Father Christmas

by Judith Arnold

  Mike sucked on his cookie. A chocolate chip smeared the corner of his mouth. He chewed, swallowed and said, “I get a new mommy?”

  “I don’t know about that.” Hell, he didn’t even know about where Mike was going to get a new baby-sitter. “For the time being, it’s you and me. Just Daddy.”

  “You’re police,” Mike pointed out.

  John nodded.

  “I got a police. I need a mommy.”

  Well, that sure summed it up. John shrugged and took another drink. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

  “I need a mommy and a plane.”

  “You have a plane,” John reminded him. “It’s in the den.” Upside down, in the middle of a toddler-size crash site.

  “I need ‘nuther one. Two planes. Norma can be my mommy.”

  “Norma—” Oh, God, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell Mike that Norma was going away, too. “Norma’s taking a vacation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That means she’s leaving Connecticut for a little while. She’ll be back though.”

  “She go with mommy?”

  John had conducted less complicated interrogations with serial rapists. He’d had an easier time telling Mary Balfour that her parents were dead. He didn’t believe in lying to his son, but he didn’t know how to phrase the truth in words Mike would understand. “Ladies go away sometimes,” he finally said. “Some ladies come back and some don’t. Maybe it’s best not to get too attached to them.” Cripes. John ought to keep his cynicism to himself. Mike was too young to start distrusting women.

  Yet how could Mike keep from becoming pessimistic? His mother had left him. His mother had decided that John was never going to be what she needed in a man, and so she’d found someone who would fulfill her needs. And once she’d found that other man, no one—not even her own son—mattered anymore.

  Well, Mike mattered to John. He had obviously been a lousy husband, and he wasn’t going to win any awards as a father. But at least he was there, in the kitchen with milk and cookies, answering the world’s toughest questions as best he could. If he were the sort who ran from his responsibilities and his fears, he would never have survived police work, let alone earned his detective shield. He would never risk what cops risked every day. And he sure as hell would never have married Sherry after she’d told him she was pregnant.

  He’d married her because he believed in taking care of what was his. He’d married her and given their son a name and a home, and now that she was gone, he would have to give Mike more, although for the life of him, he didn’t know what to give, or how to give it.

  All he knew was that even if he gave Mike everything he had, it would never be enough.

  ***

  “THERE YOU GO,” Molly said, smoothing the adhesive strip over Keisha’s elbow, where she’d knocked off a scab while jumping around in the foam pit. “How does that feel?”

  Keisha sniffled and flexed her arm to test the bandage, which was bright red and adorned with stars. “Okay.”

  “Do you think it’s going to heal the way it is? Or should I apply the super-secret-magic cure?”

  Keisha’s eyes, tearful just moments ago, glowed with excitement. “The super-secret cure!”

  Grinning, Molly reached into the first-aid cabinet and pulled out a hollow plastic tube filled with pink water and glittery confetti. She kissed the tip of the wand, then touched the kissed tip to Keisha’s bandage. “Super-secret-magic!” she chanted. “Make Keisha’s elbow better!”

  Keisha erupted in giggles. “It feels better already!”

  “Of course it does. The super-secret-magic treatment works very fast. Okay,” she said, clamping her hands on the little girl’s waist and swinging her down from the counter. “Go eat your lunch. And take it easy next time you’re in the foam pit.”

  Keisha didn’t stick around long enough to listen to Molly’s lecture. She romped out of the back room at a gallop, leaving Molly to put away the first-aid supplies—and the super-secret-magic wand.

  As she straightened out the back room, she hummed along with the Sugar Plum Fairy’s dance from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, which wafted down the hall from the main room. Molly always had the teachers play music at lunch time, sometimes classical, sometimes folk songs, sometimes jazz or Calypso rhythms or even rock music, as long as the lyrics were clean. One of her professional journals recently published a report about the value of harmonious music to the intellectual growth of young children. Molly was thrilled to contribute to the intellectual growth of the students at the Children’s Garden Preschool, but mostly she played the music at lunch because it kept the kids from throwing their food around.

  Closing the cabinet, she turned—and flinched when she found the back room doorway filled with a tall, lanky man. She hadn’t heard his approach, and his sudden appearance startled her. He wasn’t one of the fathers who dropped their kids off or picked them up from the preschool. Nor was he the mailman. Molly had never seen him before.

  If she had, she definitely would have remembered.

  It wasn’t that he was outrageously handsome—which he was, but Molly wasn’t the sort of woman who went to pieces over a handsome man. It wasn’t even his height, which might not have been all that tall; everyone seemed tall to Molly, who stood five-foot-three in her sneakered feet. He wasn’t heavy-set or muscular. His clothing—casually tailored khaki slacks, a gray wool blazer, a forest-green shirt and a gray tie loosened at the collar—didn’t shout wealth or high style. His hair was too long to look neat but too short to look pretentious, and his face was a stunning arrangement of stark lines and gaunt angles. His eyes were dark and deep-set, so piercing she practically felt stung by them. When he shifted one arm, his jacket gapped enough for her to see that beneath it he was wearing a leather shoulder holster with a gun in it.

  Her heart pounded double-time. No stranger—especially one carrying a firearm—was supposed to get past the front desk to this small room beyond the reception area. But Molly’s assistant, Cara, often helped the teachers during lunch time, and Molly had had to abandon the front desk to bandage Keisha’s bleeding elbow. No one had been standing guard at the entry to prevent this man and his gun from invading the premises.

  Swallowing, she squared her shoulders and stared straight into his eyes. “Can I help you?” she asked, her voice deceptively firm. Heaven knew, she didn’t want to annoy an armed man. But she had to get him out of the building, as quickly and quietly as possible.

  “I’m looking for Molly Saunders.”

  “Let’s go to the front desk,” she suggested, risking a step toward him and keeping her gaze on his face, trying to pretend she hadn’t glimpsed that scary-looking revolver tucked into the shoulder holster under his jacket.

  He stepped back, allowing her to pass through the door and lead him into to the reception area. From the main room came the high pitched chatter of children and the familiar strains of the Nutcracker’s “Waltz of the Flowers.” Still watching the stranger’s face, Molly eased herself behind the L-shaped desk, though she didn’t dare to sit. At her right hand the computer monitor’s screen saver showed fish in colorful outlines, blowing bubbles. At her left stood the telephone. If she could reach it, if she could dial the three-digit police emergency number before he drew out his gun and pulled the trigger...

  He remained on the opposite side of the desk, studying her. “Molly Saunders?” he repeated.

  “I’m Molly Saunders.”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His jacket rearranged itself, draping over the gun so she could no longer see it. “I got your name from Allison Winslow,” he said.

  Her nerves subsided a degree. Allison was her best friend. She wouldn’t give Molly’s name out to a murderer—at least not intentionally. “Do you know Allison?”

  He shook his head. “I got her name from someone whose case I handled. James McCoy.”

  Molly’s tension dropped another notch. Jamie McCoy, Allison’s fiancé, had d
iscovered an abandoned baby on his porch last June. If Molly wasn’t mistaken, he’d contacted a private investigator to locate the child’s mother. Private eyes carried guns, didn’t they?

  If this man was a private eye, his gun was understandable, even if it made her extremely uneasy. “What can I do for you, Mr....?”

  “John Russo.” She thought he was going to shake her hand, but he only stared at her with his disturbingly dark eyes. “I have a son.”

  She nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.

  He seemed to give his words a great deal of thought before he spoke. “His baby-sitter had to leave town, and I’m...” His mouth twisted into a smile, or maybe it was a grimace. “I’d like to enroll him here.”

  Molly caught herself before informing him that the Children’s Garden was full to capacity, with a few names on the waiting list. Of course it wouldn’t be fair to let him jump ahead of others on the list, but... He looked desperate. A desperate man with a gun had to be taken seriously.

  “How old is your son, Mr. Russo?”

  “Two.”

  “And his mother—?”

  “Not in the picture,” he said laconically. Something hardened in his eyes, like molten steel chilling to black.

  All right. A single father of a two-year-old, with a gun and without a baby-sitter, an acquaintance of her best friend’s fiancé... She really shouldn’t let him skip ahead of the others on the waiting list, especially since the Young Toddlers class was already full. And yet...

  And yet those eyes of his...

  “I’m sure you must have some questions about the Children’s Garden—how our program works, how we pick our faculty—”

  He shook his head. “No questions. Can you take Mike?”

  “Don’t you even want to tour the facilities?” She knew that if he did, it would only confirm that he was right in wanting his son to attend her preschool. The Children’s Garden operated out of bright, clean rooms, abundant in wholesome stimuli and learning activities, arranged with play spaces where children could burn off energy, an outdoor playground, and bathrooms equipped with everything from changing tables to potties to real toilets for the older children. The head faculty all had college degrees, and the adult to child ratio was much better than the state’s licensing board required. Molly believed, without undue modesty, that her preschool was the best in Arlington.

  Either John Russo knew the school’s reputation or he didn’t care. “Can you take him?”

  “Do you want to know about our fee schedule?”

  “I can afford it,” he said. “Can you take him?”

  She really shouldn’t be so willing to ignore the waiting list, at least not without meeting the child, observing him in action, getting a sense of how he would fit in with the other children in the Young Toddler class. “When did you want to have him start?”

  “Monday.”

  Monday? Today was Friday! “Usually, Mr. Russo, we like to have a child come in and get a feel for the school. Our program is an excellent one, but it’s not appropriate for every child.”

  “He’ll do okay.” A muscle fluttered in Russo’s jaw, the only sign that he was not in complete control of himself. He held his long, lean body very still. If she hadn’t glimpsed his gun, she would never guess that he was armed.

  “I tell you what,” she said, refusing to consider too deeply why she was willing to accommodate this man. “On Saturday mornings, I run a special program for fathers and their children. I call it the Daddy School.”

  “That’s what your friend does,” he recalled. “Allison Winslow.”

  “That’s right. She teaches classes for fathers-to-be and fathers of newborns. Once the children get older, their fathers have different needs, and so she graduates them on to me.” Molly smiled. Russo didn’t smile back. “Anyway, I open the Children’s Garden from ten to twelve for fathers and their children to come in and play. My teachers and I observe, offer suggestions, answer questions. Sometimes I’ll provide more formal instruction while another teacher takes the children off to play. Why don’t you bring your son tomorrow so I can meet him?” And so she could see how such a reserved, self-protective man could possibly relate to a two-year-old boy whose mother was not in the picture. So she could develop an idea of what she might be getting herself into if she allowed Russo’s son into her school. And so Russo himself could see if this was really what he wanted, what his son needed.

  “Meanwhile,” she continued when he didn’t speak, “I’ll give you a folder of information about the Children’s Garden. Also, some forms you’ll need to fill out—health forms, emergency forms, insurance and so on. Also—” she pulled a prepared “Welcome to the Garden” folder from a drawer in the file cabinet behind her, and a fee schedule “—a list of our tuition costs for the half-day and full-day programs.”

  He barely glanced at the fee schedule before sliding it into the folder. “I’ll be here tomorrow at ten,” he promised, his dark eyes boring into her for a long, quiet moment before he turned.

  She watched him stroll out of the reception area and through the front door. Moving around the desk, she approached the door and spied on him through the glass sidelight. His legs were absurdly long, his gait as graceful as a dancer’s as he crossed the parking lot to a nondescript Ford. Seemingly impervious to the November cold, he yanked off his jacket and tossed it onto the passenger seat before climbing in.

  Seeing the thick leather shoulder strap of his holster—seeing his gun—she shuddered and turned away. Why on earth had she agreed to let his son attend her preschool?

  His eyes, she acknowledged. The dark power of his eyes had made her say yes.

  Chapter Two

  “I DON’T LIKE HARRY,” Mike announced for the zillionth time.

  The raw morning air nipped at John as he strapped Mike into his booster seat in the back of the car. “Forget about Harriet, okay? It was just for one day.”

  “I don’t like Harry. I like Norma,” Mike explained.

  John clipped the seat belt into its lock. “That was yesterday,” he said, straightening up and opening the driver’s door. The sun was milky white and cold, reminding John that winter was only a few weeks away. He zipped up his leather jacket, then lifted the Children’s Garden folder from the roof of the car, where he’d temporarily left it, and tossed it onto the passenger seat. Inside, along with a half-dozen forms he’d filled out delineating the state of Mike’s health, his vaccination history, John’s phone number at work and his cell-phone number and the phone numbers of three other neighbors, none of whom were planning to fly off to San Jose in the foreseeable future, he’d enclosed a check covering one month’s tuition as well as an enrollment fee, a supplies fee, and an insurance fee.

  Police work paid pretty well, thank God, and John didn’t have much in the way of expenses. His check wasn’t going to bounce, even though the number he’d had to write next to the dollar sign was a whole lot larger than he would have liked.

  He closed Mike’s door, then got in behind the wheel and started the engine. “No more Harry,” he said, adapting to Mike’s speech patterns. “Except for emergencies. If everything works out today, you’re going to go to school.”

  “What school?”

  “A school for kids.”

  “They got cookies?”

  “Probably,” John fibbed. One of the brochures in the Children’s Garden folder discussed nutrition, urging parents not to pack their children’s lunch bags and boxes with sweets and describing the healthful snacks—fruit, cheese, crackers and the like—the school provided. But maybe every now and then they’d splurge on cookies for the kids. If they knew anything about children, they’d recognize the value of cookies as a behavioral tool.

  “Norma in the school?”

  “No. There’ll be other teachers there. A lady named Molly.”

  “Molly?”

  “Molly Saunders.” An image of the woman flashed across John’s vision, nearly obliterating his view of the modest reside
ntial street through the windshield. Molly Saunders. Glossy brown hair, amber-brown eyes...and the fullest, sweetest lips he’d ever seen on a woman.

  He hadn’t wanted to notice her lips. Or her eyes, wide-set and direct, or her hair, stick-straight and blunt-cut in a sassy shoulder-length style. Or her figure, a delicious array of curves proportioned just right for her petite frame. He hadn’t wanted to notice that she was young and fresh and pretty. He didn’t want to think of her as a woman.

  She was a teacher. A preschool administrator. A first-aid expert who had been applying a bandage strip to a little girl’s elbow when John had entered the school. He’d lurked just outside the door to that small storage room, beyond the girl’s line of vision, and watched as Molly spoke to the fretful child, consoling her as she washed the trickle of blood from the girl’s tiny scrape, dabbed a no-sting ointment on the girl’s skin, ruffled her hair and regaled her with a story about a snow-man who lost his bow-tie and wound up with a scarf instead. And then Molly Saunders had touched a magic wand to the girl’s elbow.

  Twenty-four hours after John had walked out of the Balfours’ blood-stained bedroom, he’d found himself transfixed by a woman with a gentle voice and a magic wand. He’d been thinking about that woman ever since.

  He didn’t want to think about her. He just wanted to know he could leave his son in a safe place while he was at work. If Molly Saunders was part of that safe place, so be it.

  “I wanna cookie,” Mike said.

  At last, he was off his I-don’t-like-Harry kick. John didn’t have the heart to tell him about the nutrition brochure in the folder. If the Children’s Garden Preschool was really hard-core about refined-sugar treats, Mike was going to be as disappointed with this child-care arrangement as he’d been with Harriet Simka.

  A dozen cars were parked in the lot outside the square brick building on Dudley Road, in a neighborhood that straddled the undefined boundary separating urban from suburban Arlington. A few blocks north placed a person in the downtown business district, but the Preschool building sat at a comfortable remove from the city’s hustle and bustle. Several leafless trees bordered the small parking lot. Beyond the chain-link fence that surrounded the rear yard, John could see a sprawling outdoor play area surrounded by dead grass.