Most Wanted Dad

by Arlene James

  “Frightening,” Amy slipped in bluntly. “It scares you to death, doesn’t it, Evans, to realize that she’s growing up, and there’s nothing you can do about it, not a blessed thing.”

  He glared at her, knowing all the while that she was right and somehow unable to admit it. “You wouldn’t understand,” he muttered.

  Amy looked away, but not before he saw the hurt in her eyes. “Because I don’t have children of my own,” she said. He started a clumsy apology, but she cut him off, her chin rising a notch, her gaze sharp as a needle. “You may be right. On the other hand, you were never a teenage girl.”

  He smiled lamely. She had him well and truly there. “You’re right. It was a low blow. I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t know what happens to me when…when Mattie’s concerned.”

  “I’m not telling you to completely let go, Evans,” she said gently, “just loosen the grip a little, for both your sakes.”

  He closed his eyes and nodded. “I—I’ll try.”

  “Great. Um, want some dessert? I have some of that fat-free dairy concoction that passes for ice cream.”

  He shook his head. “Naw, I’m not much in the mood for dessert. Dinner was good, though. It was real good.”

  “Thanks.” She pushed her fork around her plate with the tip of her finger for a moment, then abruptly got up and carried the plate to the sink. She turned around, mouth open, a look on her face that told him she had something to say, but then she seemed to think better of it, clamped her jaw and slumped back against the edge of the countertop.

  Evans searched his mind for something to say, pushing aside his concerns for his daughter. “Ah, are we on for our run tonight? I thought maybe we’d take it early.”

  She folded her arms across her middle, shaking her bowed head. “Not tonight. I think I’ll just watch a little TV, listen to some music, maybe.”

  Did he hear the wistful tone of an invitation in her voice? He shook his head, remembering that she’d been maneuvered into this dinner. “Well, I’ll just help you with the dishes and go then.” He got up, his plate in his hand, but she shook her head adamantly.

  “Oh, no. No. I won’t hear of it.”

  He put the plate down again, unwilling to argue with her, uncertain what to do next. He didn’t want to go, but she evidently didn’t want him to stay. He stepped back. “I guess…I’ll be seeing you.”

  She nodded. He stepped backward. “I’ll, um, see you out,” she said softly, brushing past him into the hallway.

  She was standing at the door, holding it open for him when he got there, as if she couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He put his head down and walked through it, feeling lost and confused. She stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her. He looked up in surprise as she stepped up next to him, wondering what she expected, what she’d been trying to tell him. Maybe he didn’t want to know. He swallowed hard and forced a lightness into his voice that he was far from feeling.

  “Well, thanks again for a fine dinner.”

  “My pleasure,” she replied, sounding anything but pleased.

  Not knowing what else to do, he started to turn away, but she stopped him, a hand on his shoulder. “Evans?”

  He turned to face her, careful not to dislodge her hand. “Yes?”

  She looked up into his eyes expectantly. “Evans, I never meant…that is, about tonight a-and Mattie…”

  “I know.” He sighed. “You only want to help. I’m going to think about everything you and Bolton have said, I promise. I’m going to do more than that, I’m going to pray about it very seriously.”

  She bit her lip and dropped her gaze.

  Suddenly, he needed to make her understand things he barely understood himself, and he didn’t know how to do it. He laid his hands on her, gripping her upper arms as if to shake her, and she looked up into his face again.

  “Mattie’s all I have, Amy,” he said in a near whisper. “She’s all I’ve had for so long. I want more, but I’m not sure I can have it.” You, he thought. What I want is you. But the words were stuck in his throat, words that he had no reason to expect her to welcome. He could show her. All he had to do was bow his head and…but he couldn’t help remembering what had happened the last time he had kissed her. She’d made it very plain that she wanted no part of him in that way. And he’d very nearly pressed himself on her again.

  He jerked back so far that he had to hop down onto the top step to keep from falling off the edge of the porch. He tried to make it appear as nonchalant as possible, like he was simply ready to jog off home, but he knew, deep down, that it was useless. No matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t any good at this buddy business. He wanted to love his neighbor, all right, but what he had in mind was not at all in keeping with the spirit of the Commandment—and not at all what his neighbor seemed to have in mind, either. They’d both be better off if he kept his distance from now on.

  All these thoughts were tumbling around in his head as he flipped a jaunty wave at her and trotted off toward his own house. He didn’t go home, though. He ran right on by his house and into the open field at the end of the street. He ran and he ran, without warming up, without his best shoes, without any destination at all, and when he couldn’t run anymore, he sat down on a curb and put his head in his hands. Sometime later, shivering in the cold night air, he waved down a passing police cruiser and caught a ride home, taking some good-natured ribbing as his due. He didn’t even look toward Amy’s before he slipped into his own house.

  The lights were off everywhere except Mattie’s room and the kitchen. He went straight to Mattie’s room, knocked on the door and opened it. She was lying on her belly on the bed in shorty pajamas that looked much like a soft knit short set. She looked up from the magazine that she was flipping through, shoved back her long hair and regarded him solemnly. She didn’t ask where he’d been or what he’d been doing.

  Evans fought down the impulse to clear his throat and simply said, “All the old rules still apply, young lady. I expect him to come inside, look me in the eye and shake my hand.”

  She didn’t have to ask whom he meant. She said, “Of course.”

  “I want to know where you’re going, how long it will take you to get there, and when you’ll be home.”

  She shrugged. “So what else is new?”

  “Another thing,” he said, “I want you to stop treating me like the enemy just because I love you and want what’s best for you!”

  She sat up, put aside the magazine, and leaned forward over her folded legs. “Oh, Daddy,” she said softly, “I don’t like it any more than you do. Don’t you know that if I could’ve kept from growing up, I would have, just for you?”

  He felt as if she’d reached inside his chest and wrung his heart with her hands, and before he could recover from it, tears were rolling down his face. His first instinct was to back out and close the door, but she caught it before he could pull it shut and leaned against the door casing, her arms folded beneath what, he suddenly realized, were very ample breasts indeed. He stood in the darkened hallway and wiped surreptitiously at his face.

  “You know,” she said evenly, her voice pitched low, “it isn’t like it’s my first date. I know the rules, and I know how to take care of myself.”

  “I understand that,” he said, wincing inwardly at the gruff sound of his voice, “but this is your first date since…”

  “The rock freak,” she supplied helpfully, a note of humor in her tone, “yeah, I know. What you’ve never understood is that he was as basically harmless as I am.” Her mouth actually crooked up into a smile. “He’s probably wearing a crew cut and going in for tattoo removal by now.”

  Evans had to chuckle. “You think? After spending all that time looking like Attila the Hun?”

  “It was a put-on, Dad!” she told him, giggling. “His parents hired an image consultant for him. At bottom it’s that yuppie thing. Image is everything. Look like a rock star, be a rock star.”

  “
No kidding?” He shook his head, laughing softly. “You mean his parents forked over good money so he could look like a freak?”

  She laughed out loud. “Yeah, but that’s not the point.”

  He sobered instantly. “What is the point, honey?”

  “The point is,” she said calmly, “you can’t yank me up and move me halfway across the country every time I find a guy I like. For one thing, I don’t have to go with you anymore, and for another, you can’t live my life for me.”

  He sighed and lifted a hand to press against a temple pounding more pronouncedly every minute. “Is that what it’s all about, Matilda? Do you hate me for bringing you here?”

  “No! I like it here.” She stepped forward and lifted a hand to his cheek. “And I love you.”

  He knew in that moment that it was going to be all right. He put his arms around her and hugged her close. “Aw, honey, I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not very good at letting go.”

  She laughed. “I’ve noticed that. But it’s okay. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  He set her away, his hands on her shoulders. When had it happened? he wondered. How had she grown up without him even noticing? It was true, though. She was a young woman, a beautiful young woman who’d make some lucky man a wonderful—He shut off the thought quite deliberately, but he knew it would be there waiting for him in the not-too-distant future. One step at a time, he told himself, some big ones, some small.

  He chucked her under the chin, smiling. “You may have grown up practically overnight,” he told her, “but you haven’t grown up so much that the rules don’t still apply.”

  She rolled her eyes and made a sigh into a major production, but a genuine hint of teasing humor came through in her drawled “Yes, Da-a-ad.”

  They were, perhaps, the two sweetest words he’d ever heard. Grinning, he kissed her loudly in the middle of the forehead and smacked her on the behind. “Go to bed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And go to sleep,” he amended as he sauntered past her in the hall.

  “I will if you will,” she called to him as he walked into his own room. “And, Daddy?”

  “Yes?” He stepped out of one shoe and began easing off the other.

  “Thank you.”

  He stopped right where he was and lifted his head. “For what?”

  “Everything,” she said, “but mostly for loving me no matter what.”

  Her door clicked shut before he could absorb that, let alone reply to it. He put his head back and let loose a long, cleansing sigh of relief, and then he closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank you, God.”

  Chapter Nine

  He stayed away. He figured that God had been more than simply generous already. He and Mattie were closer than they’d been in a very long time. His little girl was gone, he realized that now, but the young woman whom she had become was a surprisingly engaging and interesting person. Everything would work out as it should now, he had little doubt of it, and Bolton had been right, of course. If he gave her the room she had requested on the subject of college, she would come around. How could he ask for more than that? Besides, it obviously was not ordained that he and Amy be together. She had just begun to live again; she needed—deserved—her freedom. And she had apparently been seeing some other guy. Why shouldn’t she? They had no claim on each other. So he stayed away.

  He didn’t go out to run at night, choosing instead to wrench his exhausted body out of bed just hours after putting it there in order to pound the pavement before Amy’s early-morning workout. He mowed her yard less often and never when she was around. With autumn on them, it was becoming less and less necessary, anyway. At least that’s what he told Mattie when she asked. He told himself that when Amy called to ask why they weren’t running together anymore he would pull not one but several excuses from the mixed bag he had prepared: he wasn’t feeling up to it just now; he was tired; his work days were longer—never mind that he’d asked for the extra hours; the nights had grown too cool.

  It was all true, and Amy must have realized that she didn’t need to work out as often anymore, because the call he had expected, the call for which he had secretly hoped, never came. More proof, to Evans’s mind, that Amy simply did not feel for him what he had come to feel for her. He had begun to pray to God that his feelings would change.

  Ironically what changed merely made wrestling those feelings more difficult. For one thing, at the end of September, a superior on the Duncan Police Force retired earlier than expected, and Evans found himself working the coveted day shift much sooner than he’d planned. This made it possible for him to enjoy regular meals with his daughter—and spend his evenings in a torment of loneliness while Mattie baby-sat someone’s kids or went out with friends, most of them older than her but thankfully not all male. She even went out twice with Amy, once to a movie and once to dinner. Both times she politely invited Evans to join them. Even Amy did so. But Evans knew that spending time with Amy would only add to the time it would take him to get over his disappointment, and he declined. He told himself that he ought to take a page from Amy’s book and work at developing his own social life, but somehow he couldn’t quite work up the necessary energy, despite the obvious incentive, made all the more intense when Amy started attending church.

  She went alone at first, then showed up a couple of times with the Shaws, who literally beamed their pleasure. She seemed to relax after that and came along to service first with her friend Ruthie, a tall, painfully thin divorcée in her late thirties and then with a tall, blond, Greek warrior of a man named Stuart Bray.

  Evans hated him on sight, even more than the pseudo rock freak whose attentions to Mattie had prompted Evans to yank his daughter up and move her halfway across the country. It didn’t help that there was no reason for his deep dislike of Bray. The man was no threat to his daughter. His appearance was that of a conservative businessman, a very attractive conservative businessman, a very personable, successful and attractive conservative businessman. Joan knew him, so he was obviously an old friend. In fact, it was Joan who had the decency to actually introduce the man, and they had politely included Evans in their chat about other mutual acquaintances. But Evans couldn’t stomach the conversation and walked away without excuse or apology. Later, when Mattie pointed out that he had been rude, Evans had said not one word, not in explanation, not in defense. What could he say when she was right, when explanation would damn him more than the offense itself? He didn’t even know what to say to deflect her attention.

  He began to think about going back to California. That wasn’t the answer, and he wouldn’t do it, not only because he couldn’t be certain that Mattie would accompany him, and not because it would mean genuine financial distress, but because he liked Duncan. The neat streets and compact houses with their groomed yards shaded beneath sprawling trees by day and shadowed by lazy streetlights by night spoke to him of a peaceful, purposeful order that somehow meant home. The church with its welcoming, friendly members ever ready to lend a hand and its pastor, with whom a man could talk bluntly, offered a kind of security too seldomly found these days, even in one’s own family. He didn’t want to go, and he knew that he wouldn’t, and yet he desperately needed to escape Amy’s presence. Staying away was not the answer, but neither was leaving. Yet, he thought about California or somewhere else where Amy’s memory could not go.

  Amy’s memory was not the problem, however. Amy was. No matter where he went, she seemed to turn up there in one way or another. Either she happened along, or someone mentioned her, or something brought her sharply to mind. Even on the Sundays he didn’t go to church, which happened with increasing frequency as September began to slide into October, he couldn’t escape her, for Mattie invariably sat with Amy on those days and chattered on afterward about what Amy wore and what Amy did and what Amy said. One thing Amy said, according to Mattie, was that she wished Evans weren’t so busy, that she missed the “old times.” To which Evans replied snappishly that they had
n’t known each other long enough to have had “old times.” But he missed them, too, those few weeks of buddying around, those easy times, young as they were. He missed them, but he couldn’t get them back, for his feelings had gone beyond that easy camaraderie. He was in love with a woman who wanted him as a running buddy.

  Not even a trip to the hardware store on his day off was safe. He found his sheet metal fasteners without bumping shoulders with her in the nuts and bolts aisle, but after wheeling through the drive-through for a soft drink and heading for home, he encountered her alongside the road, sitting on the trunk of her car and swinging her feet like a little girl with nothing more to do all day than dream. He wanted to stop. He wanted to drive on by—but he couldn’t. The hood was raised. He whipped the truck over in front of it, stomping the brake with a vengeance, clenching his teeth against a curse. He couldn’t have said which one of them he wanted to damn at the moment.

  He bailed out of the truck and slammed the door, striding back to her. She smiled at him and lifted her hand in a little wave. She looked utterly delicious sitting there in slim, pale jeans, leather flats without socks, and a soft white sweater that barely covered her elbows and midriff. Her hair, more blond than light brown now, curled and waved softly about her delicate heart-shaped face. Her breathtaking eyes danced with him, smiling, warm. He ripped his shades off, in his most intimidating mood. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Unperturbed, she shrugged one shoulder, the wide, folded neck of her sweater sliding to expose one narrow bra strap. He gulped, anger and self-disgust dissolving in the potent brew of unrequited love and desire so physical it might have been a hand that reached out to clout him. He literally stepped back, as if he could remove himself from her orbit and gain control.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” she said, looking up into the crystalline sunshine.

  He frowned. He hadn’t noticed. He didn’t want to notice. He looked down at the car, as if gazing at the fender could tell him what was wrong with the motor. “Guess it’s as good a day as any to have car trouble. What is it this time?”