All a Man Can Be

by Virginia Kantra

  “Shut up,” Mark said.

  He felt like a heel. He’d been so wrapped up in his own fears, his own feelings, his sense of control slipping away, that he hadn’t fully considered how his stupid joke might make Nicole feel.

  Hell, he hadn’t thought, period.

  Until she looked at him with her stricken face and her eyes bright with tears or temper, and he realized that in publicly undercutting her he hadn’t protected himself at all. He’d only hurt her. Nicole, whose cool manner hid her warm heart, who continued to donate to the local food shuttle, who—without pausing and without thinking—dug in her purse to contribute to a cause.

  “Kind of too bad for you,” Lars said, leaning against the bar. “Because I think you could have had her.”

  He had nothing. Sometimes he thought Tess was right, and he pulled dumb stunts to make sure he got nothing.

  “Not a chance,” he said.

  “Kind of good for me, then,” Lars said. “Maybe now she’ll let me paint her apartment.”

  Maybe she would.

  Mark glared at him. When he wasn’t tromping through the woods in shorts rescuing campers, Lars owned and operated Cover With Care Painting and Construction. He was steady, thoughtful, reliable. He would do a good job for Nicole.

  Or he could do a number on her.

  “Stay away from her.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s—” vulnerable, Mark thought “—not your type,” he said.

  Lars shrugged. “Not your type, either.”

  She was exactly his type. He was a sucker for fragile-seeming blondes who turned out not to need him and totally wrecked his life.

  “Just stay away,” he repeated.

  Maybe he should go after her. If he had a chance to explain… Explain what? That he was a jerk? She knew that already.

  He gave Jensen his beer on the house and mixed a pitcher of margaritas—gold, on the rocks—for the birthday party in booth four. The phone rang and cut off before he could get to it. A minute later Nicole appeared from the back.

  “It’s for you,” she said, her voice as frosty as the pitcher.

  He was so in the doghouse. The fact that he’d earned his place there didn’t make him like it any better.

  “Thanks.” He picked up the phone behind the bar, wishing she carried the cordless phone from the kitchen so he had an excuse to brush her fingers, to touch her somehow.

  Pathetic.

  “DeLucca here.”

  “Mark, this is Jane Gilbert.”

  Nicole turned away. She wouldn’t even meet his eyes.

  “Well, that makes this day just about perfect.”

  The lawyer chuckled, which didn’t improve his mood any. “I have news for you.”

  He watched Nicole’s straight, stiff back as she headed back to the kitchen. “Good news or bad news?”

  “Both, actually.”

  He waited.

  “I received a copy of the results of your paternity test this morning.”

  His heart pounded. His grip tightened on the receiver. “Yeah, okay.”

  “You and Daniel are definitely a match.”

  The bar whirled like a skiff in a squall. They were a match.

  He had a son.

  Daniel was his son.

  And even though he’d told himself he was prepared for this, for a moment he couldn’t find his voice or his balance.

  He took a deep breath; released it carefully. “Is that the good news or the bad news?”

  “That rather depends on you, doesn’t it?”

  Right. All right. He drew in another breath, trying to force oxygen to his starving brain. “What’s the bad news?”

  “The bad news is that Robert Wainscott is refusing to accept the test results.”

  “That figures. If I wasn’t good enough to marry his daughter, I’m sure as hell not good enough to raise his grandson. What does he want, besides for me to go away?”

  “Will you go away?” the lawyer asked.

  “No.” The word was out before he had a chance to consider.

  “Good,” Jane Gilbert said. “Then we have to get Daniel retested.”

  “Why the kid? Why not me?”

  “You had a buccal swab taken with an appropriate chain of custody established.”

  “So?”

  “So even Robert Wainscott is going to have trouble disputing the accuracy of your DNA test in court.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you telling me the kid’s test isn’t accurate?”

  “On the contrary. Once the lab is successful in extracting DNA from a special sample, the test is guaranteed 99 percent accurate.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Daniel’s test was administered in my office. There’s no proof the sample actually came from him.”

  He was trying hard to understand. Was he Daniel’s father or not? “But you administered the test. Gave him the gum.”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, Robert is no longer inclined to accept my actions on Daniel’s behalf.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I do not support his case against you.”

  You could have fooled me, Mark almost said. “Since when?”

  “Since you turned your back on twenty thousand dollars and walked away.”

  Damn. Okay. He shifted his sweaty grip on the receiver. “Maybe you should wait for him to up the offer.”

  “Do you want to see him?” Jane asked unexpectedly.

  “Wainscott?”

  “Your son.”

  His pulse quickened. “Wainscott would never agree.”

  “He already has. In return for my agreeing to have Daniel submit a second DNA sample, he has accepted limited visitation. I felt it was in Daniel’s best interest if you two had an opportunity to get to know each other.”

  The room—his whole world—tilted. “When?”

  “This weekend? Friday?”

  “So soon?”

  “If your case goes before a judge, the court will certainly look for evidence that once you learned of Daniel’s existence you acted promptly to secure your parental rights.”

  Mark thought about the dark-eyed kid in the photograph. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then the court will take that into consideration as well.” Her tone suggested this would be a bad thing.

  Mark stared at the bottles ranked behind the bar. For the first time in a long time, he was tempted to pour himself a drink—and another and another—to sear away his memories, to help him forget. Forget Betsy and her disapproving bastard of a father. Forget the lawyer and her talk of his rights. Forget the possibility he even had a son.

  Yep, all he had to do was pour himself a drink, and he could be just like his old man.

  “Friday,” he said. “What time?”

  Chapter 9

  As a kid you could get used to almost anything.

  Mark remembered sitting in parked cars and bars, outside the principal’s office and inside the Eden jail, waiting for his mother, and later for Tess, to come and get him. He remembered the cold and the cigarette smoke, the ringing of the office phones and the shaky hollow in the pit of his stomach.

  The law offices of Johnson, Neil and Younger were clean and quiet and smoke-free. But the kid sitting waiting in one of the big leather chairs, his sneakers dangling over the wall-to-wall carpet, looked up at the opening door with the same scared, hopeful expression Mark figured he’d worn twenty years ago.

  Too bad the kid’s mother would never come again to pick him up.

  Mark nodded to the receptionist, who said, “Ms. Gilbert will be with you shortly.”

  He nodded at the kid, who was staring at him like he bayonetted babies for fun, and sat down. Not close enough to freak the kid out, but near enough to see him. Daniel Wainscott. Betsy’s boy.

  His son.

  His chest felt tight. He drew in a breath and reached blindly for the periodicals aligned neatly with the edges of the table.

  “The magazines here
are boring,” the kid volunteered.

  So it wasn’t “Hi, Dad.” It was a start.

  Mark made an effort to respond. “That right?”

  The kid’s head bobbed. “The first time I came they had a National Geographic, but they don’t have it anymore. I looked.”

  Maybe now that he’d started talking, he wouldn’t shut up.

  Mark nodded again. Any more of this and they’d resemble a couple of floaters on the surface of the lake, bobbing and nodding at every conversational nibble.

  “I brought a book this time,” the boy offered. “About a dog. Do you like dogs?”

  Where was the lawyer?

  “Yeah, I guess,” Mark said.

  “It’s a good book.”

  “Maybe you should read it.”

  The kid fixed him with large, dark eyes. “I can’t read.”

  “Right,” said Mark. Was it all right? The kid was what, six? When was he supposed to learn to read?

  Panic struck. Mark didn’t know. He didn’t know anything.

  The boy, Daniel, was still watching him.

  The panic ballooned in Mark’s throat. He coughed to clear it. “You want me to read it to you?”

  The boy shook his head, adding with devastating simplicity, “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

  Strangers.

  Hell.

  Well, they were, weren’t they? Strangers who just might happen to be related.

  “Then you shouldn’t be talking to me, should you?” he asked, more harshly than he intended.

  The boy shrank.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.” Jane Gilbert’s power heels sank into the deep, gray carpet. “I see you two have met. Shall we go back to my office?”

  Mark rose slowly.

  The kid scrambled off his chair. “Is that him?” he asked the lawyer.

  “Yes,” Jane said, smiling. “That’s him.”

  Who? Mark wanted to ask. Who did she tell you I am?

  “I thought it might be,” Daniel said and slid another wide-eyed look in Mark’s direction.

  He skipped ahead of them down the hall.

  Mark released his breath. This was so not going to work. He was so not father material. Let the kid go to the Wainscotts, where he belonged.

  “Coming?” Jane Gilbert asked, no longer smiling.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and sauntered after her.

  Friday night and the moon was out, along with most of the crazies.

  The jukebox throbbed with vintage Stones and pounded out John Mellencamp. Nicole’s head throbbed and pounded, too. She pressed the tips of her fingers to her temples. Apparently not all of her carefully thought-out selections were popular with the bar’s patrons.

  Like her decision to buy the place?

  But she couldn’t afford to think about that now.

  She moved from table to table, refilling the little wooden bowls with snack mix, a compromise choice she had reached with Mark. Not as messy as the popcorn the bar used to serve, not as expensive as the mixed nuts that had been her preference.

  Boisterous laughter erupted from one of the booths. She leaned forward to rescue an empty bottle and clear the empty bowl. A bearded customer patted her absently on her rear.

  She was too depressed to object. It was acceptance, of a sort.

  “Everything okay here?” a deep, male voice inquired.

  It was Mark, lean and brooding and looking good enough to make an adjoining tableful of vacationing coeds nudge each other and finger their hair. He’d come on at seven, wearing attitude like a black leather jacket and his usual blank expression.

  She refused to look at him. “Fine.”

  A blast of profanity rocked the bar. Heart thumping, Nicole turned. Two bristling, burly, middle-aged men in nearly identical faded jeans and plaid shirts faced off beside the line of bar stools.

  “—anywhere near her,” growled the one in the John Deere cap.

  “—rip your head off!” yelled the other.

  Nicole watched, horrified, as big-and-burly number one took a swing at big-and-burly number two. One of the college girls screamed. The first man staggered. A stool crashed.

  “Ah, hell,” Mark said wearily.

  Nicole started. “I’ll call the police.”

  “No.” His strong, lean hand wrapped around her wrist. “I’ve got it.”

  Together, the two men must outweigh him by 250 pounds. They were built like stevedores or lumberjacks or something.

  “But—” she protested.

  He slipped through the tables. There was a shove. A shout. A patron snatched his mug out of harm’s way, splashing beer on the planked floor.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  The man in the ball cap lunged. Nicole stood, petrified, as stools scraped and a bottle shattered.

  “Tom, Jerry, knock it off.” Mark raised his voice. “I said, knock it off!”

  They turned, blinking and growling, one nose bloody, one eyebrow cut.

  “He said—”

  “I won’t—”

  Mark cut them off. “That’s enough. Take it outside, or I’ll tell Marge on both of you.”

  Tom—or was it Jerry?—shuffled and cursed. Jerry—or possibly Tom—lumbered to his feet.

  “Show’s over,” Mark announced. Nicole could only watch as he strolled forward, confident as an animal trainer in a cage full of bears. The guys around the pool table groaned, and one girl in a tight pink top clapped. Nicole had never felt so unnecessary. So inadequate.

  “Tom, you owe me for that beer. Jerry, get a broom. We’ve got to sweep up this mess before somebody slips and gets hurt.”

  Amazed, Nicole watched as, grumbling, they complied. Mark paused by the jukebox as he passed, and Dusty Springfield’s sexy croon took over the room.

  “The only boy who could ever reach me…”

  Shaking with reaction, Nicole carried the dirty glasses and empty bowls into the kitchen.

  And then she locked herself into a stall in the ladies’ room and cried.

  Mark frowned in the direction of the hall. Where the hell was Nicole? He hadn’t seen her in more than an hour. Not since Tom and Jerry put on their regular Friday-night cartoon show.

  Was she upset because Bowden grabbed her ass?

  He frowned and punched open the register drawer. He should have said something. But Bowden was harmless. And the temptation presented by Nicole’s neat little, tight little, round little rear… Well, those curves just begged for the tribute of a man’s hand.

  Of course, if Nicole was upset about it, next time he’d have to break Bowden’s arm.

  “Good night, George. Roger, you good to go?”

  He rang up his last tab and called a cab for Jimmy Greene. Jimmy tried to convince him he was walking home, but after nineteen years of living with Dizzy DeLucca, Mark knew all the signs and excuses of a road risk. Sulking, Jimmy gave in.

  From the jukebox, a breathless female voice instructed her unseen lover in what a girl wants. Mark shook his head. Nicole and her changes. He didn’t have a clue what she wanted. But if her new music chased the crowd from the joint before 1:00 a.m., well, he’d take it and be grateful.

  “Yeah, good night,” he said again, following the last lingering customers to the door. “Good night.”

  He flipped the dead bolt. Turned.

  Nicole stood in the glow of the neon beer signs, bars of orange and blue sliding over her breasts and hair. She wore a button-down blouse of some silky material that left a long vee of her throat bare. Mark wanted to slip his arms around her and bite her neck.

  He swung a chair up on one of the tables instead. According to Joe, she’d already put in a long day. She looked tired. She ought to be home in bed.

  Yeah. And he’d like to be in there with her.

  His muscles tensed. He lifted another chair. “What are you still doing here?”

  She stood her ground. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “I’m fine
,” he said. “Go home. I can close by myself. I’ve been doing it for months.”

  She twisted her rings around on her pretty fingers. “I didn’t mean to suggest… I’m sorry about what happened earlier.”

  “Yeah, so am I,” Mark said gruffly. “It won’t happen again.”

  She smiled faintly. “I don’t suppose you can control that kind of thing.”

  “I can try.”

  She looked at him with those big, earnest blue eyes and he almost fumbled a chair. “I was afraid you were going to get hurt.”

  He frowned, insulted. “Not a chance.”

  “There were two of them,” Nicole said. “And I was no help to you at all.”

  She wasn’t talking about Bowden’s hand on her butt, Mark realized. She was talking about the scene at the bar with Tom and Jerry. But he couldn’t take any credit for that. Or let her take any blame.

  “Those two have been mixing it up for years,” he said. “Ever since Marge ditched Tom for Jerry back in high school. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “When I heard that bottle break—” Nicole shuddered. “I thought you would have to get between them.”

  “No, you never do that,” he said. If she owned a bar, she ought to know. If she stuck it out, she had to learn. “You always keep your distance. Once you get close, once you get involved, then you’re not in control anymore. That’s when you get hurt.”

  She smiled suddenly. The impact shivered through him.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, his voice rasping.

  “You sound like one of my books.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Do not.”

  “Yes. You do. ‘Don’t get close and you won’t lose control’? ‘Don’t get involved and you won’t get hurt’?” She shrugged. “It’s classic self-protection.”

  When she put it that way…

  “I thought you believed in all that stuff.”

  “I do. Well, I did.” She hesitated. “Now I’m beginning to think I don’t know anything.”

  He upended another chair. “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought I was doing such a great job giving orders, taking charge, being in control of my own business. But look at me.” She met his gaze with disarming honesty. “I had no idea what to do when those two men started fighting tonight. I had no business buying a bar I can’t run.”