A Child of Her Own

by Beverly Barton

“Daddy, are the grilled cheese sandwiches ready?” Darcie asked.

  “Huh?” Rick’s mind jumped from the past to the present. He picked up the metal spatula and flipped the sandwiches in the electric skillet. “Any minute now, sweetie. Go ahead and start on your soup if you’re hungry.”

  “Shouldn’t I say grace first? They always say it at Aunt Eve’s before they eat.”

  “Sure. Say grace.” Rick bowed his head.

  “God is great, God is good. Now let us thank him for our food. Amen.” Darcie looked up at her father and smiled.

  Her two front teeth were missing. He hadn’t known a damn thing about the tooth fairy until Eve had explained all about the mysterious spirit who gathered up teeth from beneath children’s pillows and left money in their place. Darcie’s two front teeth had cost Rick four bucks—two dollars a tooth. Eve had told him that front teeth were more expensive, and in the future a dollar a tooth would suffice.

  Rick lifted a sandwich and placed it on a paper plate beside Darcie’s soup bowl, then repeated the procedure with his sandwich. He pulled out a folding chair and sat down across from his daughter.

  “Am I going to have to stay over at Aunt Eve’s tonight?” Darcie slurped her soup, then took a bite out of her sandwich.

  “I’m afraid so. I’ve got to work, and you’re just not old enough to stay out here in the apartment by yourself.”

  Rick hated leaving Darcie alone several nights a week, but he had no choice. If he wanted to earn enough money to buy Bobo’s half of the business before the old man retired, he had to work a second job, if only part-time. His and Darcie’s future depended on him, on his making a place for them in the community and earning enough money to give Darcie the kind of life he’d never had.

  He wanted his daughter to have every opportunity, and it was up to him to make sure she got the chances she deserved. If only the right people would accept her, allow her to become friends with their children and invite her into their inner circle, Rick would pay any price. But with his former reputation and past history hanging around his neck like an albatross, finding acceptance for himself and his daughter in Tuscumbia might prove an impossible task. But he sure as hell was trying. If they’d just give him a chance, he’d show the good citizens how much he had changed, how determined he was to be a good person, too. He’d do just about anything for Darcie’s sake.

  “What kind of car is it you’re fixing for that man?” Darcie asked.

  “It’s a 1959 Corvette,” Rick said. “And the man I’m restoring the car for is Powell Goodman. He’s a lawyer and a pretty important guy around these parts. His father and grandfather were both judges.”

  “Aren’t you an important man, Daddy?”

  Important? Him? To most people he was about as important as yesterday’s trash. “I’m just an ordinary guy, sweetie. A man trying to make ends meet and give his kid a better life than he had.”

  Darcie scooted out of her chair, walked around the table and, standing on tiptoe, flung her arms around her father’s neck. “You’re an important man to me, Daddy. Very, very important.”

  If Rick had been an emotional man, he might have teared up at his child’s sweet, loving proclamation. But Rick hadn’t shed a tear since he’d been younger than Darcie was now. He’d learned early on that nobody gave a tinker’s damn whether he was upset, lonely or hurt. Poor little A.K. Had his own parents ever loved him? Sometimes he wondered if his mother had given him only initials for a first name because it had been quick and easy, no bother for her. But by the time he was in junior high, all his buddies called him Rick, taken from Warrick. And to this day, he preferred the nickname over the solitary initials on his birth certificate.

  Rick hugged his daughter, kissed her on her forehead and nuzzled her nose with his. She giggled gleefully. “Thanks, big girl. I think you’re a pretty important person, too.”

  “Snooky-nose me again, Daddy.” Darcie pressed her tiny button nose against her father’s long, lean, hawkish nose.

  She loved to play what Rick had dubbed “snooky-nose,” where they rubbed their noses together. He repeated the nuzzling, then lifted her and set her down in her chair. “Eat your supper, young lady. I’ve got fifteen minutes to eat, clean up our mess and get you over to Aunt Eve’s.”

  “When you own all of Mr. Bobo’s business, then will you be able to stay home with me every night?” Darcie lifted her grilled cheese sandwich.

  “You bet.” Rick devoured his soup and sandwich, occasionally glancing at his daughter who nibbled at her food.

  He supposed he should see April every time he looked at Darcie. She had the same blond hair and blue eyes, but since she’d been a toddler, every time he looked at his daughter he saw himself—and Lori Lee. Darcie had his facial structure, his wide mouth with a thick bottom lip and his prominent chin, but she was all blond, blue-eyed loveliness like Lori Lee. Once he’d realized Darcie really was his child, he had fantasized that Lori Lee was her mother instead of April.

  More than anything, he wanted his daughter to become the kind of woman Lori Lee Guy was.

  “While I clean up here, you get your pajamas and your school clothes for tomorrow ready to take over to Aunt Eve’s.”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  He knew he had to bring up the subject of enrolling her in the Dixie Twirlers, but he wasn’t quite sure how she’d react. Darcie was shy and had had a difficult time making friends at school.

  “Hey, Darcie, how would you like to take baton lessons from a very nice lady?” Rick dumped their disposable utensils, bowls, plates and cups into the garbage sack.

  “Do you mean Miss Lori Lee’s twirlers, Daddy?” Darcie clutched her footed pajamas to her chest. “The Dixie Twirlers?”

  “You’ve already heard about them, I see.”

  “Oh, yes, Daddy. Steffie Royce and Katie Webber are in Twinkle Toes. They get to go to contests and march in parades and—”

  “Do I take this enthusiasm to mean you’d like to enroll in classes?” Rick scoured the soup pot with steel wool, then rinsed the container and turned it upside down on the drainboard.

  “Can I really? You aren’t kidding me, are you?”

  “Tomorrow, after school, Aunt Eve can bring you by the shop, and when I take over an estimate to Miss Lori Lee on a new heating and cooling system, you can go with me. I told her about you today. She wants you to meet the other girls in her beginners’ class and see if you want to join them.”

  “I want to join them. I want to join them!” Darcie jumped up and down, then flew across the room and into her father’s arms. “You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world!”

  Dear God, what had he ever done to deserve this precious child? He knew he was far from the best father in the world, but if love and devotion counted for anything, then maybe he had a chance of someday earning that title.

  “Well, well,” Birdie Pierpont mused, dramatically rolling her big green eyes heavenward. “Life never ceases to amaze me. Just when I’d given up hope of you ever awakening from your hundred-year celibate sleep, along comes Prince Charming to awaken you with a sweet kiss.”

  “Rick Warrick is no Prince Charming,” Lori Lee said. “And he’s certainly not going to awaken me with a kiss.”

  “No, you’re quite right, sugar. Rick is more a beast than a prince, and I imagine his kisses are more passionate than sweet.”

  “Argh!” Lori Lee stormed out from behind the checkout counter in her costume shop and straightened a perfectly straight row of leotards folded neatly on a table. “This is the very reason I didn’t want to even mention Rick’s name to you. I knew you’d start cooking up some scheme in that evil brain of yours.”

  “Thank you, sugar, for the compliment. So seldom does anyone appreciate a truly evil brain these days.” Birdie, all two hundred pounds, five feet four inches of her, rounded the corner of the counter and followed her niece.

  “I wish I’d never told you about my crush on Rick when I was a teenager. Mother would have bee
n shocked senseless if I’d ever told her that you advised me to go riding off on his motorcycle with him.”

  “Look, my dear Miss Prim and Proper.” Birdie planted her pudgy hands on her wide hips. “You’ve been as fidgety as a worm in hot ashes ever since you learned that A. K. Warrick was back in Tuscumbia.” When Lori Lee opened her mouth to protest, her aunt held up a restraining hand. “No, no. Don’t you dare deny it. Since your divorce, you’ve led all the men around here on a merry chase, but not once have I seen you foaming at the mouth. Not until now.”

  “Birdie Lou Pierpont, you have the most vulgar way of expressing yourself.” Lori Lee leaned over into the front window, got on her knees and began fiddling with the display. “I am not foaming at the mouth.”

  “I’ve been accused of worse things than vulgarity.” Birdie fluffed her curly white-blond hair. “It wouldn’t hurt you to come down off that pedestal the men in town have placed you on and get a little vulgar yourself. I’ll bet Rick could teach you how to get down and dirty.”

  Lori Lee crawled out of the display window, turned sharply and glared at her aunt. “Will you please stop this? Rick is going to be here any minute to bring us the estimate for the new heat and air system, and he’s bringing his daughter with him. I want you to promise me that you’ll be on your best behavior.”

  Puckering her mouth into a sulk, Birdie crossed her fat arms over her ample bosom and let out a loud huff.

  Lori Lee loved her Aunt Birdie dearly, but more often than not the woman tried her patience. She’d never been able to understand how her straitlaced, churchgoing, engineer father could possibly have an older sister as wild, zany and totally unorthodox as Birdie.

  “I’ve seen him and his little girl, you know.” Birdie inspected her clawlike red fingemails.

  “Where?”

  “Around.”

  “You never mentioned it to me.”

  “I knew you’d been trying to avoid him,” Birdie said. “But I also knew that in a town this size, your paths were bound to cross sooner or later.”

  “I have not been avoiding him! There is nothing going on between Rick and me. There never has been. There never will be. He’s going to oversee the installation of the new heat and air system, and I’ll see him when he drops his daughter by for classes and picks her up. That’s the beginning and end of my association with Mr. A. K. Warrick.”

  “Fine. Far be it from me to interfere in your dull, lonely life.”

  “My life is neither dull nor lonely, thank you very much.”

  “Oh, don’t thank me, my dear.” Birdie smiled, cracking her full face into dozens of tiny, thin wrinkles. “You must thank men like Powell Goodman and Jimmy Davison for filling your life with so much passion and excitement.”

  “I’m not looking for passion and excitement!”

  “Pity.” Birdie tsk-tsked and shook her head sadly. “Rick would be just the man to give you both, but since you’re not interested... Of course, he does have one thing you might want.”

  “There’s nothing he has that I want.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Lori Lee said adamantly.

  “Not even his child?”

  “Are you implying that... For your information, several of the men I date have children, if I wanted a man for that reason.”

  “Yes, but all of the ones with children also have exwives,” Birdie reminded her. “I understand Rick’s wife is dead.”

  “I’m going to say this one more time, and then we’re not ever going to have this discussion again. Rick is not my type. He wasn’t fifteen years ago, and he’s not now. We have nothing in common.”

  The front door opened and the UPS carrier delivered a large box. Lori Lee signed for the package, exchanged pleasantries with the deliveryman and lifted the box to the top of the checkout counter.

  Just as she found a knife and positioned it to rip apart the box, the door opened again. She glanced up and her heartbeat accelerated. Rick walked in holding the hand of the little, blond angel at his side. Lori Lee glanced back and forth from Rick to his child. Tears misted her eyes. She looked down, concentrating on opening the box, trying desperately to hide her reaction.

  Rick’s little girl could be her little girl. The little girl Lori Lee had carried in her body for five months. The little girl who’d been unable to live outside her mother’s body.

  “Well, Rick, how are you?” Birdie padded across the floor in her sock feet, leaned down and held out her hand. “Hello there, cutie. You must be Darcie Warrick.”

  “How’d you know my name?” the child asked, gazing up at Birdie, a tenuous smile quivering on her lips.

  “Aunt Birdie knows all sorts of things about people,’ Birdie said. ”Especially people who interest me. And you, Darcie, interest me a great deal.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you come with me and I’ll get you a cola and show you all the wondrous things in our little Sparkle and Shine shop here, then I’ll tell you why you interest me so ’ Birdie offered Darcie her hand. The child accepted, then looked to her father for approval.

  “It’s fine, sweetie. You go with Miss Birdie,” Rick said.

  “And you—” Birdie pointed to Rick “—take my niece over to the studio and discuss business. When you two come to a decision, I’ll sign whatever papers are necessary and write out a check.”

  When Rick and Lori Lee didn’t respond, just glanced awkwardly at each other, Birdie shooed them with a wave of her hand. “Go on, now. Darcie and I will be over to the studio by the time the beginners’ class starts.”

  “We can discuss things here, if you prefer,” Rick told Lori Lee, sensing her reluctance to go to the studio alone with him.

  “No, we’ll leave and pacify Aunt Birdie. She loves to fill children’s heads with all kinds of nonsensical stories while she gives them a grand tour. And kids usually love looking at all our costumes and supplies.”

  “I’ll bet y’all do a booming business around Halloween.” Rick surveyed the shop, noticing the wide variety of items, everything from ballet slippers and majorette boots to magic wands and drum major batons.

  “We do a good business year-round,” Lori Lee told him. “We supply all our twirlers, the Deshler band and majorettes and several of the dance studios, as well as a little theater group.”

  “Sounds like you’re doing all right.” Rick wondered just how much Lori Lee depended on her two jobs for an income. She’d been born into an upper middle class family, and he’d heard that not only had she inherited money from her maternal grandparents, but that her aunt was filthy rich.

  “I make a good living,” Lori Lee said. “Come on. While you explain what I need to know about your installing the new heat and air system, I’ll show you around my studio and give you an idea of what all is involved in your daughter—in Darcie—taking lessons.”

  Rick followed Lori Lee out of the Sparkle and Shine shop to the studio in the adjacent building. He watched the way she walked, a seductive hip-swaying come-on that she wasn’t even aware of. He’d known a lot of women in his thirty-three years, but he’d never known anyone as beautiful as Lori Lee Guy. How the hell had a woman like her remained single so long after her divorce? Had her ex-husband done such a number on her that he had scared her off marriage forever?

  “Come on in,” she said, unlocking the door.

  The moment he stepped inside, Rick felt the warmth. Puzzled at first, he surveyed the studio and discovered that she’d strategically placed small electric heaters around the room.

  “I’m going to hold classes down here until the new heating system is put it,” she said. “I’ve closed off the upstairs temporarily. I simply can’t postpone any more classes. We’re going to Gadsden next weekend for a competition.”

  Rick reached inside his jacket and pulled out the estimate. He’d worked it up around midnight last night, after he returned from the garage he rented on a mont
hly basis so he’d have a place to restore Powell Goodman’s ’Vette.

  “Here’s the estimate. The price covers everything.” He handed her the papers. “Look it over and let me know if you have any questions.”

  . “Let’s sit down.” She nodded toward the lounge area. “Would you like some coffee? I can put some on.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble for me.”

  “No, no trouble. I usually have a pot waiting for the mothers who like to stay and chat while their daughters are in class.”

  She glanced over the estimate quickly, noting every detail and deciding immediately that the cost seemed reasonable.

  “I noticed that several of Tuscumbia’s best families have their daughters in your classes.” Rick stuffed his hands in his pockets, then lifted his heels off the floor repeatedly as he craned his neck backward and glanced around the studio. “I want Darcie to be accepted.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want who I am or who I was to... Well, you know what I’m trying to say. I never fit in. I was always an outsider. I don’t want that for my little girl.”

  The way he said my little girl hit a sympathetic cord inside Lori Lee. No matter what his sins were—past and present—it was obvious that Rick loved his daughter.

  “I can’t promise you that having Darcie enrolled here at Dixie Twirlers will ensure her popularity, but...well, I’ll certainly do what I can to see that she fits in and feels a part of everything we do.” Lori Lee tossed the estimate on the sofa, then busied herself preparing the coffee machine.

  “She’s all excited about taking lessons,” Rick said. “She’s a little shy and I was afraid she might feel uncomfortable around a group of kids she doesn’t know, but she’s been jumping for joy ever since I mentioned it to her.”

  “I’ll start her out in the beginners’ class,” Lori Lee explained. “She’ll need two batons. One for class and one for competition. We sell them next door at Sparkle and Shine.”

  Rick grinned, his sexy, captivating smile that turned Lori Lee’s stomach inside out. Why couldn’t Powell’s smile do that to her? Or Jimmy’s? Why was it that no one had ever affected her the way Rick did?