Man of His Word

by Cynthia Reese

  “What happened then?”

  “The roof collapsed. My dad had pushed the other firefighter to safety, but a burning beam landed on him—Dad, I mean. So then the firefighter finally used his radio to call for help, and the crew managed to pull him out. But it was an arson fire—and the accelerant made the fire superhot. It was too much—even with his turnout gear, he suffered third-degree burns. He just... No one could have survived it.”

  “And the guy? The other firefighter?”

  “Not a scratch on him.” Daniel shook his head. “Not so much as a single scratch. And if he’d kept his word, been where he was supposed to be, done what he was supposed to do, Dad would still be here. And my mom? It nearly killed Ma. I thought for sure we’d have to bury her, too.”

  “I take it that firefighter doesn’t work for you?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Daniel pivoted around, ostensibly to check on the toast, but Kimberly could see his entire frame was rigid with disgust and that he was trying to hide his emotions. “He broke about a half-dozen regulations that day alone. He was gone. The county fired him, as they should have. The funny thing is, Dad had given him multiple chances to get things right—he’d really bent over backward for this guy, not wanting to fire him. But some people—they just don’t think the rules apply to them, you know? They don’t understand that rules and regulations are there to protect people, to keep people from getting hurt...or worse, killed, like my dad.”

  Another sliver of hope died within Kimberly as she heard this last bit. This was why Pax had said she needed to hear the story from Daniel himself.

  No wonder he was so wedded to following the absolute letter of the law. With a memory like that, he’d never understand her need to bend the rules and regulations to help Marissa—even if that was exactly what she needed to save her daughter.

  The rattle of the toaster rack pulled her back to the present. She couldn’t give up. She had to believe that somewhere, someone besides Daniel knew at least enough of the story to give her the information that she needed.

  Daniel brought the toast over to the table, cinnamon wafting up from the plates. “Need a refill?” he asked.

  “No. I’m fine.”

  He poured himself another cup and sat down beside her. “What about you? Your folks?”

  His question startled Kimberly. “I, uh, well, I certainly don’t have any dramatic stories like you do,” she said in an attempt to evade answering him.

  “So you had the normal happy childhood, two parents, one-point-six siblings, the white picket fence, a dog and a cat?” he joked.

  “Not...exactly,” Kimberly replied. “I never really knew my dad. And my mom...worked a lot.”

  “You didn’t know your dad? What was up with that?”

  Daniel’s eyes were kind as he watched her over his slice of raisin toast. He’d been honest with her. The least she could do was be honest with him, she supposed.

  “He wasn’t any candidate for Father of the Year,” she said. “He was in prison. For armed robbery. He and his buddies had pulled a string of stickups in convenience stores. And then... Well, not long before he was supposed to get out, he was killed in prison. Another prisoner took offense at something he said, which, according to my mother, was not unusual.”

  “Wow. That had to be tough on your mom. I know how it was with Ma, trying to hold the family together after Dad died. Being a single parent’s no fun.”

  Kimberly’s laugh was bitter. “You’d have to know my mom. She...doesn’t take things seriously at all. It’s all que sera, sera with her. It was me who worried. She’d come in, tell me she’d gotten fired from yet another waitressing job and say something like ‘Sugar, it’s not so bad. I can find another, easy. That was a crappy job anyway.’ And then she’d go out and party away her last paycheck. But it was me who had to answer the door to the landlord when the rent was past due, and me who had to figure out how to cook on the gas stove in the dark when she let the lights get cut off. We hardly bothered turning the phone on even when we did have money because we moved so much and because even Mom knew it would get cut off again.”

  From Daniel’s quick intake of breath and the pitying expression on his face, Kimberly knew she’d said more than she should have. “Look, don’t get me wrong,” she rushed on. “My mom has her good qualities. And she means well. It’s just—inside, she’s still sixteen. And she always will be. But, hey, I learned self-reliance and how to fend for myself and how not to be a mother.”

  “That you did. And you’re a good mom, Kimberly.” Daniel’s mouth pursed in thought, and she saw him figuring out exactly what to say next. “I’ve never doubted that. You impress Ma, and that’s no easy feat.”

  “Really? Impress Ma? Golly.” Kimberly’s cheeks flared with heat. “That means... I never knew families like yours existed, Daniel. Not outside of books or movies. I thought it was somebody’s ideal. Do you realize how lucky you are? To be part of something so good? To be valued by a group of people you respect? To not...to not be alone?”

  To her horror, her voice broke and tears spilled down her cheeks. She dashed them away. “Sorry. I’m not usually this mushy.”

  He caught her fingers in his and squeezed them. “You’re not alone. You’re a Monroe now...an honorary Monroe. And we’ve got your back. We Monroes, we always have each other’s backs.”

  Kimberly couldn’t help it. She let the tears flow in earnest, ignored the scrape of his chair as he pulled it closer to her and folded her into a reassuring embrace. This was not what had vibrated through her yesterday—no, having him hold her meant something much more than mere attraction.

  Even though he wasn’t helping her with her hunt, somehow, some way, she truly believed he meant what he said. He’d have her back when she needed it the most.

  * * *

  MARISSA DREW BACK into the shadows of the hall off the kitchen and listened to her mom cry. Grandma could be a twit, worse than any middle school brat, and Marissa knew how much grief her mom had had to take from her. But she had never realized how lonely her mom was.

  Well, she never dates. And all she does is take you from one doctor to the next.

  Through the sliver of space between the door hinges, Marissa took in how Daniel—her dad, if Taylor was right—was holding her mom. They looked good together. As if they belonged to one another.

  If Daniel and her mom got together, then they could be a family. She and her mom could move down here, live near Taylor, be a Monroe.

  You’re a Monroe now, Daniel had told her mom.

  So there it was, clear as daylight. Daniel was as good as admitting that he was Marissa’s dad. Maybe he wasn’t saying the exact words. But Taylor had to be right.

  Marissa fingered the cleft in her chin. A Monroe. She was a Monroe.

  Well, there was only one thing to do. She had to get her mom together with Daniel.

  She smiled. Looks as if my job’s already half-done. All it will take is a nudge and a push. And then I can really be a Monroe.

  With that, she turned and lightly ran back up the stairs, avoiding every step that creaked, so she could text Taylor about their next project.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  PAULINE’S OFFICE WAS a broom closet compared to the shiny front office where Kimberly had first met her, and that office couldn’t have been mistaken for roomy in the slightest. For some reason, Kimberly had assumed that the woman who called herself the Queen Bee of Information would have a huge corner location, down the hall from the big cheese.

  Pauline, who managed to dominate the small space despite her tiny stature, must have noticed Kimberly’s surprise.

  “Honey, the size of the office don’t matter. It’s the size of what you keep up here that counts.” She tapped one long fire-engine-red nail to her temple—the nail perfectly matching her pencil skirt and red-and-white polka-dotted blouse. “If I start demanding a big ol’ office, next thing you know, it’s out the door for ol’ Pauline. So give me any hole in the wall, lo
ng as it’s got a window and a door and a computer, plus...” She waggled her key card. “I got better access to the entire campus than even the CEO. Now, that’s what counts.”

  Kimberly chuckled. “That’s true. And very wise. So...were you able to find the original file?”

  Pauline grimaced. “Yep. But there’s a hitch.”

  “What sort of hitch?”

  “Well...before I get into that, were you able to talk with Gail? That nurse I told you about?”

  Kimberly didn’t want to waste time talking about Gail. She wanted the file. She wanted to tear through it and see if its contents could give her any medical history that might provide a clue about Marissa’s bleeding or, if not that, then something that might point to her birth mother’s identity.

  “Yes, I did. I talked with her on the phone yesterday, and she asked me to wait until Friday to come over and talk.” Kimberly hadn’t understood why Gail was so insistent about wanting to wait.

  Still, when you were asking people for a favor, you were beholden to their timetables. Plus, maybe the poor woman had needed that extra day to get over her trip to the Grand Canyon. “What was the hitch you found?” she prompted.

  Pauline blew out a breath. “Privacy laws say I can’t give you anything on the mother of the baby. And really, until I can definitively prove that your Marissa and this baby are one and the same, then I’m not supposed to give you anything out of this here file, either.” Pauline patted a file laid square in the center of her otherwise pristine desk.

  “But...but you said that was the only newborn baby girl in the hospital that day, and that she was a Jane Doe. It has to be Marissa.” Kimberly eyed the cream-colored file folder as Pauline’s restless scarlet nails drummed out a rhythm on it that sounded like a galloping horse.

  “That’s right.” Pauline nodded in approval. “You have a really good memory. There was only one newborn girl here that day. But it’s a question of legality. Unless I have a court order from a judge saying that your baby girl is this baby girl, then I can’t provide you any information in here.”

  “A court order! From a judge! That...that sounds complicated. And as if it would take time.” And money, Kimberly thought.

  “Crazy, isn’t it?” Pauline shook her head in disgust. “I know and you know that it’s got to be the same baby. But a judge has to review it. I even sweet-talked our chief legal counsel about it—he happens to be a fan of my pecan pies. No dice.”

  “Oh, Pauline. Isn’t there anything you can give me?”

  “You? Nope, sweetie. Not right now. However...” Pauline grinned. “If, say, a doctor or nurse needed access to this, you know, to refresh their memories, now, they could have it. I could print them a thousand copies, no problem. And it’s sort of a gray area, but it appears that, if even a retired nurse needed it—if she were, say, worried about a lawsuit or some sort of pending legal action, and if she had contributed to this here file—well, she could look at it. Couldn’t really share anything—at least, she’s not supposed to.”

  Kimberly caught her drift. “You mean Gail—”

  “Funny you should mention Gail. Why, she asked me, all-of-a-sudden-like, if I’d fax her a copy of this. And of course I said, why, sure, honey, ’cause you have the right to access this file.” Pauline winked broadly.

  For a moment, hope surged in Kimberly. Then it sputtered out, leaving that same sour disappointment puddling in her stomach. “But she won’t be able to actually tell me anything.”

  “Well...she’s not supposed to. Not until a judge okays it.”

  “Right, the judge. How do I go about that?”

  “See, now...it just so happens that I know Judge Malloy here in town. He’s the chief judge on the circuit, old as the hills, but sharp as a tack, I might add. And he happens to be a big fan of my apple pie.”

  Kimberly burst out laughing. “I think I need to add to your baking fund, as many cakes and pies as you seem to be making on our behalf.”

  Pauline waved a beringed hand. “Pshaw. There’s a reason they call things easy as pie. It ain’t rocket science. Now, it won’t happen right away. I wrote him up a nice official memo—because that’s how he likes these things—so it has to chug its way through the red tape. Well, now, that’s a mixed metaphor, isn’t it? Sounds like a train pushing through a red tape at the finish line of a foot race, doesn’t it? Never you mind. What you want to know is how long. A few days—maybe a week or two. He’s pretty quick on these things. I am sorry, Kimberly. If you’d been sent to me first instead of another person, well, I could have gotten forgiveness instead of permission, but Kayla, she’s a mighty big stickler for doing things right, and she mentioned it to our boss.”

  “You have a boss?” The idea of Pauline being supervised by anybody was amazing to Kimberly.

  “Why, sure. Everybody has a boss, honey. He don’t tell me much what to do—he sets quite a store by my peach cobblers—but sometimes his boss muscle flares up, and he’s got to feel all boss-like. So that’s why all the lawyers got involved.”

  Kimberly sighed. For a moment, she remained glued to the chair, hoping against hope that Pauline would relent and maybe open that file and wander out of her office like in the movies.

  But the movies weren’t real life, and Pauline didn’t budge.

  Instead, she reached over and patted Kimberly’s hand. “Sugar, I can tell you love that girl of yours and you want to help her out. And I’ve read this here file from top to bottom, back to front. It’s your daughter. I feel that in my bones. Just give it a few days, go tomorrow and talk to Gail, see what she can tell you. Before you know it, I’ll have my magic-wand powers restored to me courtesy of Judge Malloy and my best apple pie recipe. Shoot, I’ll even use fresh apples, even if I do hate peeling the sorry things. I’ll even make the piecrust from scratch. You need this information. You need to have it in your hands, and you need to have it so you don’t have to explain how you got it. And I intend to get that for you.”

  Kimberly swallowed hard to speak past the lump in her throat. Still, she couldn’t manage to. She felt as though she might cry from the frustration of it all. Maybe Gail could at least tell her something.

  In the meantime, Ma had extended her hospitality to them, and they didn’t have a hotel bill mounting up. But another two weeks? Would it be pushing it to ask Daniel’s mother to stay for that long? And the start of school on August 1 was coming at Kimberly like a freight train. She needed to be home in Atlanta for preplanning the last week of July, so this extra two-week delay would eat into the time she and Marissa had to drive to Indiana to see the PAI-1 specialist.

  And Daniel... Something about staying near him unsettled her. Every shred of common sense told her to avoid getting more involved with him, even though her heart told her differently. Sure, he’d been there for her—take the way he had held her yesterday. That hug had warmed her to the core.

  But his embrace, though devoid of the chemistry that had so rattled her in the hotel room, had served to awaken a different sort of apprehension.

  She could more easily shrug off physical attraction than the tug on her heart, the idea that with him she wasn’t alone anymore. Because of that embrace, she’d fooled herself into thinking that Daniel would stand beside her in her fight for Marissa.

  Of course he wasn’t going to fight for Marissa.

  He’d gotten to Tim and Pax and warned both of them. What his reasons really were, she didn’t know, but it had been clear that he put Marissa’s birth mother ahead of Marissa’s own medical issues.

  She met Pauline’s eyes across the desk, that file folder sitting within easy reach, and felt in her bones she was right. This week or two offered more than a test of her patience. It held the threat of Daniel finding out what she was trying to do.

  If he knew this Judge Malloy—and chances were that he did—and he found out that Pauline had requested a court order allowing Kimberly to see the file...

  She had no doubt that Daniel would do his level best
to block it.

  * * *

  DANIEL HEARD THE heated voices even from the gravel turnaround as he slid out from behind the wheel of his pickup. At first, he thought one of them was Taylor, wound up like she usually got over something her mother had said to her. DeeDee had proved to be as stubborn a mom as she had been a little sister, but Taylor was every bit as unyielding.

  Then Kimberly’s voice rang out across the warm summer air, the tone sharp and steely and every bit as stubborn as DeeDee’s with Taylor. “No, ma’am, you will not ride on that four-wheeler, and that’s final.”

  “But Mo-om!”

  “But nothing! We are three hours away from your doctors—”

  “I’m sick of it! I’m sick of being smothered! I hate this! I hate you!”

  The sound of running feet across the deck and the crunch of gravel should have prepared Daniel for Marissa’s outbound status. Still, he couldn’t move fast enough from the path to prevent her from barreling into him.

  Tears streaked her face, all splotchy and red and swollen, her eyes burning with frustration and anger. Daniel held her back at arm’s length.

  “I guess you’re gonna say I need to go back and apologize,” she mumbled, dropping her gaze to the gravel at their feet.

  “I—” Daniel looked past her to see Kimberly staring anxiously at them from a distance. She started toward them, her steps unsure.

  Daniel glanced back at Marissa, the cleft in her chin prominent as she jutted out a defiant jaw. It reminded him of Taylor and the battle royals he’d seen DeeDee go through. Maybe he could spare Kimberly this stress.

  He waved off Kimberly, half surprised that she stopped in midstride. Though she wore a doubtful expression on her face, she didn’t follow them as Daniel guided Marissa away from the house.

  “What you need first is a little space,” Daniel told her. “How about you tell me what all the fuss is about?”