Читать книгу A Child Of Her Own - BEVERLY BARTON, Beverly Barton - Страница 10

Two

Rick set two bowls of vegetable soup beside the plastic spoons and paper napkins on the card table. He wasn’t much of a cook, but he made sure Darcie got three decent meals a day. A couple of times a week, they ate supper at his sister’s, but he tried not to impose on Eve more than he had to. She already did too much for them, and Rick accepted her help only for Darcie’s sake. In the two years since his ex-wife’s death, he had discovered just how difficult it was for a single man to raise a child alone. Especially a tiny, shy, insecure little girl who was just now beginning to trust him enough to believe he wouldn’t leave her.

When April had been killed in a car crash, along with her drunken boyfriend, Rick had had no choice but to take Darcie on the road with him. He’d been a construction worker most of his adult life, ever since he’d done his stint in the army. Seven years ago, he had wound up in Mercy Falls, South Dakota, where he’d met a barfly named April Denton. April had been a looker. Big blue eyes. Long blond hair. And a body to die for. The first time he saw her, he’d thought of Lori Lee Guy. There’d been a striking resemblance between the two, but where Lori Lee was a class act—a Southern belle with a pedigree as long as his arm—April had been cheap and flashy. They’d burned themselves out after a few weeks of passion, and Rick had moved on to another town and another woman. Then April had called him and told him she was pregnant. He hadn’t wanted to marry her, but in the end he had. He’d done it for the child, even though he hadn’t been sure, at the time, the baby was really his. No kid deserved to come into this world unloved and unwanted, as he’d been.

“Daddy, are the grilled cheese sandwiches ready?” Darcie asked.

“Huh?” Rick’s mind jumped from the past to the present. He picked up the metal spatula and flipped the sandwiches in the electric skillet. “Any minute now, sweetie. Go ahead and start on your soup if you’re hungry.”

“Shouldn’t I say grace first? They always say it at Aunt Eve’s before they eat.”

“Sure. Say grace.” Rick bowed his head.

“God is great, God is good. Now let us thank him for our food. Amen.” Darcie looked up at her father and smiled.

Her two front teeth were missing. He hadn’t known a damn thing about the tooth fairy until Eve had explained all about the mysterious spirit who gathered up teeth from beneath children’s pillows and left money in their place. Darcie’s two front teeth had cost Rick four bucks—two dollars a tooth. Eve had told him that front teeth were more expensive, and in the future a dollar a tooth would suffice.

Rick lifted a sandwich and placed it on a paper plate beside Darcie’s soup bowl, then repeated the procedure with his sandwich. He pulled out a folding chair and sat down across from his daughter.

“Am I going to have to stay over at Aunt Eve’s tonight?” Darcie slurped her soup, then took a bite out of her sandwich.

“I’m afraid so. I’ve got to work, and you’re just not old enough to stay out here in the apartment by yourself.”

Rick hated leaving Darcie alone several nights a week, but he had no choice. If he wanted to earn enough money to buy Bobo’s half of the business before the old man retired, he had to work a second job, if only part-time. His and Darcie’s future depended on him, on his making a place for them in the community and earning enough money to give Darcie the kind of life he’d never had.

He wanted his daughter to have every opportunity, and it was up to him to make sure she got the chances she deserved. If only the right people would accept her, allow her to become friends with their children and invite her into their inner circle, Rick would pay any price. But with his former reputation and past history hanging around his neck like an albatross, finding acceptance for himself and his daughter in Tuscumbia might prove an impossible task. But he sure as hell was trying. If they’d just give him a chance, he’d show the good citizens how much he had changed, how determined he was to be a good person, too. He’d do just about anything for Darcie’s sake.

“What kind of car is it you’re fixing for that man?” Darcie asked.

“It’s a 1959 Corvette,” Rick said. “And the man I’m restoring the car for is Powell Goodman. He’s a lawyer and a pretty important guy around these parts. His father and grandfather were both judges.”

“Aren’t you an important man, Daddy?”

Important? Him? To most people he was about as important as yesterday’s trash. “I’m just an ordinary guy, sweetie. A man trying to make ends meet and give his kid a better life than he had.”

Darcie scooted out of her chair, walked around the table and, standing on tiptoe, flung her arms around her father’s neck. “You’re an important man to me, Daddy. Very, very important.”

If Rick had been an emotional man, he might have teared up at his child’s sweet, loving proclamation. But Rick hadn’t shed a tear since he’d been younger than Darcie was now. He’d learned early on that nobody gave a tinker’s damn whether he was upset, lonely or hurt. Poor little A.K. Had his own parents ever loved him? Sometimes he wondered if his mother had given him only initials for a first name because it had been quick and easy, no bother for her. But by the time he was in junior high, all his buddies called him Rick, taken from Warrick. And to this day, he preferred the nickname over the solitary initials on his birth certificate.

Rick hugged his daughter, kissed her on her forehead and nuzzled her nose with his. She giggled gleefully. “Thanks, big girl. I think you’re a pretty important person, too.”

“Snooky-nose me again, Daddy.” Darcie pressed her tiny button nose against her father’s long, lean, hawkish nose.

She loved to play what Rick had dubbed “snooky-nose,” where they rubbed their noses together. He repeated the nuzzling, then lifted her and set her down in her chair. “Eat your supper, young lady. I’ve got fifteen minutes to eat, clean up our mess and get you over to Aunt Eve’s.”

“When you own all of Mr. Bobo’s business, then will you be able to stay home with me every night?” Darcie lifted her grilled cheese sandwich.

“You bet.” Rick devoured his soup and sandwich, occasionally glancing at his daughter who nibbled at her food.

He supposed he should see April every time he looked at Darcie. She had the same blond hair and blue eyes, but since she’d been a toddler, every time he looked at his daughter he saw himself—and Lori Lee. Darcie had his facial structure, his wide mouth with a thick bottom lip and his prominent chin, but she was all blond, blue-eyed loveliness like Lori Lee. Once he’d realized Darcie really was his child, he had fantasized that Lori Lee was her mother instead of April.

More than anything, he wanted his daughter to become the kind of woman Lori Lee Guy was.

“While I clean up here, you get your pajamas and your school clothes for tomorrow ready to take over to Aunt Eve’s.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

He knew he had to bring up the subject of enrolling her in the Dixie Twirlers, but he wasn’t quite sure how she’d react. Darcie was shy and had had a difficult time making friends at school.

“Hey, Darcie, how would you like to take baton lessons from a very nice lady?” Rick dumped their disposable utensils, bowls, plates and cups into the garbage sack.

“Do you mean Miss Lori Lee’s twirlers, Daddy?” Darcie clutched her footed pajamas to her chest. “The Dixie Twirlers?”

“You’ve already heard about them, I see.”

“Oh, yes, Daddy. Steffie Royce and Katie Webber are in Twinkle Toes. They get to go to contests and march in parades and—”

“Do I take this enthusiasm to mean you’d like to enroll in classes?” Rick scoured the soup pot with steel wool, then rinsed the container and turned it upside down on the drainboard.

“Can I really? You aren’t kidding me, are you?”

“Tomorrow, after school, Aunt Eve can bring you by the shop, and when I take over an estimate to Miss Lori Lee on a new heating and cooling system, you can go with me. I told her about you today. She wants you to meet the other girls in her beginners’ class and see if you want to join them.”

“I want to join them. I want to join them!” Darcie jumped up and down, then flew across the room and into her father’s arms. “You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world!”

Dear God, what had he ever done to deserve this precious child? He knew he was far from the best father in the world, but if love and devotion counted for anything, then maybe he had a chance of someday earning that title.

“Well, well,” Birdie Pierpont mused, dramatically rolling her big green eyes heavenward. “Life never ceases to amaze me. Just when I’d given up hope of you ever awakening from your hundred-year celibate sleep, along comes Prince Charming to awaken you with a sweet kiss.”

“Rick Warrick is no Prince Charming,” Lori Lee said. “And he’s certainly not going to awaken me with a kiss.”

“No, you’re quite right, sugar. Rick is more a beast than a prince, and I imagine his kisses are more passionate than sweet.”

“Argh!” Lori Lee stormed out from behind the checkout counter in her costume shop and straightened a perfectly straight row of leotards folded neatly on a table. “This is the very reason I didn’t want to even mention Rick’s name to you. I knew you’d start cooking up some scheme in that evil brain of yours.”

“Thank you, sugar, for the compliment. So seldom does anyone appreciate a truly evil brain these days.” Birdie, all two hundred pounds, five feet four inches of her, rounded the corner of the counter and followed her niece.

“I wish I’d never told you about my crush on Rick when I was a teenager. Mother would have been shocked senseless if I’d ever told her that you advised me to go riding off on his motorcycle with him.”

“Look, my dear Miss Prim and Proper.” Birdie planted her pudgy hands on her wide hips. “You’ve been as fidgety as a worm in hot ashes ever since you learned that A. K. Warrick was back in Tuscumbia.” When Lori Lee opened her mouth to protest, her aunt held up a restraining hand. “No, no. Don’t you dare deny it. Since your divorce, you’ve led all the men around here on a merry chase, but not once have I seen you foaming at the mouth. Not until now.”

“Birdie Lou Pierpont, you have the most vulgar way of expressing yourself.” Lori Lee leaned over into the front window, got on her knees and began fiddling with the display. “I am not foaming at the mouth.”

“I’ve been accused of worse things than vulgarity.” Birdie fluffed her curly white-blond hair. “It wouldn’t hurt you to come down off that pedestal the men in town have placed you on and get a little vulgar yourself. I’ll bet Rick could teach you how to get down and dirty.”

Lori Lee crawled out of the display window, turned sharply and glared at her aunt. “Will you please stop this? Rick is going to be here any minute to bring us the estimate for the new heat and air system, and he’s bringing his daughter with him. I want you to promise me that you’ll be on your best behavior.”

Puckering her mouth into a sulk, Birdie crossed her fat arms over her ample bosom and let out a loud huff.

Lori Lee loved her Aunt Birdie dearly, but more often than not the woman tried her patience. She’d never been able to understand how her straitlaced, churchgoing, engineer father could possibly have an older sister as wild, zany and totally unorthodox as Birdie.

“I’ve seen him and his little girl, you know.” Birdie inspected her clawlike red fingemails.

“Where?”

“Around.”

“You never mentioned it to me.”

“I knew you’d been trying to avoid him,” Birdie said. “But I also knew that in a town this size, your paths were bound to cross sooner or later.”

“I have not been avoiding him! There is nothing going on between Rick and me. There never has been. There never will be. He’s going to oversee the installation of the new heat and air system, and I’ll see him when he drops his daughter by for classes and picks her up. That’s the beginning and end of my association with Mr. A. K. Warrick.”

“Fine. Far be it from me to interfere in your dull, lonely life.”

“My life is neither dull nor lonely, thank you very much.”

“Oh, don’t thank me, my dear.” Birdie smiled, cracking her full face into dozens of tiny, thin wrinkles. “You must thank men like Powell Goodman and Jimmy Davison for filling your life with so much passion and excitement.”

“I’m not looking for passion and excitement!”

“Pity.” Birdie tsk-tsked and shook her head sadly. “Rick would be just the man to give you both, but since you’re not interested... Of course, he does have one thing you might want.”

“There’s nothing he has that I want.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Lori Lee said adamantly.

“Not even his child?”

“Are you implying that... For your information, several of the men I date have children, if I wanted a man for that reason.”

“Yes, but all of the ones with children also have exwives,” Birdie reminded her. “I understand Rick’s wife is dead.”

“I’m going to say this one more time, and then we’re not ever going to have this discussion again. Rick is not my type. He wasn’t fifteen years ago, and he’s not now. We have nothing in common.”

The front door opened and the UPS carrier delivered a large box. Lori Lee signed for the package, exchanged pleasantries with the deliveryman and lifted the box to the top of the checkout counter.

Just as she found a knife and positioned it to rip apart the box, the door opened again. She glanced up and her heartbeat accelerated. Rick walked in holding the hand of the little, blond angel at his side. Lori Lee glanced back and forth from Rick to his child. Tears misted her eyes. She looked down, concentrating on opening the box, trying desperately to hide her reaction.

Rick’s little girl could be her little girl. The little girl Lori Lee had carried in her body for five months. The little girl who’d been unable to live outside her mother’s body.

“Well, Rick, how are you?” Birdie padded across the floor in her sock feet, leaned down and held out her hand. “Hello there, cutie. You must be Darcie Warrick.”

“How’d you know my name?” the child asked, gazing up at Birdie, a tenuous smile quivering on her lips.

“Aunt Birdie knows all sorts of things about people,’ Birdie said. ”Especially people who interest me. And you, Darcie, interest me a great deal.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Why?”

“Well, you come with me and I’ll get you a cola and show you all the wondrous things in our little Sparkle and Shine shop here, then I’ll tell you why you interest me so ’ Birdie offered Darcie her hand. The child accepted, then looked to her father for approval.

“It’s fine, sweetie. You go with Miss Birdie,” Rick said.

“And you—” Birdie pointed to Rick “—take my niece over to the studio and discuss business. When you two come to a decision, I’ll sign whatever papers are necessary and write out a check.”

When Rick and Lori Lee didn’t respond, just glanced awkwardly at each other, Birdie shooed them with a wave of her hand. “Go on, now. Darcie and I will be over to the studio by the time the beginners’ class starts.”

“We can discuss things here, if you prefer,” Rick told Lori Lee, sensing her reluctance to go to the studio alone with him.

“No, we’ll leave and pacify Aunt Birdie. She loves to fill children’s heads with all kinds of nonsensical stories while she gives them a grand tour. And kids usually love looking at all our costumes and supplies.”

“I’ll bet y’all do a booming business around Halloween.” Rick surveyed the shop, noticing the wide variety of items, everything from ballet slippers and majorette boots to magic wands and drum major batons.

“We do a good business year-round,” Lori Lee told him. “We supply all our twirlers, the Deshler band and majorettes and several of the dance studios, as well as a little theater group.”

“Sounds like you’re doing all right.” Rick wondered just how much Lori Lee depended on her two jobs for an income. She’d been born into an upper middle class family, and he’d heard that not only had she inherited money from her maternal grandparents, but that her aunt was filthy rich.

“I make a good living,” Lori Lee said. “Come on. While you explain what I need to know about your installing the new heat and air system, I’ll show you around my studio and give you an idea of what all is involved in your daughter—in Darcie—taking lessons.”

Rick followed Lori Lee out of the Sparkle and Shine shop to the studio in the adjacent building. He watched the way she walked, a seductive hip-swaying come-on that she wasn’t even aware of. He’d known a lot of women in his thirty-three years, but he’d never known anyone as beautiful as Lori Lee Guy. How the hell had a woman like her remained single so long after her divorce? Had her ex-husband done such a number on her that he had scared her off marriage forever?

“Come on in,” she said, unlocking the door.

The moment he stepped inside, Rick felt the warmth. Puzzled at first, he surveyed the studio and discovered that she’d strategically placed small electric heaters around the room.

“I’m going to hold classes down here until the new heating system is put it,” she said. “I’ve closed off the upstairs temporarily. I simply can’t postpone any more classes. We’re going to Gadsden next weekend for a competition.”

Rick reached inside his jacket and pulled out the estimate. He’d worked it up around midnight last night, after he returned from the garage he rented on a monthly basis so he’d have a place to restore Powell Goodman’s ’Vette.

“Here’s the estimate. The price covers everything.” He handed her the papers. “Look it over and let me know if you have any questions.”

. “Let’s sit down.” She nodded toward the lounge area. “Would you like some coffee? I can put some on.”

“Don’t go to any trouble for me.”

“No, no trouble. I usually have a pot waiting for the mothers who like to stay and chat while their daughters are in class.”

She glanced over the estimate quickly, noting every detail and deciding immediately that the cost seemed reasonable.

“I noticed that several of Tuscumbia’s best families have their daughters in your classes.” Rick stuffed his hands in his pockets, then lifted his heels off the floor repeatedly as he craned his neck backward and glanced around the studio. “I want Darcie to be accepted.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want who I am or who I was to... Well, you know what I’m trying to say. I never fit in. I was always an outsider. I don’t want that for my little girl.”

The way he said my little girl hit a sympathetic cord inside Lori Lee. No matter what his sins were—past and present—it was obvious that Rick loved his daughter.

“I can’t promise you that having Darcie enrolled here at Dixie Twirlers will ensure her popularity, but...well, I’ll certainly do what I can to see that she fits in and feels a part of everything we do.” Lori Lee tossed the estimate on the sofa, then busied herself preparing the coffee machine.

“She’s all excited about taking lessons,” Rick said. “She’s a little shy and I was afraid she might feel uncomfortable around a group of kids she doesn’t know, but she’s been jumping for joy ever since I mentioned it to her.”

“I’ll start her out in the beginners’ class,” Lori Lee explained. “She’ll need two batons. One for class and one for competition. We sell them next door at Sparkle and Shine.”

Rick grinned, his sexy, captivating smile that turned Lori Lee’s stomach inside out. Why couldn’t Powell’s smile do that to her? Or Jimmy’s? Why was it that no one had ever affected her the way Rick did?

“You tell me what she needs and I’ll be sure she has it.” Rick couldn’t afford the lessons, let alone anything extra. Every dime he made, that he didn’t spend on Darcie, went into savings. That’s why he didn’t have any decent clothes, still wore a fifteen-year-old leather jacket and worn-out boots and went months between haircuts.

“I think Darcie’s a lucky little girl to have a father like you.” Lori Lee kept her back to Rick as she removed two mugs from the wall rack. “And the strange thing about it is that I never pictured you as a father. You were always too wild and free.”

“Darcie wasn’t planned,” Rick admitted. “She was an accident. I got April pregnant, so I married her for the kid’s sake. We stayed married less than a year.” Rick slumped down in a cushioned Windsor chair to the left of the sofa. “Believe me, Lori Lee, my daughter isn’t so lucky. April was a lousy mother and I was an absentee father who saw Darcie about once a month. I sent support checks, but April blew them on liquor and good times for herself.”

“You don’t have to tell me any of this. It’s none of my business.” Lori Lee wasn’t sure she wanted to share confidences with Rick. Doing so made their relationship more personal, and that was the last thing she wanted.

“If you’re going to help Darcie, you need to know that until we moved to Tuscumbia last summer she hadn’t had much of a life.”

“What happened to your wife? Your ex-wife?” Lori Lee poured coffee into two mugs, seasoned hers to taste and lifted the mugs off the table.

“April was killed in a car wreck two years ago.” Rick accepted the coffee when Lori Lee offered it to him. Her hand grazed his. He looked up into her startled blue eyes and realized that on some level she was afraid of him.

He set his mug down on the coffee table, and when Lori Lee sat down across from him, he reached out to touch her reassuringly. Grasping her mug with both hands, she scooted back on the sofa.

. “I decided to bring Darcie home to Tuscumbia because I knew it would be the only way she’d ever have a normal life.” Rick lifted the mug off the table and to his lips. He took several sips. “I used my life savings to buy half-ownership in Bobo Lewis’s business, and I’m hoping to buy him out when he retires. I’m trying to be an upstanding citizen, for Darcie’s sake. And one of these days, I’d like to find a nice woman, get married and give Darcie a real mother and a bunch of brothers and sisters.”

I don’t care, Lori Lee wanted to scream. I do not care! Why should it matter to me that Rick Warrick wants a houseful of kids? He doesn’t mean a thing to me. His dreams aren’t important to me.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re awfully quiet, and you’ve got a strange look on your face.”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” she lied. “I think you have some very worthwhile plans and I wish you the very best luck in...well, in buying out Bobo and in finding Darcie a new mother.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Rick said. “My sister Eve’s been setting up some dates for me, but nothing’s panned out yet. And I got a few dates on my own, but unfortunately they weren’t good mother material, if you know what I mean?”

Rick chuckled like a naughty little boy, and something inside Lori Lee wanted to slap his face. He was such a chauvinist, but then, he always had been. She supposed one of his many fascinations for the female sex was his blatant, unrepentant macho attitude. Why was it that women were intrigued by bad boys? Even she harbored a secret fantasy that she was the only woman on earth capable of taming Rick Warrick, of turning her own bad boy into a model husband and father.

But Rick wanted more children.

Lori Lee tried to smile, but the effort failed miserably. Instead she sipped her coffee, picked up the estimate folder and pretended to thoroughly inspect every page.

Rick knew he’d put his foot in his mouth when he’d mentioned “those kind of women.” He supposed he’d always considered bad girls the only kind of girls a bad boy like him deserved. He had to admit that bad girls were a lot more fun if all a guy wanted was a good time.

He’d tried to work up some enthusiasm over the women Eve found for him to date, but not even a hungry good-night kiss had gotten his motor running. Maybe nice girls just didn’t turn him on.

No, that wasn’t exactly true. There was one nice girl who’d always given him a hard-on just looking at her, and she still did. Rick squirmed uncomfortably in the chair. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He was sitting there, getting harder every minute, in a studio that would soon be filled with a bunch of tiny tots, one of which was his own daughter.

He had to get his mind off his favorite fantasy—making love to Lori Lee. He knew he wasn’t good enough for her, that she’d never even date him let alone consider marrying him. But since his return to Tuscumbia, he had found himself daydreaming about making love to Lori Lee, then making her his wife and the mother of his child.

If he shared that particular fantasy with her, she’d probably laugh in his face and ask him just who he thought he was. What would she want with a guy like him when she could have her pick of successful, respectable men? Men like Jimmy Davison and Powell Goodman. How could he ever compete with men who could offer her everything?

The silence between them stretched into hour-long minutes. Lori Lee glanced at the wall clock. Any second now her students for the five-thirty class would come barreling through the front door.

“I, uh, I have to get ready for my class.” She stood, then handed him the estimate. “Everything looks fine to me. Show this to Aunt Birdie and she’ll write you a check. When can you start on the job?”

“We’re booked up until next Monday.” Standing, he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and dragged the jacket down over the front of his jeans. “I’ll get my crew out here first thing Monday morning. About eight o’clock, if somebody can be here to let us in.”

“That’ll be fine. I’ll meet you here.” This was Thursday. She wouldn’t see him again until Monday. That gave her the entire weekend to get her hormones under control so she didn’t make a fool of herself around Rick. She had to keep reminding herself that he’d been bad news fifteen years ago, and he still was.

Darcie came flying threw the open door, Birdie waddling feistily behind her.

Jumping up and down beside her father, Darcie held up a shiny new baton. “Look what Aunt Birdie gave me. It’s my very own superstar baton.”

Willing his body to relax, Rick grinned and nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s some great-looking baton.” He glanced over at Birdie. “I’ll pay you for it, of course.”

“Nonsense,” Birdie said. “This was a gift for my new little friend. You can buy her the classic baton for competition.”

“Thanks, Miss Birdie.” Rick wondered if Birdie Pierpont had any idea how hard-pressed for cash he was and had taken pity on him. He hoped not. The one thing he hated most was pity.

“The other girls will be here shortly, Darcie,” Lori Lee said. “Would you like for me to give you your first lesson before they get here?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Lori Lee.” Gripping her baton tightly, Darcie stood at attention in front of her teacher. “What do I do first?”

“Come with me.” Lori Lee placed her hand on the child’s shoulder and led her to the center of the room. “Tell me, Darcie, do you know how to dip ice cream?”

“What?”

“Can you dip ice cream?” Lori Lee repeated. “You know, with an ice cream scoop.”

“Yes, I know how to do that. Why?”

“Because that’s what I want you to do with your baton.”

Darcie looked at Lori Lee, puzzlement in her stare. “You want me to dip ice cream with my baton?”

Lori Lee reached over and removed one of her batons from the wall rack where she displayed them. Gripping the wand in the middle, she delved it downward to the left, then lifted it and delved downward to the right.

“See what I did? I’m pretending my baton is a double ice cream scoop. On this side—” she dipped to the left “—is chocolate ice cream, and on this side—” she dipped to the right “—is vanilla ice cream.”

Darcie smiled and nodded her head. “I get it.” Watching again while Lori Lee demonstrated, Darcie scooped to the left, then to the right. “Look, Daddy, I’m scooping ice cream with my baton.”

“And doing a great job, sweetie.” His eyes met Lori Lee’s and for just an instant they shared the joy of Darcie’s triumphant happiness. “She catches on quick, doesn’t she, Miss Lori Lee?” Rick asked.

“She’s a natural. She’ll be moving up to Twinkle Toes in no time.” Lori Lee focused all her attention on Darcie. “Now, let me show you another exercise.”

Rick watched his daughter for several more minutes, then turned to Birdie and held out the estimate. “Lori Lee has okayed this, and I told her we can start work Monday morning. I won’t need any payment until the job’s done. It shouldn’t take more than one day, two at the most.”

Birdie waved the estimate away. “I don’t need to see the thing. Just put in whatever this old building needs to make it warm in the winter and cool in the summer.”

“I think we can manage that.”

“How much extra would you charge to make the job last an extra day or two?” Birdie cocked her head to one side, avoiding eye contact with Rick.

“Why would you want the project to—”

“To give you and Lori Lee a little more time together,” Birdie freely admitted. “It doesn’t look like y’all can think up any excuses on your own for seeing each other, so I thought I’d help out. After all, you’ve been in town five months and neither you nor Lori Lee had made a move to contact each other.”

“Miss Birdie, what are you saying? I can assure you that there’s nothing going on between your niece and me.”

“Yes, I’m well aware that there isn’t. I just want to know why not.” Easing up beside Rick, Birdie slipped her fleshy arm around his waist. “You’re single. Lori Lee’s single. And it’s obvious to me that y’all have got the hots for each other.”

“You’re a plainspoken woman, aren’t you, Miss Birdie.”

“Call me Aunt Birdie.” She hugged him around the waist.

“Well, Aunt Birdie, tell me why you’d want your niece involved with a man like me? You know my reputation. I’m a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks. I barely got out of high school and I’ve worked construction most of my life. What do I have to offer a woman like Lori Lee?”

“She’s been afraid to fall in love again since her divorce,” Birdie told him. “She’s bombarded by the attention of all these lackluster Romeos. What she needs is a real man for a change. Somebody who’ll stir her blood.” Birdie jabbed him in the center of his chest with her index finger. “That’s you. A woman would have to be dead for you not to stir her blood.”

Rick grinned. Damn, but he liked Lori Lee’s Aunt Birdie. She was his kind of woman. “Even if Lori Lee was interested in me, which she’s not, what makes you think I’d be interested in her?”

The front door burst open and three little girls came rushing in, one breathless mother following them. Lori Lee gathered them together and introduced them to Darcie.

“Your daughter is a lovely child,” Aunt Birdie told Rick.

“Yes, she is, but my daughter’s looks have nothing to do with the question I asked you.”

“I think maybe it does.” Birdie told him, then smiled at the harried young mother who approached them. “Hello, Mindy. How are you today?”

“Running around in circles as usual,” Mindy said. “Who’s this? A new twirler father?”

“Forgive my lack of manners.” Birdie patted Rick on the arm. “Mindy, this is Rick Warrick, Darcie’s father.” Birdie nodded toward the newcomer. “Rick, this is Mindy Jenkins. She’s the mother of the little brunette over there, and aunt to the redheaded twins.”

“Well, welcome to the twirling world,” Mindy said. “Just be prepared for your little girl to sleep, eat and bathe with her baton for the next few months.”

“Don’t you think Rick’s daughter is a living doll?” Birdie asked. “I was just about to tell Rick how much she reminds me of Lori Lee at that age. Do you see the resemblance, Mindy?”

Mindy stared at Darcie, then at Lori Lee. She smacked her lips. “Glory be, you’re right. I swear, they look enough alike to be mother and daughter.”

“Your wife must have been a very pretty blonde,” Birdie said. “I imagine she looked a lot like Lori Lee.”

Damn smart old woman, Rick thought. Was she psychic or something? Without actually accusing him of choosing a woman who had reminded him of Lori Lee, Birdie let Rick know she’d figured out just why he’d been attracted to his former wife.

“Yeah, she looked a bit like Lori Lee, but that’s where any similarity between the two ended.”

Rick had to admit that he had a weakness for blondes, especially blue-eyed blondes with pouty lips and hourglass figures. He supposed he’d looked for Lori Lee in every woman he’d been with since he’d left Tuscumbia fifteen years ago. He’d been with plenty of cheap imitations, Darcie’s mother being the closest thing he’d found to his fantasy woman. At least in the looks department. It hadn’t taken Rick long to discover April Denton was no lady. But then, it hadn’t mattered. He sure as hell had never been a gentleman.

Since the day he realized Darcie was really his, he’d thought back to when she’d been conceived, wondering why he’d been fool enough to have sex with a woman without using protection. He wasn’t usually that careless.

He could recall only one night that it could have happened. The first night he’d had sex with April. The night he’d taken April Denton to bed and made love to Lori Lee Guy.