Daddy by Surprise

by Debra Salonen

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. Jack had very nice manners, she noticed. He chewed with his mouth closed. Something she was constantly harping on with Tag. Of course, part of his problem was that eye tooth, which was coming in sideways.

  “So, is it safe to say you and your dad aren’t close?” Jack asked after washing down a bite with a gulp of juice.

  She nibbled on her muffin but couldn’t work up an appetite. “I wanted us to be when I was a little girl. Now we mostly talk about the herd when we see each other. I tried living with him another time, too. When Tag was a baby and Pete and I first broke up. It didn’t last long. Dad wanted a live-in maid, and I wanted a father who gave a damn.”

  “What happened?”

  She sighed. “I convinced Pete that my milk was going to dry up and he’d have to pay for formula if he didn’t help me rent an apartment in town. I was just getting back on my feet when I met ex number two.” She snickered softly. “They say mistakes aren’t mistakes if you learn from them, right? I learned that nursing is not a surefire form of contraception.”

  He laughed. “That’s wisdom for you—arriving too late to be of any help when you need it most. So where’s your mom live?”

  “Spearfish. Her last husband moved out a week after she was diagnosed with throat cancer. Poor Mom. She always believed she was getting a guy to take care of her, but it never worked out that way. Fortunately her sister, my aunt Roberta, was available to move in. Her doctors claim to have the cancer in remission, but now Mom’s dealing with depression. I think she’s worried that no man is ever going to love her again.”

  She shook her head. “This is really unpleasant conversation for breakfast. I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t apologize. I asked.”

  “So what about you? Are you close to your mom?”

  “More so when I was engaged to a woman she thought was perfect for me. Actually, I think Mom took our breakup harder than either Jaydene or I did.”

  His eyes glinted with a roguish look that reminded her of the man in her dream. Her heartbeat sped up, despite her attempt to ignore the little thrill that shot through her body.

  Okay. So she wished Jack was her dream lover in real life. But he wasn’t. And she wasn’t a virginal schoolmarm, either. Forget about Mad Jack.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  Had she muttered that out loud? Oh, dear. She really was losing it. “Nothing. I guess I should be grateful my parents are utterly self-absorbed. I don’t take advice that well. My mother used to call me ‘sweetly stubborn.’”

  Jack refilled both their cups from the insulated carafe their waitress had left behind, then he eased back in the booth. His tattoos were still a little tender, but thankfully the itching had subsided.

  He watched her nibble on a piece of muffin she’d topped with grape jelly. He found the gesture childlike. And a fist—solid and unfamiliar—wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He might have feared that the chicken-fried steak from a few nights earlier had already clogged his arteries, but his subconscious mind told him that wasn’t the case. He liked this woman. A lot. Even if she wasn’t her dream alter ego. Katherine. Who was much better suited to him. After all, the schoolmarm’s children went home to their own families each night. Kat’s didn’t.

  “Are you done?” she asked, consulting her watch. “I should be going.”

  “In case your ex-husband brings your son home early.”

  “Partly. And by the way, I don’t go out of my way to accommodate Pete. I do it for Tag. Because he has enough drama in his life from his stepmom and half siblings without watching his parents’ power struggles.”

  That made sense. In a way. And normally he would let the statement go unchallenged. But instead, he asked, “Aren’t you afraid that you might be sending the wrong message?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Well, you’re a strong woman, and catering to your ex-husband’s whims might make your son think that’s what women do.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Armchair parenting again.”

  “Huh?”

  “Call me when you’re a father and we’ll ta—” She stopped abruptly and didn’t finish the sentence.

  He wanted to ask why, but suddenly he understood. They’d had unprotected sex. She could be pregnant. With his child. The food he’d devoured shifted uncomfortably in his belly.

  “You’re not…You don’t think…”

  Her cheeks turned rosy pink and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, making a show of folding her paper napkin. “But my friend reminded me that there’s a pill I can take that wasn’t readily available when I got pregnant with my sons.”

  He’d heard of it. “I thought it was only prescribed in Europe.”

  She shook her head. “Apparently not.”

  Jack picked up the bill their waitress had deposited on the table a few minutes earlier and stood. His mind was jumping all over the place and he really couldn’t think.

  Did he approve of her plan? Sure. Of course. He must. Because the alternative was so not in the realm of possibility it didn’t even bear scrutiny. Right?

  Once they were outside and preparing to get aboard his bike, he asked, “Just out of curiosity, would you have used that pill if it had been available when you became pregnant with your sons?”

  Her frown intensified. “That’s not a fair question. At the time I might have welcomed the option, but I can’t imagine my life without my boys. Tag and Jordie are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  He believed her. She was a natural-born mother. His mother was not. “But considering the circumstances—getting pregnant out of wedlock—surely the thought of having an abor—”

  She cut him off. “Not my thing. And I was married to both their father’s before either of my sons were born.”

  The flinty look in her eye reminded him of Katherine. She stood her ground, too, when it mattered. “Got it. Like I said, I was just curious. Shall we go?”

  She nodded, then pulled on her helmet.

  Seconds later, they were on the road headed back toward the heart of the Black Hills. Jack looked around with a funny sense of disorientation. Nothing looked familiar. Probably because he’d been suffering from an allergic reaction when they first pulled into town. Either that, or he still had one foot in another time.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “SO WHAT DID HE DO? Just drop you off at your door and drive away? That doesn’t sound very heroic,” Jenna complained.

  Jenna had been so busy since her return dealing with the Mystery Spot and trying to prepare for the filming that was scheduled to begin next week that Kat hadn’t had much chance to talk to her. This was the first Jenna had heard about Kat’s close encounter with the dentist from Denver.

  Thanks to blabbermouth Char.

  “Well, she couldn’t very well ask him in when Pete and Tag were sitting in the driveway when Kat and the R.U.B. pulled in, could she?” Char asked.

  “What were they doing there? I thought Pete had planned to keep Tag all weekend.”

  So had Kat. But thanks to her damnable luck—and Pete’s demanding new wife—he’d been forced to cut short his camping trip. “Michelle didn’t think it was fair to Aiden to miss out on all the fun, so she planned a family day on Sunday. Naturally that didn’t include Tag,” Kat said, frowning.

  “Could have been worse. Jordie’s dad could have brought him back early, too,” Char said.

  Kat looked at Libby for help.

  Char was a dear friend, but men were immediately suspect in her book until they proved themselves worthy. And since Libby—mother confessor of them all—had been in California at the time of this fiasco, Kat had turned to Char for help in deciding what to do about Jack.

  To Kat’s chagrin, Char insisted on calling Jack “The R.U.B.,” even though she knew his name.

  “The fact that Jack played along and didn’t blow her cover makes him somewhat heroic, doesn’t it?” Libby asked. “He could
have pulled out an imaginary six-gun and started a real showdown.”

  Jenna and Char looked at each other as though completely lost. “He carries a gun?”

  “Isn’t that against the law?”

  Kat knew it was time to get the Wine, Women and Words book club back on track. She reached for the talking stick—a gnarled, venerable limb that had been with them since the beginning—and rapped it on the floor. The talking stick secured the speaker’s right to be heard without interruption. Unfortunately the sound was muffled by old shag carpeting, but the motion caught everyone’s attention.

  “About the book—didn’t you all love it?”

  Libby nodded with enthusiasm. “I was particularly impressed by how the author was able to pass back and forth between two times—the past and the present—with such fluidity.”

  Kat shot her a warning look. There were elements about that night with Jack that she hadn’t told anyone else. Her dream. Mad Jack. The only reason she’d told Libby on the phone that morning was because it had seemed so surreal and she’d been desperate to make sense of what happened. But that didn’t mean she planned to share news of her mental instability with the other members of their group.

  During the ten days that had passed since that fateful night, Kat had given a lot of thought to what transpired—and why. She’d finally decided someone must have slipped a couple of hallucinatory mushrooms on her pizza. That was the only reasonable explanation.

  Libby didn’t agree. She believed in things like fate and destiny, soul mates and love that could transcend time. The stuff of fiction, in other words, Kat thought with justifiable bitterness, taking a sip of the sparkling grape juice Char had brought, instead of wine.

  Libby was the only pregnant one among them, but the other three had agreed to forgo alcohol at tonight’s meeting.

  At least, Kat hoped Libby was the only pregnant one among them. She couldn’t swear to the fact because when it had come time to make that monumental decision regarding the morning-after pill, her decision-making ability stalled. Thanks to Tag and Jordie.

  She’d peeked into Tag’s bedroom one night and discovered Jordie curled up beside his brother. He’d been sneaking into Tag’s room in the middle of the night ever since they moved into this three-bedroom house. Kat was waiting for Tag to throw a fit and demand his privacy, but he never did.

  The thought had occurred to her for the first time that maybe the two brothers traveled together in their dreams.

  For a good hour images of their childhood had flashed before her eyes and she’d known without a doubt that being their mother had been her destiny—even if a happily-ever-after with the love of her life was not so preordained.

  If fate or the swoo or a bad mushroom had tricked her into screwing up again, so be it, she’d decided the next morning. She’d deal with the consequences when the time came. Just like she had the times before.

  “You know, Kat’s R.U.B. is still around,” Char said out of the blue, and so far from the subject of the book that Kat squawked and pointed the talking stick at her. “Well, it’s true,” Char said, defending her point.

  “But not relevant.”

  “Interesting, though,” Jenna said, her pretty red ponytail whipping back and forth as she looked from Char to Kat. “I thought you said the biker-dude dentist was headed back to Denver, Kat.”

  According to the last of the dozen or so messages Jack had left on her phone two days ago, she could reach him by cell “…if the need arose.” She hadn’t returned any of his calls because…well, she knew how this game ended, so why bother with the middle innings?

  He hadn’t specifically said he was leaving town, but his tone had held a certain resignation, which she’d assumed meant he’d given up on her neurotic behavior and had returned home. “Um…I’ve been running every which way this week getting things organized for the rally. I still can’t believe I forgot to turn in my vendor application,” she said wearily, softly knocking the talking stick against her brow. “Now, I’m going to have to find a way to farm out the boys, because there isn’t any room for me on Main Street and they’re much too young to see what goes on in Thunder Alley.”

  Thunder Alley was the name of a popular campground a few miles from downtown Sturgis. For a week every August, the flat, mostly treeless field became a bustling city filled with thousands of people doing pretty much exactly what they wanted.

  “Are you sure you want to do that, Kat?” Jenna asked. “You’ll make twice as much as an extra once filming starts.”

  “I know. I talked to Shane this morning. He told me he’s not going to need the extras until the middle of next week, so I should be able to do both.” Shane Reynard was both the director/producer of the television show and Jenna’s unofficial fiancé. “Unlike Libby and Coop, we’re not in a huge rush to tie the knot,” she’d explained when she first arrived at Kat’s house. “We’re quite content to live in exquisite sin.”

  Kat was happy—really happy—for her friend, and Jenna’s determined effort to see that Kat was hired as an extra couldn’t have come at a better time—except where child care was concerned.

  “Normally I could switch weeks with Pete, but he and Michelle are flying back East to visit Michelle’s parents.”

  “And let me guess,” Char said. “They’re not taking Tag.”

  Kat shook her head. “Pete claims it’s because he has to return early for work. Can you imagine how miserable Tag would be? Alone with Michelle and the kids?” She could.

  “And Drew’s on the road this week. I know because he was late with his check and his wife gave me this big sob story about cutbacks and the price of gas—Never mind. You’ve heard this story before.” She held up the dog-eared copy of the trade paperback she’d gotten at the library. “Speaking of stories, didn’t the author do a marvelous job of making you feel what it would be like to be old? I felt a lot more sympathy for the things my mother has been going through. I know she’s not that old, but cancer can really age a person.”

  Libby took the talking stick from Kat. “I cried every time we were in the old man’s point of view. I felt so sorry for him—locked in a body that wouldn’t cooperate. Reduced to a person no one listened to or respected. I thought he and my grandmother would have been good friends if they’d known each other.”

  Mention of Mary—Libby’s grandmother who had practically raised Libby and her brother, Mac—caused a temporary sidetrack of conversation. Kat was sorry to learn that the lovely old woman seemed to be declining faster than anyone could handle—especially Lib.

  “At least she lived her life with style and grace for nearly every one of her ninety-plus years,” Jenna insisted. “My mother will be the first to tell you she wasted way too much time worrying about what my father thought, instead of following her dreams. I can honestly say I’ve never seen Mom happier or more alive than she is now. Have you seen her yet? The transformation is amazing. And she truly owns the part she plays on the show. It’s exciting.”

  Kat listened to this new topic for a few minutes before taking back the talking stick. “I can’t wait to see your mom in action, Jenna, but I have a couple more study questions about the book to bring up. The person who hosts is supposed to think up six, right?”

  Char groaned. “You take everything so literally.”

  Kat ignored her. “Did anyone else think the ending was unrealistic?”

  “Me,” Char said with feeling. “Nobody would saddle himself with that kind of responsibility on a whim.”

  “I thought the circus owner was kind and compassionate,” Jenna said. “He respected the past. Think of the stories the old man could tell.”

  “Until he broke a hip or dementia set in and he couldn’t remember his name,” Libby put in.

  The defeat in Lib’s voice told Kat that Grandma Mary was worse off than any of them knew.

  “Taking care of an old person can be as draining as caring for an infant,” she went on. “In some ways, it’s worse because you don’
t expect any help from a baby, but a part of you can’t let go of how that person used to be.”

  Kat’s grip on the talking stick slipped. Any mention of the word baby made her nervous. She felt fine. No early-warning nipple tenderness like when she was first pregnant with her boys, but she wouldn’t feel completely out of the woods until her period started—in another day or two.

  Char caught the stick with one hand, but the look she gave Kat seemed particularly intense. “You’re kinda spacey tonight, Kat,” Char said. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Fine. Like I said, it was a crazy week. And that whole thing with the R.U.B…. I mean, Jack…well…” She cleared her throat. “Who’s ready for dessert? Since the story was about a circus, I bought Cracker Jacks, ice cream and all the toppings for sundaes, and two flavors of cotton candy—turquoise and hot pink.” She made a face. “Those are the colors. I have no idea what flavor either is supposed to represent. Can you believe they sell it pre-spun in a bag? That’s just wrong, isn’t it?”

  She’d stood up and was halfway to the kitchen when she realized nobody else had moved. She pivoted on one heel and followed the group’s collective gaze toward the door—where a man was standing at the closed screen. His hand lifted to knock.

  “Um, hello,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt. I saw the extra cars in the driveway, but your son said they belonged to the neighbor and it was okay to come up.”

  Kat had sent the boys out front to play catch. Apparently they’d decided to play a trick probably meant to embarrass both Kat and Jack.

  Char jumped to her feet. “Hey, I remember you. We met on the street, and someone matching your description bought a couple of nice pieces of jewelry from my shop yesterday while I was in town at the bank.”

  Jack stepped closer to the screen but didn’t open it. “Right. Kat pointed out your very unique store when we passed it. I didn’t see you. Was there a video camera?”

  She laughed in a very un-Char-like way. “Better. Pia, my clerk, is into men. Believe me, if you’d been wearing a skirt, she wouldn’t have been able to tell me squat. But in your case I got a full description. Right down to your boots and the color of your motorcycle.”