The Mommy Quest

by Lori Handeland

  Dean held out his hand for a quarter.

  “Piss isn’t a swear!”

  “It just sounds bad, Tim.”

  His lip jutted out. “’Kay, but I’m not payin’ this time.”

  He banged out of the house and ran hell-bent through the cornfield. Kid must really be worried about upsetting his gramma, and Dean couldn’t say that he blamed him.

  Not more than a minute later, a vehicle turned into Dean’s lane. He figured Brian, but he didn’t recognize the car. He did recognize the woman behind the wheel.

  June Renfrew from the ice-cream store. He didn’t think she was coming here to ask his favorite flavor, either. Or maybe she was.

  Dean winced. The woman had to be twenty-five years his senior.

  His gaze turned toward his parents’ farm. Tim was lucky he wasn’t within grabbing distance.

  STELLA STAYED LATE at school. After she watched part of the football game, she stopped by choir, then intramural volleyball, strolled through the halls and spoke with a few teachers, who’d also stayed late, then made some phone calls to parents who worked and could not be reached during the day.

  When she finished she walked to her apartment— a twice-daily trip she’d come to enjoy. On the way to school she went over her schedule, on her way home she thought about her day. She’d be disappointed when it became too cold to walk.

  Stella frowned as she turned onto Main Street. Where had that thought come from? She wasn’t going to be here when the snow flew. No way.

  She ran up the steps to her apartment—pleasantly tired from a job well done, rather than exhausted by a job that never ended—and unlocked the door. No matter how safe Gainsville was, she could not get out of the habit of locking everything.

  Over the past week Stella had begun to feel both calmer and stronger, at home in a place that had never been home before. When she walked to and from school, people greeted her on the street. Parents stopped her to discuss their children, and she knew which ones they meant. She didn’t have to go to her computer and look them up.

  The friendship she’d forged with Laura and Linda continued. They’d had dinner one night and they’d laughed and talked just as they had when they’d been at her house.

  She was putting down roots here; she was starting to fit in. While that thought should panic her enough to make her run all the way back to L.A., instead she felt…happy. Until she turned to shut the door and saw the shadow of a man lurking on the landing.

  Her gasp was sharp and cut through the silence like a blade through silk.

  “Stella?”

  Her father’s voice. So why didn’t she feel any less trapped?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Is that any way to greet your dad?”

  “Dad? Since when do you refer to yourself as Dad?” He sighed. “I come in peace.”

  “I doubt that,” she muttered, but she let him in. Stella had planned to call Dean as soon as she got home and check on Tim. The boy had bounced right back into the game, but she was still concerned. As any principal would be, she told herself, even though she knew it was a lie. She was fonder of Tim than any principal should be.

  Her father’s gaze drifted over the rented room, the rented furniture, the bare bookcase and the empty magazine rack. She hadn’t had time to personalize the place yet.

  He didn’t make a comment. Maybe he had come in peace.

  “I know why you left L.A.”

  Or not.

  Stella turned away from the kitchen table, which she used as a desk since she usually ate in front of the TV, and contemplated her father. “How?”

  “I called your boss. He was shocked you hadn’t told your family. Frankly, so am I.”

  “What good would telling you do?”

  “Knowing the truth made me understand why you came back here with your tail between your legs.”

  Stella’s head came up. “I did not.”

  He snorted. “You accepted a job that was beneath you and took up with a man who’s beneath you, too.”

  “I wish,” Stella murmured.

  “What?” Her father appeared to have swallowed a particularly sour lemon. Guess he’d understood her innuendo. Whoops.

  “I didn’t take up with anyone,” she said, “and I only accepted the job that you offered.”

  “Temporarily.”

  “Are you trying to say my tenure is up?”

  “No.” He appeared disgusted. “I’ve been asked to offer you the position permanently. Seems you’ve impressed everyone.”

  “Gee, don’t sound so happy about it.”

  “I’m not.”

  Stella sighed. “Father—”

  “If you want to stay in Gainsville, though I have no idea why, you could come and work for me at the bank.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’d be fun.”

  “It’s better than being a nose wiper.”

  “I haven’t wiped a nose since I got here.”

  “That’s beside the point.” He took a deep breath, then let it out in a rush. “I had such plans for you, Stella.”

  “I know,” she said. “But why?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? You’re my only child.”

  “I’m happy in education. Why can’t you accept that and be proud of me?”

  “Because you aren’t all that you can be. You were the best student Gainsville High ever had. You could have done anything.”

  He stared into the distance, as if seeing something far away, or perhaps long ago, and Stella understood. Why hadn’t she before? Perhaps because she was too busy being angry with him.

  “What did you want to be, Father?” she whispered. “Where did you want to go?”

  At first he didn’t answer, just continued to stare. Then he coughed, straightened and scowled. “I am what I’m supposed to be. I live where O’Connells have lived for generations.”

  She felt a tug of sympathy for her father, who had been trapped in a place he’d never fit, in a job he didn’t like. He’d wanted her to escape. Someone had to.

  But now she was back, like a bird to the cage. Stella didn’t feel that way, but she could see where he might.

  So, in reality, her father’s annoying habit of pushing her into a job she didn’t want and a life she didn’t need was his way of saying he loved her.

  She wished he’d just said he loved her.

  “Father,” she began. “Maybe you should try another line of work.”

  “What?” He stiffened. “I’m the president of the bank, Stella. There isn’t a better job in Gainsville.”

  “Maybe you could leave Gainsville.”

  He seemed genuinely puzzled. “How?”

  “You sell your house, pack your things and go.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  He fixed her with the glare that had always made her sit up straight, eat her peas, do all her homework, as well as every bit of extra credit. The only time she’d ever rebelled was with Dean. Which, now that she considered it, had given her the courage to go her own way ever since.

  “You can leave, Stella,” her father continued.

  And they were right back where they started.

  “I will. Eventually. Although…” Her voice drifted off as a new thought took root.

  “Although what?”

  “I may not go back to L.A.”

  “Good choice. More opportunities in New York.”

  “Opportunities for what?”

  Being lonely in a crowd.

  Seeing a psychiatrist three days a week.

  Getting mugged.

  “Anything,” he said. “You could be anything, Stella.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, for the first time feeling a sense of warmth, if not from him, at least for him.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, women showed up at Dean’s door with annoying regularity. He had no idea where Tim was finding them all.

  Young and not so young, tall, short, t
hin and not so thin, blond, brunette, redhead, there was even one with locks the shade of a Smurf. They came and asked Dean out, and his mother, curse her, was usually around to say, “Go ahead. Your father and I can watch Tim,” which made Dean think she was in on this somehow. Probably because she was.

  Tim had even managed to finagle a date with the nurse from his pediatrician’s office after Dean had taken him, against his mother’s advice, to have his ribs X-rayed. Just as Eleanor had predicted, Tim was fine. Only a bruise—albeit a nasty one.

  The nurse had shown up that same night in her white uniform—Dean hadn’t even realized they wore those anymore—with the little hat and everything.

  When Dean had pointed out that, for once, his parents weren’t around, and he couldn’t leave Tim to trot off to the bar—he’d been in more bars over the past fourteen days than he wanted to remember— Ms. Prinkle had drawn a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from her purse, which was somewhat frighteningly shaped like an old-fashioned physician’s bag.

  “Wanna play doctor?” she’d asked.

  He’d had a helluva time getting rid of her.

  When had Dean become irresistible, anyway? The last time he’d dated—albeit quite a while ago—not too many women had been interested. All of a sudden when Tim asked, they flocked.

  But really who could resist that face asking them, “Will you be my mommy?”

  Not many, it appeared. Otherwise Tim had managed to zero in on the ones who thought he was adorable. When paired with a father who owned a successful farm and wasn’t half bad looking, they either conveniently forgot Dean’s personality problems or figured time was a-wasting and they could live with them.

  In truth, now that Dean knew his attention problems and impulse-control issues were the result of adult ADHD and not stupidity, he felt better than he had in his life—or at least he had until the dating game had taken up residence on his porch.

  No matter how many times he told the kid to knock it off, the women kept coming. Dean had never been more miserable.

  “Crap-a-doodle,” he muttered into his coffee cup.

  “What doodle went crap?” Tim asked, slurping his way through a second bowl of cereal—half of which was scattered across the kitchen table.

  Dean rubbed his forehead. He’d been drinking soda on his nightly excursions, but amazingly, the cigarette smoke had started to bother him. He could still smell it in his hair and on his clothes.

  Now he understood why people always said there was no worse nonsmoker than a former smoker. The secondhand fumes made him feel more hungover than if he’d drank five whiskey sours.

  Someone knocked on the screen door. Dean groaned.

  “Wasn’t me,” Tim said without even glancing up.

  Why hadn’t the dogs barked? Must be his mother. None of them dared utter a sound in her presence. Except she never knocked.

  “Come in!” he shouted, and the screen door opened, then shut.

  The click of high heels on the hardwood floors made him frown. He sent an evil glare Tim’s way, but the kid was busy examining the scab in the shape of a shoe on his rib cage. Not only did he sport a dilly of a bruise, he also had a doozy of a scrape.

  A gasp from the doorway made Dean glance over so fast his neck cracked. He winced and wished he could curse.

  A strange woman with a briefcase stared in horror at Tim’s injury. “You kicked him!”

  “Did not,” Tim answered.

  Dean’s lips twitched. You’d think the kid had brothers.

  Angry black eyes met Dean’s. “I meant you.”

  “I don’t know who you are.” Dean stood. “But—”

  “Allison McCaferty, social services.”

  Tim let his shirt fall back over his stomach. “Uh-oh.”

  “You better believe it,” Ms. McCaferty said.

  For an instant Dean was paralyzed with uncertainty, then he forced himself to speak. “I don’t remember an appointment.”

  “Surprise visit,” Ms. McCaferty said. “We like those.”

  Dean glanced at Tim. The kid wasn’t afraid of much, but he was afraid of social services. His son didn’t look so hot.

  Dean set a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Why don’t you brush your teeth and get ready for school?”

  Like a zombie, Tim turned and left the room. “Would you like to sit, Ms. McCaferty?”

  She took a chair as far away from the Cheeriosand-milk explosion as she could. Dean stepped toward the sink, intending to clean up, then figured, why bother?

  He sat back in his seat. “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Dean stared at the woman. She was probably in her late twenties, though you’d never know it from her bland suit, sensible pumps and scraped-back hair-style. She was already getting lines around her mouth from frowning, and if she didn’t watch it, she’d have one between her eyes, too.

  “How did Tim sustain that bruise?” Ms. McCaferty clicked the catch on her briefcase and withdrew a folder.

  “Football. He fell on someone’s shoe.”

  She nodded and made a note inside the file. “There was a report of X-rays recently.”

  “For his ribs.” Dean scowled. “If you knew about that, you knew what happened.”

  She didn’t even look up. “It’s best if I ask you what happened.”

  “So you can see if I lied?”

  Now she lifted her gaze to his. “Did you?”

  “Ask Tim.”

  “I will.”

  How could such a young woman have such cold eyes?

  “You’ve been in the bars in town quite often of late. Is that a habit for you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why were you?”

  Dean considered the woman, then shrugged. “My son wants a mother. He’s been setting me up with anything in a skirt.”

  “He isn’t your son.”

  Dean let his own eyes cool. “He is in every way that matters.”

  She tried to hold his gaze, but she wasn’t quite that good yet. Dean had won showdowns with every one of his brothers. He might be hyper, but a staring contest? That just wasn’t a contest.

  “Why does Tim feel the need for a mother?” she asked.

  “Don’t all kids?”

  “Perhaps. But is he in need of a champion?”

  What was this woman talking about? She sounded as if she’d escaped from a nearby Renaissance Faire.

  “You mean someone to protect him? From what?”

  “You?”

  Dean clenched his hands. “Lady, you’re pressing your luck.”

  “Really?” She lifted her overly plucked brows. “Are you going to kick me in the ribs?”

  “Dad would never hurt me.”

  Tim stood in the doorway. “He isn’t your dad.”

  “He is, and he always will be. You can take me away, and all I’ll do is come back. Because I’m a Luchetti forevermore.”

  Tim grabbed his half-full cereal bowl from the table and upended it on Ms. McCaferty’s head. Then he ran outside, letting the screen door bang behind him.

  The social worker started at the sound, then calmly gathered her papers as milk and Cheerios ran down her face. “May I see the rest of the house?”

  “Um, sure.” Dean handed her a dish towel and went to chastise Tim.

  But his son had escaped through the cornfield and there was no way Dean was going to be able to talk to him unless he wanted to shout.

  Dean glanced at Ms. McCaferty, who was picking cereal out of her hair. Shouting was probably a bad idea. He’d deal with Tim later.

  He ushered the woman into the living room, wincing at the mess. “Sorry. I’ve been a little busy.”

  “I heard.” Ms. McCaferty stared down her nose at him.

  Dean gritted his teeth to keep any sarcastic comments to himself. “Uh, yeah. Well, these are the bedrooms.”

  “Tim has his own?”

  “Yes. It’s the one—”

  “With the Angel of Light sheets.” She made
a check in her file, then glanced up. “And yours?”

  “I prefer Scooby-Doo.”

  She didn’t smile; she didn’t even blink.

  “May I take a look?” Ms. McCaferty indicated Tim’s room with a nod.

  “Can I stop you?”

  “No.”

  What had happened to his vow of no sarcasm? It had lasted less than a minute. The woman bugged him.

  Dean wandered into the kitchen and began cleaning up while she did whatever it was she had to do in Tim’s room. A high-pitched shriek caused him to fumble, then drop a cup, which was, thankfully, empty and plastic.

  He’d taken one step toward the hall when Cubby shot past and banged out the screen door. “What the…?”

  Hadn’t the woman ever seen a dog before? Then Wilbur trotted through, nose in the air, tiny hooved feet going clippety-clop across the wood floor.

  Ms. McCaferty followed, scribbling in her folder.

  “So,” Dean said. “How’d I do?”

  TIM WAS SCARED. When the social workers came, the shit usually hit the fan. He knew he wasn’t supposed to say shit, but tough shit.

  He’d actually been behaving for a couple of weeks. Ms. O’Connell was doin’ okay as principal. After a few pointers from him, she’d gotten kind of good at it. Besides, he didn’t want his dad to figure out what he was up to before he got done being up to it.

  But today he wanted to see her. He was nervous; he was scared. He remembered how she’d taken care of him at football, and he wanted her to take care of him again.

  So Tim shot a spitball at the blackboard. The thing went splat, right next to Mrs. Neville’s head. Everyone laughed.

  Mrs. Neville didn’t even bother to turn around, just flicked the soppy paper off the board with a fingernail and said, “Office, Tim.”

  Man, that was so easy.

  Tim tore down the hall. As he got close to the front of the building, he heard a voice he’d heard before. “I’d like to see Principal O’Connell about Tim Luchetti.”

  The social worker was here! That couldn’t be good.

  What if she’d come to take him back? This was probably where she’d do it. Away from home, when the family wasn’t looking. Away from Dean, who’d never let him go. In a place with lots of people, where Tim couldn’t make a scene, though she obviously knew nothin’ about kids if she believed that.