The Good Provider

by Debra Salonen

  It says I’m just like my dad.

  The thought unnerved her.

  Her mom’s ashes had barely been sprinkled at sea before Dad had started seeing the woman he would ultimately marry—six short months after Daria’s mother’s death.

  Daria had been appalled. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how needy and dependent her father was. He couldn’t function alone.

  Was Daria the same?

  She hoped not. She wanted to think she’d asked the handsome…hot…Mr. Hughes out on a date because she liked him. Because her female radar had picked up on the fact that he liked her, too. She wanted to feel womanly, desirable, pretty and sexy. It wasn’t that she was afraid to live on her own without a man in her life. She wasn’t.

  Was she?

  The question flew from her mind the moment Bruce returned—with Miranda and Hailey. “Mommy. Oh, Mommy, I missed you so much. Are you okay? Please be okay. Please.”

  Her youngest daughter burst into tears as she pressed her face against Daria’s leg.

  “I’m going to be fine. The doctors finally know what’s causing the problem. My gallbladder. Do you know what it is?”

  Miranda shook her head.

  “What is it?” Hailey cried.

  Daria was about to repeat what William had told her, but she didn’t have to because her surgeon joined them. He explained her condition in far more detail than either girl cared to hear, explaining how the procedure would take place and what she could expect to feel over the next few days.

  To Daria’s surprise, Miranda kept her distance from her father, choosing to stick close to Daria. She held her mother’s hand and squeezed it hard when the doctor mentioned the size of the incision he would make.

  Daria was anxious to talk to her girls, find out how Bruce had treated them and if they were okay, but Hester swept in a few minutes later. “Time to go, girls,” she said, clucking like a mother hen. “You’re staying with me tonight. Come on, come on. You’ll see your mother after the procedure. Give her a kiss on the cheek. Don’t want to spread any germs.”

  When everyone was gone, Daria let out a long sigh. Until someone coughed.

  Her eyes flew open. Bruce again.

  He walked to her side and bent low to whisper, “You had your diva moment, Daria, but that ends here. You’re my wife and I’m never letting you go. If you try to leave again, I’ll hire the best spin doctors in the country to destroy you. By the time I get done with you, everyone will know you’re a conniving slut who used me, had an affair with some English errand boy and abused our children. Not only will your daughters hate you, so will everyone else. Including William.”

  He left before she could muster a reply.

  “Bully,” she whispered, closing her eyes to keep her tears at bay. She pushed his ugly threats out of sight. She knew Miranda and Hailey wouldn’t stop loving her because of something he told them. She was their mommy and that bond was more resilient than Bruce could ever know. But her connection to William was new and untested. He might very well decide she and her baggage was simply too heavy to bother with.

  She didn’t know, but she would find out. Because no matter what Bruce threatened, she was never going to let him push her around again. But first, she needed to get healthy.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “MOM, ARE YOU EVER going to talk about what happened between you and Dad after you got home from the hospital?”

  Daria braked sharply to avoid hitting a pothole in the middle of the bike path. She’d invited Miranda on a bike ride specifically to sort through everything that had happened—the trip to South Dakota, Bruce’s impromptu road trip and Daria’s surgery. Four weeks had passed since Daria had been released from the hospital. She’d expected one or both girls to ask more questions. Neither had.

  She put her foot down and hopped to a stop on the grassy shoulder that bordered the lane. “Let’s sit, okay? I need to rest a second.”

  In truth, Daria felt healthier, more energetic and alive than she had in years, but she knew better than to overdo her recovery. She’d found out the hard way what happened when you pushed too hard.

  The day she’d come home from the hospital—gallbladder-free—she’d discovered her ex had taken it upon himself to move back in. Without her permission, and in total disregard of their separation agreement and her lawyer’s admonitions to the contrary.

  Daria had been so furious, she’d piled everything of his on the front lawn, heedless of the weather forecast. She’d wanted everything done by the time Hailey and Miranda got home from school so they wouldn’t feel compelled to help. Unfortunately, the post-operative push had been too much.

  Miranda had been the one to call Daria’s friend Julie. They’d helped her to bed and waited on her hand and foot. Miranda also was the one to suggest they call a locksmith before Bruce returned from Sacramento.

  The extra charge to get the man to come out at a moment’s notice had been worth every penny when Bruce showed up and started cursing. The rain had started a few minutes later, prompting even more furious ranting. No one knew for certain who had called the police. Maybe the neighbors.

  That was the last face-to-face contact she’d had with him in four blessedly quiet weeks. As per the court order her lawyer obtained, Bruce spent supervised time with his daughters at his mother’s house every other weekend.

  “I love spring in the valley, don’t you?” she asked when Miranda joined her on the grass.

  “Yeah, but I liked the snow at Great-Grandpa’s, too. It was fresh and clean and we had fun throwing snowballs at William.”

  Daria cocked her head. “Are you saying you might not mind moving there?”

  Daria was on the fence. Without Bruce breathing down her neck, she wasn’t quite as motivated to leave Fresno. Even Hester had backed off to a degree.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. My friends are here. And the cousins, but…it’s not much fun to hang out with them anymore because they say bad things about you.”

  Daria looped one arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry you have to hear that. They’ve put your dad up on a pedestal. A pretty tall one, I guess, because they don’t see his flaws. Not that—”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I love Dad, but you weren’t with us on that road trip. He was different. More yelling and less fun. I know you tried to tell me there was another side to him, but I didn’t want to hear it.”

  “Thank you. A mother likes to know her daughters are listening—some of the time.”

  Miranda got up. “Did Hailey tell you Dad’s got a girlfriend?”

  Daria put out a hand for a little help. “No. How’d you find out? Did he bring her to meet you?”

  She shook her head. “Hailey overheard Dad describing her to Grandma. He called her a hottie.” Miranda made a face. “Yech.”

  Hottie. The word brought to mind her last conversation with William. Daria felt her cheeks turn warm. Miranda noticed. “You don’t care, do you? That he’s found someone else? I know it seems pretty fast, but Hailey and I think you should start dating again, too.”

  A real date? William had asked. She’d been thinking about that. A lot. Too much.

  “I’m going to. But you and Hailey deserve a mother who is there for you. This has been a turbulent time, emotionally challenging. And it’s not over yet. We still have to go before the judge and iron out our final custody agreement.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes elaborately before picking up her bike. “I know. But that doesn’t mean you can’t call William. At this rate, I’ll be dating before you.”

  “I think not,” Daria cried, half seriously, half laughing.

  “Uh-huh,” her daughter singsonged, challengingly, as she hopped on her bike and took off pedaling.

  Daria followed, but she didn’t try to catch up. For one thing, she wanted to savor the moment. Her moody, teenage daddy’s-girl was growing up. She’d seen signs over the past month—small kindnesses toward her sister, marked improvement in her grades and fewer arguments wit
h Daria over trivial things that used to set off a tantrum.

  While Miranda hadn’t come right out and admitted that Bruce had scared the heck out of her on their rental car road trip, Hailey wasn’t as reticent.

  “Daddy was mean, Mommy. He yelled at Miranda for calling you when we stopped at the motel. And she had to take care of me when I couldn’t breathe because he didn’t know what to do. I don’t want to go with him in the car anymore.”

  Daria wasn’t happy that her daughters had been traumatized by Bruce’s brutish behavior, but she was thankful they were more accepting about the divorce now. She was especially relieved that the details would be finalized very, very soon.

  She hoped.

  “ARE YOU PREPARED to ruin this man?”

  William had been sitting at his desk for over an hour, staring blankly at the screen thinking about Daria when his uncle called.

  “No,” William answered.

  “If you change your mind, the information you need is in the file I e-mailed a few moments ago. Regardless of whether or not you now have cold feet, our agreement still stands. Correct?”

  William clicked on the attachment and quickly scanned the first couple of pages. “My God, where’d you get all this? Is it for real? Notty, I thought you were a paper-pushing bureaucrat. This stuff reads like a dossier from a spy novel.”

  Notty was silent on the other end of the line.

  Finally, he said, “What you do with it is up to you, but, I repeat, our agreement still holds, correct?”

  William already had his ticket, but he didn’t tell his uncle that. “Yes. What I meant about not ruining Bruce is, I would gladly hand this to some eager investigative reporter and let them blow the man out of the water, but it’s not my call. It’s Daria’s. She gets to decide what she wants to do with this information.”

  Notty let out a hearty laugh. “Well done, William,” he said, the pride audible in his voice. “Your father would be proud of you. Now then, when are you arriving? I’ll arrange to be in town so I can give you a lift.”

  “Soon. You have my word. First, I have to give this information to Daria. That’s not something you do over the phone. And, as trite as it sounds, I do have a business to run. From the number of calls I’ve handled this morning, one might think the entertainment world was coming to an end.”

  “I leave it in your hands, William. I know you’ll do the right thing. You know where to find us.”

  William let out a sigh as he hung up the phone then settled back to read the long list of damning evidence against Daria’s husband. “Silver bullets,” he murmured. “Very droll, Notty.”

  William couldn’t imagine how Naughton came by the information, but it was glaringly obvious that one of the reasons Bruce picked Daria to marry was to add a little gloss to his less-than-illustrious past. If you wanted to rebrand yourself, it never hurt to align yourself with a photogenic young wife and two adorable kids.

  William didn’t give a damn about the man’s greed and lack of integrity. The voters in his district could decide his political fate. The only part that mattered to William was how this information would impact Daria and her daughters.

  And that was for Daria to decide.

  “WHO’S THAT?” Miranda asked, slowing the bike.

  Daria, who was following directly behind her, had to steer sharply to the right, narrowly missing a car parked in the street. They were half a block from home. “Where?”

  “On our porch. I think that’s William.” Her voice went up an octave. “It is. Hurry, Mom. When’s Grandma due back with Hailey?”

  Hester had taken the younger girl to a birthday party for an old family friend at a senior center in Chowchilla. Miranda had flatly refused to go along. “No amount of cake in the world can make up for the smell of that place,” she’d told her mother after Hester and Hailey had left.

  “Not for another half hour,” Daria answered, pedaling hard to catch up. Her heart was racing but she couldn’t blame the physical exertion. William. William. He hadn’t been far from her thoughts for even a moment these past few weeks.

  “William,” Miranda cried, letting her bike drop on the thick green grass of the recently groomed lawn. “What are you doing here?”

  He stood up, his hands gripping a sleek leather briefcase. “Business, Miranda. I have something for your mum. How are you? And Hailey? Is the squirt okay?”

  “She’s with our grandma at an old people’s party. Where’s your car?”

  He pointed down the street. “Your mum nearly ran into it. I was trying to be discreet. I called first but there was no answer. Is your cell phone turned off?” he asked, looking at Daria directly.

  Her heart thudded so loudly she was afraid he might hear it. “I have a new number.” She didn’t want to admit that Bruce had thrown her phone against the wall of the house the night he’d come back to find all his belongings on the lawn, getting rained on. When he’d started breaking windows, she’d walked outside with her finger poised to dial 911. That was the last she’d seen of her phone. “Sorry. I meant to call you, but I felt uncomfortable asking Grandpa for your number. And I couldn’t call Libby. I heard she’s completely wrapped up with the baby.”

  “Oh, yes. Gannon. Ten pounds of perfection,” he said, smiling. “Not to worry. I didn’t want to intrude. We left things sort of loose given your health issues. You got the flowers I sent?”

  “They were gorgeous. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. How are you feeling? You look wonderful.”

  “Much better, thank you. Did you say you were here to talk business?”

  He nodded. “I wanted to give this to you in person. It’s a disk with some information that might be useful in your divorce proceedings.”

  Daria handed Miranda the house key and her cell phone. “Go inside and call your grandmother. Keep it casual but try to find out if she’s on her way. Okay?”

  “Sure, Mom.” She smiled brightly at William, then hurried up the steps.

  “You have a new ally,” he observed.

  “An old ally newly reinvigorated. Apparently, Bruce behaved poorly on their road trip.”

  “I’m not surprised. According to this report, it’s what he’s done most of his life.”

  “Really? What’s in here? How’d you get it?”

  “Police reports. Juvenile records. A few things that never went to trial thanks to some well-placed bribes. I have no idea how my uncle got this, and I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Oh. That’s right. Now I remember you asked me about hiring a private eye. I was so out of it at the time, I completely forgot.” She frowned. “I hope you didn’t have to pay for this. My lawyer says Bruce’s lawyer keeps giving her the green light. She thinks we’ll have a fair settlement in place and ready to be signed within a few days.”

  “No, no charge whatsoever. Simply a little something to cover a worst-case scenario. What you do with it is entirely up to you.”

  Neither moved for a full ten seconds but she felt something shift in the air between them. She wanted him to kiss her, to confirm her memory of how amazingly wonderful it had been the first time he’d kissed her.

  The moment he took a step forward, the door opened and Miranda poked her head out. “They’re in Madera. Do you want me to tell Hailey to stall? She could say she needs to go to the bathroom. Or fake an asthma attack.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, would she?” William grinned.

  “Uh-huh. What should I do, Mom?”

  “Ask them to pick up ice cream for tonight. And tell Grandma she’s invited to stay for dinner.”

  William appeared surprised by the offer. “Hester apologized for what happened in the airport. I think she realized that her son doesn’t give a darn whether his daughters spend time with their grandmother, but I do. She’s been much nicer to me the past few weeks.”

  “Good.” He didn’t sound convinced. She wondered whether that was because of what was in the folder, or if it had something to do with his
own family issues.

  Before she could ask about his father’s health, he told her, “I’m going to England in two weeks.”

  “Excellent. Is your father doing any better?”

  “About the same, I’m told.”

  “Oh,” Daria said.

  She went on, “I’m going to Florida to see my dad. In June, after the girls are out of school. I had a sort of epiphany while I was in the hospital and I realized I was as much to blame as his new wife for creating a schism between us. I’d been holding in a lot of anger about him remarrying so quickly after my mother died.”

  He looked at her with that intense, questioning look of his. “And now you’re not mad at him?”

  “No. I realize he can’t be alone. He needs someone in his life. I judged him for that, when, in a way, I did the same thing with Bruce. I stayed in an unhappy marriage for too long because I was afraid to be alone.”

  He touched her arm. The feel of his fingertips against her bare skin made something big and warm blossom inside her. “Maybe there’s hope for me with my parents, eh?”

  She hesitated a fraction of a second, then she kissed him. Too many long nights had separated them. Too many days filled with all the problems, issues, finances, job applications and planning that went into starting over. But always in the back of her mind was the spark of possibility that William had introduced in her heart.

  It required all her willpower to pull back. Breathing shallowly, trying to regain her composure, she looked at him. “I love the way you kiss. Does that make me a wanton woman?”

  “It makes me want to pick you up and take you back to L.A. with me.”

  Good answer. Suddenly feeling very brave, she tucked the folder under one arm and grabbed his hand to pull him with her. “What are you doing this coming weekend?”

  He looked intrigued and slightly amused.

  “Well, I planned to accompany one of my clients to a red carpet awards show, but that sounds far more grandiose than it is. I would gladly bow out if you have something else in mind.”

  She punched a code into the keypad beside the garage door then ducked under the door as it lifted and raced to her car. A few seconds later, she returned to hand him the three-fold flier she’d picked up on a lark. “I saw this at the grocery store yesterday. They sell these wines, but look at the B and B. Wouldn’t it make a romantic first date?”