Next Door Daddy

by Debra Clopton

  “You look nice,” he said.

  His gaze drifted over her and Polly’s heart started racing. It had been a long time since a man’s compliment had caused her to feel something. She immediately thought about how his hand had felt on her arm the evening before. To her dismay, she felt a heated flush creep up her throat. “Thank you,” she said, then led the way to the truck.

  Nate followed her and reached to open the door before she could. “Thank you,” she repeated, because she was uncharacteristically tongue-tied. And all because she was overreacting to a simple, obligatory pleasantry!

  Nate seemed oblivious to her flushed face and incoherence as he opened the truck door for her. In fact, as they drove toward town with Gil filling the silence, she became more certain that her first impression when he’d come for them had been correct. Something was troubling Nate. He seemed distant as he listened to Gil, and though he answered every question thrown at him, Polly could tell he was working hard to hide his preoccupation.

  The parking lot was full when they arrived.

  “Sunday school is in the building at the side,” Nate said, nodding toward the building.

  “Thanks, Nate! I told you it’d be easy,” Gil said, scrambling out of the backseat. “There’s Max,” he yelped before his feet hit the ground. Immediately forgetting his mother and Nate, he raced away.

  Polly felt guilty that she’d been lax in attendance. It hadn’t been fair to Gil. “He’s always loved Sunday school,” she said, stepping out of the truck, glancing over at Nate. His fingers were still wrapped firmly around the steering wheel. “Are you coming in?” she asked, suddenly realizing that he didn’t look like he was.

  “I’ve got a cow that needs checking over on some acreage I lease. I need to do that, then come back.”

  He really wasn’t coming in. Stunned, she stepped back from the truck. It was irrational. He’d only driven them in because Gil had asked him to, but still, she felt abandoned.

  “Then I guess I’ll see you,” she said.

  He didn’t look at her, just nodded, pressed the clutch and shifted into Reverse. “I’ll be back.”

  Perplexed, she closed the door. His expression said otherwise. Gil called her name and she glanced toward where he was talking with Norma Sue. Still puzzled by Nate, Polly thought maybe she should ask if there was anything she could help him with, but when she looked back he was already driving away.

  “Thought for a moment Nate might actually come to Sunday school,” Norma Sue said, coming up beside Polly, startling her out of her musings.

  “He said he had a cow to check on,” Polly said in his defense.

  “Isn’t that convenient? Ranchers always have a cow to check on. ’Course, I’m not one to judge the boy. Thank the good Lord I still have my Roy Don and haven’t had to walk in the same shoes as you and Nate. Can’t say walking into church alone would be an easy thing to do.”

  Polly felt the tug of emotion from the words that she understood so well. Was Nate having the same trouble as she was?

  “I’m glad to see you show up, though.” Norma Sue gave her a one-armed hug. “How’s it going?”

  They started walking toward the annex and instantly, like every Sunday since Marc’s death, the same sense of dread sank over her.

  It settled heavier around Polly with each step toward the building. “We’re settling in nicely.” At least that was true. If only it were true for everything. She hated this, and had begun to think it would never get easier.

  “When do you expect to have the bed-and-breakfast open for business?”

  With all that they’d talked about at the dinner, the actual opening date hadn’t come up. Polly focused. “I’m taking reservations for the summer fair the last week of May.”

  “Great! If it has the turnout that we had last year, you’ll be able to rent out every room and then some.”

  Polly momentarily forgot her rising trepidation. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

  “Wonderful! Seven weeks and counting, and things are looking better around here every day. Morning, Brady.”

  Mule Hollow had its fair share of good-looking cowboys and the sheriff was one of them. He’d been talking with Gil and his friend Max and the boys were obviously excited about whatever it was they’d been discussing. Polly shook his hand and smiled at the giant of a man. The first time she’d met him she’d thought of Matt Dillon and had the confident feeling that Mule Hollow was in very competent hands with him looking out for its safety and well-being.

  “Mornin’, ladies. Let me get this door for you.”

  “Mom, Sheriff Brady says him and Nate used to swim in that pond by our house when they were kids.”

  Polly cringed. “Well, don’t get any ideas.” The last thing she wanted was to have to worry about Gil jumping in the murky little pond.

  “Aw, Mom!”

  She slapped her hands to her hips and looked firmly at him, her nerves getting the better of her. “Gilbert Marcus McDonald, you will do as I say.”

  His expression fell and he looked at her sullenly. “Not the name. Mom—”

  “No back talk, young man. You will mind me. Is that clear?” Especially when it came to dangerous things, she almost tagged on, but bit it back. She couldn’t shelter him forever and Marc would hate that she was trying to hold him back…but Marc wasn’t here and she was his mom. She knew her nerves were extra shot with her anxiety about walking into church as a single woman. And she shouldn’t take it out on Gil.

  That weighed heavily on her as Gil’s shoulders heaved. “Yes, ma’am,” he huffed. “But I’m eight years old.”

  “Not old enough,” she said firmly, though her mind was spinning with conflicting feelings about the issue. Gil, good boy that he was, looked from her to Max, shrugged, then raced down the hall and disappeared into an open doorway. What was she to do? She couldn’t very well just let him climb on roofs and swim in tanks…She sighed. It went against her nature to simply let him flirt with danger. Not that she wasn’t trying to ease up.

  “Sorry about that,” Sheriff Brady said, and did some disappearing of his own. Obviously, he felt the same way that Marc had felt, that boys would be boys and what didn’t kill them only made them stronger.

  “Men, they don’t even think about how us women worry.” Norma Sue patted Polly’s arm. “Don’t fret, though, boys thrive in the country. Rip-roaring and learning as they go.”

  “I know. That’s why I moved here—so I could relax—and look at me, I’m still holding on as tight as I can.”

  “You’ve got a lot on your plate. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Now, if you had a man around to bounce things off of that would make a heap of difference.”

  Polly’s throat clogged. “Obviously it wasn’t in God’s plan for Gil to have that.”

  “Oh, honey, your life isn’t over. You’ve moved to the right town to fall in love again. I’m telling you, we have a great bunch of single men just needing the love of a good woman like you. Nate Talbert is at the head of the list.” Norma Sue smiled encouragingly.

  Polly forced herself to breathe. In that moment Dottie Cannon, Brady’s wife, came out of the classroom Gil had entered. She taught the class and had invited him the day they’d moved in. She swept gracefully down the hallway and interrupted the conversation with perfect timing. Polly sent the Lord a thank-you.

  “Polly, I’m so glad you brought Gil to Sunday school.”

  “Oh, my goodness, I just remembered I’m supposed to take Esther Mae’s place in the nursery,” Norma Sue exclaimed. “Dottie, will you show Pollyanna where the adult Sunday school is held?”

  “Sure, I will.”

  They watched Norma Sue plow down the hallway, her flowered dress flapping in her wake.

  “You know, they’re gunning for you,” Dottie said, her navy eyes twinkling.

  Polly grimaced. “Surely not. I mean, I know they’ve hinted about me finding a good cowboy. But trying to fix me up—they wouldn’t do that. Would they?”r />
  Dottie chuckled. “Don’t kid yourself. They would.”

  Polly gripped the strap of her purse and forced a smile, hoping it would translate to her heart. “So what are my chances?” she asked, trying hard to play along, so as not to seem too panicked by the idea.

  Dottie looked at her kindly. “Now, that depends on how you look at it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Lacy caught sight of Polly just as she was being directed toward her class, and hurried over to give her a quick hug of welcome before dashing to her own class—the couples class, as in married couples. As it turned out, Lacy and Clint taught the young couples class. Pastor Allen taught the senior couples, leaving only one other adult class for Polly. The singles class.

  She took a shuddering breath. She had to get over this. For a person who’d been used to attending a couples class for years with her husband, walking into a singles class that was populated—at least two-thirds of the way with eager-faced cowboys—still unsettled her as much today as it did the first time she’d tried do it. It didn’t matter that it had been two years.

  But the reality was that she was a single. And there was nothing she could do that would change the fact this second.

  Sitting out on her upper balcony last night, she’d watched the night sky and prayed. She’d claimed the Lord’s promise—fear not, for I am with you always. She knew it was true, she just had to keep focusing on that. She’d prayed that she could overcome this stumbling block. She’d awakened with the hope that today attending church would be different for her. That today something in her life was going to change…She sighed. But, what had began that morning as a step forward for Polly had disintegrated before even stepping out of Nate’s truck. Standing at the edge of the doorway of the class, hidden from the occupants’ view, she felt just as much like a misfit as she always did as she listened to the joking and kidding going on inside. Lighthearted. The way singles were supposed to feel.

  A wave of wistful longing rolled over Polly and she closed her eyes against the onslaught. She would never know that feeling again. Would she?

  “Don’t be shy, young lady,” Stanley Orr said, stopping to smile jovially at her. “Nobody in thar is gonna bite you,” he boomed loud enough for everyone in the building to hear him. Polly knew everyone in the classroom had heard his words, there was no way for them not to.

  With no easy way to avoid the inevitable, like disappearing into thin air, Polly nodded and did as she was told, stepping around the corner.

  All eyes were on the doorway waiting on her to appear. Yep, they’d heard Stanley, all right.

  A rakish-looking cowboy in the front row patted the seat beside him. “Speak for yourself, Stanley,” he drawled, causing laughter to ripple through the room. “I’m sorta partial to shy ladies.”

  She wanted to crawl under a rug but there wasn’t one.

  “Don’t mind them,” Ashby Templeton said from the second row. She was the epitome of stylishness, from the jaw length cut of her hair to her expensive dress. Polly had been introduced to her early on but hadn’t been around her since. “Please sit by me. Dan—” she lifted a perfect brow at the smiling cowboy “—is a nice-enough guy, but he doesn’t need any more encouragement.”

  Polly chose the seat beside Ashby. Dan the cowboy looked over his shoulder and made a charming face as he held out his hand. “Dan Dawson, darlin’, and really, I don’t bite.”

  Polly slipped her hand in his. “Polly McDonald, Mr. Dawson.”

  He frowned, his eyes dancing with playful teasing. “Please, call me Dan, or wound me for life.”

  She took her hand back. His charming antics made her smile, even as they made her uncomfortable. “Dan,” she said. “I couldn’t possibly be responsible for wounding you for life.” There, she’d managed a semblance, though a horrible one, of flirting.

  He gave a crooked Dean Martin smile and clasped a hand over his heart once again, sending the room into chuckles. It was a classic overused move but it worked for this cowboy. Polly glanced at Ashby who shook her head and looked less than impressed.

  “Lost cause,” she whispered, leaning close to Polly’s ear. “Mr. Good Times Cowboy is the guy to steer clear of.”

  Polly saw the flash of playful challenge in Dan’s gaze as it settled on Ashby. “Now, don’t get jealous, Ash, you had your chance at this cowboy. And, sugar, you passed it up. Remember?”

  Ashby crossed her arms stiffly. “Several times, I might add.”

  There were sparks bouncing off these two like flint and steel. Polly looked around to see if she were the only one seeing them. She wasn’t. Every eye in the room was on Ashby and Dan. It seemed something was brewing there. She immediately wondered if Norma Sue and her buddies had gotten a whiff of this or had instigated it. She was beginning to view everything as suspect.

  Sheriff Brady came to the rescue. He strode into the room and took the seat at the front of the class, drawing all eyes. Dan shifted his gaze from Ashby to Polly, winking before giving his attention to Brady.

  The lawman was the Sunday-school teacher.

  She didn’t know why that struck her as cute, but it did. She wondered if when he caught someone speeding, he sentenced them to attend Sunday school. Or maybe he sentenced them to sit in the front row. That might explain what Dan Dawson was doing here.

  Brady welcomed her to the class and then invited everyone to introduce themselves. There were six single women. Two of them schoolteachers, three of them worked at the candy store, which she assumed meant they lived at the women’s shelter, No Place Like Home, since the candy store was an extension of the women’s shelter. Then there were ten single cowboys, and as they each introduced themselves she wondered if there was anywhere else in all of Texas where more charming single men could possibly be in one room. Mule Hollow was indeed a treasure for single women looking for good men.

  She wished them all the best. She just didn’t fit as one of them.

  Still, she’d come to church with an open mind and hope in her heart of hearts that here she could learn to fit in. But, despite the warm welcome, the charming smiles, the teasing flirtations and her single status, nothing had changed but her zip code. She didn’t belong in the singles class. At least not in her heart.

  The knowledge sank over her like a sheet fluttering over furniture that had been put into storage. Furniture whose season had come and gone…She tried to fight off the feeling, but it was of no use. She made it through the hour, amid friends, listened to a very well-prepared lesson on the body of Christ, and how each person played an important role in the church…but she couldn’t rid herself of feeling out of place.

  What part did she play?

  Despite her appearance as that of a single woman, she wasn’t. She’d been a working, functioning part of a successful loving team…just as the lesson taught that each member of the church worked to make up the body of Christ. She and Marc had been united as one. And though Marc wasn’t by her side, visible to everyone else, he remained in her heart. To be blunt, he still completed her.

  Frustrations escalated and she spent the end of the class praying for the Lord to help bring her emotions back under wraps.

  She knew now, no matter how it looked to the world, she did not and never would belong in a room of carefree singles looking for that someone special to share their life with.

  She’d been there, done that. Happily. And there was no going back.

  And so it remained, that though she was in a room full of friendly faces, church—and Sunday school especially—was the loneliest place of all.

  Gil had gone home for the afternoon with Max, and Nate noticed immediately on the trip home from church that Pollyanna was preoccupied. He’d slunk back to church after the Sunday-school hour and waited by the front door of the sanctuary for her and Gil. She’d looked upset when she’d spotted him, and he wondered if he’d upset her by not sticking around for the early hour of church. He’d tried, he really had…but the minute he’d pulled into tha
t parking lot, he’d known he couldn’t do it. If she wanted to be upset with him, then so be it.

  He’d stopped caring what everyone thought about him the day Kayla died. He sounded like a broken record. But, walking into the church was hard enough, much less walking into a stinking class for singles. A couples class was no easier. He’d known it, but Gil had wanted him to go with him so he’d tried.

  It hadn’t worked.

  And now Pollyanna was mad at him. She sat watching the pastures pass by outside her window, ignoring him. He didn’t blame her. He deserved to be shut out after running off like he had.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said suddenly. “But I need a good long bike ride.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said I need a good long bike ride. I need something to cure this, this discontent that keeps overcoming me.”

  Confused, he glanced at her. She wasn’t mad at him?

  She waved a hand, the motion full of frustration. “I need the endorphins the exercise will set off. I just need a bike ride.” She tapped her foot impatiently, growing more agitated by the second. Maybe her attitude had nothing to do with him.

  “It’s a good day for a bike ride,” he offered. He rode his horse when he was upset, so maybe Pollyanna’s bike did the same for her. Maybe he needed a bike ride, too.

  She looked at him flatly, and he realized suddenly he should have been asking the obvious, giving her an opportunity to open up. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” she snapped. “Why should there be something wrong? We just got out of church. We’re supposed to feel happy,” she ground out, her foot tapping quicker. He’d never seen her this way.

  He turned into her driveway and headed slowly up the lane. Bogie hopped from the front porch and came barreling toward them. Nate had to slow done to make certain he didn’t run over the pup. When he had the truck securely parked, he lay an arm over the back of the seat and stared at Pollyanna. She’d made no move to exit the cab. Instead she stared out the windshield frowning.