Father of Two

by Judith Arnold

  For some reason, the room seemed more crowded now than when Erin had been in it. The air was uncomfortably warm, almost as steamy as if someone had just taken a long, scalding shower with the door shut. Gail was too close to Murphy. If she stepped back she would trip over the toilet, and he blocked her path to the door. So she stood where she was, surrounded by shiny white and green tiles and plumbing fixtures. She braced herself against the marble counter and stared into his face, just inches from hers.

  His countenance was a map of anger, from the line creasing the bridge of his nose to the sharp curve of his mouth, to the metallic chill of his eyes. But beyond being angry, she was also keenly aware that he was very...male. Very present. Large and looming and solid.

  “You would think,” she said in a low, level voice, “that losing a tooth wouldn’t be such a big deal.”

  “Erin likes to dramatize things.” His voice was taut but muted, too.

  “You shouldn’t let her. So she lost a tooth. Tell her to get over it.”

  He was so close she could feel his breath on her upper lip. So close, she could see a multitude of light in his eyes, silver and gray, enclosed within a ring of black. So close his five o’clock shadow clarified into pale brown hairs along his jaw.

  So close, she would barely have to lift her hand to brush her fingertips over the stubble, barely have to tilt her head to reach her mouth with his.

  Where had that idea come from? she thought, startled and chagrined. She didn’t want to kiss him. She didn’t even like him! In fact, she wanted nothing more than for him to wrest a nice, fat check out of the Arlington Gazette and pass it along to her, and then she would gladly forget he existed.

  “That’s my daughter you’re talking about,” he murmured, his voice oddly husky, as if he’d just become aware of her nearness.

  “And you’re her father. If you want her to gargle, tell her to gargle.”

  “You don’t have children. You can’t begin to know—”

  “You need help with them, Murphy. Admit it.”

  “Damned straight I need help with them.” Why didn’t he take a step backward? she wondered. Why did he seem to be leaning slightly toward her, looming over her? Why did that ridiculous thought about the proximity of his mouth suddenly flit through her brain again? “I need a nanny who doesn’t take off on a whim in the middle of the afternoon,” he said.

  It was an extremely sexy mouth, she thought. She had never really paid much attention to men’s mouths before, but maybe that was because she’d never before seen a mouth like Murphy’s up close and personal. “You need more than a nanny, Murphy. Your daughter is walking all over you.”

  “She’s—”

  “She’s apparently smarter than you. And the boy, too. There’s two of them and one of you. You’re outnumbered and you’re losing.”

  He was achingly close, unbearably close, so godawful close she could no longer see the gleaming tiles and the shower curtain. She could see only this tall, lean, long-legged, short-tempered man with a phenomenal mouth and eyes that could go from colder than an Arctic floe to hotter than the earth’s core in a blink.

  “This is none of your business,” he said.

  It took her a minute to recall what business they’d been discussing. The children. That was it—Murphy’s children. “You made it my business when you brought me here.”

  “I brought you here to work.”

  “And we’ve sure done a lot of that.” Her heart was thumping. She wondered if he could hear it, if the rapid drumbeat of it was echoing against the cold, hard surfaces of the room.

  He closed his eyes, as if maybe he did hear it. When he looked at her again, he seemed resolute, and far more composed than she felt. “We’ll get this libel case straightened out, Gail. All I need to do is get a dependable nanny over here, and then we’ll hash out a settlement for your guy.”

  “You need more than a dependable nanny,” Gail argued, not sure whether she was goading him or commiserating.

  “Do I?” The heat in his gaze almost undid her. “What do I need?”

  She knew what she needed—to break the tension, to develop an immunity to his insufferable handsomeness, to remember that he was a divorced father of a couple of obnoxious children. “For starters, you need the Daddy School,” she suggested.

  His eyes lost a little of their sparkle as he frowned. “The what?”

  “The Daddy School. It’s a program my sister and her best friend run.” Thinking about Molly helped to restore Gail’s equilibrium. Molly was the one who loved men with children, after all. Molly was the one who would have gotten Murphy’s daughter not only to wash out her mouth but to donate her Tooth Fairy money to a deserving charity. Molly would have organized the twins to mop the floor—and then to sponge down the counters and get dinner into the oven while Murphy and Gail hammered out a settlement in his home office.

  Molly was the one who could make things right in Murphy’s home. Not Gail.

  “The Daddy School?” he repeated.

  “It’s a series of classes for inept fathers. Judging by the growth in enrollment since it started last June, there are a whole lot of you.” She stared straight up into his eyes, daring him to deny her criticism.

  “How can you imply I’m inept? I’m one of the eptest people I know.” She saw a hint of a dimple in his cheek, a hint of a smile touching his mouth. “Tell me more about this Daddy School.”

  “My sister runs the Children’s Garden Preschool here in town, and on Saturdays she holds classes teaching fathers how to be fathers. Her best friend is a neonatal nurse at Arlington Memorial Hospital. She leads the classes for fathers-to-be and fathers of newborns.”

  “I don’t need a class to teach me how to be a father,” he said, leaning toward her again, just when she began to feel safe. The vanity bulbs framing the mirror above the sink made his hair shimmer. “I’m a damned good father.”

  “I’m sure if I asked your children, they’d say you were the best father in Arlington. But as witnesses, they’re less than reliable.”

  “And you’re an expert?”

  She shook her head, then stopped, afraid her hair might accidentally brush his chin. “I will readily admit I’m not an expert. I don’t like kids. That’s why I don’t mind hurting their feelings by ordering them to drink water if that’s what they need to do. I don’t care if I win points with them. I just want them to do what they’re supposed to do.”

  “Even if they drown trying.” She didn’t see him move, but more space seemed to open between them. She wondered if she’d been imagining his nearness. “You need this Daddy School more than I do, Gail.”

  “Why do I need it? I’m not anyone’s dad.”

  “Your loss.” He flashed her an inexplicably triumphant grin and turned away. “You’d probably flunk, anyway,” he added under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.

  “I’d flunk? Daddy School? Not quite.” Nobody accused Gail of failure and got away with it.

  He dried his hands on a towel, then started toward the door. “Yes, quite. You probably wouldn’t survive one class.”

  “The hell I wouldn’t.”

  He spun back to her. “You think you know kids better than I do? You think I need to be taught how to be a father? I’d ace your sister’s class long before you even figured out the first lesson.”

  “In your dreams, Murphy.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Something was going on here, something strange and a little scary. Something that electrified her, something that challenged her in a way she wasn’t challenged by defending teen-aged drug couriers and Russian immigrants who ran out of money and got caught stealing calculators for food money. “Do I want to bet what?” she asked carefully.

  “I’ll bet you Leo Kopoluski’s settlement I can do better in the Daddy School than you.”

  “You’re insane,” she said, wondering why she felt apprehensive about entering such a competition with him. “For one thing, the Daddy School d
oesn’t give report cards.”

  “I’ll still do better than you. We’ll ask the teacher to judge which of us is a better student.”

  “The teacher is my sister.”

  “I’m still willing to bet I’d do better than you.”

  “And I haven’t got a million dollars to wager with.”

  “Afraid you’ll lose?”

  His gaze was so steady, so cock-sure, she wanted to smack him. “This whole idea is unbelievably stupid. I’m not a daddy. The school isn’t designed for people like me.”

  Murphy started to cluck like a chicken.

  Dear lord. She wasn’t used to dealing with lawyers like Murphy. In the Public Defenders office, the cases she worked on brought her to court to defend criminals against lawyers from the D.A.’s office, who tended to be even less colorful than the lawyers in the P.D.’s office. Never before in the course of her work had she met a lawyer who clucked.

  “You’re calling me chicken,” she guessed.

  “Ah, so you’re not as dense as I thought. What do you say, chicken? Do we have a bet?”

  “I’m not betting Leo’s future,” she said. “If I win—when I win—that settlement money’s his.”

  “Then let’s bet your future. I’ll bet you one evening of your life that I’ll do better in the Daddy School than you will.”

  “And if I win?”

  “You get one evening of my life.”

  “To do what with?”

  He chuckled, and his gaze made her belly clench. “Anything you want,” he murmured.

  Despite that tension in her abdomen, and the sudden flutter of her heart, she leveled a cool stare at him. “Good. My windows need caulking. I hope you know how to caulk.”

  “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” His smile grew naughtier. “It’s irrelevant, though. I’m going to win. And my windows don’t need caulking, so I’ll have to think of something else to do with you.”

  She wouldn’t let him win. She couldn’t let him win. The last thing she wanted in her life was an evening with Dennis Murphy. The last thing she needed was what she was seeing in his eyes as he gazed at her across the small, stuffy bathroom. The last thing she yearned for was the hot threat in his grin, his posture, the ridge of his knuckles, the tantalizing shadow of his dimple.

  “Bet?” he asked.

  “Bet,” she said, knowing she’d have to win. More than Leo’s litigation was at stake. More than Gail’s ego. Far more than one evening of her life.

  She would simply have to win. No other outcome would do.

  ***

  “GAIL!” Molly gaped at her sister, her hands full of wet silverware destined for the dishwasher. “What are you, crazy?”

  “I just didn’t like his attitude, okay?” Gail defended herself. She heard a rattle below her, then felt a thump as Molly’s step-son raced a toy car into her foot. “Ouch, Mike. Be careful, would you?” she scolded, propping her feet up on one of the other chairs.

  “It’s a fast car,” Mike rationalized, as if he’d had nothing to do with the collision. “It goes very, very fast. It’s got ’leven gears.”

  “Eleven gears, huh.” She studied the boy as he gathered his fleet of vehicles from the kitchen floor and trotted in the direction of the den.

  “Don’t bother Daddy,” Molly hollered after him. “He’s working.”

  Gail eyed the clock above the sink. John had eaten dinner with them but excused himself without waiting for dessert. “Why is he working at seven-thirty on a Friday night?” Gail asked.

  “He has to testify in court on Monday. It’s an old case. The D.A. asked him to refresh his memory.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Gail said, recalling the time she’d tried to pick John apart on the witness stand during a murder trial a few months ago. He’d been an awfully strong witness for the prosecution, a fact about which he’d teased her several times since he’d married her sister. “Now tell me some more about the maid-of-honor dress you’ll be wearing for Allison’s wedding,” she requested, eager to change the subject.

  Molly changed it right back. “Forget about the dress,” she said as she dried her hands on a dish towel. “I still don’t understand what this guy said to you to make you want to attend the Daddy School.”

  “I don’t want to attend the Daddy School,” Gail argued, pushing around the cookie crumbs scattered across the table in front of Michael’s seat. “It was just a way to get him to sign up. He was so incompetent with his kids. Without some sound instruction from you, his kids are doomed. I was doing a good deed, trying to get him to take your classes.”

  “Okay, so he needs the classes,” Molly said, frowning in bemusement. “I still don’t get how you fit into it.”

  “I told you. He dared me. He made a bet he’d do better in the class than I would.”

  “He probably will,” Molly agreed with a wry laugh. “You aren’t exactly a natural when it comes to children.”

  “All right, then—here’s an idea. You can make some sort of rule that female students aren’t allowed in the Daddy School. Then I won’t be able to attend classes, and the bet will be off.”

  “What’s at stake?” Molly asked, crossing the room and sitting across from her sister at the table. “How much did you wager?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gail mumbled. Whenever she thought about the stakes, she got embarrassed. The prospect of having a conceited, good-looking son-of-a-bitch like Murphy caulking her windows held a certain appeal, but if she did win the bet—which, as Molly had pointed out, was certainly not a given—watching Murphy wield a caulking gun wasn’t the way she’d want to spend an evening of his life.

  She reminded herself firmly that she didn’t want to spend an evening of his life any other way, either. She wasn’t a romantic; she had no great urge to welcome a man into her life, or into her bed. It wasn’t that she had anything against men in general. But sex didn’t agree with her. Her first experience was a nightmare, a horror so devastating that although she’d given the act a few subsequent tries, the bad memories remained, overwhelming what little pleasure there was to be had.

  Nothing would erase those memories. The scars were permanent. And while she didn’t hold the entire male half of the species responsible for the actions of one monster, she knew herself. She knew what she needed, what she wanted—and what she would be better off without.

  Yet standing with Dennis Murphy in the close confines of his bathroom, aware of him in a way that transcended the libel suit, his wealth, his bratty children and her own protective caution when it came to men... For some reason, she was left thinking that maybe what she needed and what she wanted weren’t all that far from what she would be better off without.

  She was going to have to win her damned Daddy School bet with him. Because if she didn’t, if she had to give him an evening of her life...

  She didn’t even want to consider what might happen.

  Chapter Five

  A LIGHT DRIZZLE washed the air as Dennis steered the Infiniti into the parking lot of the Children’s Garden Preschool. The dampness made the grass bordering the lot look a brighter green, the daffodils a brighter yellow, as if someone had colored in the landscape with a box of crayons. Even the asphalt of the lot looked blacker, shiny from the morning precipitation.

  He spotted Gail Saunders’s drab, aging Volvo and parked in the empty space next to it.

  “This is dumb,” Erin grumbled from the back seat. “It’s Saturday. Why do we have to go to school on a Saturday?”

  Because I want to teach a certain pompous woman a lesson, he wanted to say. “Because I thought I might learn something from it. The school part of it is just for grown-ups. You guys are going to have fun.”

  “Are there gonna be other kids here?”

  “Look at the sign,” Dennis said, yanking the parking brake lever and gesturing toward the rainbow-hued sign above the door. “What does it say?”

  “Children’s Garden.”

  “Will we be planting stuff?”
Sean asked. “I wanna plant horseradish. And leeks. Leeks always makes me think of peeing.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Erin chided her brother. “Daddy, I think your apartment should have a garden. We could put some dirt in the living room. We never use that room, anyway. We should put a garden there.”

  “I wanna plant ragweed,” Sean remarked. “It makes me think of torn clothes.”

  “Just get out of the car,” Dennis ordered them. “Nobody’s putting any dirt in my living room.” He peered discreetly through the Volvo’s windshield. Gail Saunder’s car might be old, and it certainly had none of the bells and whistles, but it was enviably clean. The floor mats appeared to have been recently vacuumed, and there were no tell-tale fast-food wrappers, broken toy pieces or clods of dry mud on the floor. No spills, no stains. She didn’t have kids, after all. She hated them.

  Dennis grinned. He’d thought she was smart, but she hadn’t been smart enough to resist a sucker bet. He was going to win this particular competition and get his evening with her; he was going to excel in the Daddy School and blow her out of the water.

  Maybe his kids were a little cheeky, but no way did Gail know more about parenting than he did. Even before his ex-wife had ceded full custody to him, he’d been actively involved in the twins’ lives. He’d helped to nurse them through the chicken pox. He’d taken them out to dinner at restaurants and taught them which fork was which, even though they’d considered such knowledge irrelevant to their lives. He’d gone to their soccer games and attended all manner of school festivals: Ghana Day, when they’d wrapped themselves in strips of muslin, carried sticks adorned with feathers and chanted Ghanaian songs with eighty other first graders; Viking Day, when Erin had worn a helmet with horns sticking out the sides and Sean had gotten to row a mock-up of Leif Ericson’s ship; Lincoln Day, when Sean had starred in a skit which managed to cover the highlights of Lincoln’s life in ten minutes and concluded with a death scene at the Ford Theater in which Sean, portraying Lincoln, had swooped and swirled and clutched at his chest until his sister, ever the critic, had shouted out, “He got shot in the head, you dummy!”