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Mary Elise? She had said his father arranged the job for her. How long had she been there? Maybe she’d only just arrived.
But why would his dad play Cupid when father-son chitchats were pretty much nothing more than a biannual affair? At best.
Daniel shook free the questions and, for his young brother’s sake, reached to lower the volume. Trey sidled closer to the machine, his eyes glinting with a willfulness Daniel recognized well from the mirror.
Their father’s voice continued to swell into the room. “I don’t want to go into details over a voicemail. It would be better if you placed the call from the base on a secure line.”
The message clicked to an end. Trey shifted from his guard post to let Daniel jam the off button.
Secure phones? The limited intelligence that had filtered in about his father and stepmother’s deaths rolled through his mind. Their car had been caught in the cross-fire between extremist dissidents and local militia. A tragic accident.
Right?
His heart pounded in his ears, each tight breath in sync with Trey’s faster gulps of air.
Trey.
The nine-year-old stood rigid with his small can of orange juice in one white-knuckled fist and his Pop-Tart shaking in his other hand. Glassy brown eyes refused to shed tears. The T-shirt seemed to swallow him whole as his snotty air fell away, leaving behind a grieving little boy.
Daniel thumped his mug on the counter and knelt in front of Trey. “Hey, bud, I hate that this happened to him, too.”
He cupped a comforting hand around the boy’s shoulder.
Trey shrugged it off, chest filling his T-shirt again. “Like you even care about him.” He flung his breakfast pastry toward the sink. Missed. The Pop-Tart slapped the tile floor. “I’ll bet you just forgot to mail that ‘World’s Best Dad’ card for Father’s Day last year.”
Shot well taken, kiddo. “Trey…”
“That’s right. I’m Trey. Franklin Baker III. Third. Trey, after my dad.Iwas named for him, not you.”
The kid fought with the gloves off. “I realize you’re upset. I’m upset, too. You don’t want to be here, and I understand that.”
“Likeyouwant me here.”
What could he say to that? His brother needed reassurance, but would recognize a lie in a heartbeat.
Daniel stared at the blueberry Pop-Tart on the gray-flecked tile while the drip, drip, drip of the coffeemaker echoed. Finally he scrounged for words in a situation he’d never imagined facing.
“Trey, you’re a smart kid, like the old man. You were well named.” No bull in that statement. “So I’m gonna be straight with you. No, this is not what I would have listed on my schedule for the year. Of course I wish you were with your dad and mom right now. That’s the way things should be. But life didn’t give us a choice, so let’s help each other out here.”
Trey wavered forward. His bottom lip quivered twice. Daniel squeezed the boy’s shoulder.
“Nuh-uh.” Trey jerked back. “I don’t know you and I’m not staying here.” He spun on his heel and ran down the hall. The slamming door rattled dangling mugs.
Daniel scooped the Pop-Tart off the floor and into the trash, cursing under his breath.
The sight of Mary Elise in the archway halted the flow of bottled curses. Mary Elise inhisclothes. His gray sweatpants and a T-shirt from a missile-testing project had never looked so good. Fire-red hair streamed over both her shoulders, gentle curves nudging at the well-worn cotton.
He needed air. He needed space. Both running low in his small condo. Daniel turned away and hoped Mary Elise would get the not-so-subtle message that he wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. Maybe she would go comfort Trey and leave him alone. He realized his avoidance tactics were juvenile and didn’t care.
He yanked open the cabinet to look for…he had no idea what. He just knew he didn’t want this attraction, and he definitely didn’t want a soul-searching conversation about Trey and their father and the past with Mary Elise. He wanted to smile with her, joke about the incongruous notion of him packing Scooby-Doo lunch boxes and attending school plays. Anything to keep from facing so many truths.
First on the list, his relationship with his father sucked. With that as his only model, he didn’t hold out much hope of his ability to parent two needy boys.
Next, and worse, came the gut-scraping knowledge that he hadn’t done right by this woman, a person he’d cared about more than anyone then. Not that he had a clue how to tap into the emotional stuff he knew she needed. Another blot against his parenting potential. And more than anything, he wanted to plunge right back into the same mistakes, if it meant a chance to plunge into her one more time.
He let his hand settle on a jar of peanut butter and reached for the silverware drawer. Apparently, Mary Elise didn’t take hints. Or plain ignored them as she appeared in the kitchen.
He recognized the tilt of her chin well. She might be a more subdued version of the animated spitfire who’d trailed his tracks and kept him from falling irretrievably into mischief with her dry wit and wisdom. Yet even subdued to half power, this woman had an unmistakable will. The furrow in her brow said it all.
