Unexpected

by Karen Tuft

  Callie sighed. Natalie pushed her sunglasses up her nose and tried not to sigh as well. After nearly four years, all of this should be easier. Somewhere in the Cosmic Book of Life there had to be a rule that fathers were to act like heroes and little girls were allowed to idolize them until they were replaced by loving husbands. Unfortunately, she thought ironically, Natalie’s own circumstances seemed to subscribe to the Comic Book of Life instead, where she continually encountered men who were more like cartoon bullies, gorillas, or clowns. She wished she had chosen better for her girls.

  The only man Natalie had ever really been able to count on at all was her own dad, and even he had faltered for a while when she was a teen and had needed him most.

  A black SUV with temporary plates sat in front of Natalie’s small rental house as she pulled into the drive. She exhaled loudly and threw the car into park. Callie slipped out of the car and slid into the house through the kitchen door. Natalie knew Cal was escaping the storm that was about to blow.

  After intentionally telling them he would be there at five thirty, Wade had shown up early. It was one of his little tactics, Natalie had learned, to catch her off balance. And he was behind on child support—way behind—yet there sat a new luxury vehicle.

  She found him seated comfortably on the floral chintz sofa he and Natalie had bought their first year of marriage, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. Now the old couch wore a striped slipcover. He nudged a few colorful pillows out of his way and shifted to cross a leg over his knee. He had told her several times that he had graciously allowed her to keep most of the furniture after their divorce: the living room furniture and certainly the bedroom set. The dining room set had been a gift from his parents, so naturally that was his, as were all of the office furnishings. Natalie had no use for that kind of stuff anyway, he’d said. Her head was full of the impractical: art, photography, craftsy things. No reason not to claim all of the tech stuff too. He’d handpicked the TV and audio components, so they were his by right. And she barely knew how to turn on a computer, let alone use it in any practical manner.

  She had challenged him over his claim to the computer system, saying she knew more about them than he gave her credit, but he’d asked her accusingly if she expected him to set up all of his programs and files in a new system when this one was virtually brand-new. He had assured her she would do better with something small, like a tablet, one she could master more easily once she could afford it. She thought about all of the time, the odd hours she had spent at the library, looking up college information. It would have been so much more convenient to do it at home.

  Wade started rubbing a spot on the slipcover that was looking a little threadbare and gave her a reproachful look.

  “Wade.” Her tone had an edge, despite her best intentions.

  “The girls ready, Nat?” His tone matched hers.

  Natalie took a cleansing breath and opted for calmer tactics. “Wade, that’s a new SUV out front. You owe me four months of back child support, and there’s a brand-new SUV sitting in front of my house.”

  His face hardened into a look Natalie knew well. “Yes, there is. And my finances are really none of your business ever since you signed your name on that little dotted line.”

  “I suppose on one level that’s true, Wade, but we depend on the child sup—”

  “We’ve talked this subject to death over the years, Natalie. Emma, Callie! Are you girls ready yet? Get out here now. We’re going.”

  “Hold on just a minute, Wade.” Natalie could feel the muscles in her shoulders bunch into knots. She raised her hand to her neck and rubbed. She was getting too worked up over this, she knew; those Lisle twins and their house wrecking had really wasted her time and frayed her patience. She should stop right now and continue this conversation when she felt more in control and could discuss things with Wade rationally. That was the best approach. But there was a brand-new SUV sitting in front of her house, for heaven’s sake! “The girls have school fees, and Emmaline needs a graphing calculator. You promised me last month that this month you’d come through. Callie has outgrown her winter coat, and I owe her dance teacher for lessons. I wouldn’t have signed her up for this year’s class if you hadn’t promised them to her and if I’d known you were going to renege—” She snapped her mouth shut. The minute she had said it, she wished she could take it back. It was too far to go with Wade.

  “Enough.” Wade stood, his face as cold and rigid as a stone. “Now, girls,” he called in a loud voice. “Out.” He turned the coldness directly on Natalie.

  She involuntarily flinched.

  His words were sharp daggers. “I love my girls. And I take care of them. Generously. Don’t you dare imply that I don’t. And giving their inept, uneducated mother”—the word was said with disdainful emphasis—“the right to determine how that money is spent is beyond contemptible to me. I refuse to do it any longer. If you have a problem with that, contact your lawyer.”

  She knew he had her there. Her lawyer had gently informed her that waging constant legal battles with Wade, as he so often threatened, would only be a huge waste of her lawyer’s time and her money and would ultimately resolve nothing.

  Wade jerked the front door open and herded two quiet girls through it. The door slammed, and Natalie stood, her eyes squeezed shut, hands clenched, until she heard the SUV speed away.

  Chapter 2

  Natalie got ready for her date with all of the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner facing execution. She applied her eye shadow and mascara, fluffed her hair, freshened her lip gloss, and looked down at her slim denim skirt and black tee. She wore a necklace with a hammered silver pendant shaped like a crescent moon—her own creation—and wide silver hoops shimmered through the blonde strands of her hair. It was six o’clock, the hour of reckoning. The doorbell rang, and she practiced smiling at herself once in the mirror, decided she had failed miserably, and went to answer the door.

  Quietly slipping into the living room, Natalie wedged two of her fingers between the closed slats of her living room blinds and peeked out. Comic Book of Life gorilla man stood on her porch. “You will owe me until Judgment Day, Tori,” she muttered to herself. “And Ron will die.”

  Gorilla Man hailed from Southern California and looked like he could have personally created the San Andreas Fault by stamping his foot. He was of slightly above-average height, but that was the only thing average about him. His shoulders and chest were the size of a Humvee and were bunched with muscles Natalie was sure were only obtainable with exposure to cosmic rays (make that comic rays) or primordial goo. His muscles rippled under his plum-colored golf shirt, and around his hulking biceps, a pair of Maori tattoos arched and writhed like snakes as he reached out to shake her hand. Doug had his California sun-bleached blond hair pulled back from his receding hairline into a ponytail longer than hers would have been had she chosen to wear her hair that way tonight. Not that she was philosophically opposed to tattoos, Maori art, or muscles if a person chose to have them—or even ponytails; she often wore ponytails—she was just philosophically opposed, as a general rule, to tattoos, Maori art, muscles, and ponytails when they appeared in profusion on her date. She smiled politely as he greeted her, and shook his hand. In some oblique attempt at fairness to mankind, she decided the night and her opinions were still young. She would maintain a cautious but open mind—for now.

  * * *

  Ross McConnell dug into his entrée and tried to listen to the conversation going on around him at the table, a group that included three of Ross’s colleagues. Ross’s good friend Barclay, aka Bud, Atwood and his law partner, Dave Somebody—his last name had slipped Ross’s mind—had spent the last week in Belize and had stopped in Salt Lake on their way back to Seattle. Right at the moment, Bud was entertaining Allen, a divorced, middle-aged coworker, and Trevor and Sean, two of the younger members of the firm, with amusing anecdotes from the trip.

  Bud and Ross had been on law revie
w at Columbia together and had become close friends. Bud had chosen to return to his native Seattle to practice international law rather than work in the Big Apple with Ross, but the two had remained close despite the geographic distance between them. The guy was tall and blond and gave the impression of being easygoing and gregarious, like a big golden retriever, although Ross thought Bud’s personality was more like a pit bull’s: smart, friendly with people, ruthlessly aggressive when necessary.

  As Bud regaled the men with an exaggerated tale about snorkeling with stingrays, Ross gazed idly around the restaurant, glanced surreptitiously at his watch, and calculated the minutes until he could excuse himself diplomatically and go home. He still wanted to go to the gym and needed to pack for his business trip, and frankly, he was bored. He noticed an older couple in the booth across from them, the man tall and lank, wearing a pearl-gray Western-style suit, the woman short and plump with dimpled elbows and cheeks, sporting a bright pink floral dress. Jack Spratt and his wife. The woman reminded Ross of a cupcake with strawberry icing, all sweet and sugary, the kind of woman a little child could securely pillow into for a bedtime story. The corners of Ross’s mouth twitched slightly; he decided to make a quick call to his mother on the way home—not that his mother was a cupcake, exactly.

  Ross watched as a man who could wrestle in the WWF led his date to the booth behind Jack Sprat and the strawberry cupcake. He was built like a behemoth, with massive arms and no visible neck. His dinner partner was a slender blonde, but that was all Ross could see from this angle. Bruiser and his bimbo out for a bite to eat. The table by the window hosted a family of five: two harried parents, two irritable adolescents, and a boy about five who was proving he was as bored as Ross. At least Ross, he mentally congratulated himself, had managed to learn not to act out in public. The five-year-old slipped under the table for the umpteenth time, receiving hissed recriminations from his mother and eliciting squeals from his older siblings as he attempted to grab their shoelaces.

  It suddenly struck Ross that the parents were younger, quite a bit younger than he. The thought twisted his gut. He shifted his attention back to the blonde.

  * * *

  Gorilla Man—Doug—took Natalie’s hand possessively and seated her at the booth in the steakhouse at the Little America Hotel, where he was staying. The lighting was dim and subtle, and their booth was in a corner that afforded a modicum of privacy. She ordered the grilled salmon, and Doug decided, not surprisingly, on the twenty-four-ounce porterhouse. As they waited for their salads, Natalie sipped her diet Pepsi and hoped the slight boost of caffeine would help her keep up her end of the small talk. Doug ordered a Bud. She wasn’t philosophically opposed to other people choosing to drink alcohol, but she kept a close eye on him when he started a second round after their entrées arrived. She began to mentally plan an emergency escape if he got too far into a third. Surprisingly, conversation wasn’t as awkward as she had thought it would be, and she tried to relax. As the meal progressed, however, Doug’s glances became half-lidded, and he found ways to brush her leg with his and touch her hand. She casually tried to withdraw her hand from his, and his grip tightened just enough to keep it there. As he slid his thumb slowly across her palm and softly murmured suggestive comments, she realized he had not intended to watch his alcohol consumption because he’d had no intention of driving her home—at least not that evening. And that she was philosophically opposed to.

  She needed a plan, and she needed one quickly. She glanced over her shoulder to assess her surroundings, like she’d done, however unsuccessfully, in the bank to avoid Earl Childs. Directly across from her was a table with a large, noisy family. In the booth behind her was an older couple, and across from them was a table of professional businessmen. Just beyond, Natalie observed, was a route that would allow her to surreptitiously detour to the hotel lobby. Natalie politely excused herself, saying she was going to the ladies’ room. She didn’t exactly think of Doug as Gorilla Man anymore, but he wasn’t going to be making a love connection with her this evening.

  * * *

  The blonde rose from the booth and turned. Ross glanced at her briefly, then did a double take to study her. His eyebrows lifted in surprise. Bruiser’s bimbo was no such thing. She was a little older than he’d expected, for one, but still appealing in a fresh way, not the heavily made-up style of the good-time girl he’d thought she was. Still, she was probably not too bright, considering the company.

  Maybe with a tree-trunk neck and a couple of tattoos I too can find the woman of my dreams, he thought humorlessly. Nothing else had seemed to work. Not that he’d been trying too hard lately. He could count on one hand the number of women he’d met since moving back to Utah, the semidecent ones on his pinky.

  “And what’s your opinion?” Bud said, and Ross resurfaced from his thoughts, grateful to find the question had been directed at Sean and that he had not made himself the focus of attention at the table.

  “UCLA over Oregon by seven,” Sean responded coolly.

  Football. The conversation had progressed from SCUBA and hot Latin bodies in bikinis to safer conversational territory.

  “Come on, Sean. UCLA isn’t even ranked this season, and Oregon is ranked at number four.” That from Trevor, the leading fantasy football player in the firm and a walking stat savant.

  “Injuries, man. Their top wideout is still sidelined for the next two weeks, and Taylor wrenched his throwing arm last game. They may say he’s fit to play, but he’s going to be below par.”

  The blonde strode past their table, apparently on her way to the ladies’ restroom. There were no women like her in Ross’s home ward, that was for sure—maybe because they were hanging out in bars, angling for guys built like the Incredible Hulk.

  There was something singular about her. He found himself anticipating the blonde’s return, and he turned his head in time to see her slip out of the restaurant. What was that about? He glanced at the Hulk, who was downing his beer straight from the bottle and drumming his fingers impatiently. As an attorney, Ross had developed a skill for assessing situations and people quickly. He’d learned to be analytical and intuitive. He thought of the woman again. What was it about her that piqued his curiosity? If he’d been paying closer attention, he would have a better read on her. What had been in her look as she’d walked by?

  Then it dawned on him; she had seemed agitated.

  He interrupted Allen, excused himself briefly from the table, and made for the door. “I’m checking on something,” he whispered to the hostess, handing her a fifty as collateral. “I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  Natalie snatched her cell phone out of her purse and called Tori. “Tor, answer the phone.” It rang multiple times. “Dang it, Tor, pick up.”

  “Hi,”—Natalie started to breathe a sigh of relief—“it’s Tori. Leave a message.” Natalie clamped her teeth together and made a low growling sound in her throat. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Byeee.”

  “Victoria, it’s Natalie. You and Ron are both going to die, slowly and painfully,” Natalie hissed into the phone, then hit the end button and scrolled through her cell phone directory. Who to call now? How could she find a ride home? It was Friday night. Only people like her were home on a Friday night. That’s where she wanted to be right now. Owning a smartphone would have been handy right at the moment—not that she’d ever be able to afford that type of luxury—but it would have made finding a decent cab company a whole lot easier. She would either ask the concierge or just catch the light-rail and walk the rest of the way home if she had to.

  She’d known something like this was going to happen tonight. The only men she knew who were worth spending time with were fictional. Give me Mr. Darcy and Rhett Butler any old day, she thought. You can take Doug and—her thoughts slipped away as she sensed someone standing near her, too close. She shut her eyes briefly, took a cleansing breath, and casually dropped her cell phone into her purse. If it was Doug and he’d com
e out to the lobby looking for her, she would die.

  She turned her head toward the person and raised her eyes. A man, a stranger, stood there. Not Doug.

  This man was not a Doug either, not a comic-book gorilla but perhaps just as dangerous. He was very tall and had dark hair and dark, intense eyes. His charcoal-gray suit added to his formal, formidable presence, and though he carried himself with a poised, relaxed stance, Natalie had the impression she was up against something impenetrable, like a castle wall, his Italian suit akin to chain mail. A dark knight. A modern knight but just as fierce a warrior as his medieval counterpart. She glanced at his eyes and then fumbled with her purse, looking for nothing but searching for something to keep her hands occupied.

  “Excuse me. Everything okay here?” the dark knight asked in a deep, low voice.

  Natalie pulled her hand from her purse and swallowed. She wasn’t even sure if she was still breathing.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again, one eyebrow lifting slightly as if to suggest that, perhaps, she couldn’t understand simple English.

  Get a grip, Natalie thought. Get a grip on yourself.

  She had learned in her marriage to Wade that independence was preferable to living with someone bent on controlling and dominating her. While she might be getting more comfortable with her independence, it didn’t make her an expert at confronting strong, powerful men by any stretch of the imagination. Exhibit A was how she had dealt with Wade that very afternoon. And now she had two strangers, two terrifyingly powerful men, to contend with in the space of one evening. She had the urge to flee.

  Resisting that urge as best she could, she raised her chin slightly and attempted to look him squarely in the eye.

  She couldn’t do it.

  Her eyes dropped to his tie, an elegant silver stripe that matched the suit perfectly. “I’m fine. Thank you,” she mumbled, then turned and walked quickly to the concierge’s counter.