Читать книгу Daddy Lessons - Stella Bagwell - Страница 9

Joe’s home was in a quiet, residential area that had been established years ago before the city had grown to such mammoth proportions. The house itself was red brick and situated on a large cul-de-sac. He’d lived in it with his parents from the time he was five years old. When his father died several years back, his mother had moved to Florida to retire near her sister. Since then he’d lived alone. Until last week, when Megan had moved in with him.

Tonight as he parked in the driveway and walked to the entrance, the tight ache between his shoulders reminded him how little rest he’d been getting lately. Hopefully he’d be able to eat supper and spend a quiet evening before work tomorrow.

The minute Joe stepped through the front door he was greeted with the loud blare of Megan’s rock music. Tossing his briefcase full of reports into an armchair, he walked down the hallway and knocked on her door.

“Come in,” Megan called loudly.

Joe pushed open the door to see his daughter lying on her stomach across the end of the bed, her elbows propped on either side of an open book.

He stepped into the room, then stared around him in disbelief. “What the he—heck has been going on in here?” Joe demanded.

Megan’s head of thick brown curls bobbed wildly as she jerked her head around toward her father. “What do you mean? Nothing has been going on.”

Joe went over to the stereo system and jabbed a finger on the Off button. “I’m talking about these clothes!”

Joe pointed at the countless number of garments strewn over the bed, the floor and part of the dresser.

Unconcerned, Megan pushed herself to a sitting position, then with a negligent wave of her hand she said, “Oh, I’ve just been trying a few things on.”

A few things? It looked to him as if there were enough things on the floor alone to stock a whole boutique. “And none of them could find their way back into the closet. Is that it?” he asked.

Megan giggled at her father’s grim expression. “Oh, Daddy, you’re so funny. It’s just clothes. They’re not hurting anything. I’ll pick them up before I go to bed,” she promised.

Deciding it might be best to relent for now and wait to see if she kept her promise, Joe nodded toward the book she’d been so engrossed in when he’d come into the room. “Is that one of the books you got at the library today?”

She gave him a sweet smile. “Thanks, Daddy, for letting me go. The library was great! I found all sorts of stuff I want to read.”

He tilted his head in an attempt to read the title printed on the spine of the book. “You didn’t, uh—get anything with…”

“Sex, murder or corruption?” she finished for him, then, giggling, she shook her head. “No. I can get plenty of that stuff on TV.”

Joe could hardly argue that point and he realized how different things were now than when he’d been Megan’s age. Savanna Starr thought he didn’t remember being a child, but he did.

Unlike Megan, his parents had lived together. But they’d never gotten along. Joe knew his father was a big reason for that. Joseph McCann had been a tough man, who’d liked his liquor and the expensive gamble of wildcatting. Joe could still hear his parents’ shouting matches and how alone and miserable they’d made him feel.

There’d been times he’d looked at Megan and felt guilty because he hadn’t been able to hold his marriage to her mother together. But now when those thoughts assaulted him, he deliberately remembered back to his own childhood, and he knew that giving Deirdre the divorce she’d wanted had been the right thing to do.

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked his daughter.

With a cheerful smile she jumped up from the bed and looped her arm through his. “Yes. But I’ll come fix your plate for you. Ophelia showed me how to heat everything up in case you were late.”

Out in the kitchen Megan made a big production of heating the casserole and preparing him a glass of iced tea. When everything was ready she carried it over to him on a plastic tray, then plopped down on a chair next to him.

Joe took a bite of the food, then glanced at his daughter. Her chin was in her hand and she was studying him as if she couldn’t quite decide whether he was her hero or the devil himself.

“Well, how are things going?”

“I mostly miss all my friends. It’s boring around here without anyone to talk to or do things with.”

“You’ll make plenty of friends once you start school this fall,” Joe said matter-of-factly.

Megan’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I doubt it. I don’t want to go to some dumb ole private school. I’ll have to wear some childish uniform and look like all the other nerdy girls there!”

Joe cast her a stern look of warning. “I don’t want to hear you call anyone nerdy. You don’t know what the girls at school will be like. You’ve never been there before.”

She lifted her chin defiantly and glared at him with eyes as blue as his own. “And I won’t go, either.”

Joe shoveled another bite of food to his mouth before he lost his appetite. “You’ll go if I say so.”

Megan jumped up from the chair and jammed her fists on either side of her waist. “Daddy, I want to be a cheerleader and go to football games! I want to go to proms and dances. You can’t do that without boys around!”

Joe put his fork down beside his plate and leaned back in his chair. He’d almost forgotten how quiet the house used to be before Megan arrived. Still, he loved her utterly, and more than anything he wanted the very best for her.

“You’re far too young to be thinking about boys. Besides, school is about getting an education, not playing sports and dancing.”

Megan rolled her eyes. “You’re always so serious, Daddy. Don’t you know a person has to have some fun once in a while?”

“Fun is knowing you’ve succeeded at achieving your goals.”

Groaning with disbelief, Megan flounced over to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of soda. “Fun is going to the beach or the movies. But I guess you don’t do those things,” she said sullenly.

He picked up his fork and stabbed it at the pile of noodles on his plate. Hell, if he let Megan’s temperament spoil his appetite every time he sat down to supper, he’d soon turn into a skeleton.

Megan came back to the table and sank into the same seat she’d just vacated moments earlier. Swiping her hair out of her eyes, she said in a perkier voice. “Your new secretary sounds very nice. When am I going to get to meet her?”

He glanced at his daughter with surprise. “Why would you want to meet my new secretary?”

The teenager let out another loud groan. “Because everyone around here is a stranger to me. And she sounded like someone I’d like to know.”

“How could you tell? You only talked to her on the phone for a few short minutes,” Joe observed.

“Well, I could just tell. Is she pretty?”

He choked on the tea he’d been about to swallow. “Pretty? Why in the world would you want to know that?”

“Because if she was pretty, you might not come home in such a cranky mood,” Megan reasoned. “Is she married?”

Knowing his daughter probably wouldn’t hush until he answered, he said, “No. Ms. Starr isn’t married. And yes, she’s very beautiful. But I doubt you’ll have a chance to meet her before Edie comes back to work.”

Megan eyed her father over the rim of her soda can. “What if I go to the office for a while?”

“Maybe later. I’ve got too much going on right now.”

A grimace twisted her young face. “Then let’s invite Ms. Starr to supper. Yeah! That would be fun. Will you ask her, Daddy? Will you?”

“No. She’s a secretary. Bosses don’t do that sort of thing with their secretaries. It isn’t—proper.”

“Daddy, it’s not like you’re going to have an affair with her!”

Dear Lord, did all thirteen-year-olds talk like his? Joe wondered. “And what do you know about affairs? That word shouldn’t even be in your vocabulary, yet.”

Tilting her head to one side, Megan said, “Back home, my friend Amy’s father had an affair. After that, her parents got a divorce. Is that what happened to you and Mom? Did you have an affair with some woman you liked better than her?”

Joe frowned at his daughter’s speculation. “No, neither one of us did anything of the sort. Your mother and I were simply too young to be married. Both of us wanted totally different life-styles and because we did, we argued all the time. So we decided it would be better if we didn’t live together anymore. We’ve told you this before. Don’t you remember?”

Megan nodded, while absently winding a strand of hair around her finger. “Yeah, I remember. But I thought you might not be telling me the truth.”

Joe reached out and gently touched his daughter’s face. She was so young and innocent and full of life. He didn’t want her ever to be hurt by anything. Especially from mistakes he’d made in the past or any he might make in the future.

“Megan, I’ll never lie to you. Not about anything. Okay?”

She nodded, then gave him an impish grin. “So why haven’t you gotten married again? I think you should.”

A second mother figure might be just what she needs.

Joe inwardly shook his head as Savanna’s voice came back to him. He’d thought the woman had been totally on the wrong track, that Megan would resent the very idea of a stepmother. Obviously he’d been wrong about Savanna and his daughter.

“And why do you think that?”

“You don’t seem too happy like this.”

Savanna had implied the same thing when she’d compared him to that hound with a flea on its back. But just because two females made the same conjecture about him didn’t mean they were right, Joe told himself. He was happy, damn it. As happy as he could ever hope to be.

“My job gives me a lot to worry about, Megan. Believe me, the last thing I need to make me happy is a wife.”

Across town Savanna carried paper plates, sodas and iced glasses to a card table set up on a small patio outside her father’s apartment.

A few feet away from her, in one corner of the tiny square of yard, Thurman Starr was turning steaks on a smoking barbecue grill. Beside him, standing a good foot shorter than his six-foot frame, her new stepmother, Gloria, swiped a hand across her damp brow.

“I don’t know which is cooking the most out here, us or the steaks,” the older woman said.

Savanna gave her father a teasing grin, then winked at Gloria.

“I think Dad would haul that grill with him as far as the equator. When he’s barbecuing, he doesn’t know if the weather is ten degrees or a hundred.”

Thurman laughed. “You two girls are getting soft on me. This is lovely weather. Couldn’t wish for better. Besides, I have to have my grill with me. Otherwise, every piece of meat Gloria gets her hands on turns into a piece of black shoe leather.”

Gloria wrinkled her nose at her husband. “Well, we’ll see who cooks your breakfast in the morning,” she warned playfully.

Savanna smiled to herself. It was was wonderful to see her father so happily married. At fifty, with dark brown hair and a slim, petite figure, Gloria was still youthful and pretty. But more importantly, she was a sweet, giving person. She adored Thurman and made it her job to make him feel wanted and loved.

Sadly, that hadn’t been the case with Savanna’s mother, Joan. She’d been a discontented woman and no matter how hard Thurman had tried to please her, she’d never seemed to be truly satisfied. Joan had always wished for things, but she’d been unwilling to bend and work to get them.

Savanna had grown up vowing not to make the same mistakes her mother had. Whatever she decided she wanted in life, she was going to go after it full force. If she had to deviate from her plan at times, she would. But she’d never give up her dreams.

And she hadn’t given up that vow to be happy, Savanna thought as she placed silverware beside the three plates. But she’d certainly learned the hard way that determination alone wasn’t quite enough to make all her dreams come true.

In her senior year of high school she’d fallen in love and had become engaged to be married shortly after graduation. But only days before the wedding Bruce had left town with another girl.

The betrayal had angered and humiliated Savanna, but she’d resolved not to let it sour her outlook on love and marriage. By the time she’d entered college the following fall, her heart had mended and before long she’d met a young man in one of her accounting classes. Terry had been charming and had seemed to genuinely love her. After a few months of dating Savanna had been certain that she’d found her true soul mate this time. They’d become engaged and had begun to plan their life together. But fate had stepped in once again and Terry had been killed in a car accident a month before their wedding day.

Savanna had been devastated. Not only had she lost the man she loved, but Terry’s death had made her look at life with new eyes. And it was clear to her that marriage and a family wasn’t supposed to be a part of her life.

Then a month later her mother had died. And suddenly love and marriage didn’t matter to Savanna anymore. Her father was grieving, she was grieving and they needed each other.

That had been five years ago, and even though she’d put all the pain and loss of that time behind her, Savanna wasn’t ready to put marriage back into her hopes and dreams. She’d learned that loving a man and having him love her back didn’t make for any sort of guarantees. One day she’d been deliriously happy, the next her whole world had shattered.

No, Savanna firmly told herself, unlike her mother she was going to be happy. Only now she was going to find happiness in something more predictable than love and marriage.

A few minutes later the steaks were done and the table set. As the three of them filled their plates Thurman asked his daughter, “How was your first day on the job, honey? Think you’re gonna like it?”

Reaching for her glass of soda, Savanna groaned, albeit good-naturedly. “I don’t know whether like is the right word. Maybe you should have asked if I was going to be able to endure it.”

Gloria looked at her stepdaughter with concern. “Was it that bad? I was hoping this was going to be an interesting job for you.”

Savanna shrugged as Joe McCann’s face floated in front of her eyes. “Well, I suppose you could call it interesting. Tense, but interesting.”

“What about your new boss, is he a nice man?” Gloria questioned.

Unconsciously Savanna drew in a deep breath then let it out slowly. Throughout the day she hadn’t been able to forget that her boss was sitting only a few feet away from her. Every few minutes she’d found herself forgetting her work and glancing over at him.

To make matters worse, each time Savanna had looked, Joe McCann had lifted his head and their eyes had clashed. Exchanging glances with the man had been unsettling, to say the least. It was as if arcs of electricity had passed between them and she didn’t know why. Her boss hadn’t so much as given her a smile!

Yet she’d been home for several hours and still couldn’t get her mind off him. It was crazy! A part of her dreaded the morning and seeing him again, while the other part was eager to be back in his company.

Savanna grimaced. “If he’s nice, he keeps it well hidden. At best, I’d describe him as sober.”

“Look, baby,” her father said as he sliced into the juicy beef, “if the man is that bad, you don’t have to work for him. I can give you enough money to tide you over until you find something better.”

Savanna had stopped taking financial help from her father a long time ago, but he never ceased offering, anyway.

“Thanks, Dad,” she told Thurman, “but I have no intentions of quitting. In fact, the drilling business is far more interesting than I thought it would be. So far today, I’ve learned it takes all sorts of people to drill for gas or oil. Geologist, seismologist, construction crews, truck drivers, drillers, tool pushers, rigworkers, roustabout crews and especially some rich financier to back it all. I think it will be a good learning experience to find out just what these people do to get petroleum out of the ground.”

“Well, perhaps your boss simply had a bad day. It might be that tomorrow he’ll loosen up and you’ll be able to enjoy your job,” Gloria put in hopefully.

Joe McCann loosen up? Savanna had held hopes for that this morning. But after spending a whole day with him? Well, she was still trying to figure out just exactly what it would take to put a smile on the man’s face.

“I don’t know, Gloria,” Savanna said doubtfully. “I have a feeling every day is a bad day for Mr. McCann.”

Across the table Thurman chuckled. “If anybody can loosen him up, it’ll be you, Savanna. He’ll think a hurricane has hit his office before you get through with him.”

Savanna laughed along with her father. She might as well. It was too late to fret now. She’d stayed at McCann’s this morning in spite of the shaky start she’d gotten off to with her stern-faced boss, and in doing so, she’d committed herself to the job. Savanna had never backed out of a commitment for any reason and she wasn’t about to now. She only hoped Joe McCann didn’t make her regret it.