Cowboy Baby Daddy

by Claire Adams

  I was tempted to call and grill her about what the girl had said, but a call came in, and I stashed my phone and ran to the truck to pull on my gear before we headed to a warehouse fire that occupied the rest of the evening. It was well after 10 when we pulled back into the station, and we were all worn out, dirty, and starving.

  I checked my phone, but there was no message from Emily, so I showered and changed before I went to help with dinner preparations.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Emily

  After leaving Blake a message about Nina, I drove over to his house to check and see if Nina might have returned home. Emma’s disclosure had made me wonder if Nina’s desire to live with her father had more to do with a boy than it did with Nina clashing with her mother. I thought back to my own high school days and how I yearned to get out of my parents’ house and away from my oppressive family, but when I compared my teen years to Nina’s, I couldn’t find a commonality between our situations.

  Nina had parents who loved and supported her, and despite the fact that Remy tended to be too strict and Blake too lenient, between the two of them, they seemed to be doing a good job of raising a healthy, happy teenager.

  I rang the doorbell and waited, and when no one answered, I walked around back to see if I could peek into the kitchen and see Nina. I knocked on the back door and, again, waited, but there was no answer there, either. I walked back around to the front of the house just as a large white sedan pulled into the driveway next to my car. A woman who looked like an older, more elegantly dressed version of Nina exited the car and started up the walk.

  “Who are you?” she asked, looking me up and down. She was so perfectly coiffed and elegant looking in a winter white suit that probably cost more than my entire month’s salary that I felt intimidated.

  “I’m Emily Fowler,” I said, after clearing my throat. “I’m Nina’s History teacher. You must be her mother.”

  “I am. Remy Gaston,” she sniffed, without offering her hand. “I expected someone more…teacher-like.”

  “Yes, well, you know what it’s like on a teacher’s salary,” I offered weakly.

  “No, I really don’t,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I was checking on the house for Blake,” I said, quickly trying to shift the subject away from Nina as I realized that Remy had no idea her daughter was missing, and I definitely didn’t want to be the one to break the news to her. “I stopped by to drop off some things for him.”

  “Is Blake dating a teacher?” Remy said, with a surprised look on her face. She laughed a little and then said, “Well, that’s a new one for him. Slumming it, again, I guess. He likes his women to be dependent on him, you know. How long has this been going on?”

  “We’ve been seeing each other for a few months,” I said, hesitating to give her any more ammunition. I could feel my heart beginning to speed up as she continued to stare at me as if I were some exotic animal in a zoo.

  “Huh, that’s interesting,” she said, looking up at the house. “Neither he nor Nina have mentioned it to me. I guess it’s not that important to either of them, is it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said through clenched teeth. Remy’s way of using manners to cover her venomous intentions reminded me of my mother, and it raised my ire. “But we did spend Valentine’s Day at a Celtics game, thanks to his dad.”

  “Alan gave you tickets to a basketball game?” she said with a furrowed brow. “He’s a notorious cheapskate. He must have a thing for cute little teachers.”

  “Yes, he gave me his season tickets,” I said, twisting the knife a little deeper now that I knew where her weak spot was. “I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Blake and his family. They’re such great people.”

  “Are you sure we’re talking about the same people?” she laughed. “The stingy, judgmental Alan and Ellie Gaston?”

  “I wouldn’t know that side of them,” I said, wondering how Remy could have seen them as anything but kind and generous.

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she smiled, then quickly changed the subject. “So, where are Nina and Blake?”

  “Not home, I guess,” I said, without commenting further. If Remy didn’t know what was going on, I wasn’t going to tell her anything, but I was going to warn Blake. “I need to get going. It was nice to meet you, Remy.”

  “Nice to meet you, too, Ella,” she said, as she pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen before punching a few numbers and turning her back on me.

  “No wonder your daughter doesn’t want to live with you,” I muttered once I was safely enclosed in my car. “You are a snob, Remy Gaston.”

  I stopped at the store to pick up a few things for dinner and another bag of cat food for Howard before driving home. In the parking lot of the grocery store, I quickly texted Blake to warn him that Remy was back in town and looking for him and Nina. I waited a few minutes to see if he’d respond, and then went in and did my shopping. It was well into the dinner hour when I returned home and started cooking.

  Howard hopped up onto the counter as I chopped onions and stared at my hands as I cut the crisp white rings. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I chopped, and I kept up a constant stream of chatter telling Howard all about my day. He gave me the same detached look that he always did when it was close to his meal time, but he didn’t hop off the counter.

  “I tell you, that woman is a menace,” I said, as I added the onions to the pan on the stove and listened to them hiss as they hit the hot oil. “She tells me that I don’t look like a teacher. Can you believe that? What the hell is a teacher supposed to look like?”

  Howard blinked twice and then shifted his gaze to the window over the sink as I began chopping the peppers and garlic. Soon the smells of sautéed vegetables permeated the kitchen, and as I added the crushed tomatoes, I concluded that Blake had left Remy because she was such a pretentious social climber.

  As the thick, rich sauce simmered, I put the water for the noodles on the stove to boil. When they were ready, I served Howard his dinner and dished up a plate of spaghetti for myself. We ate in companionable silence at the counter as I thought about what other avenues I could take to help find Nina.

  “Where do you think a teenager would go in this town, Howard?” I said out loud, as I cleaned up the dishes after dinner. Howard hopped down off the counter and meandered toward me. When he reached me, he rubbed against my legs as he mewed until I reached down and picked him up and cuddled him. He purred loudly as I rubbed my cheek against his head and said, “You still haven’t answered my question, buddy.”

  A head butt was his only response.

  After I’d cleaned up the kitchen, Howard and I curled up on the couch to watch a movie. By the 10-minute mark, Howard was sound asleep in my lap, and not soon after, I followed him to dreamland.

  I was jolted out of my sleep by the sound of Howard mewing and scratching at the back door. Confused, I reached for my phone and saw it was well past midnight, and from the sound of Howard’s meows, it sounded like there was someone at the back door.

  I grabbed the iron poker from the fireplace stand and slowly approached the back door. The lights were off, so I couldn’t see who was standing there, but as I watched, I saw a shadow shift and all of my senses went into to overdrive.

  “Howard,” I whispered. “Get away from that door!”

  He ignored me as he scratched on the door and mewed even louder. I heard a light tapping, and then a voice said, “Emily, are you there?”

  “Who is it?” I called, holding the poker like a baseball bat as I approached the door.

  “It’s me, Nina,” the voice said.

  “Nina?” I yelled, as I dropped the weapon, unlocked the door and yanked it open. I shouted, “Where have you been, young lady? We’ve been worried sick about you!”

  Nina took one look at me and then brought her hands up to cover her face as she began to cry. I quickly grabbed her and pulled her to me, wrapping my arms arou
nd her as I rocked her back and forth whispering, “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. You’re all right now.”

  I pulled Nina into the house and led her to the living room couch, where I sat holding her as she sobbed. Once the storm had subsided a bit, I handed her a box of tissues and went to make her a cup of tea. When I brought the steaming mug back to the living room, Nina was sitting cross-legged at the end of the couch, holding my fat ginger cat in her lap as she wiped her eyes.

  “You want to tell me what happened?” I asked, as I handed her the mug.

  “I got mad at Mom and Dad,” she said, as she stared down into her cup. “They are so angry with each other that they don’t even see me anymore.”

  “But your dad said he was going to talk to your mom about the living arrangements when she got back,” I said, reminding her that I’d been there during the discussion, but trying not to sound accusatory.

  “But he always says that, and then he never does,” she sighed. “Or Mom never listens.”

  “So you decided to teach them a lesson?” I asked.

  “I just want them to listen to me!” Nina cried. “They never listen! I thought if I wasn’t here, maybe they’d…”

  “Realize that they weren’t listening to what you want?”

  “Yeah,” she sniffed, as fresh tears began to flow. “I wanted them to miss me.”

  “Oh, they did,” I said shaking my head. “They were worried sick about you.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Nina muttered. “My dad probably got really pissed, and my mom probably blamed him for everything.”

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her how right she was about at least half of the scenario. I didn’t want to tell her that her mother didn’t know she’d been missing.

  “So, where were you?” I probed. I wanted to know where she’d been, but I knew if I pushed too hard, she’d retreat into silence.

  “With friends,” she replied, without elaborating.

  “You were safe?” I asked, remembering what the girls at school had said about Nina and a college boy.

  “I was fine,” she said cutting off further questions with her terse reply.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked, steering the conversation clear of anything having to do with her disappearance. “I made spaghetti for dinner, and there’s plenty of leftovers.”

  “I’m starving,” she said quietly. I nodded and went to the kitchen to make her a plate. When I brought it back, she ate it so quickly I wondered if she’d eaten while she was missing. I brought her a second plate, and this time she ate a little slower.

  “Nina, you know I need to call your dad and let him know you’re safe, don’t you?” I said gently.

  “Do you have to?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I really do,” I nodded.

  “Couldn’t you wait a little longer?” she pleaded. I wavered as I thought about my struggles with my own parents and how I’d wished someone would have cut me a little slack when things had been rough. I wrestled with the fact that Blake was worried sick, but I also felt sympathy for Nina and her desire to have a few more hours of imagined freedom from her parents. In my heart, I knew I was wrong, but my anger at Remy’s veiled insults outweighed my rational thought.

  “Fine, I’ll wait until morning, but you’ve got to spend the night here,” I said, as I took her plate to the kitchen and then went to set up the spare bedroom. I called from the other room, “But first thing in the morning you have got to call your dad and tell him that you’re safe.”

  “I will, I promise,” Nina replied.

  I got Nina settled in my bedroom and went to lock up the house for the night. Howard sat in the doorway of the kitchen staring up at me with wide eyes.

  “What?” I said, as I flipped the switch and cut off the kitchen lights. “Don’t you dare judge me, Howard.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then stood up and moved stealthily toward the room where Nina was bedded down, swishing his tail with every step. For a moment, I wondered if it was an ominous sign of things to come, but decided that it was simply my fickle cat’s way of comforting our guest.

  I sighed as I turned off the living room lights and checked the front door before heading to KO’s room. In the morning, we’d call Blake and let him know Nina was home.

  I crossed my fingers and hoped that he’d understand my decision.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Blake

  After the first call, we’d run four more calls and put out three fires. Having spent the previous night searching for Nina, I was exhausted. So, I was sound asleep in the bunkroom when Tony shook me awake. It was early morning and still dark out, so I assumed we had a call and quickly jumped out of bed and followed him toward the garage. Halfway there, it struck me that the station was quiet and no alarms were going off.

  “Tony, what the hell—” I said, as I rounded the corner and saw Remy standing in the kitchen crying as two of the guys tried to console her. When she looked up and saw me, her whole demeanor changed.

  “Blake Gaston, where in the HELL IS MY DAUGHTER!” she screamed, as she rushed toward me, swinging her fists. Two of the guys caught her before she could connect with my body. They held her back as I moved out of range. Remy continued screaming, “Let go of me, you idiots! I’m going to kill him!”

  “Remy, calm down,” I said, knowing that never in the history of calming anyone down had that phrase worked. “Listen to me.”

  “I swear to God, I’m going to petition the court and get sole custody of Nina, you son of a bitch,” she growled, as she dropped her fists and stood clenching them at her sides.

  “Remy, I have done everything possible to try and find Nina,” I said. “She disappeared last night, and I wanted to call you, but I didn’t think it would do any good to worry you before you got home.”

  “So you thought me finding out about my daughter going missing would be better relayed by a call from the police?” she cried. “You’re such a bastard! WHERE IS NINA?”

  “I don’t know, but everyone on the police force is looking for her,” I sighed, rubbing my chin with my hand as I tried to think of a way to explain things to my crazed ex-wife. “I searched everywhere for her before I came into work. I checked every hangout and every place the kids hanging out in those places told me about, but Nina doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Oh well, that’s just great, Super Dad,” she said in a caustic tone. “So, you thought coming to work and sleeping soundly would make her magically reappear?”

  “We’ve been fighting fires all shift, Remy,” I said wearily. “I spent last night searching for our daughter before I came to work. I couldn’t stay awake any longer.”

  “That’s just like you,” she spat. “You always could sleep soundly even when things were going to hell in a handbasket.”

  “That’s not fair, Remy,” I protested.

  “Not fair? You’re suddenly worried about not fair?” she laughed. “You go on a date with your new girlfriend, and our daughter goes missing, and now you’re accusing me of being unfair?”

  “Yes, I went to the Celtics game with Emily, and during the five hours I was gone, Nina went—” I began, then stopped. “Why in the hell am I justifying anything to you? You picked up and went off on some fly-by-night business trip with your latest boyfriend, and you’re accusing me of being irresponsible? I’d suggest you look in the mirror, lady.”

  Remy’s enraged scream reverberated through the station as she swung at me again screaming, “How dare you accuse me of being irresponsible! I’m working 70 hours a week to make sure there’s money in the college fund so our daughter won’t be saddled with unending debt for her education! What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m working my ass off to pay for all of the things she needs now,” I yelled, as I shook off the guys who were holding my arms and walked toward Remy. “I’m sick and tired of your judgmental attitude, Remy! You know I would move heaven and earth to get Nina anything and everything she needs. So, get down o
ff your high horse and do something to help me find our girl!”

  Remy stared at me for a moment, and then sunk into one of the kitchen chairs as she began sobbing.

  “Where is she, Blake?” she cried, as she looked up at me. “What if she’s hurt? Or worse?”

  I knelt down next to the chair and put my arms around my ex-wife. I could feel her shaking as she cried harder. I patted her back and whispered, “Shh, shh, she’s fine, Remy. Nina’s fine. We’ll find her. I promise.”

  “But…but…but what if you don’t,” Remy choked.

  “We will,” I said, projecting a confidence that I didn’t entirely feel. I hoped I was right and that we’d find Nina safe and sound because if we didn’t, I wasn’t sure how Remy would hand it.

  Or how I would.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Emily

  The next morning, I woke up and found Nina sitting on the living room couch, wrapped in a thick quilt with Howard in her lap as she tapped out messages on her phone.

  “You need to call your dad,” I said on my way to the kitchen to make coffee. “Now, Nina.”

  “Do I have to?” she whined, as she put the phone down and followed me. She perched on a stool as Howard jumped up beside her and began head butting her to get her attention. Nina giggled and began petting him.

  “Yes, young lady, you most certainly do,” I said. “He’s worried about you, and you need to tell him you’re safe.”

  “But he’s going to be so mad at me,” she whined.

  “You should have thought about that before you disappeared,” I said, a little more sternly than I’d intended. I wasn’t sure how to handle this, and I definitely didn’t want to give her a reason to run again, but I felt strongly about the fact that she needed to call her father and I wasn’t going to back down.