wanted to or not. “I’m actually doing fine,” he protested, though he didn’t look it. “The leg is getting back to normal. Really, I’m okay.”

She frowned, not buying it. “Let’s go have dinner,” she said again.

He shifted his weight and glanced at her, stalling for time. “Dinner already?” he said. “Isn’t it a little early for that?”

“We have to eat early. I have to be at work at five.”

He looked at her as though her entire speech surprised him. “What do you do?”

She liked surprising him. She threw him a sassy grin. “I sling hash.”

The look of shock on his face astonished her, though she had to admit that the thought of working in a greasy spoon would once have sent her reeling as well. And if her mother ever found out, she would probably have her committed to a home for dangerously unbalanced young ladies.

“Actually, it’s in a very nice little restaurant in town. We serve Pacific Rim fusion food, things like mu shu pork in tortillas and Cornish game hens in Thai peanut sauce.”

He was still staring at her as though he didn’t believe a word she said. She waited for a moment, then shrugged, feeling a little wobbly herself.