Most Wanted Dad

by Arlene James

  Her sanity restored, she pushed his hands away and slumped over her knees. “Thanks. Guess I overdid it.”

  He doubled the hose and gripped it to shut off the water, then picked a dry spot and sat down beside her. “There’s nothing wrong with getting some exercise,” he told her mildly, “but there are better times for it.”

  “Yeah?” She pushed the sodden headband off the back of her head and squeezed the water out of it. “When would you suggest?”

  He shrugged. “Early morning is the best time, I guess. For years I hit the pavement every morning before daylight. My work schedule makes that impossible now, of course, but I know I’d feel better if I could work it in.”

  “Maybe you could try a quick run in the morning after you get off work,” she proposed helpfully.

  “Didn’t Mattie tell you?” he asked, smiling. “I’ve made it all the way up to the second rung of the ladder. I’ll be leading a seminormal life from now on, reporting early in the afternoon, getting off around midnight.”

  “Oh, that’s great!”

  He nodded, seeming pleased. “I’ll miss seeing Mattie when she comes home from school, but I’ll still be up with her in the mornings, and I’ve arranged to take a long dinner break every evening, so I can be home then.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Amy said, somewhat surprised at the easiness she felt with him, the genuine friendliness of his smile and tone. “Maybe you could have that run at night after you get off work. It’ll be cool then and there won’t be much traffic.”

  He nodded. “I don’t see why not.”

  “I favor the night myself,” she rambled on, squinting up into the sunlight. “I’ve never been much of a morning person.”

  He chuckled. “So I’ve noticed. Tell me, what route did you take?”

  “Oh, I went down to the park. You know, the one off the bypass. The football field’s near there, too. I suppose you could use the track there if you wanted to, and then there’s the Simmon’s Center, but I don’t know if it would be open at that time of night.”

  “I prefer to run out of doors,” he said decisively. “The park ought to do nicely. I’ll drive by that way later and check the distance on my odometer.”

  She looked up sheepishly. “Oh, I didn’t think of that. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision for me. I just wanted to do something, you know?”

  He nodded and got to his feet, offering her his free hand. “Very commendable, just do it at the right time from now on.”

  “All right.” She smiled at him and put her hand in his, allowing him to pull her to her feet. She grimaced as stiffening muscles protested.

  “You’d better have a good stretch before you shower and change,” he told her. “Do you know what to do?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Well, I’ll let you get to it.”

  He started back down to the mower, while she turned and forced her sore legs up the little slope. There she stopped and turned back, calling out his name. He turned and looked up at her. “You didn’t have to mow the yard,” she said, “but thank you.”

  His smile was quick and broad. “My pleasure.”

  “I—I want to say that I’m sorry, too,” she said stumbling on, “for…the last time.”

  His smile faded, but no hint of anger or censure dimmed the softness of his gaze. “It was more my fault than yours. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No!” she interrupted firmly. “I overreacted, much more so than you even know, but in the end…well, let’s just say that it worked out for the best and leave it at that.”

  He looked down at the dribbling water hose in his hand, then up again, and she could tell by the look on his face that the matter had been put away, never to be taken out again. “You have that stretch now,” he told her, loosening the hose, but then his voice dropped low and silky as he said, “I wouldn’t want to see you in pain.”

  She smiled as he turned to target the hose once more on the mower blade. It was worth a little pain, she told herself as she moved stiffly toward her house, to see and hear his concern again. It was, in fact, worth a good deal more.

  Chapter Seven

  Amy stretched yet again, relieved that her muscles merely complained this time instead of screaming. She had been so stiff and sore when she’d gotten out of bed that morning that she could hardly move. She had immediately begun to worry. She couldn’t be that out of shape. A call to her doctor and a frank discussion had put her fears to rest, however, as it was his opinion that her extreme soreness was as much a product of heat exhaustion as exercise. He advised her to keep comfortably warm, not cool, to drink plenty of fluids, to stretch, stretch and stretch again, and to take herself out for a short walk in the cool of the evening. Afterward, she was to stretch again every time she felt her muscles stiffening up. She was mildly surprised that he advised her to continue her exercise program, stretching before and after and working out in the coolest part of the day. Proper conditioning, he told her, was the healthiest solution.

  She did exactly what he told her, taking her walk about ten in the evening. She kept it short indeed, traveling only to the end of the street and back, but just that much exercise loosened her up amazingly. Since then, she’d stretched about every half hour, and now—just after midnight—she was feeling pleasantly energized and…bored.

  The sound of a vehicle passing caught her attention. She got up off the floor and went to the window. Evans’s pickup was turning into his drive. Amy bit her lip, seized by a sudden desire to run out and go to him. If she left now, she could catch him between the garage and the house. And say what? Do what? She sank down on a chair next to the window and hung over the arm, staring out the window for a glimpse of him. He was probably tired, she told herself. He’d want to see Mattie before she went to sleep. Amy knew for a fact that Mattie had intended to wait up for him. She ought to just go to bed herself and forget about him. But she didn’t. Instead, she sat there staring out of the window hungrily, noting as lights went on and off in Evans’s house, as he moved through it. Then finally all the visible lights went off, and she sat back, her watch desultory now.

  She wasn’t even particularly watching for him anymore when she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye and pitched forward again over the arm of the chair. She caught sight of Evans coming up the gentle slope of her yard, the white of his sleeveless T-shirt shining almost as brightly as the orange fluorescent stripe angling across it. She realized suddenly that he was dressed for running and jumped up in excitement. She was still dressed in the clothes she had worn for her walk earlier. She could just step out on her porch as he passed and pretend that she was about to go out for some exercise, too.

  But then he’d be almost obligated to ask her to come along with him, and when she couldn’t keep up, he’d be put out with her and that would be the end of that. He’d start walking around the other way in order to avoid her, and she’d never see him again.

  Sighing, she sat back down in the chair, only to jump up again as footsteps sounded clearly on her own porch. She yanked the door open even as he knocked. He nearly fell into the room. Laughing, he righted himself and leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles. “At least you’re ready,” he said.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Ready?”

  “For our run.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Our…? Oh. Well, sure. Of course. Wh-what’d you think?”

  He shrugged. “Well, it occurred to me that you might be too sore to go out tonight, but you seem to have fared better than I expected.”

  She grinned. “Actually, I’ve been stretching all day. I, um, even took a short walk earlier.”

  “Great! I was afraid that when we set this up yesterday we might have been too optimistic.”

  Set this up yesterday, had they? She thought back over their conversation and smiled to herself. Yes, she could see how he might have assumed that they were going out on this run together. He might have actually asked, thou
gh. On the other hand, she wasn’t about to point that out to him now. “Ready when you are,” she said brightly.

  He nodded and headed through the door. She followed on his heels, pulling the door closed behind her. “Come on,” he said, dropping into a slow exercise, “one more stretch won’t hurt you, and I want to be sure that you’re doing it properly.”

  Amy nodded and followed his example as closely as she was able.

  “Good,” he said, watching her slow, steady movements before switching to another position.

  She followed suit, keeping her motions slow and careful from necessity. Soon Evans was satisfied with her preparation, and they walked down the steps and across the yard, turning onto the sidewalk. They picked up the pace a bit, Evans explaining that he’d have to ease into a jog gradually since he hadn’t been working out regularly for several weeks. That suited Amy, who hadn’t worked out regularly at all, just fine.

  All too soon, though, she found herself trotting alongside him and then struggling to keep up as he picked up the pace yet again. By the time they reached the park, her lungs were screaming for oxygen and her legs were threatening to fold with every step. She was determined to hold out, but something of her distress must have communicated itself, for as soon as they reached the trees, Evans drew up, shook out his long limbs and began walking her around the picnic tables, his arm locked firmly about her waist.

  “Boy, I’m really out of shape,” he lied, barely having broken a sweat. Amy smiled weakly at his attempt to spare her and let him move her around and around beneath the trees, trusting him to find their way through the deep shadows. Finally, he gently pushed her onto a concrete bench and climbed up onto the table at her back to dangle his long legs over the side near her shoulder.

  Traffic moved lightly up and down the 81 Bypass on the far side of the playground, its noise a mere hum. Night sounds surpassed it, the gentle clicking of crickets and the occasional whir of a june bug seeking light, the sigh of a breeze wading through the treetops far overhead. It was oddly peaceful there in the shadows, life whispering around them.

  “This is nice,” Evans said softly. “Andie and I used to walk out on evenings like this before Mattie was born. We couldn’t really afford movies or restaurant dinners back then, so we’d just stroll out at night for something to do.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the edge of the table. “Our apartment was about a mile from the beach. We’d walk down there at night and sit in this little cove behind a really tall sand dune. It was private property, I think, but nobody ever said anything to us. I doubt they even knew we were there. We’d just sit on the sand and watch the water and talk about things. Sometimes we’d stop off and buy a beer on the way, or just a cola.” He paused for a time, and she could hear him smile. “We’d have been happy with a paper cup of water,” he said. “I imagine you and your husband had times like that.”

  Amy thought a moment, then shook her head. “Not really. Mark wasn’t the sort to take pleasure in simple things. He had very definite goals in life, and he went about achieving them thoughtfully and methodically.”

  “Such as?” Evans prodded.

  She cocked her head, remembering. “Well, for one thing, he had very firm ideas about marriage and finances. Finances definitely came first. He even had a dollar amount that he wanted in the bank before he would marry. Once he had it, he went wife hunting.”

  “And found you,” Evans surmised.

  “And found me,” she confirmed. “A promotion was part of the plan, too, and as soon as he got it, we set a date. My parents thought it was all rather cold-blooded, but I admired his drive.”

  “And so you married him.”

  “Umm-hmm. We had a very lovely wedding, very formal and traditional. He wanted it that way. He was a very involved bridegroom.”

  “I’ll bet he was,” Evans said mildly, adding, “I couldn’t have cared less how we did it, so long as she married me.”

  “Mark wanted everything perfect,” she said rather defensively.

  He chuckled. “So did Andie, and what made Andie happy made me happy.”

  She turned her head to look at him in amazement, for that was exactly how she’d felt about Mark. “I know what you mean. I really do.”

  He dropped a large, hot hand onto the top of her head, then slid it down to her nape and left it there. “Love really opens us up, doesn’t it? We do things for love that we’d never think of doing otherwise.”

  “Yeah,” Amy said on a sigh, leaning her head back against the stone table and allowing Evans’s hand to cushion it. “No matter what it takes to please that person in the center of your universe, you do it.”

  Evans was quiet a moment, then he said, “Andie was easy to please. She had all these romantic ideas, and it was really fun to make them happen. She appreciated the smallest things, candles on the dinner table, roses picked off the neighbor’s bush. I got this silly little ring out of a vending machine once, and I took it home and made a big deal out of giving it to her. We said our wedding vows again in front of an open window, so all the world could see. I lived to give her those little moments.”

  Amy stared up into the swaying treetops dreamily, spotting a single star here and another there. “I know just what you mean,” she said, “not that Mark was particularly easy to please. He wasn’t, really. He had extremely high standards, but he was wonderfully, wildly appreciative when I reached them.”

  “That’s great,” Evans said neutrally, “so long as you live up to expectations.”

  Amy nodded. Maybe she hadn’t lived up to Mark’s expectations quite as often as he would have liked, but the times that she had, had been wonderful, and she was determined to hold on to that. The other times, she would just keep to herself. Some tiny part of her, though, wondered what it would have been like to have lived in the radiance of his love all the time, as Evans intimated he had done with his Andie. But then, no one was deliriously happy all the time. Were they? She hesitantly put that question to Evans, who agreed with her.

  “It’s the little things that drive you crazy sometimes, isn’t it?” he said. “For me it was chomping ice. Andie loved to chomp ice. I’d have to leave the room or something to keep from shouting at her. Then she’d realize what she was doing, stop it, and come and get me. Or sometimes she’d just chomp even louder and laugh at me. Either way, she never gave it up, and I never stopped hating it.”

  Amy sat up straight again, thinking. “Mark wouldn’t have put up with that,” she told him. “He’d have said that if I loved him, a little thing like that ought to have been easy to give up.”

  “Yeah, but by the same token,” Evans argued lightly, “a little thing like that ought to be easy to put up with if you love somebody.”

  Amy frowned. “I guess you and Andie were just more easygoing than Mark and I. His…our tolerance for such things was considerably lower.”

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong,” Evans said quickly. “Andie was easy to please, but she had a temper, believe me, and when she got mad, boy-oh-boy!” He shook his head, grinning. “I remember once we had a hostage situation downtown. It was real touch-and-go stuff. Everybody was right on the edge, you know, real intense. So that when it all worked out okay and we got everybody out safe with only one of our guys wounded, there was this kind of jubilant mood that swept through the whole force. Anyway, I guess I got caught up in it all, and I didn’t stop to think that Andie would have heard about it on the news and be worried for me. So I walk blithely into the house after hoisting a few with the boys in celebration, and Andie pops me square on the chin.” He chuckled. “She wasn’t big enough to hurt me, but man, was she up for it that night! Thinking back on it, I’m surprised she didn’t knock my block off with a baseball bat or something.”

  “Thinking about it now,” Amy rejoined dryly, “I don’t think I’d blame her.”

  “Hey, I learned my lesson the first time,” Evans said. “After that if some bozo so much as backed into a police cruiser, I called in to let he
r know it wasn’t mine. I think it made a difference, too. Police work in a big city is hard on marriages. I can’t tell you how many of our friends’ marriages busted up over the years, or how many of them dropped out or went to booze…or worse.”

  “But you two hung in there,” she said softly. “I’m impressed, Evans. How did you do it?”

  “We worked at it,” he told her. “We worked hard at it. We did everything we could think of to strengthen the bond.”

  “And then some drunk in a van took her out,” Amy whispered. “Sometimes don’t you wonder if God’s paying any attention?”

  Evans pushed a hand through his hair, clearly trying to decide how to answer that. “You could look at it that way, I guess,” he finally said, “but I can’t help thinking what my life would have been like if she hadn’t been part of it. How can I blame God for taking her away from me and not acknowledge Him for bringing her to me in the first place?”

  Amy bit her lip. “I see what you mean.”

  “Andie taught me things nobody else could have,” Evans said. “She touched me in a way I didn’t even know I could be touched. She showed me a quality of life I’d never have known existed otherwise. I don’t—can’t—believe that was all an accident. And I know that if God had intended my life to end when hers did, He’d have taken me out, too.” He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t pretend to know why it all happened, but I cannot believe that it was all for nothing. I won’t believe that.”

  Amy took a deep breath and silently let it out again. “I never thought of it that way,” she said meekly. “I wish I had. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt as though I had nothing to live for after Mark died.”

  Evans slid his arm across her shoulders. “Amy,” he said, his tone mixed, equal parts censure and compassion. “I know I had Mattie to hold on to, but you have people, too, people who love you and need you. You have your family.”