Dad on Demand

by Lori Wilde

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  DAD ON DEMAND

  First edition. June 30, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Lori Wilde and Pam Andrews Hanson.

  ISBN: 978-1393709886

  Written by Lori Wilde and Pam Andrews Hanson.

  Dad on Demand

  Lone Star Dads Book 3

  Lori Wilde &

  Pam Andrews Hanson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Authors

  Also by Lori Wilde & Pam Andrews Hanson

  1

  Choosing a spot far from the sickly pink glow of the streetlight at the back end of the rutted service alley, Becky Ryan parked her seven-year-old compact Toyota in the dark.

  She got out and closed the doors as quietly as possible.

  Standing motionless, she listened for the Dobermans patrolling inside the chain-link fence in the salvage yard across the way. If the dogs started growling, she’d lose her nerve for sure.

  Insects chirped in the tall Johnson grass, and the raw prairie wind blew grit into her face. Pulling the bill of her bad-hair-day cowgirl hat down lower on her forehead, she gripped the end of the unlit flashlight and crept toward the rear entrance of Green Thumb Landscaping and Lawn Care Services.

  Burglars, she decided, needed genetically deficient nervous systems to make a career of breaking and entering.

  Technically, she was only entering, but her jaw was trembling, and her palms were so sweaty she was afraid she’d drop the key.

  “I have a right to do this,” she whispered aloud for courage and tiptoed to the solid steel rear door of the building where she’d worked for almost two years.

  Although Kevin Stalnaker thought he was a hotshot owner and manager, he sure wasn’t big on security. A single bare bulb over the door was the only illumination at the back of the business, and the faded alarm label was phony. He was too cheap to pay for the service.

  But no one told Kevin how to run his company.

  She snorted, propelled by a burst of anger. Being fired by a boss who was also her boyfriend was bad enough, but then to find out that he expected her to continue their relationship despite his lame story about needing to downsize.

  “It has nothing to do with our personal life,” she mimicked his voice.

  Pfftt!

  It was still hard to believe he’d betrayed her so thoroughly. She’d been crazy to trust him. The man spread manure for a living, and not just the kind hauled in from cattle farms in the countryside of Falling Star, Texas.

  Vividly, she recalled catching him leaning over the new receptionist’s desk, trying to impress her with his witty observations, all the while eyeballing her cleavage.

  Courtney Danner, the target of the ogling, had lots of curly blond hair and a little girl lisp that turned on and off at will. She hadn’t been downsized!

  Becky fumbled with the key and finally opened the stubborn old lock. Holding her breath, she pushed open the heavy door, and with the toe of her sneaker searched for the wooden wedge that served as the doorstop. She found it and popped it into place, propping the door open for a fast getaway.

  “In quick, out quick,” she muttered, thinking of Kevin, not the door. “I really know how to pick ’em.”

  Oh, sure, Kevin was handsome, and he could charm when it suited him. He’d grown up doing hard outdoor labor in his father’s lawn care business before he took it over himself, and she’d gotten suckered in by his tanned, muscular body. That’s what she got for being so shallow.

  She was really attracted to winners, haha. Did she have some psychological defect that made her go for the hot, mindless guys?

  Before Kevin there had been Jerry, gorgeous Jerry who looked like a Greek God but who barely managed to tie his own shoelaces and before that, Hank, the lifeguard who could burp the alphabet.

  She used the flashlight to find Kevin’s office without bumping into anything. It was just beyond the cubicle where she’d done the billing and kept the books, jobs supposedly being taken over by Kevin himself, with a little help from Courtney no doubt.

  His office door was locked, a setback, but not a serious one. She knew where he hid the key. She stretched her five-foot-one-inch frame to the max but couldn’t quite reach the ledge above the door.

  All the chairs in the office rolled and swiveled; standing on one was an invitation to the emergency room.

  Using the flashlight, she looked for something else to use as a boost. A nearly full carton of lawn care brochures would do. She switched off the flashlight, laid it on Courtney’s desk, then tugged the heavy box through the darkness to Kevin’s office door.

  The added four inches were just enough. She ran her fingertips along the ledge until the key clattered to the floor.

  “Darn.”

  This was taking much longer than she had hoped. She retrieved the flashlight and furtively searched the floor.

  “It’s here…be calm…don’t panic.” She crawled on her hands and knees trying to locate the key.

  She needed more light. Hmm. How risky could it be to turn on the overheads at three a.m.? She went for it. Found the wall switch and flooded the room with the dead-white glow of a single fluorescent bulb.

  Aha! There was the key under the rolling cart by the wall. She dropped to her knees and stretched to reach it.

  “Freeze! Sheriff’s department. Don’t make any sudden moves!”

  She shrieked in terror but didn’t dare look behind her.

  “Get up slowly and put your hands on the wall,” a deep voice ordered.

  She didn’t even think of not obeying. She scrambled to her feet, bumping her elbow on the edge of the metal cart, too frightened to rub it. There had to be a way to explain this, but when she tried to speak, all that came out was humiliating squeak.

  “Do you have a weapon?” he asked.

  Frantically, she shook her head and risked a glance over her shoulder.

  The man looked like law enforcement from a TV show, all macho swagger and unfriendly scowl, but he wasn’t faking the stance like an actor on a testosterone high.

  “No gun.” She gulped. “Are you really a cop?”

  Did cops like to be called cops? Or were criminals supposed to call them policeman or deputies, or whatever? Why was she wondering this? Was she completely unhinged?

  “I’m a sheriff’s deputy, ma’am.”

  Still pointing the gun at her, he reached into his shirt pocket with his free hand. He snapped open a leather holder and thrust a shield two inches from her nose as if she were severely nearsighted.

  Or mentally impaired.

  Or both.

  “Yep, I got it. It’s a badge, all right.” She squinted and read. “Deputy Nathaniel Dalton.”

  She was trying to joke, but felt more like crying. How could she go to jail? Her mother would break out in hives and ask where she’d gone wrong as a parent. And her father would bail her out of jail but keep her prisoner on the farm for the rest of her life.

  Dad hadn’t wanted her to leave home until she was married, even though her four older brothers had covered the globe in their military service before coming back home to Falling Star to marry and raise cattle and kids.

  But, according to her old-fashioned
father, that was different. They were men. And although she adored her brothers and her father, sometimes they exhausted her with all their protective guy behavior, and sometimes she was confrontational from all the years she had to take up for herself as the only girl.

  “Keep your hands flat on the wall and spread your legs. It’s in your best interest to cooperate.”

  She did exactly as he said.

  “Ma’am, do you have needles or anything sharp on your person that could hurt me?”

  “No, of course not. I don’t want to get stuck by a needle. I’m making an embroidery pillow for my parents’ anniversary, but I don’t carry needles around in my pocket.”

  She was babbling and knew it. He was a sheriff’s deputy. He was asking about drug needles. Before she could explain that she wasn’t totally stupid, his hands were on her.

  Oh, were they on her!

  Up and down her legs. Patting her person, checking pockets, scaring her silly—make that sillier. This was even worse than being fired by Kevin, and she hadn’t handled that particularly well, either. Why couldn’t she think straight in a crisis?

  “If you’d been my date, you’d have just earned yourself two face slaps and a knee to the groin,” she joked.

  “What?” he barked.

  “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it. I’m not thinking straight. Please listen. I only came here to get a check that belongs to me. I’m not a burglar.”

  “Calm down, ma’am.”

  “I’m calm, I promise.”

  “You sound a little hysterical.”

  She didn’t. Did she?

  “Turn around and tell me what you’re doing here and why you’re doing it by flashlight. I saw the light flickering through the front window and came to investigate.”

  She turned but couldn’t bring herself to meet his harsh-eyed glare. “I know my way around the place. I didn’t need a lot of light until I couldn’t find the office key. It was on a ledge and it fell under the cart, but I didn’t know that until I turned on the overhead.”

  “Wait, slow down. Are you an employee?”

  “Yes, well, I was until this morning, um, yesterday morning now. The owner is—was—my fiancé, sort of. Not that he exactly committed himself, it was assumed you know, but—”

  “Just a minute.” He took out a handheld radio and spoke into it.

  Now that she was a little calmer, she realized he was canceling backup. She had a horrible vision of the building surrounded by police cars with flashing lights. Bonnie without Clyde, Ma Barker bullhorns and bullets.

  No more ID channel for her. From now on she watched nothing but the Hallmark Channel and weather programs.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, shutting off the metallic voice of a distant dispatcher.

  Finally, a straightforward question.

  “Re… Reb… Rebecca.” No sane person forgot her own name. “Rebecca Ryan, but my friends call me Becky.”

  “Do you have identification, Rebecca?”

  Okay, so he wasn’t a friend.

  She patted her pockets as if she might find something that wasn’t there. “I left my license in my purse in the trunk of my car. But I am who I say I am.”

  “You entered the building with a key provided by the owner?”

  “Yes, definitely yes,” she agreed, unable to stop herself from being overly anxious. “With the key from the owner.”

  “That should be easy to verify. Give me his name.”

  “Kevin Stalnaker.” The name was repellent to her now. “You don’t have to wake him up. I can prove I work here. There’s my office, back there, the little windowless cubicle. He calls it a cozy corner. Ha!”

  The deputy made a low growl and muttered, “I don’t need this headache after a twelve-hour shift.”

  If she’d been a little more skillful at illegal entry, he wouldn’t have seen her flashlight inside the building. How could he believe she was a criminal when she wasn’t even good at it?

  And how could she find him so darn handsome at a time like this?

  There you go again, falling for the empty-headed hunks. Didn’t Kevin teach you anything?

  But there was something in this guy’s eyes that told her he was anything but empty-headed.

  Somehow, that scared her even more.

  2

  Nate doubted any criminal intent, but he had an uneasy feeling about her, anyway.

  Whatever her reason for being in the building in the middle of the night, she was costing him sleep. Tiny waifs, with tales of woe, were always the ones who complicated his life, and the last thing he wanted was to make her troubles his.

  He’d been down that road before and still had the emotional scars to prove it. “All right, tell me your story, but make it quick.”

  She hitched in a deep breath and her breasts jerked upward with the movement, and unless he was mistaken, the suspect was braless underneath that green T-shirt that read Green Thumb has the Right Touch.

  Holy cow!

  He wished he wasn’t so impressed by her perky nipples, shapely legs, and cute, compact butt stuffed into skintight black jeans. He was too tired to have his objectivity tested like this.

  To concentrate on what she was saying, Nate forced himself to look at the pink cowboy hat with her hair tucked up inside of it.

  “You see, I lost my job yesterday morning, and that wouldn’t be so bad—but my boyfriend was the one who fired me. He said he thought I deserved a better paying job elsewhere and then we could still have a relationship. Can you believe that?”

  Huh? Nate lifted his cowboy hat and scratched his head. He hadn’t asked for her entire life story.

  “So,” she continued. “He gave me a check for two weeks’ severance pay. But I was so upset—I mean, you can understand why—and I left it on his desk. I wanted nothing from him, but then I accidentally dyed my hair blue, and it will cost a lot to have it professionally fixed and—”

  “You dyed your hair blue?” He knew he’d regret it, but he lifted her cowboy hat off her head.

  A mass of blue hair tumbled to her shoulders.

  He couldn’t help laughing. How in the world had she accidentally dyed her hair blue?

  “You see? You don’t even know me, and you’re making fun of it.”

  “No, it just surprised me. What color is your hair normally?”

  “One of those nondescript colors—dark blond, light brown, brond. It doesn’t matter. Now it’s electric blue.”

  “Only in streaks. You can have it fixed.”

  His fingers itched to separate the lush blue strands. Her hair looked strange, but it was also oddly cute. And he was out of his mind giving advice to a suspect with peacock blue hair. He urgently needed to wrap this up and get home for some much-needed shut-eye.

  “Please, can I go now?” she asked in a vulnerable voice that charged up his protective male instincts.

  “I can’t release you just because you dyed your hair blue.”

  “But I wasn’t going to accept the severance check until I ruined my hair. How can I go to job interviews looking like a freak?”

  “You could’ve waited until business hours.”

  “Not really.”

  “Why not?”

  “Here’s the deal. I never want to see that louse again, and I absolutely don’t want him seeing my hair. He’ll think I was trying to look like Courtney.”

  Nate knew he was going to regret it, but he couldn’t help asking, “Courtney?”

  “She’s his busty blond receptionist, and you can bet he didn’t downsize her. If he hadn’t spent so much time ogling her, I wouldn’t have tried to become a platinum blonde myself to see what it felt like to get that much male attention.”

  Nate eyed her. “You’ve got enough going for you without resorting to hair dye.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled and that lit him up inside, which was a dangerous thing. “But I dyed my hair and now, without the check, I can’t get this mess fixed.”

  “Please
, Ms. Ryan, it will be easy to verify your story. I’ll just call the owner—”

  “Do you really have to?” She didn’t whine, but the misery in her voice made him uncomfortable.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that. Now you’ll be even more suspicious, but Kevin won’t deny knowing me. He’s too dumb to believe I’m really finished with him.” She gave him Kevin’s name and phone number.

  “Once I checked out your story, you can go.”

  He didn’t like detaining her. He liked the idea of booking her even less. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number she’d given him, hoping one call would send her on her way.

  Nate knew his weaknesses, and petite women with heart-shaped, elfin faces topped the list. He didn’t want to get involved with helping this one, not after Margo’s helpless ways had kept him tied up in knots for almost a year before he realized he was being used.

  Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you.

  After four rings, voicemail picked up. A man’s voice said, “I’m busy. You know the drill.”

  The guy sounded like a jerk. Like someone Nate might throw into a holding cell with the usual Saturday night collection of drunkards.

  “Got his voicemail,” he said.

  “Please try again. Maybe he’ll wake up and answer.”

  Three tries later, they both knew her ex-boyfriend would not answer.

  “Look,” Nate said, “you have stolen nothing. I don’t see any damage. Even a public defender would plea-bargain this down to a simple trespass.”

  “Are you going to arrest me for that?”

  He was only thinking aloud, but she paled so much he was afraid she would pass right out. And irrationally, he felt guilty as hell. The helpless little fluff had that effect on him, but his instinct told him she was telling the truth in her own jumbled way. All he wanted to do was forget the entire thing.