The Man Who Would Be Daddy

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Later,” she murmured to herself as the front door closed.

  He might think he was putting her off, but there was going to be a later, she vowed. There had to be.

  Having him around, even reluctantly, made her feel safe. She knew she might be setting herself up for a fall, but there was something about Malcolm that gave her a sense of security that Jim had never created. She couldn’t just let that blow away. Not without trying to hang on to it.

  Chapter Ten

  “So this is where you’ve been keeping yourself.”

  Wally Peritoni walked up behind Malcolm and looked around the work area. He slid his wide hands into neatly pressed tan trousers as his eyes glinted, surveying the bulletin board with its backlog of work orders. Wally had the same wiry build as his son, except that he had filled out a little with the passage of time, giving him a sturdier appearance. The wind ruffled his signature shock of white hair. It had turned prematurely white while he was in his early twenties, earning him the nickname of “Old Man.” He’d liked the nickname better before it had grown closer to the truth.

  Whistling tunelessly—a habit his son had picked up and perpetuated years ago—Wally gave a barely nonjudgmental shake of his head. “Waste of talent being here, Malcolm. You know that. A damn waste of talent.”

  Malcolm dropped the spent fuel injector into the receptacle. It had been a year since he had seen Wally. Maybe a little longer; he’d lost count. But Wally picked up the conversation as if they’d seen one another only yesterday. He had that kind of knack. “You come to harass me, Old Man?”

  The pumps were thriving, and he had a healthy amount of cars waiting to be worked on, Wally noted. Still, it seemed a shame, seeing Malcolm here like this.

  He moved closer and clapped a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. “No, I came to thank you for hiring the male members of my family and getting them out from underfoot.” His eyes shifted to the lanky blond-haired youth running a smog check in the far end of the garage. His voice lowered a notch. “I’m raising Billy, you know.”

  No, he didn’t know, Malcolm thought. He’d lost track of a great many things in the past three years.

  Not waiting for a comment, Wally continued. “His father lit out for parts unknown when Billy was fourteen and, well, you know Velma.” Wally laughed fondly, thinking of his sister. “She’s got a good heart, but she even had trouble raising her hamsters when she was young. They kept dying on her. She’s just not good at that sort of thing on her own.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Taking them both in seemed the only thing to do.” Things had gotten a bit more hectic now that both boys were out of school. “The noise level, though, is likely to make me deaf. Nice of you to give them a place to go to in the daytime. Before you did, whenever I was home, I couldn’t hear myself think.”

  Malcolm dismissed the older man’s words. “They’re earning their pay.”

  Wally studied Malcolm thoughtfully. He was wasting away here. The thought saddened him. “They say the same about you. And then some.” He paused, weighing his words. He knew the wound was still tender, even after all this time. Malcolm really hadn’t let it heal. “Track could use you, and I think you could use the track.”

  Malcolm knew that was what this visit was really about. To see if Wally could talk him into returning to racing. “Not for me.”

  Though his Texas twang made him sound silver tongued, Wally really knew only one way to talk. Straight. “If it’s because—”

  He didn’t want to hear it. If Wally was going to talk to him about burying the past and getting back to racing, he could forget about it.

  “Not for me, Old Man, okay?” he bit off curtly. Because he’d always regarded Wally with the affection he hadn’t been able to give his own father, Malcolm softened. “Besides, my reflexes aren’t what they used to be. I’d be out of it in the first lap.”

  Wally snorted. “That’s not what I hear.” Malcolm looked at him, not knowing what he was getting at. “That was a nice piece of driving you did the other week.”

  Malcolm looked surprised that he knew anything about it.

  Wally read his expression correctly. “Hell, I’m not clairvoyant. If I were, I’d be a rich man now, knowing who to put my money on. It made the local edition of the papers,” he explained.

  Malcolm didn’t bother reading the newspaper. To do so would be to agree to be part of the world again, and he really didn’t want to be. Didn’t feel as if he deserved to be. He thought that when he’d sent that annoying reporter away, that would be the end of it.

  Apparently not. He wondered why Christa hadn’t said anything to him about the article. It was just the kind of thing she’d bring up.

  He caught himself. Since when had he become an expert on her? She was a stranger to him, just a stranger, he insisted silently. A stranger whom he’d had some emotional dealings with, but that didn’t change things. Just because he’d saved her child and held her in his arms and…

  Malcolm banked down his thoughts before they got the better of him.

  “I don’t, however,” Wally was saying, “need to be clairvoyant to put my money on you.”

  Even if he hadn’t momentarily become sidetracked, Malcolm had a feeling that he wouldn’t have known what Wally was talking about.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You were a fighter, Malcolm.”

  He knew where this was going and he didn’t want to hear it. Malcolm moved away, turning his attention to another car.

  Wally followed, undeterred. “That was why I took you under my wing in the first place. The cock of the walkdoesn’t exactly welcome the new rooster on the farm unless there’s something else to motivate him. Unless he sees something in that rooster that speaks to him.” His broad smile went all the way up to his eyes. “You weren’t just competition, boy—you had style.”

  “Long time ago.” The dark look he gave Wally should have brought the subject to a close.

  “Not that long.” Wally paused, a self-deprecating smile on his lips. “An old man likes to live in his memories.”

  He was being toyed with, Malcolm thought, raising his eyes. But the expression on Wally’s face was nostalgic. Maybe Wally wasn’t doing this for effect after all. The Old Man had to be in his fifties somewhere. Maybe he was feeling the pinch of time.

  “You? Old?” Malcolm scoffed softly. “Never happen.”

  “Yeah, it happens.” Wally blew out a breath. No use in getting maudlin. That wasn’t why he was here. “It’s happening now. I can’t go on racing much longer.” He’d had a scare the last race. Losing control and spinning out had brought his own mortality before him in huge neon lights. Time to stop behaving like a cocky kid and take stock of the future. “I’m thinking of hanging up my hat at the end of the season.”

  Stunned, Malcolm looked at his mentor. He forgot to be defensive. The racing world wouldn’t be the same without Wally Peritoni in it.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Wally mentally rubbed his hands together, warming to his subject. “Well, I’m not going to sit around on my duff, reading my old press clippings if that’s what you mean.” He watched Malcolm’s eyes as he spoke, looking for a sign that he’d caught his interest. “I’m thinking of starting a defensive-driving school. You know, teaching chauffeurs of those rich dudes in the box seats how to avoid having their bosses kidnapped.”

  He’d be good at something like that, Malcolm thought. Especially the public-relations part. He’d have them coming out in droves.

  “Sounds good,” Malcolm commented.

  Wally knew he could get Malcolm interested if he tried. “I hope so, ‘cause I’m thinking of asking you to go in on it with me.”

  Malcolm shut the hood of the car he was working on and stared incredulously at the older man. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Jock was watching them. From here, Jock looked as if he was holding his breath. “You’re serious.”

  Wally saw no reason to have t
o assure Malcolm of that. They were friends. When had he ever led him on? “Yeah, of course I’m serious. Why not?”

  Malcolm gestured around the garage. They had full work orders for the next week. Cars were lined up to be worked on. Not to mention the fact that he had to finish up Christa’s van.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m up to my elbows in work here.”

  Wally slipped a fatherly arm around Malcolm’s shoulders. They were almost the same height. Malcolm only looked taller.

  “Mechanic stuff.” He saw the look that came into Malcolm’s eyes and headed it off. “Not that I’m downplaying that. I’m the first one to love my mechanic. What they do is the most vital part of driving a car. Your brakes go, that’s all she wrote—but you’ve got Billy for that.” Wally pointed to his nephew for added emphasis. Like a coconspirator, he leaned in toward Malcolm and lowered his voice. “That boy can put an entire engine together in an hour with a blindfold on.”

  Malcolm laughed despite himself. There was no need to sell him on Billy’s qualifications. He’d been impressed from the first day he’d hired him. “We’ll keep it off.”

  Wally didn’t crack a smile. “Even faster, then.” He zeroed in on his point. “But what I’m saying is that you’ve got a gift.”

  He didn’t see it as a gift. If he’d had a gift, Gloria and Sally would have still been here. Alive. “Driving fast,” he scoffed.

  Wally shook his head adamantly. “Driving well. Look what you did to foil that car-jacker. That’s a vital service in my book. Hell, you could make a car roll over and play dead if you wanted to.”

  Malcolm shrugged off Wally’s hand. He had work to do. “Pretty picture.”

  Wally wasn’t about to be shrugged off. He followed Malcolm around the service area, a heat-seeking missile intent on its target.

  “C’mon, whatta you say? You and me. Been a long time and I miss you, boy.”

  Malcolm turned to look at him. “ ‘Boy,’“ he repeated incredulously. The label didn’t apply. Maybe it never had. “I haven’t been a boy in what, fifteen years?”

  Longer than that by Wally’s estimation. “I figure you were a man the day you were born,” Wally conceded, “but that’s not the point.”

  Malcolm gave up trying to get anything done. He had trouble concentrating when he was being stalked. “What is the point?”

  Happy to get his undivided attention, Wally went for the heart of the matter. “That you’re wasting your time and talent here, buried in tires and oil filters and monkey wrenches. You gotta get out again, back into the world.”

  “Wally-”

  But Wally wouldn’t let him say no, didn’t want to hear the word. He held up his hands and halted anything Malcolm was about to say. “I don’t want an answer just yet. I want you to think about it.” He eyed Malcolm, as ‘ if that would seal the bargain. “Promise me that you’ll think about it.”

  Malcolm sighed. “Okay, I promise that I’ll think about it.” How could he say anything else?

  Wally turned and beckoned for his son to join them. When he did, Wally directed Jock’s attention to Malcolm. “Your boss just promised to think about my offer. See that he does, Jock.”

  Malcolm laughed as he shook his head. “He talks almost as much as you do,” he told Wally.

  Nothing could have pleased Wally more than a comparison to his son.

  “Why not?” Wally hooked his arm around Jock’s neck affectionately and pulled his son to him. “He’s my boy. Trained him well.” He looked toward Billy. “Now, that one,” he said, purposely raising his voice, “you gotta watch all the time. Doesn’t know a piston from a spark plug, but I guess, with my blood in him, he’ll get the hang of it by and by.”

  Hearing, Billy flashed a grin at his uncle. He waved with the end of a wrench before resuming his work.

  “Works all the time, does he?” Wally asked, releasing Jock. Malcolm nodded. “Reminds me of you.” Well, his mission had been pushed as far as it could go for the moment. “So, you’ll think about it?”

  There was only one way to get rid of Wally and that was to agree with everything he said. “I’ll think about it.”

  Malcolm never said what he didn’t mean. That was one of the things Wally liked about him. For the time being, Wally was satisfied.

  “Good.” He launched into the next point on his agenda. “Now then, how about coming over to the house for dinner one night? Velma might not know much about raising a kid, but she’s still one hell of a cook. You’re probably just living on sandwiches, like the old days.”

  The old days were before he’d gotten married. Before things had changed. He wasn’t ready to take that step yet, to socialize with people from the world he’d once known before the accident.

  “I—”

  Wally just wasn’t going to allow him to get in a word edgewise. “Bring the lady along.”

  “Lady?” he repeated, mystified.

  “The one whose van you’ve been working on.”

  Malcolm’s look of surprise melted as he shifted his eyes toward Jock. Wally followed his gaze and rode to his son’s defense. “Hell, there’re no secrets in my family. I pump him for information every time I talk to him. Otherwise, what good is he?” His eyes narrowed on Malcolm. “Dinner?”

  “Maybe.” That was as far as he planned to commit himself.

  Wally nodded, deciphering the message. He had no intentions of giving up. “I’ll call you.”

  Malcolm knew that he could put money on that. Affection filtered into his voice. “You are a pain, Old Man, you know that?”

  The laugh was deep and hearty, shaking the small belly Wally had acquired from too many beers at too many parties.

  “Never said I wasn’t.” Turning, he was about to leave when he let out a low, appreciative whistle. There was a long-legged blonde approaching. The description matched what his son had told him. “That one yours, boy?”

  Before Malcolm could make the denial, Jock identified Christa.

  “That’s the lady I was telling you about, Dad. The one whose van Malcolm’s fixing.”

  The man still had classy taste, Wally thought as he watched the woman walk toward them. She moved like poetry through a world accustomed to mundane words. Dressed in white shorts and low-heeled mules that set off her legs to their advantage—not that he thought they could possibly be set to a disadvantage—she had on a tank top that looked as if it had been ordered directly from heaven.

  Renewed respect entered his eyes as he looked at Malcolm. “My, oh my, her legs do go all the way up, don’t they?”

  Suddenly, Malcolm was busy again. “Looks that way.”

  “Looks?” Wally’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward Malcolm. He had to be misunderstanding this. “You mean you and the lady haven’t…” His voice trailed off, but there was no mistaking the meaning behind them.

  “No, we haven’t,” Malcolm fairly growled, warning Wally off as Christa came closer.

  Damn, why did she have to pick now to come here? And what was she doing here, anyway? He’d already told her that he would see her tonight. Did it have anything to do with the car-jacker’s arraignment? He suddenly remembered that it was today.

  Pity filled Wally’s bright blue eyes. “Never thought of you as being backward, boy.” The mournful look gave him a hangdog expression. “Looks like you’ve lost more than your edge, festering here in this grease pit.”

  “I haven’t been—” The protest never had a chance to be heard. As Malcolm watched, thunderstruck, Wally crossed to Christa.

  Wally captured Christa’s hand in his, shaking it before she had a chance to pull away. “Hi, my name’s Wally Peritoni.”

  Bemused, she looked at Malcolm for an explanation. He was standing directly behind the older man, scowling at him. She’d just seen the two of them talking.

  “I’m a friend of Malcolm’s from his racing days,” Wally explained smoothly. “I’m having a little dinner at my house tomorrow night. You free?”

 
; Talk about someone working fast…Christa couldn’t picture the two men as friends. This Wally person talked as fast as Malcolm spoke slow.

  “Well, I—”

  “Because Malcolm here needs a date, but he’s too shy to say anything. I thought I’d help him out. How about it, little lady, you game on making two men happy?”

  As far as snow jobs went, she was in the middle of a Texas blizzard. And enjoying herself immensely. “That all depends on what’s involved.”

  Wally laughed, tickled. “I like her, Mal, I surely do.” He held her hand a moment longer. “Twenty years ago, I might’ve given ol’ Malcolm a run for his money over you. Of course, twenty years ago, you were probably just a baby.” He chuckled to himself, charming Christa. “Time does have a way of getting away from you. Nothing’s involved except eating, little darlin’,” he finally answered her. “And talking—if I let you get in a word.”

  That, she could readily believe.

  Still holding her hand, Wally glanced over his shoulder at his son and nephew. “I guess it being a special occasion and all, we’ll let you two eat at the table.”

  “What special occasion?” Christa asked.

  His eyes seemed to twinkle as he looked at her. “Why, you’re coming to dinner, of course.” He released her hand. “Gotta go. See you tomorrow.” He was already hurrying away. “Malcolm’ll tell you where I live—if he hasn’t forgotten.”

  Christa let out a long breath as she watched Wally stride away.

  Malcolm could easily guess what she was thinking. He crossed to her. “He lays it on a little thick.” He didn’t want her to feel obligated because Wally was his friend. “You don’t have to go.”

  She turned so quickly, her hair whipped along his bare arm. “Oh, no, I’d like to go. Providing that you want me to.”

  She wasn’t going to run her car down his track. “I don’t have anything to say about it.”

  He was shying away again. Why wasn’t she surprised? “Well, you do have the address,” she countered.

  Malcolm strode back to the work area and the car he’d abandoned. “I can give you that.”