The Man Who Would Be Daddy

by Marie Ferrarella

  He grunted something unintelligible and went back to work.

  Giving up trying to play the hostess, Christa sat down on the curb. Bracing her hands behind her on the sidewalk, she stretched out her long, tanned legs in front of her. The stars were out, and it was a gorgeous night.

  He told himself he didn’t notice, but that damn peripheral vision of his was getting in the way again. He noticed, all right. Noticed too much for their own good.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. She wondered if he would continue to work in silence if she didn’t say anything. He had something attached to a portable generator and it was humming, but even the noise couldn’t seem to cut into the silence between them.

  “I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “I said I was, didn’t I?” Damn, it was just as he’d thought. The radiator had a small crack in it. She was going to need a new one. The number of things wrong with the van was mounting steadily. “I always finish what I start.”

  Christa had already figured that out on her own. “Admirable quality.”

  Why did he feel so irritated when she complimented him? It wasn’t rational—neither was the way he reacted -to her.

  “Just makes good sense if you’re a businessman.” Because the silence bothered him, he decided to explain why he’d been so late. “The engine I was overhauling took longer than I thought it might.”

  She merely nodded. It didn’t matter why he was late, just that he was here.

  She lifted her hair from the back of her neck, then let it drop again. As she leaned back, her halter top strained against her breasts, tempting him. Seducing him.

  He dropped the wrench he was holding, then muttered a curse under his breath as he bent to pick it up.

  “Do you have to sit there like that?” he asked curtly.

  “No, I can stand.” She was already rising to her feet.

  He spoke before he weighed his words. “I was thinking more in terms of your going away.”

  It was just his defense mechanism talking. She wasn’t going to allow the words to hurt. “I thought you might like company while you work.”

  He struggled to ignore her, to ignore the sensual images that were beginning to appear in his mind. “Well, I don’t.”

  She cocked her head, trying to understand. “Why are you so snappish tonight?”

  He stuck to his story. “Because you’re getting in my way.”

  She wasn’t in his light and she certainly wasn’t in the path of his toolbox. She splayed her hands out innocently. “I’m standing right here.”

  He raised his eyes to her face. She’d played on his mind all day. All last night. Giving him no peace. “You’re still getting in my way.”

  Christa shook her head, lost. “I think we’re having an argument here and I’m not sure what it’s about. Could you give me some ground rules?”

  He sighed impatiently, tossing the wrench into the box before picking up another one. The look he directed at her before going to back to work was dark and edgy.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just asked you to go inside, that’s all.”

  “You asked me to go away. There’s a difference.”

  He blew out a breath. He wasn’t going to get sucked into this discussion. “If you say so.”

  She didn’t want to argue. She wanted to be friends. Why wouldn’t he let her? At a loss how to smooth things over, she fell back on the one thing they agreed on.

  “You made a great impression on Robin today. She kept asking about ‘Man.”

  The comment brought the first grin from him that she had seen this evening. “She’s a terrific little girl.”

  “Yes, she is.” Given a toehold, Christa quickly built on it. “But a lot of men are uncomfortable around children. You have a real knack.” She ventured further again. “Do you have any children of your own?”

  His face clouded as he continued working. “No.”

  “But you did,” she guessed. She knew she was pushing, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to know. Forhis sake.

  It wasn’t fair to Sally to deny her existence. “Yes, I did.”

  She knew it. “A daughter?”

  “Yeah.”

  The word fairly assaulted her, warning her to back off. Christa pressed on. “What happened to her?”

  He raised his head and glared at her. “Answers about my private life aren’t included in the work, Christa.”

  It was the first time he’d said her name. She wished it hadn’t been in anger. “I am aware of that. And I’m not being nosy. I think you need to talk about her.”

  Cereal-box psychology. “Well, I don’t, so I guess this is a Mexican standoff.” Malcolm wiped his hands on the back of his jeans, then slammed the hood shut. “Look, it’s really getting late, and I don’t want to do a shoddy job. Maybe we’d better postpone this until the weekend when I can do this in daylight.”

  He wasn’t leaving because of the lack of light; he was leaving because she was getting too close to something, something he wanted to leave alone.

  “All right.”

  Disconnecting the generator, Malcolm placed it in his car. “So I’ll see you Saturday.” Not waiting for an answer, he tossed the toolbox into his car and got in.

  She came around to his side quickly. “I really wasn’t prying.”

  He gunned his engine in reply, drowning her out. “You could have fooled me.”

  He drove away before she could protest his assessment. There’d been pain in his eyes when she’d asked about his daughter. Pain he had to bring into the light and deal with before he could begin to heal.

  With a sigh, she turned around and went back into her house. For now, she was at a loss as to how to help him. But there was always tomorrow. Something would come to her tomorrow. It had to.

  Chapter Eight

  Whistling tunelessly between his teeth, Jock Peritoni pulled his two month old, gleaming dark blue four-wheeldrive up behind the garage and got out. He spent a moment admiring his pride and joy before he flipped the lever that locked both doors.

  Still whistling, he turned to circumvent the wide, squat building where he worked when he noticed that Malcolm’s LeMans was parked at the far end. The black car was almost obscured by the low-dipping branches of the California pepper trees that lined the back fence.

  He’d come in early, expecting to find no one but Sam, the night attendant on the job. Was something wrong? Curious, Jock scratched his head as he walked into the work pit. He found Malcolm bending over a beige BMW.

  “Boss?”

  Malcolm was just finishing up a work order he’d started a little after six this morning. The mug of coffee standing on the side worktable had long since grown cold waiting for him to remember it. He spared Jock a look in response to the greeting but said nothing.

  It didn’t faze Jock. He was accustomed to doing the talking for both of them. Sauntering over, he peered around Malcolm’s shoulder to see what he was doing. Malcolm had hands like a magician when it came to cars. None better. Jock had picked up a great deal in the past few months.

  A lopsided grin spread over the thin lips. “I thought maybe you’d be coming in late again today, like yesterday.” He held up a hand, quickly realizing his mistake as Malcolm’s brow rose. “Not that there’s anything wrong about you coming in late. I think it’s great.” And he did. You couldn’t very well slack off once in a while if the boss was always there, working. “A boss should kick back once in a while, and you’ve been working awfully hard. Dad said you always worked hard.”

  “Dad” was Wally Peritoni, one of the reigning aces of the racing circuit, a living icon to all the would-be racers who came after him. Wally had taken Malcolm under his wing when he was new to the racing world. There had been no reason for Wally to have put himself out that way, but he had. He had taken a hopelessly wet-behindthe-ears kid and turned him into a pro.

  Wally had become the father Malcolm had never had. Malcolm would always be grat
eful to him.

  The way, he thought suddenly, Christa would always be to him.

  “Your dad never expected anything else,” Malcolm said matter-of-factly. He pushed the oil tray under the car with the tip of his boot. “Speaking of hard work, the work orders are piling up. Take your pick. We’ve got a full schedule today.”

  Jock took a look at the various eight-by-ten sheets hanging haphazardly on the bulletin board as he walked past it. He headed to the tiny rest room in the rear, holding his dark blue work shirt in his hand.

  “You know, there’s enough work here for another guy, too. My cousin Billy…”

  Malcolm nodded. He knew that Jock was capable of launching into a ten-minute monologue on his cousin’s virtues if he let him. Jock could talk nonstop about almost anything. Even so, Malcolm had taken a liking to the tall, scrawny nineteen-year-old.

  Just as Wally had taken a liking to him all those years ago. Funny thing about life. It seemed to go in circles. And he felt himself on the verge of one.

  “Okay, send him around.”

  “Will do.” Jock beamed. As he entered the rest room, he raised his voice. “Dad says to tell you hi.”

  “Hi,” Malcolm muttered under his breath.

  He shook his head as he removed a clogged, filthy oil filter. According to the sticker on the inside of the driver’s door, the filter should have been changed ten thousand miles ago. Didn’t people realize how much trouble they could avoid if they just changed their car’s oil regularly?

  Obviously not. Look at Christa…. He shut down the thought. Damn it all. Ever since last night, she’d been popping up in his mind like a piece of toast in a malfunctioning toaster.

  He swore and threw the filter into a large barrel that served as a receptacle for discarded parts. It clanged, reaching bottom.

  Jock poked his head out of the rest room, curious, as the loud noise echoed through the enclosure. Malcolm’s expression was unchanged. Jock wondered if something had set him off.

  Walking out, Jock slid his long, thin hands into the waistband of his jeans, tucking his shirt in. “Dad wanted me to ask you if you think you’re ever going to come back to racing. He says that it’s been a long—”

  “Tell him no,” he said tersely, wondering why everyone was so concerned with what he was doing with himself. “I don’t ever plan to go back.”

  Malcolm paused, annoyed. He hadn’t meant to snap like that. What had happened three years ago wasn’t Jock’s fault. And what had happened yesterday sure wasn’t Jock’s fault, either.

  The blame was all his in both cases. In the latter case, he was opening up a door that led to a place he had no business entering. He couldn’t allow himself to begin all that again. It wasn’t right.

  A vague shrug rolled along his shoulders by way of an apology. “Sorry, I’m a little edgy this morning.”

  Jock looked stunned. Malcolm never apologized; he just let incidents fade away. “Sure thing, I understand. Been edgy myself now and again. Why, last night, I did the damnedest thing right after I left here. I got into my car and—”

  There was no telling how long Jock would have gone on talking if the sight of the woman hadn’t stopped him.

  Her eyes were on Malcolm, and she was coming straight at them. Jock cleared his throat. “Um, boss?”

  Malcolm had already tuned Jock out. He always did when the boy launched into a long story. Jock had to call his name twice before he responded.

  “Now what?” Malcolm lifted the pan of discarded oil and went around to the rear of the work area. He poured the contents into the lined container the city provided.

  “I think someone’s here to see you.”

  Emerging, Malcolm looked at him. Jock nodded toward the woman who had entered the restricted work area. She was pushing a stroller before her.

  Christa.

  Exasperated, Malcolm put down the pan and dried his hands on a rag. The look he greeted her with was far from friendly. “Don’t you know better than to walk in here?”

  Well, he wasn’t a hypocrite; that was for sure. He talked to her in public just the same way he did in private. “Are you going to bite my head off today, too?”

  Maybe his warning had been a little harsh, he acknowledged. “This area is restricted,” he explained. “That means only employees are allowed inside.”

  Christa made a show of looking around. There were five lifts side by side, and although there was a car on each one, they were standing idle. No one else was in the work area save for them and the tall, gangly youth who looked as if he was absorbing every word they said.

  “Nothing’s going on,” she countered.

  Malcolm tossed the rag on the scarred worktable. “It’s the rule. It should be obeyed.”

  “But you bend rules, or you used to.”

  He quirked a brow, silently asking her to explain.

  Walked right into that one, didn’t I? Christa thought ruefully. Well, she might as well tell him and hope he wouldn’t take it the wrong way..

  “My father found an old article on you in a copy of Sports Weekly. I told him that you’d rescued his granddaughter.” Her voice picked up speed as her explanation became more complicated. “He was going through a stack of his old magazines while he was in bed when he spotted the article. He’s better, by the way,” she added as a postscript, making Malcolm’s head spin a little.

  She pressed her lips together, debating saying anything further, then forged ahead. “I read the article. There was a photo of you and your wife and daughter.” Her voice had grown soft, understanding. “You made a nice family.”

  He recalled the article. It had come out a month before the accident.

  “Yeah, we did.” He cut her off before she could ask any more questions. “What are you doing here? Your father drop you off?” He looked out into the large lot, trying to locate the Jaguar.

  She shook her head. “No, I walked.” It was, after all, a little more than a mile, and the exercise helped her think.

  Suddenly nervous, she ran her hand along the top of the stroller. The walk had lulled Robin to sleep. The little girl sat in her stroller, her head lolled to one side, a tiny trickle of drool sliding out of one corner of her mouth.

  “I came to apologize about yesterday,” she began. “If I did something wrong—”

  “If?” he echoed incredulously. Taking Christa by the arm, he drew her aside so that Jock couldn’t hear. He glanced down at Robin, but she was still asleep. “If you did something wrong?”

  Christa had a feeling that the apology wasn’t going to go quite the way she’d planned, but she stood her ground.

  “Yes, if,” she repeated firmly. “It all depends on your point of view. From mine, I was just trying to a help a friend-”

  They’d gone over all that before. “I told you, I don’t need any more friends. And what I especially don’t need is to get involved with a woman who won’t stop asking questions—”

  Her eyes widened as she heard only one phrase. “Are we?”

  The abrupt intrusion made him lose his train of thought. “Are we what?”

  “Involved?”

  Her voice was quiet, moving along his skin like velvet. The early-morning breeze played with the ends of her hair. They floated about her face like blond streamers, beckoning to him.

  “No,” he snapped automatically. Blowing out a breath, he stared into her eyes. They both knew his answer wasn’t true. “Yes,” he relented. “I suppose that we are.” And that was just the trouble. “In a superficial sort of way,” he qualified.

  “Well, it’s not going to get any less shallow if we can’t talk to each other.”

  He snorted and turned away from her. If he didn’t get back to his work, he was going to fall behind. “You don’t seem to have any trouble talking.”

  Tyler had once told her she could talk the ears off a brass monkey, but that wasn’t the point. Talking and being heard were two very different things.

  “But I seem to have trouble get
ting answers.” Ignoring his edict, she followed him to the rear of the work area, pushing the stroller. “I know this is probably no comparison, but I’ve been on the other side of pain, I know what you’re going through.”

  When he swung around, the look in his fathomless eyes was so black, it made her take a step back. “No, you don’t. You haven’t a clue.” He didn’t shout; he didn’t even raise his voice. He didn’t have to. The look on his face made his point for him. “Until you’ve been a permanent resident in hell, you really don’t have a clue at all.”

  She inclined her head as his words registered. Maybe she’d made a mistake coming here. A mistake thinking she could get through to him and find a way to help him. Maybe there was no getting through to him.

  Pivoting the stroller on its rear wheels, she turned it around.

  “I’m sorry I bothered you,” she told him quietly. “And I’m sorry about last night.”

  Yes, so was he. Sorry it had happened. Sorry that he wasn’t free to enjoy it the way he should. Sorry he couldn’t be like other men. “Which part?”

  She wasn’t going to say specifically, because she didn’t regret the kiss. And she didn’t regret trying to get close to another human being. The only thing she did regret was that she couldn’t—that he wouldn’t allow it.

  Christa opted for vagueness. “Any part that hurt you.” With that, she began to walk quickly away.

  The set of her shoulders nudged at his guilt. He didn’t want to hurt her. None of this was her fault.

  Even as he called to her, he knew he was going to be sorry he did. But he didn’t seem to be able to just let it go. “Christa.”

  She turned, waiting.

  “I’ll be there tonight to work on the van.”

  He made her feel like a damn tennis ball, being lobbed back and forth over the net. Right now, the ball was back on her side.

  How did she keep it there?

  Christa smiled in response, then kept on walking. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “That’ll make one of us,” he muttered under his breath. But he was lying.