by Dani Collins
“It’ll only be fifteen minutes.” Mercedes checked the clock on the dash. This was a lost cause. She knew it. Minutes later, as she pulled into the depot, a bus was pulling away.
“Can I trust you to stay in the car for five minutes?” she asked Zack.
“Yes,” he bit out.
She left the car on with the A/C going and entered the cool, dark interior of the bus depot. It was mostly empty. No mother with two children. A few elderly people sat on benches. One might have been Gladys, but Mercedes wasn’t about to strike up a conversation. She checked the washroom, which probably made her weird, then let it go.
“Auntie M, look,” Ayjia said when Mercedes joined them again. “They have a playing place.” She pointed down the street where the glass front of a burger joint showcased colorful tunnels and nets.
“Wow. Did Zack point that out to you? He’s so helpful, isn’t he?”
Twenty minutes later, Mercedes ate the fries the kids had abandoned while Zack started his second burger. At least he’d bought.
“I was just trying to help,” he muttered.
With the kids safe and the air conditioning pouring over her and junky calories hitting her stomach, Mercedes was marginally less furious. “You were cruising for girls and ones that are too young for you at that.”
She wasn’t sure what kind of comeback she expected, but watching him blush and hearing him mutter, “Don’t tell Dad,” wasn’t it.
Leaving her fry in her ketchup, she said, “Are you kidding?”
His gaze came up in an awkward way as he realized she hadn’t been serious and he’d revealed too much. Beneath his tan, he went almost purple.
Amusement tempered her outrage. “Which one? The blond?”
Zack swiped a napkin across his mouth then crumpled it. “The other one. And it’s not—” He swallowed. “Can we not talk about this?”
“Oh, you wish!” She laughed. “You kidnapped my kids to chase her, Zack. You’re going to give up every sordid detail.”
“I didn’t!” He shoved the rest of his burger into his mouth.
Mercedes bit the straw on Ayjia’s juice and scanned the indoor playground until she’d located both kids. Safe and screaming. Good for now.
Zack crumpled his garbage and pushed it to the side, centering his shake. “Okay, it went like this. I saw the brochure while I was waiting for Dayton and Ayjia. Someone said that sign up was at the high school, but the spots go fast. I really did think you might be interested. And when I saw Holly’s name as one of the counselors...”
“So you know her?”
“I’ve met her a couple of times.” He scratched his eyebrow. “She’s, uh, the Dean’s daughter.”
Mercedes leaned back, genuinely enjoying herself.
“That’s, uh, why I didn’t want to be kicked out of school. And everything.”
“So you’ve been seeing her.”
“I’ve just talked to her a couple times. I’d like to ask her out.”
“You went to all these lengths to stay in town for a girl you’ve only talked to a few times? Are you nuts? Give it up, Zack. She’s too young for you.”
“If I were in high school and she was a year younger, she wouldn’t be.”
“College and high school is light years. We both know that. And another man might turn a blind eye to a college boy chasing his daughter, but the Dean of said college? He knows what guys like you are after.”
“That’s not what I’m after!”
“Oh, you’re in love?” she challenged. “After two meetings? My mistake.”
The blush stayed on his cheekbones, but he didn’t look away. “Why is that so impossible to believe?”
“Because you barely know her!”
He only set his jaw and scowled at his shake.
She felt her smile fade into something else. Affection. Admiration. How could she argue with him when he refused to back down? “You’re serious? Because I don’t know what to say. I’m stunned.”
He shrugged, stole a fry. “Just...do me a favor. Don’t tell Dad. He’ll flip.”
“Why? Not because she’s black?” L.C. didn’t seem to have the first leaning toward prejudice, but...
“Oh, hell, no. I’m black. No, he’s just always had this thing about me not getting married too young.”
“Mar— You are not that serious, are you? ‘Cause I have to side with him on that one. But let’s revisit the genetic bombshell you just dropped. You’re black? You don’t look black.”
“Mixed,” he said with a shrug. “Mom’s darker that me and Grammy is practically blue, but we have a lot of white in the line because Mom wound up with green eyes. Her dad’s Swedish, but you need the gene on both sides...”
“Yeah, I know.” She vaguely understood how the eye color thing worked, but was less interested in that right now than other things. She nibbled the straw again. “So is your dad mixed, too?”
“Nah, he’s all-American mutt.” He sipped, eyeing her with a frown. “Are you still mad?”
“Furious. But I’m also a romantic.” She leaned forward. “Dish. Did you get her number at least?”
Chapter 13
As soon as he heard Mercedes’s car in his driveway, L.C. went out his front door and waited. “What happened?” he asked as they all emerged.
“Zack thought I might be interested in registering the kids for a summer day camp,” Mercedes said, using her hip to close the door.
Zack avoided his gaze by helping Ayjia out of her seat.
“Can I have the keys?” Dayton asked, dancing with the need to pee. Mercedes handed them over and Dayton raced with Ayjia toward the side of the duplex that was almost ready for them.
Zack came around to the front of the car and held up a hand. “Don’t bother. She already raked me over the coals and I’m taking the kids swimming so she can finish up her afternoon at work, all right? But I can’t believe you both thought I’d—what?—taken the kids to smoke drugs or something? Geez.”
He tried to brush by into their unit, but L.C. stopped him with two fingertips against his son’s chest. “I was worried about you.” He knew his kid was solid, but that had made this brief disappearance all the more alarming.
Zack snorted, then realized he was serious. “Wow. And here I thought you were done being a parent.” He didn’t stick around to watch L.C. flinch over the snide remark, just went into the house.
Mercedes lingered, watching Zack disappear.
“Why do you put up with him saying things like that?” she asked. “I mean, I get that you might have dues to pay from when you were drinking, but he’s so self-righteous sometimes.”
The door of opportunity swung wide and welcoming, inviting him to open up about the real source of his conflict with his son.
“Gets it from his mom.” L.C. prevaricated, hooking his thumb in his back jeans pocket. “He’s just saying what’s on his mind.”
“And you think you deserve it?” She shook her head. “You don’t.”
L.C. glanced away from the touching sight of Mercedes wanting to defend him.
He should tell her Zack had every right to be disgusted with him. He had left town before Zack’s little sister had been born, mostly because he hadn’t had the guts to wait out another pregnancy in hopes of a better outcome than his middle child’s birth. Lindsay was pushing two, was healthy and thriving, but he hadn’t even seen her. She’d been conceived with Britta during an afternoon fit of pity on her side and overwhelming grief on his. That didn’t make her any less precious or wanted, but...
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go home and see his daughter and he couldn’t talk about Lindsay without bringing up April and their stillborn baby, Ester. When he thought about her, that tiny little body that had looked so perfect, yet hadn’t taken her first breath, he couldn’t speak. Anguish hit the pit of his stomach and the back of his throat grew drier than the Arizona landscape around him.
“Case in point,” Mercedes continued, unaware of his str
uggle as she pulled a few items from the trunk of the car. “Your son is steady enough that we really didn’t need to worry. So you did just fine as a parent.”
L.C. licked his lips, managing to ask in a gruff voice, “What happened? Why was Zack even picking up the kids? Did it have something to do with Ayjia’s father?”
The news that some whack-job could be stalking the little girl had taken its own terrorizing grip on his intestines.
“What? Oh, no. I’m sorry. Really. I was upset and shouldn’t have said that.”
Mercedes shoulder-checked to make sure both kids were still inside.
“No, I doubt he’s even looking for her. He gave Porsha a hard time just after she left him, but she’s criss-crossed the country a few times since, lost touch with any friends she made that he knew. He would have a hard time finding them and I doubt he would even try. The guy isn’t exactly a family man.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a long hiss. “No, it was just me being paranoid. How do real parents deal with this stuff? I mean, I really thought someone had kidnapped all of them. I was ready to throw myself into traffic for being the worst guardian alive. I can’t cope with this level of responsibility, L.C.”
He could see she would brood about it for hours if she didn’t lighten up.
“It just clicked for me that your sister’s name is Porsha and you’re Mercedes. Is your mom as much fun to take parking as she sounds?”
Surprise came and went in her expression, then a pained smile.
“Like I’ve never heard that one before.” Tolerant amusement tugged at one corner of her mouth. “Mom named Porsha after a character in a movie and spelled it wrong, then took some bad advice from the car salesman who might have been my father.”
“Might have been?”
“Wishful thinking on her part, since doing the math from when she met him makes me two months premature at almost eight pounds. And there’s a bar in San Antonio she was working at that she refuses to talk about. Our whole family is chock full of brilliant life choices.”
“I knew there was a reason I like you. Your backstory reads like mine. We’re probably cousins.”
Shocked laughter burst out of her. “That’s sick!”
“Not yet, but give it time.” He slithered his gaze from her shoulder, down her snug T-shirt and capris to her sandals, blatantly leering.
She laughed again, then her gaze snagged with his and he saw everything he’d wanted to see. The stress was gone, replaced by amusement and approval and awareness.
“Auntie M, I need help.” Ayjia came outside with the pocket of her shorts pulled out. “It won’t go back in.”
“Sure. I’ll fix it.” Mercedes waved Ayjia toward her, but smiled at L.C. “Thank you. I desperately needed a laugh. But listen. Don’t let Zack say things like that. I mean, you’re here. What more does he want?”
To her it was a rhetorical question, but L.C. knew what Zack wanted. He wanted him to go home and be a father to Lindsay.
Mercedes was going over expenses with Mrs. Garvey two days later when a small, worn, baseball mitt landed on the edge of her desk. She looked up to see L.C. walking away.
“What’s this?” she called to his back.
“There’s a used sporting goods store down the block. Rookie registration was last week, but I wrote a check and got him in. And don’t try to pay me back,” he turned around, but kept walking. “It wasn’t much. A home-cooked dinner would cover it. A decent steak. Medium rare.” He winked and faced forward, saying over his shoulder. “Coach’ll call to tell you when and where for first practice.”
“But what happens when my sister comes to get him and he has to give it up?”
“Every boy needs a mitt, even if he’s not on a team.”
“But I don’t know how to play baseball.” She raised her voice so he would hear her as he retreated, certain Mrs. Garvey would shush her any second.
“Zack and I’ll play catch with him.”
“But—”
“I have to get down to the duplex. Inspector’s coming.”
“I wouldn’t advise letting him spend time with those children.” Mrs. Garvey said as he disappeared. “The other day he suggested to me that he burned his own house down.”
Mercedes closed the book of printed reports they’d been reviewing. “That wasn’t what he said when he told me about it. Are you sure he wasn’t...” taunting, provoked, “teasing?”
“We had words. I admit I called him a freeloader, which I stand by, but to boast about such a heinous crime tells me he is not fit to circulate in our community.”
“It’s a misunderstanding,” Mercedes said, certain of it. “I’ll speak with him.”
“That’s your prerogative, but I have no intention of speaking to him ever again.”
Mercedes was cleaning up the kids’ dinner dishes that evening when the pounding on her patio door startled her. Mercedes could see Zack looking like he had eaten a few sticks of dynamite before she even slid the door open.
“My dad did not start that fire.”
Mercedes widened her eyes and tried to decide which was worse. Taking this inside where the kids would hear or standing outside where every open window facing onto the courtyard could hear.
She stepped onto the little porch mat outside and shut the glass door behind her. “I never said he did.”
“No, but Mr. Michaels told Dad that Mrs. Garvey is telling everyone he did. It was Pops’s ex-wife. Here.” He held out a cellphone. “This is my mom’s husband. He’s the cop who handled the case.”
“Whoa, Zack. I didn’t—”
He pushed the phone against her ear.
She pushed it away. “Calm down.”
“He’ll email you the proof, all right?” He looked over his shoulder, toward the bottom of the complex. “Dad’s packing.”
“Packing?” Mercedes heard a clatter on the inside of the door, the bossy tone in Ayjia’s voice. She cupped her hand against the door to see, but panic washed through her and not because she couldn’t see the kids. “Where is he going?” She lifted her face.
“I don’t know! To get drunk? Talk to Cam.”
“All right, all right.” Mercedes took the phone and had a brief conversation with a polite man who promised to email her some documents. When she hung up, she said, “I don’t need proof, but I want to be able to clear his name without a shadow of doubt.”
Inside, the kid’s fighting escalated. “I have to go in.”
“He’s packing, Mercedes. I’ll watch the kids. Go tell him you’re sorting it out.”
She took a step, faltered, almost said, I’m doing this so you can see a girl? But Zack was worried about more than that. He thought L.C. would tumble off the wagon.
Nodding, she opened her door and told the kids Zack would be sitting with them. Then, as hastily as the heat allowed, she walked to the bottom of the complex.
L.C.’s truck stood with the doors open, the bed half full. He slid the microwave in as she watched. He didn’t look at her but his body language said he was mad enough to sue.
She followed him back to his side of the duplex. “Can I have a minute?”
“No. Zack!” he shouted. “If you’re coming, get moving.”
“He’s watching the kids. L.C., please.” She touched his arm.
They both glanced to where her hand clasped his wide, flat wrist, dark and brushed with fine hairs.
She let go and tucked her hand behind her back. “Please just listen.”
He didn’t move and his stare held the intensity of the midday sun.
“I’ll get this straightened out. Don’t let her chase you out of here.”
“I’m not afraid of Goody-Two-Shoes Garvey.” His breath smelled like root beer.
She took a few steps further beneath the shade under the overhang. “Then why leave?”
“Because I don’t need this shit.”
“So maybe you shouldn’t have started it.”
He gave her a wanna-rephrase-
that look.
She swallowed. Folded her arms. Lifted her chin. “Don’t deny you set her up to think the worst of you.”
He folded his own arms and rocked back on his heels.
“I’m serious,” she said, warming to the topic. She hadn’t come here intending to attack him, but she suddenly saw this less as Mrs. Garvey’s fault and more as his. “Why say anything at all to her? Why do you keep dropping these I’m-no-good bombs? Is it part of your don’t-mess-with-me act? Or do you freak out when you start feeling connected to people and have to make them push you away?”
“Gosh, Dr. Phil, let me think about it. No.” He walked into the house and folded the lawn chair he sat in to watch TV.
Mercedes stepped in and stayed where she blocked the door, not letting him exit to load it in the back of his truck. “So explain it to me. If you’re not afraid—”
“I don’t want to be that man, all right?”
“You’re not that man. You didn’t do it. I knew that before I spoke to the Deputy.”
“But people think I could be. No matter what I do, or where I go, or how I try to improve myself, people see through to the weedy trash I am. People like Garvey are right about me. The fact I can’t resist throwing that shit in her face proves it.” He threw the chair. It thumped against the wall with a crack and a protest of metal, tearing a hole in the drywall with its armrest.
His rage scared her, but not because she felt threatened. No, it was the self-loathing beneath it that shook her to the core. It spoke of incredible pain and she didn’t know how to reach through that and she really needed to.
“I like the man you are,” she said softly.
“Don’t patronize me,” he muttered and moved to collect the chair, examining the damage he’d done and swearing flatly. His shoulders slumped.
“I’m not patronizing. I would be a complete basket case right now if you weren’t here, coaching me through how to take care of the kids, making me laugh, putting things into perspective.”
“Yeah, for a good time, call.”
“Stop doing that.” She closed her hands into fists and charged near enough to grab his arm and swing him around to face her. “Accept a damned compliment, would you? You’re thoughtful and forthright and I like you. I don’t want you to leave.”
