Dating a Single Dad

by Kris Fletcher - Comeback Cove 01 - Dating a Single Dad

“Hi. Sorry to bother you, but I want to talk to you without Millie around. Is this a bad time?”

  He glanced at the windowsill in progress. Maybe he could work one-handed while talking. That would cut at least a few minutes from the task.

  “I can manage,” he said. “But I’m painting. So if I sound distracted—”

  “Don’t take it personally. Got it.” She laughed lightly. “Listen, I’m being sent to the Ottawa office again, starting in a couple of weeks. For three months this time.”

  So that was why he’d had the feeling something was up the last time they talked.

  He had no idea what to say. This would be the third time this had happened in two years. Much as he knew it was good for Mills and her mother to be in the same time zone, his brain couldn’t help but hopscotch to the point four months from now. Heather would fly back to the west coast and he would be here, watching Millie cling to a threadbare old shirt after her mother said goodbye.

  Again.

  His hand tightened on the phone. He wanted to tell her to forget it, that her constant comings and goings were doing more damage than good. He wanted to tell her to find a new job that wouldn’t keep sending her out here. He wanted to ask if she was coming back because Millie needed her, or because she needed Millie.

  Oddly enough, it was none of those words that sprang to his tongue, but something entirely unexpected.

  Sometimes, you just need to be a decent human being.

  “Uh...wow. She’s gonna be psyched.”

  That was as much as he could manage at the moment, but Heather seemed to understand. “I know this is hard on you, and on her. But I’m hoping... There have been some changes here. I’m hoping, if I do a good job, this will turn into something permanent.”

  His paintbrush hit the floor. “You mean like moving back here?”

  “God, I hope so.” There was no mistaking the fervor in her voice. “I don’t want to change anything with you and her—really, I’m not planning to change the custody agreement or anything—but I’m praying I can make this happen. I don’t want to mess things up, but I want to be there with her, too. To do Wednesdays and alternate weekends, to go to her parent-teacher conferences, to see her up onstage at the Christmas concert.”

  Heather. Coming back again. Maybe for good.

  His nod felt slowed by fatigue and surprise and that ever-present sensation of being one step behind. All he could do was stammer out something about getting back to her. He said goodbye, shoved his phone back in his pocket and stared at the white paint dotting the floor where he had dropped the brush.

  “Son of a...”

  He didn’t know what to make of this. His head knew it was better for Millie to have both parents close by, but his heart was running an endless loop of scenes from the last times Millie had said goodbye to Heather.

  But if she moved back...

  He swiped at the paint and scratched at the bits that had dried already and told himself to breathe, that they would get through this, that nothing good could come of panicking.

  And that there was absolutely no reason to freak out because in those first knocked-on-his-ass moments, the voice of sanity in his head had been not his own, not his mother’s or Moxie’s—but Brynn’s.

  * * *

  HIS HEAD WAS STILL whirling that night when he crawled back to the house after his second go-round in the cabins. He was tired beyond belief, aching in places he never knew could ache, covered in paint and sick to death of his own company and thoughts. All he wanted was to jump in the shower, read Millie a chapter of Harry Potter and hit the hay. He knew he should spend some time working on the Northwoods calendar or looking through Millie’s backpack or checking out her teacher’s website, but all that was going to have to wait.

  He walked in from the cold night to a house overflowing with laughter, music and the sight of his daughter prancing around in the most ridiculous pair of sunglasses he had ever seen.

  “Sequined shades?” He looked at Brynn. “When did you turn my daughter into a diva?”

  “Daddy, it was so much fun! We did an exarament.”

  “Experiment.” Brynn rested her hand on Millie’s head and smiled.

  “Right. To see if you could do anything to onions so they wouldn’t make you cry. We put one in the freezer and lit candles and cut them under water. Brynn did that one. But they all made my eyes run anyway, so Brynn said I should wear these. She got them at a party and she never wears them, so I can keep them!”

  Her utter joy pulled a smile from beneath his layers of worry and fatigue. He dropped into the kitchen chair and pulled her close, listening to her excited recitation of the evening’s events while his gaze lingered on Brynn. She wasn’t doing anything unusual—wiping down the counter, rinsing off a knife, adding little clarifications to Millie’s tale in such a way that it made sense to him without ever intruding on the story. Yet when she reached for her jacket and bent to pull on her boots, a pang of longing arced through him.

  Don’t go.

  He wanted her to stay. Not in a “hey, girl, want to have some fun?” way, but because she made things better. Lighter. Almost magical.

  Holy— Magical? He shook his head. Must be more exhausted than he’d realized.

  “Okay, I’m off.” Boots in place, she stood and smiled. “Give me a hug, Mills. And, Hank, I’ll see you at the meeting in the morning, right?”

  Hell and damnation. He’d managed to put that out of his mind. “Uh—right. Though I might as well warn you now, I haven’t done anything about the band.”

  “Not to worry. You’re getting our site ready. I don’t expect anything else of you. Besides, Moxie and I talked today and we have an idea for a kickoff that will blow the lid off this town, so that will take up a lot of the meeting.”

  Why did the thought of Brynn and Moxie plotting together make him want to notify the authorities?

  Millie pulled back from the hug she’d been bestowing on Brynn’s legs and pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “What are you going to do? Tell me!”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t say anything. It’s a secret.”

  “But I am in the family, too, and I don’t get to go to meetings now because you do them when I’m in school. So you should tell me.” Her eyes took on a sly gleam. “Or I could skip school and come. I could wait to hear the secret if you let me skip.”

  “I bet you could,” Hank said dryly. He still hadn’t been able to wring anything out of her about her reluctance to get on that bus every day. “Points for trying, Mills, but it’s not happening. Brynn, could you please tell her your big news so I don’t have to spend my next waking hours explaining why school is important? I can put my fingers in my ears if you need me to.”

  “Well, as long as you promise not to tell...”

  Millie made a zipping motion across her mouth. “Zip it, lock it, put it in my pocket.”

  “Okay. We decided to kick off the festival with a family dance.”

  Oh, hell.

  “Something fun,” Brynn said. She was so focused on Millie that she hadn’t noticed he wasn’t smiling. Good. That gave him a minute to play catch-up. “Maybe that ‘Celebration’ song. Or ‘We Are Family.’ Moxie wants that one. We’ll have all of you Norths up there, dressed in outfits from the different eras of the dairy—a flapper, a fifties greaser, a hippie. You’ll do an easy, fun dance like folks do at weddings and flash mobs. Moxie thought it would be a hoot.”

  “Sounds great.” He bent to untie his work boots so he wouldn’t have to see the disappointment on her face. “But leave me out.”

  “Sorry?”

  He tugged at a stubborn knot, still not looking at her. “This festival is cutting into my schedule enough as it is. I don’t have time for rehearsals and—and everything.” Not to mention the fact that the last time he had danced in p
ublic had been what most folks would call an epic failure. “My folks will do it, and everyone else. Millie can be in it, too. But count me out.”

  “But, Daddy, it will be fun.”

  Not for him, it wouldn’t.

  “Look, Brynn,” he said, “you go right ahead and plan what you want, okay? I’ll do my part. I’ll run cables and rewire the whole damned campground and turn myself inside out to make things work. But that’s my limit, and I’m kind of tired of people jerking me around. So plan what you want, but leave me the hell out of it. Got it?”

  Millie, wide-eyed and silent, stuck her thumb in her mouth. Brynn inhaled sharply but glanced at the child and pasted on a smile that went straight to his guilt meter and elevated it another notch.

  “Of course. I— Sorry.” Her expression softened as she bent to hug Millie. “Sleep sweet, kiddo. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Millie glanced over her shoulder at him and gripped Brynn a little tighter. “G’night, Brynn.”

  She slipped out the door quickly, lightly. Just as well. He didn’t need her to linger, didn’t want to have to explain things that were best left in the bad-memory bin.

  Magic. Right.

  * * *

  HANK SLEPT LIKE SHIT and stayed silent throughout the meeting. He was pretty sure that if he said anything it would come out wrong and make an unpleasant situation even worse.

  Not that anyone would know there was a problem from watching Brynn. She was cheerful and professional as always, smiling over her half-glasses, making appropriate jokes and keeping even Moxie in line. Taylor had been right about her. Brynn was a force of über-nature.

  But this time, she wasn’t going to win.

  The minute the meeting was declared finished and the rest of his traitorous family had embraced the dance idea with open arms, he was out of the conference room. Down the hall he went with a fleeting wave to the receptionist as he plowed through the double doors toward sunshine and freedom. He was about three steps from the truck when his phone rang.

  Son of a—

  He slowed long enough to dig it from his pocket. He knew it was Brynn, it had to be her, but if he didn’t check then this would be the time it was the school.

  It wasn’t the school. But neither was it Brynn.

  “Hey, Ma.” He grabbed the handle. “Is this important? I’m kind of in a—”

  A soft hand landed on his shoulder. Before he could protest or spin around, the matching hand plucked his phone from his grasp.

  “Got him, Janice.” Brynn didn’t smile as she walked in front of him, speaking into his phone. His stomach clenched. “Thanks for your help.”

  She handed the phone back to him. He had never personally identified with Russian or Finnish hockey players before, but suddenly he was feeling great empathy for the ones who had tried to outwit Ms. Catalano.

  Still, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Slick move. But I don’t care what you do, I’m not dancing at the festival or any other—”

  “Millie told me something last night. About school.”

  Oh. Well, now he felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Luckily, that wasn’t a new experience for him.

  “What about it?”

  The breeze caught a bit of hair that must have escaped her ponytail and blew it across her face. He shoved his hands in his pockets while she pushed it back in place.

  “There’s a girl in her class. Noelle. Apparently, she’s decided that Millie is her personal punching bag and is making her life miserable.”

  He’d always thought that “seeing red” was just an expression. Turns out it was an extremely apt one.

  “What’s she doing to her?”

  “Millie says that Noelle teases her in front of the other kids, and calls her a baby when she sucks her thumb. Things like that. The kicker was yesterday at lunch—a bunch of them asked her to play with them at recess, but then when she ran to meet up with them this Noelle stood in front of them and said, ‘Why don’t you go home and wash your dirty shirt, baby?’ and they all ran off laughing.”

  He breathed in sharp and fast around teeth clenched so tight he found it hard to draw in oxygen. He hadn’t been able to get the bloodstains out of the lab coat, but Millie had insisted she didn’t care, had wrapped it even tighter around her since her injury. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, that was my reaction, too. But don’t worry. I didn’t say it in front of her.”

  “She’s heard worse than that on the school bus.” He rubbed his hand over his face, sought some measure of control that would let him go forward in a calm, adult manner. It wasn’t easy. His baby was hurting and he hadn’t been able to prevent it.

  His baby was hurting and she had told someone else about it first.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He pushed his own pain into a corner where he could examine it later, when he had a bit more reason at his command. “Was she upset? When she told you, I mean.”

  “She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t crying, either. I think she was equal parts hurt and perplexed. Though maybe it’s just easier to focus on why someone would do something like that. You know. Stay one step removed.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s not the only one who’s thrown by it.” He shook his head and rested his hand against the truck. “First grade and they’re pulling this crap already?”

  “My bet is that Noelle isn’t the oldest in her family. Kids learn all kinds of things at the feet of their siblings.”

  Yeah, he knew that one all too well.

  That loose bit of hair was dancing in front of her face again, fluttering around her mouth where it seemed to stick for a second. He hunched his shoulders against the wind and curled his hands tight in the depths of his pockets until she swiped it back into position.

  Silence fell between them. She seemed to expect a response, but damned if he could figure out what to say. His focus was divided between thoughts of Millie at recess, questions as to why Millie had gone to Brynn instead of him and if that bit of hair was now coated with Brynn’s cinnamon-colored lipstick.

  “Anyway,” she said after a moment, “sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I figured you should know.”

  He nodded and was about to let her walk away when he realized there was more to ask. “Brynn?”

  “Yes?”

  “What did you say to her? To Millie?”

  “Oh.” The wind kicked up again. Her hand went to the side of her head. “I told her that it sucks and it happens to everyone, but if it bothered her, maybe she could make the lab coat a just-for-home thing again. And if Noelle said anything more else, Millie could just walk away.”

  Brynn, suggesting someone walk away from a problem? Not the answer he would have expected. Or the one he would have given.

  “I told her the main thing was to make sure Noelle didn’t see that she’d hurt her.”

  Okay. Now it made sense.

  “And then I told her she needed to talk to you.”

  “Which she didn’t do, as you can probably tell.” Not that he was upset by this. Not at all. But at least Brynn had tried.

  “My bet is that once she got it off her chest, it didn’t bother her as much.”

  Maybe.

  “I didn’t want to go into it more than that. But if she mentions it tonight, is there anything in particular you’d like me to say?”

  “I can think of a few things. But most of them would probably get her suspended.” He smiled a bit. “I’m more of a stand-your-ground kind of guy when it comes to that stuff, but I’m not sure of the best way to phrase it for a kid. Let me get back to you.”

  She nodded. “Sure. You need to talk to the teacher and all that.”

  Ah, hell. He hated talking to teachers. He always felt like they were assessing him as a parent, as a s
ingle father. Except, of course, for the ones that tried to hit on him. He’d never known how many lonely single women were in the world until Millie started junior kindergarten.

  “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

  She nodded again. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you later, then.”

  “Right. Tonight.”

  She was almost gone before he realized that he needed to get his head out of his ass, and soon.

  “Brynn.”

  She turned back to him with an unreadable expression.

  “Thanks. I’m kind of—I don’t know. Blown away by this. But thanks for letting me know, and for, you know. Being someone Millie can trust.” He breathed in, forced himself to say what needed to be said. “And I’m sorry I was such a jerk last night.”

  She moved closer. Waiting, he knew. Waiting for him to give her the explanation she deserved, if not for his refusal to participate in the dance, then at least for his rudeness. He debated making some kind of easy excuse—lousy day, tired, coming down with a cold—but to his surprise, he didn’t want to do that.

  He wanted to tell her the truth.

  His brain fired off a thousand reasons why that was a stupid idea, starting with her being his sort-of employee and ending with the fact that she was already too damned wise for her own good. But then he looked at her. Really looked, and saw things he had never expected to see in her face. Hurt. Hope. Uncertainty.

  Had he ever seen Brynn look uncertain?

  “My ex called me yesterday and told me she’s being transferred to Ottawa for a couple months. Maybe permanently.”

  Brynn’s mouth sagged open the tiniest bit. “Oh.”

  “She wants to be closer to Millie,” he clarified, because for some reason it was important that she understand Heather wasn’t coming back to him. “It threw me for a loop and I took it out on you. That was stupid. I’m sorry.”

  “I... Wow. Okay. I see how that could do a number on you.”

  “This has happened before. Not the permanent part, but her being in Ottawa. It’s good for Mills, but at the same time it’s hard.”

  “I can believe it.”

  “I haven’t told Millie yet, so don’t say anything, okay?”