Father of Two

by Judith Arnold

  “The Body-Odor Maniac?” he asked.

  “One of Nola’s cases,” she managed, her voice as scratchy as an old seventy-eight record. “I found his file on my desk this morning, but I guess she’s going to continue handling his case.”

  “I didn’t see any file labeled ‘Body-Odor Maniac,” he said. She wondered if he realized how erotic his grin was.

  She could have told him the Body-Odor Maniac’s real name was Odell Josephson, but she was too emotionally frayed to explain. “There are a lot of things you don’t see,” she said, wishing he would get off her so she could regain her sanity. “There are a lot of things you don’t know.”

  He considered her words, then nodded and shoved against the chair, which careened across the room and banged into the far wall. She didn’t care, as long as he backed out of the well and freed her. “There are a lot of things I don’t know,” he agreed, standing, dusting his trousers off and then clasping her hands to ease her out of the well. “There are a couple of things I do know, though.” He flashed another devilish smile.

  “Nothing worth knowing.” She pushed to her feet, hastily pulled her hands from his, and straightened out her skirt, avoiding eye contact with him even though that meant directing her gaze to the jumble of papers still on the floor. She was regaining her sanity, all right—and her sanity informed her that his kiss was just the latest tactic in his attempt to keep her off-balance so she couldn’t negotiate effectively on Leo’s behalf. He would do whatever it took: sic his rowdy kids on her, goad her with clay and kiss her silly—just to destroy her chances of arranging a fair settlement for her client.

  Lawyers got disbarred for behavior like this, didn’t they?

  Well, no. But his actions clearly indicated that he didn’t think he could win by straight negotiation.

  That must be it. He didn’t think he could fight the case the right way, so he was going to use the weapons he had—his kids and his seductive wiles—to distract Gail from her responsibilities toward her client. He must be desperate. And what a joke! She was the last woman in the world to melt at the sight of his children, or the taste of his kiss.

  Except that she had melted, a little.

  But it wouldn’t happen again, she promised herself. He would never have another chance to melt her. For Leo Kopoluski’s sake—if not her own—she was never going to let Dennis Murphy kiss her again.

  Chapter Seven

  “I DON’T GET IT,” Tom Bland said over the speaker phone. His voice had the quality of stale beer—flat, tepid and flavorless. “Why do you need to know this?”

  Dennis sighed and closed his eyes. Why did he need to know every damn thing there was to know about Gail Saunders? Because he was obsessed with her, that was why. Because for a few torrid moments he’d held her in his arms. Because he’d felt her body beneath his, her breasts rising against his chest, her nipples swollen with arousal. Because he’d seen her eyes grow misty and heard her eager sighs, and smelled the faint raspberry scent of her. Because even now, four hours later, just remembering what it was like to kiss her made him hard.

  “Do you suspect her of something?” the private investigator asked.

  Dennis scowled at the speaker box. “I told you,” he said evenly, “she’s on the opposite side of a tricky law suit. I like to know everything I can about the opposing side’s attorney. So what else did you find out about her?”

  “Besides her educational background? She’s a native of Arlington. Her sister’s a preschool teacher in town.”

  “I know that.” Dennis closed his eyes again and recalled the two hours he’d spent with Gail in her sister’s preschool. He recalled the dot of clay on her full lower lip, the unexpected mischief in her eyes when she’d smashed her first attempt at a vase into his nose, and then her quick retreat, as if her own aggressiveness had shocked her. He recalled how reticent she’d been afterward, how much distance she’d maintained between them.

  Under her desk a few hours ago, she hadn’t maintained any distance. The lack of distance between him and her, between their mouths, between their hips... The memory made him sigh.

  “No husband. No ex-husband,” Tom reported. “No boyfriend for quite some time, if the courthouse scuttlebutt is true.”

  Dennis’s smile faltered. What was that comment she’d tossed off, about getting flowers from women? She’d only been joking, hadn’t she? “Is she a lesbian?” he asked.

  Tom, bless his heart, didn’t snicker or snort. “Does it matter?”

  “With this woman—this lawyer—everything matters.”

  “Well, again, this is just based on gossip among the courthouse cops and such, but no, she’s not a lesbian.”

  Dennis sank in his chair, overcome with relief.

  “Which isn’t to say she’s not a tough broad. She’s won some challenging cases for the P.D.’s office. Two acquittals for murder in the past three years. It’s not like we get all that many murder cases in Arlington,” Tom pointed out. “I think maybe the P.D. assigns them to her because she can handle them.”

  “Great,” Dennis muttered, pretending to be dismayed. Actually, he was delighted. He would hate to be going insane over a woman who wasn’t worthy, a woman who wasn’t the best lawyer in the P.D.’s office, a woman who didn’t go after the most challenging cases but instead wasted her talents on people like the Body-Odor Maniac. “What else?”

  “Well...” Tom hesitated. “Around police headquarters, she’s known as passionate to a fault.”

  “Yeah?” How could anyone—particularly a woman Dennis had every intention of bedding in the near future—be too passionate? Passionate to a fault sounded just about right to him.

  “Yeah. Like every perp is a noble cause to her. Every guy charged with a crime is automatically innocent in her eyes, and she’ll fight to the death for him. Or if he’s guilty, she’ll find a million mitigating factors to rationalize what he did. She’s a crusader. With a chip on her shoulder.”

  “That’s just attitude,” Dennis remarked. “It’s a mind set a good lawyer gets into when she’s got to defend the scum of the earth—which I believe would be an accurate description of her clients. She isn’t dealing with executives who might have played with the company’s books, or some righteous entity with deep pockets who’s stuck being the target of every nuisance suit that comes down the pike.” Like the Arlington Gazette, he thought, contemplating Gail’s current scum-of-the-earth client. “She doesn’t get to pick and choose. She’s obligated to take on whoever needs her representation. And if she’s going to fight for those losers, she’s got to keep a chip on her shoulder.” Not when she’s making love, though, he added silently. Then she can remove that chip—and everything else she’s wearing.

  “You sound like you admire her,” Tom hazarded.

  “I do admire her.”

  “But she’s your opponent in that Gazette libel suit. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Dennis winced. Had Tom detected infatuation in his voice? “It pays not to underestimate your opponent,” he said. “If I’m going to beat her in court, I’d better admire her. Admiration will make me work harder.” A buzz signaled that Velda was trying to reach him. He appreciated her timing; he really didn’t want to subject himself to more questioning from Tom. “I’ve got another call coming in.”

  “You want me to stay on this lady?”

  “Don’t make a career out of it,” Dennis told him. “But if you happen to hear anything about her, let me know.”

  “All right.” Tom hung up the phone.

  Dennis pressed another button on his console. “Murphy here,” he identified himself.

  “I’m sorry, Dennis,” Velda said, “but your son Sean is on the phone. He says it’s urgent.”

  Dennis smiled indulgently. He’d been running in overdrive ever since he’d left Gail’s office—filing a motion in an extortion case, then spending most of the afternoon taking a deposition in a product liability case. The deposition had ended ten minutes ago and his
office was empty, so he didn’t mind being interrupted by his children now. However urgent Sean’s business was, Dennis knew the new nanny was with the children, so it couldn’t be an emergency. Probably it was just some squabble that only a father could mediate.

  “Line two?” he asked Velda, glancing at the flashing light on his console.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got it.” He punched the button next to the light. “Hi, Sean. What’s up?”

  “Daddy?” Sean’s voice emerged through the speaker box. “We can’t find our iPods.”

  “Both iPods?” Dennis frowned. “Erin can’t find hers, either?”

  “Are you talking on the speaker phone, Daddy? You sound funny. Like you’re sitting inside a soup can.”

  “Yes, I’m on the speaker phone. Where was your iPod the last time you used it?”

  “I don’t remember, Daddy. I can’t find mine anywhere, and Erin can’t find hers, either. Erin?” he shouted away from the phone. “You can’t find yours, either, right?”

  “Hello, Daddy?” Erin’s voice chirped over the line on a separate phone extension. “This is Erin.”

  “I know.” Dennis heard a tap on his door, and then it cracked open. Velda entered, carrying a stack of papers for him to review. He beckoned her over to his desk, smiled and nodded as she left the papers on his desk. Idly, he leafed through them while his children’s voices squawked through the speaker box.

  “Daddy, neither of us can find our iPods. We looked everywhere,” Erin said.

  “We even looked in your room,” Sean reported. “We found this thing in one of your drawers—”

  “What thing?” He sat up straight, the documents forgotten. “What drawer?”

  “With your underwear. It had these elastic straps on it—”

  “Kind of like what you’d put on a dog’s face to keep him from biting,” Erin elaborated.

  “Like over his snout,” Sean explained. “Only it’s cloth.”

  “It’s white.”

  Dennis rolled his eyes. “That’s called a jock strap,” he said carefully. “And you guys have no business going through my drawers.” It could have been worse, he supposed. They could have snooped inside his night table drawer and found his supply of condoms.

  “A jock strap?” Erin asked. “What’s it for?”

  “You strap it on a jock,” Sean said knowingly. “You know? Like if you meet a soccer player, you strap it on him. Right, Daddy?”

  “Something like that.” Dennis hurried back to the previous subject. “Okay, so you can’t find your iPods?”

  “Also our Xbox,” Sean said.

  “Your Xbox, too? Well, they’re probably all together in one place. Your mom must have packed them all in one carton.”

  “Which one?” Erin asked. “We went through all the cartons.”

  “They could be in a carton and you just didn’t see them. Or maybe they’re in a carton we forgot to unpack.”

  “Daddy,” Erin clucked scornfully. “We unpacked every carton. You know that.”

  “You still have cartons in your bedroom with junk in them.”

  “We unpacked those,” Erin reminded him. “We just put stuff back in them.”

  “So, maybe you put the Xbox in one.”

  “Don’t be silly, Daddy!” Sean objected. “Why would we do that?”

  Why would they look for their iPods in his underwear drawer? he wondered. Why would they do any of the bizarre things they did? “Your mom’s going to phone you tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you ask her where she packed them?”

  “Can we call her now?” Erin asked. “Please, Daddy?”

  “Sure. I don’t know if she’ll be home—it’s three hours earlier in Seattle—but you can give her a try. Remember, it’s number one on the automatic dial.” He and his ex-wife had agreed that the children should feel free to telephone her whenever they wanted. Long-distance phone bills were not going to keep Dennis’s kids from their mother. As it turned out, she called them more often than they called her. Maybe she missed them more than they missed her.

  “Can we listen to your stereo?” Sean asked.

  Dennis considered. His sound system resembled the cockpit of the space shuttle, with buttons and dials and gauges so sophisticated that they measured sounds outside the range of human hearing. He wasn’t sure why he’d bought such a ponderous system, except that it had looked cool and he liked feeling like an astronaut when he put on a CD.

  He wasn’t sure he trusted the kids to fly that baby, though. “What did you want to listen to?” he asked.

  “Weird Al,” Erin said.

  “Green Day,” Sean said.

  “You own a Green Day CD?” Dennis scowled.

  “Well, Mr. Potato-Head had a CD,” Sean said. “He burned a copy of it for me so I could load it onto my iPod. But now our iPods are gone.”

  “I’m sure they’re somewhere,” Dennis said. “Why don’t you look around a little more? Ask Ms. Prescott to help you look for it.”

  “She doesn’t want to,” Erin told him. “She said if we’re done with our homework and can’t think of anything better to do, we can pick all the stuff up off the floor in our bedroom.”

  Dennis really liked this new nanny. “Why don’t you do that?” he suggested. “Maybe your iPods are underneath all the junk.”

  “Oh, right,” Sean snorted, his tone withering. “And our Xbox is gonna be there, too?”

  “You never know.” Dennis wouldn’t be surprised if a tribe of Pygmies lived under the clutter. “Listen, guys, I’ve got about a half-hour more work here, and then I’ll come home, all right?” He eyed the stack of documents Velda had left on his desk for him to review.

  “And then you’ll help us look for the iPods?” Erin asked.

  “Yes, I’ll help.”

  “Can you rent a video on your way home?” Sean asked.

  “It’s a school night. I’m not sure you’ll have time for a video tonight.”

  “But I have to see it. It’s required. Ms. Rackey said.” Ms. Rackey was Sean’s teacher.

  Sean sighed. Why did Sean always wait until the last minute? He’d had plenty of time to watch an assigned video over the weekend. “What movie?”

  “Pulp Fiction.”

  “Ms. Rackey told you you had to watch Pulp Fiction?” Dennis would have been furious, ready to sue the school—except that he didn’t believe his son.

  “Well, she kinda said...well, actually, it was Scott Warnick who said we had to see it. He said it was way cool.”

  “One of your classmates saw that? I can’t believe a second-grader would have seen that movie. It’s very violent.”

  “Well, he said his twenty-year-old cousin saw it, and it was wicked cool.”

  “And when you’re twenty years old, you can see it, too. Good-bye, guys. Let me finish my work.”

  He pressed the disconnect button before the twins could come up with anything else to bug him about. The pile on his desk was neat, the papers in order, notated with clear reminders from Velda listing due dates and filing dates for each sheet. He loved his children, he’d die for them, he’d kill for them—but it was awfully nice to have a little order in his life, and he found that order nowhere but in his office. Not at home, where two iPods and an Xbox could disappear within the flotsam and jetsam cast off by his two young children. Not at the courthouse, where so much of what occurred depended on the whims of a judge, the convolutions of the bureaucracy or the mood of the opposing attorney. And definitely not in his imagination, which had been taken hostage by a cool blond lawyer with a chip on one of her two graceful, lovely shoulders and a mouth that could sap a man of the ability to reason.

  What he was feeling toward Gail Saunders wasn’t the least bit orderly.

  ***

  “WE’RE GOING TO GET MESSAY AGAIN,” Molly announced Saturday morning.

  Gail had dressed to get messy, in a dark blue T-shirt and, given the unseasonably warm morning, a pair of faded denim shorts. But she s
till wasn’t thrilled. The last time she’d gotten messy, Murphy had brushed his thumb over her lip. And she still hadn’t recovered.

  The past three days of rain had failed to wash away her memories of what had occurred the last time she’d been with Murphy. Nothing could have made her forget the sensation of his weight upon her, his mouth bearing down on her. Kissing had never been a problem for her—but it had never been such a huge pleasure for her, either.

  She didn’t trust him. Or, more accurately, she didn’t trust herself with him. She much preferred knowing what was coming before it came, and knowing how she would react once it did come. When a man was going to kiss her, she neither expected nor wanted to get so caught up in it that she could lose track of where she was, who she was, and whose files she was lying on top of.

  If she lost track, she would not be able to win Leo’s libel suit. Murphy knew that—and that was why he’d kissed her.

  He was standing near Molly, eager and alert, as if he considered her every word a priceless jewel. Teacher’s pet, Gail thought churlishly. Maybe he’d made a bigger mess of himself than she did last week, but that didn’t mean he’d won the bet. Kissing up to Molly wasn’t going to win the bet, either. No matter how messy Molly wanted the students to get, Gail knew she’d win. Who, after all, had gotten Murphy’s daughter to gargle?

  Not Murphy.

  “But today,” Molly continued, “we’re going to apply last week’s lesson and get messy with our children. The point of last week’s lesson was that adults sometimes need to discard their inhibitions with children—at least, when it comes to things like getting your clothes dirty. Sometimes you have to think on a child’s level to really appreciate the child. So today, you’re going to appreciate your children. I’ve got art equipment set up the way I did last week—clay, finger paint, easels, glue—so you can work with your children on a craft project if you’d like. Or, if you’d like, you can go outside. We’ve finally got some sunshine. But don’t forget, it’s muddy out there.”