Building the Perfect Daddy

by Brenda Harlen

  “My parents have been so great through this whole thing,” she told him. “Actually, my whole family’s been great, but my parents have gone above and beyond.”

  Although he had no personal experience with that kind of support, he knew that family were supposed to be the people to turn to in a time of crisis. He couldn’t imagine ever relying on either of his parents, but he knew his sister would be there for him—as he would for her.

  “My mom understood Kylie’s apprehension, but she also believed that her granddaughter needed to stop clinging to me twenty-four/seven. When Zachary was about six months old, she planned a special day for Kylie. She and my dad took her to the zoo in Asheville, then to Buster Bear’s and finally back to their house for the night.”

  “Any three-year-old’s fantasy,” he remarked with a smile.

  She sipped her wine, then nodded. “And Kylie had a fabulous time—until she found out that she was sleeping over. Then she had a complete meltdown. She cried and screamed, but my mother remained firm. She told Kylie that she could call me to say good-night, but only if she stopped crying.”

  “Sounds like tough love.”

  “A little tougher than I was prepared for,” Lauryn admitted. “I understood what she was doing, that she wanted Kylie to learn to trust that I would be there in the morning, but it was so hard for me to hear my little girl fighting against tears.” She smiled wryly. “I don’t think any of us slept that night, but the panic attacks finally started to fade. In fact, this is the first one she’s had in several weeks.”

  “But when they happen, they upset you as much as they upset her,” he guessed.

  “When you’re a parent, there’s nothing worse than a child who is hurting—especially when you can’t do anything about it.”

  Maybe a parent like Lauryn, but he already knew that she was one of a kind. He touched her hand, and her quick intake of breath confirmed that she wasn’t oblivious to the chemistry between them, either.

  “But you are doing something,” he told her, as she carefully drew her hand away from his. “You’re showing her that she can depend on you to be there for her.”

  She lifted her glass to her lips again, swallowed the final sip. “I’m not sure that’s much consolation to a little girl who’s missing her daddy.”

  He tipped the bottle, emptying the last of the wine into her glass. “Do you miss him, too?”

  Ryder wasn’t sure what compelled him to ask the question, except that he wanted to know. When she’d first told him that her husband was gone, she’d said that she wasn’t sorry. But she’d been on the defensive that day, and he wondered if she’d held back her true feelings.

  “I got used to Rob not being here a long time before he ever left,” she told him. “When he packed up and moved out, it was almost a relief, because I could finally stop pretending that everything was normal. And then, of course, I felt guilty for being relieved, because of Kylie and Zachary.”

  “Divorce is hardly uncommon today,” he pointed out to her.

  “It is in my family,” she retorted. “My parents have been married thirty-nine years, and both of my father’s brothers have been married to their wives for more than forty. And all of my cousins who are married—and most of them are—have figured out how to make it work.

  “Well, Matt was divorced from his first wife,” she acknowledged. “But that wasn’t his fault.”

  “There doesn’t have to be fault,” Ryder told her. “Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

  “Are you speaking from personal experience?” she challenged.

  He nodded. “I was around Kylie’s age when my parents split up.”

  The confession succeeded in banking some of the fire in her eyes, and when she spoke again, her tone was more curious than confrontational. “Do you remember much from that time?”

  “It’s hard to separate what I actually remember from what I’ve been told, but it wasn’t particularly traumatic. We were living in Brookhaven at the time, so my mom chose to move out, to get a place closer to the Northeast Georgia Medical Center, where she was working.”

  Her forehead crinkled. “Your mother left—and left you and your sister behind?”

  He smiled at the outrage in her voice. “We were well taken care of,” he assured her.

  “By your father?”

  “By the nanny,” he clarified. “And when my mom was settled again, she and my dad shared custody, which meant that we moved back and forth every two weeks.”

  “How was that?” she asked curiously.

  He shrugged. “It was the status quo, as far as I knew, and Hennie moved back and forth with us.”

  “That’s one good thing about Rob moving to California,” she said. “At least there wasn’t any fighting over custody.”

  “I have a feeling he wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

  She managed a smile at that, and the sweet curve of her lips seemed to arrow straight to his heart—which was Ryder’s cue to make his escape, before he became even more mired in his unbidden awareness of Lauryn.

  He finished his wine and set the empty glass on the table. She automatically rose to her feet as he did. “Thank you—for all of your help tonight.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, following him to the door.

  “You will,” he confirmed, but he hesitated with his hand on the knob.

  When he looked at her again, he saw in her expression a combination of awareness and wariness. The former tempted him to move closer; the latter propelled him to walk away.

  He did so, already counting the hours.

  * * *

  Friday afternoon, Lauryn enlisted Jordyn to babysit Kylie and Zachary while she went into Raleigh to meet with Adam Carr, a former assistant manager of The Locker Room. The college student had worked for Rob for four years before taking a job at a bigger store in the bigger city. At least, that was her ex-husband’s explanation for his employee’s departure. When she’d crossed paths with Adam a few weeks earlier, she’d discovered that the truth was a little bit different.

  Adam had left The Locker Room because he had a lot of ideas to generate more business for the store and he was frustrated by Rob’s refusal to hear them. Lauryn was desperate for ideas and eager to listen, and after their conversation, she’d immediately offered him a management position. All the way home, she anticipated sharing the details with her sister. But when she pulled into her driveway, Jordyn’s car wasn’t there.

  Lauryn hurried into the house, halting abruptly in the entrance of the living room where Kylie was kneeling on the floor, a coloring book and crayons on the coffee table in front of her, and Zachary was asleep in his playpen, his favorite blanket clutched in one hand, the thumb of the other in his mouth.

  She pressed a hand to her racing heart and released an unsteady breath. Her children were here. They were fine.

  And sitting on the sofa, watching over them, was Ryder.

  “Where’s Jordyn?” she asked, when she managed to catch her breath again.

  “She got a call from the author she works with—something about an emergency last-minute revision—and said she had to go.”

  Lauryn was incredulous. “And she just left?”

  “Only after she asked me to hang around until you got home,” he explained.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lauryn said. “She never should have imposed on you that way.”

  “It’s okay,” he assured her. “Your sister had somewhere to be. I didn’t.”

  But Lauryn had deliberately stayed away until she was sure he’d be gone, because after the time they’d spent together Monday night, she’d worried that she’d shared too much. Revealed too much. And the insights he’d given her into his own family had changed her perspective on him
. He wasn’t just America’s Hottest Handyman to her now—he was a real person, with real-life experiences and scars. And it was that man she was drawn to more and more every time she was near him.

  “Well, thank you for staying, but I’m sure you want to get home now, and I need to get supper on.”

  “Wyder said we can have pizza,” Kylie chimed in.

  Lauryn shook her head. “Not tonight, honey. I’ve got spaghetti sauce in the freezer—”

  “Pizza,” her daughter insisted.

  She sighed. “Kylie, please don’t do this now.”

  “But Wyder—”

  “Should have checked with your mom first,” he said to the little girl. Then he addressed Lauryn, his tone apologetic. “But it’s already ordered.”

  She sighed, a little frustrated at the unexpected changes to their usual routine. “You definitely should have checked with me first.”

  “I know, but we were hungry and I didn’t know when you would be home.”

  Which she knew wasn’t unreasonable from his perspective, but the whole situation had caught her off guard. She’d come home expecting to find her sister with her kids—not the man who’d rescued Kylie’s mural from ruin and fixed her roof and stirred feelings inside of her that she didn’t want to have stirred.

  But maybe it wasn’t surprising that she was attracted to him. In the space of a week, he’d done more to help around the house than her ex-husband had done in a year—maybe even six years. And now he was hanging out with her children, and looking not just at ease but as if he belonged.

  “In fact,” Ryder said, in response to the peal of the doorbell, “that’s probably our dinner now.”

  Holding back another sigh, she reached for her purse, wondering if the delivery person would take her credit card to pay for the pizza—and silently crossing her fingers that it wasn’t maxed out because she’d relied on it to cover other essentials, such as groceries and gas for her car.

  “I’ve got it,” he said, moving past her with cash in hand.

  She should insist on paying for the meal. But the truth was, she didn’t even have twenty dollars in her wallet and she’d rather not run up her credit card. Which meant that she had to accept his offer—and that he would be staying to eat with them.

  “It looks like you ordered more than just pizza,” she said when he returned with the food.

  “I got some wings and Caesar salad, too,” he told her. “Because Kylie said it was her favorite and I figured you’d want her to have some kind of vegetable.”

  Which was true, but not something she would have expected him to consider. “I also want her to go wash up,” she said, looking pointedly at her daughter.

  Kylie, eager for pizza, obediently scampered off.

  “Do you want this in the dining room?” Ryder asked.

  “Yes, please.” She headed to the bookcase that was serving as a makeshift cabinet while her kitchen was under construction. “I’ll get plates.”

  “There should be paper plates and plastic cutlery in the bag,” he told her.

  “You really did think of everything,” she noted.

  “I know it can’t be easy carting your dishes downstairs to the laundry tub.”

  “It’s not easy, but it works. And it’s only for a few more weeks, right?” she asked, her tone hopeful.

  She was managing well enough with her refrigerator, microwave and toaster oven set up in the dining room, but after only four days, she was already missing a real kitchen—and excited about the unveiling of the completed job.

  Ryder’s crew had completed the demolition work in the first two days, filling a Dumpster in the backyard with her old cabinets and the ugly brown linoleum—even pieces of drywall and chunks of wood that suggested bigger changes than she’d anticipated. But since she’d approved the basic layout, picked out her cabinets, countertops, backsplash, floor tile and lighting fixtures, she’d been banned from the area.

  In fact, the director was so determined to ensure that she not get a glimpse of the work until they’d finished, he’d closed off the doorways from the kitchen to the hallway and dining room and covered the inside of the kitchen windows with dark paper.

  “All clean,” Kylie announced, holding up her dripping hands for her mother to see.

  “Yes, but you missed the drying that usually comes after washing.”

  Her daughter wiped her hands down the front of her pink overalls, then held them up again.

  Lauryn shook her head as Ryder bit back a smile. “Take a seat.”

  While Kylie climbed into her booster seat, Lauryn got the milk out of the fridge and poured a cup for her.

  Kylie ate one slice of pizza—but not the crust. She also had a helping of Caesar salad. Of course, Zachary woke up as soon as Lauryn took the first bite out of her own pizza, so she got up to change his diaper, then settled him in his high chair at the table. While she warmed up some leftover roast beef, mashed potatoes and corn, she let him chew on Kylie’s abandoned crust, keeping a close eye on him to ensure he didn’t manage to tear off any pieces.

  When she returned to the table, Ryder was putting more salad on Kylie’s plate.

  “An’ that one,” Kylie said, pointing to a crouton.

  Ryder scooped it out with the tongs and set it on top of the salad already on her plate.

  “An’ that one.” She pointed to another, which he dutifully scooped out for her.

  “An’ that one.”

  “And that’s all,” Lauryn said firmly when Ryder had added the last crouton to her plate.

  Kylie picked up her fork.

  “How’s your pizza?” Ryder asked Lauryn.

  “It’s really good.”

  He gestured to her plate. “So why aren’t you eating it?”

  “Sorry, I guess my mind was wandering.” But she picked up her slice and took another bite.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  She shook her head as she continued to chew.

  “I’m all done, Mama,” Kylie said.

  Lauryn glanced at her daughter’s plate. “You didn’t eat any of the salad you said you wanted.”

  “I ate the cwoutons.”

  “Did you drink your milk?”

  Kylie nodded.

  “Okay, you can go wash up again—and dry this time,” she reminded her daughter, who was already climbing down from the table.

  “’Kay.”

  “You really should let me pay you for dinner,” she said to Ryder.

  “I would have ordered all of this even if I wasn’t sharing it,” he told her.

  “Even the salad?”

  “Maybe not the salad,” he acknowledged. “But if it makes you feel better, you can consider this payback for the meat loaf you shared with me last week.”

  It might have made her feel better, except that he’d only been at her house on meat loaf night because he’d spent the afternoon putting up tarps on her roof. But before she could say anything else, Kylie wheeled a pink case into the room.

  “You play Barbie wif me, Wyder?”

  “Sure,” Ryder agreed easily.

  Kylie beamed at him and opened the case, spilling dolls and clothes and accessories onto the floor. “I fowgot Darcy,” she said, and raced up to her bedroom to retrieve her favorite doll.

  “She named all of her Barbies after the girls in her preschool class,” Lauryn explained. “Darcy is currently her best friend.”

  “Well, it never made any sense to me that they’d all be named Barbie,” Ryder said.

  “You’ve given this matter some thought, have you?” she asked, amused by his matter-of-fact statement.

  “I had an older sister growing up,” he reminded her. “I spent a lot of time playing with Barbies.”

 
; She couldn’t picture the strong, broad-shouldered man sitting across from her playing with skinny plastic dolls. “You did?”

  He nodded. “I had to if I wanted Avery to catch for me while I practiced pitching for Little League.”

  Kylie came skipping back into the room with Darcy.

  “You play, too, Mama?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll let you and Ryder play while I give Zachary his bath.”

  After her little guy was bathed, diapered and dressed in a one-piece sleeper, she went downstairs to fix his bottle. By the time she had it ready, he was rubbing his fists against his eyes.

  “Clean up your toys, Kylie—it’s your turn in the tub next.”

  “Perfect timing,” Ryder said. “Darcy and Ken were just getting ready to go to bed.”

  Lauryn’s brows lifted.

  “I mean—each to their own beds,” he hastened to clarify. “In their separate houses.”

  “But they’re gettin’ mawied tomowow,” Kylie said. “Then they can live in the same house.”

  “Tomorrow? That doesn’t give you a lot of time to plan the big event,” Lauryn told her. “And you definitely need to pack up all of her clothes and shoes before you can have a wedding.”

  The little girl immediately began shoving everything back into her pink case. “I can’t find the weddin’ dwess, Mama.”

  “I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.”

  “She can’t get mawied wifout a weddin’ dwess.”

  “We’ll find it tomorrow,” Lauryn promised.

  Zachary squirmed, reaching for his bottle, and Ryder held out his arms, offering. Lauryn hesitated.

  “You can hardly feed him and bathe Kylie at the same time,” he pointed out.

  “Not very easily,” she agreed. And not without Kylie splashing around so much that Zachary would likely need to be changed again, so she passed the bottle and the baby to him.

  Zachary had other men in his life: his grandfather and Jordyn’s husband—Uncle Marco—and numerous other honorary uncles who were actually her cousins, so maybe it wasn’t surprising that he’d immediately taken to Ryder. But still it unsettled Lauryn to see her baby nestled so contentedly in his strong arms.