Desperately Seeking Daddy

by Arlene James

  She winced inwardly even as she wished a regular customer good luck on the lottery ticket he had just purchased and turned to quirk a brow at the big, good-looking fellow who’d been blatantly staring at her from the moment he’d entered the store. He smiled, holding her gaze, and she barely resisted the urge to thin her lips in a gesture of disdain. The last thing she needed just now was a flirt. She kept her manner brisk.

  “What can I do for you?”

  He leaned forward slightly as if fearing that she couldn’t hear him from that great height. “My name’s Jackson Tyler.”

  As if she cared. With neither the time nor the inclination to chat, she turned her back on him and started ringing up cigarettes, sodas and snacks for three women and a mob of kids.

  He cleared his throat and said from behind her, “I’m, uh, the elementary school principal.”

  “That so?” She counted six sodas at sixty-five and one on sale at forty. Make that two. She jerked her head at one of the mothers. “The little one in back there is about to drop her drink.” The little girl screeched like a banshee when her anxious mother rescued it from her too-small hands. No one paid her the least mind. Anyone with experience with a kid that age knew that most of them were banshees.

  “The thing is,” Jackson Tyler was saying in his deep voice, “I need a moment of your time.”

  “Don’t have a moment,” she said over her shoulder, whipping open a sack and dropping packets of cigarettes and candy bars into it. “Is that everything, ladies?” Receiving a nod in the affirmative, she gave the women their total and continued sacking while a whispered conference took place, bills and coins trading back and forth.

  “You are Hellen Moore, aren’t you?”

  He was persistent, she’d give him that. “Hellen? No.” She shook out another brown paper bag and began carefully setting cold drinks inside.

  “Oh.” He sounded disappointed and puzzled. “Well, do you happen to know where I might find her?”

  “Couldn’t say. Who gets the receipt and the change? Watch the bottom of that bag. Those bottled drinks sweat right through them in no time.”

  She turned back to the big man, her gaze flicking over him in the seconds that it took those three mothers to start their brood toward the door. She was almost sorry that she couldn’t spare the time for a little banter. He looked like a pleasant sort, prosperous, cool and neat in soft tan slacks and a green-and-white-checked shirt with short sleeves and a button-down collar. His straight, golden blond hair had been parted just so, but was too fine and thick not to fall over his forehead. Soft hazel eyes were set beneath straight, thick brows the same bronze brown as the neatly trimmed mustache. He had a full upper lip and balanced features too large for any other face, any face without those brick jaws and that square, jutting chin. Ah well. No help for it.

  “I’m kinda busy here,” she said bluntly. “Want to move along?”

  He flattened enormous hands on the countertop and expelled a breath. “This is important. I was told that I could find Mrs. Moore here.”

  She folded her arms, wondering if she was going to regret this. “I’m Mrs. Moore.”

  “Cody’s mother?”

  She was definitely going to regret this. “That’s right.”

  “Isn’t your name Hellen?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The name is Heller, all right? H-E-L-L-E-R. Now spit it out, bud, or disappear. I’m working here.”

  “Yeah, she’s working here,” put in a wise guy from the other side of the counter.

  She shot him a deadly look. “Put a clamp on it, youngster, and I’m going to need ID on the beer.”

  “Uh, I must’ve left it in my other pants.”

  “Yeah, right, and I’m a fairy princess, which makes you the toad. Better luck next time, and put it back in the cooler where you got it.”

  He stomped off in disgust, sixteen if he was a day. She shook her head. Kids.

  “Maybe you didn’t understand me the first time,” the big guy said. “I’m the principal at your son, Cody’s, school. Name’s Jack Tyler.”

  For the first time, his urgency touched her. “Something up with Cody? School’s out, for pity’s sake. What could be wrong?”

  He looked distinctly uncomfortable, the tip of one finger stroking his mustache. “Look, I’d rather not discuss it here. What time do you get off work?”

  “Late.”

  “Oh. Well, what time do you start in the morning?”

  “Early.”

  “I could meet you in my office at eight.”

  Eight. She’d have to leave the house an hour early, lose a whole hour of sleep, leave the kids that much longer. She sighed, dead on her feet already, with eight hours still ahead of her and knowing that she would be aching in every bone come morning. Jack Tyler seemed to take her hesitation as a lack of concern. He put on his principal’s face, the one he must use when doling out discipline. She’d have taken issue with that assumption on his part—if she hadn’t been busier than a starved cat in an aviary. Cody was her oldest—a good, solemn little boy who sometimes got strange ideas. Oh, Cody. Cody, honey, what have you done? No use thinking on it now. She wouldn’t know what was up until Jack Tyler chose to tell her, and she didn’t believe in borrowing trouble. She had plenty already, thank you. Just living was trouble.

  “I must insist on a conference,” Tyler stated firmly.

  Heller sighed and nodded. “Okay.”

  “I’ll expect you in the morning at eight, then.”

  “Eight,” she confirmed, following him out the door with her eyes even as she smiled at the next person in line. Her son’s principal was limping, but it wasn’t her problem. “What’s this,” she quipped, winking at the elderly gentleman who pushed forward a pint of milk and a banana, “moo juice and monkey pod?”

  “Health food,” the old man replied, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Dollar fifteen.”

  He forked over two bucks and gave her a good look at his dentures. “Keep the change.”

  “Ooh, a true gentleman! Thanks.”

  The jaunty tone was so practiced that it was second nature, a useful trait for a single mother with too much worry and too little of everything else. She’d buy something sweet for the kids with her extra eighty-five cents, a small treat for Betty to give them with their lunch tomorrow, something to let them know that Mom was thinking of them—a package of cherry licorice whip, maybe, something they wouldn’t recognize as a pathetic attempt on her part to give them what other children routinely took for granted.

  Her manner was a little softer with the next few customers, her eyes glistening with a brightness that no one watching her would have taken for tears. She couldn’t have said herself why she had to beat down the impulse to cry. Maybe it was the combination of a new worry and a small kindness. Maybe it was the unending weariness of working two jobs just to keep body and soul together, and maybe it was the vision of a future that was merely the present all over again, never changing—unless it was for the worse.

  Jack gritted his teeth, determined not to look at his watch again. It would only tell him what he already knew. She was late—and getting later by the second. He told himself again that she would definitely show. The subject of this conference was her own son, after all. Of course she would come. He looked at his watch.

  Thirty-five minutes! Where the devil was that woman? Sleeping in? Sipping an extra cup of coffee? If she didn’t care enough about her boy to expend just this much effort on his behalf, then he was wasting his time trying to help.

  It wasn’t his problem, anyway. He couldn’t force her to listen to him. Fact was, he wasn’t even certain what he would have said. Well. So. That was that, then.

  He leaned back in his comfortable leather desk chair and expelled a long, cleansing breath. Okay, what now? Might as well do something useful since he was already here. He consulted his calendar, thumbing through the daily pages. The few items on h
is agenda were either already in the works or simply held no interest for him. Oh, well. He was supposed to be on vacation for the next couple of months, anyway. He’d do something fun, maybe call up some of his old teammates, set up a fishing trip or two, talk about old times. He could even drive down and hang around training camp when that started—except he really didn’t want to. He’d lost his enthusiasm for football even before he’d pulverized his knee.

  He laid his head back and closed his eyes, waiting for a good idea to come to him. He thought of movies he wanted to see and books he wanted to read and letters he ought to write. Problem was, he didn’t want to do any of those things just then. Golf. He’d get out the clubs, rent a cart and make a day of it. All he needed was a partner, someone who could get away on the spur of the moment and hit the links. He picked up the phone and started calling some of the other educators he knew. The three he caught at home, he also woke. He put down the phone with a mutter of disgust, snatched a pencil from the hand-painted cup presented to him at the end of the year by Mrs. Foreman’s first-grade class and began bouncing the eraser on the edge of his desk, tapping out words and phrases in Morse code. When he realized that he was tapping out H-E-L-L-E-R, he threw the pencil at the trash can. It ricocheted off the rim and flew into the corner, the lead breaking off.

  Blast that woman! Didn’t she know her kid was hurting for her? Didn’t she realize that Cody could see her struggle, that it scared him? He was a little boy who desperately needed some reassurance. Jack pushed his hands over his face, telling himself that it wasn’t his job to see that the kid had his fears eased. His job was to educate children, not baby-sit them. But just how well could a worried little boy learn?

  Jack bit back an oath, the sound coming out as a choked growl, as he launched himself out of his chair and left his office, slamming the door behind him. No woman, he reflected savagely as he strode out of the building and toward his car, was ever more aptly named than Heller Moore.

  The place took about five minutes to find. He sat in his car next to the mailbox, which clung to a leaning metal post and bracket by a single screw, and just looked around for several minutes. The house itself, a mobile home sitting up on cement blocks, was small and sagging and rusty in places, but it had a neat, orderly look about it, a certain aura of “home.” The far end sat smack up against the trunk of an old cottonwood tree. A hickory that had been planted too close to a wide side window stood at an odd angle, its upper branches literally lying on top of the structure’s metal roof, while its lower ones jutted out over the rickety stoop. The back of the long, narrow lot was a tangle of woody shrubs and withered cedars. Someone had tied bows to one of the bushes with strips of cloth.

  Leaving his car parked at the side of the street, Jack got out and walked hesitantly across the yard to climb a trio of steps to the stoop. He paused, combing his mustache with his fingers, then abruptly sent out a fist and rapped on the door. He heard a muffled voice speaking unintelligible words. It sounded as if Heller Moore might have tied one on the night before. He raised his fist and rocked the door repeatedly in its frame. Suddenly the door swung open and a large brunette with long, stringy hair waved a hand at him before disappearing inside.

  Jack stuck his head into the dim interior. “Hello?”

  “What do you want?”

  The croaking voice came from his left. He looked into a small, open kitchen to his right. A round maple table with a scorched spot, four rail-backed chairs and a painted wooden high chair took up almost all the space, leaving a mere path in front of the L-shaped cabinet and stove. The enamel on the sink was chipped, the countertop faded. An empty plastic milk jug and an open sleeve of crackers sat in the middle of the chipped yellow stove. An assortment of cereal boxes were lined up neatly across the top of a small, ancient, olive green refrigerator. Jack stepped inside and turned in the direction of the voice.

  The living area was little more than a wide hall. A worn, brown, Early American-style sofa with small, round, ruffled throw pillows sat against the wide window, over which ugly green vinyl drapes had been parted to allow the sunlight into the room. A small coffee table had been pushed up beneath the window on the opposite wall. Upon it rested a small television with rabbit-ear antennae wrapped in strips of tin foil, a can of wildflowers at its side. A brown, oval, braided rug covered most of the pockmarked linoleum. A half-eaten bowl of popcorn had been tipped on its side, spilling fluffy white puffs of popcorn across the clean brown rug. The fake wood paneling on the walls gleamed with fresh polish. The glass in the windows shone crystal clear. A dark, narrow hall led, presumably, to the bedrooms. It wasn’t much, but it was somehow welcoming.

  The brunette was lying in a heap on the couch, her face turned into a pillow. A thin blue blanket was crumpled at her side. She was wearing pink knit shorts which had long ago lost their shape and a huge T-shirt sporting a cartoon character front and back.

  Jack cleared his throat. “I’m looking for Heller Moore.”

  The brunette rolled over to stare at him. Her face was puffy, her eyes rimmed with smudged mascara. She pushed her lank hair out of her face and said, “She ain’t here.”

  Jack’s eyes roamed around the dingy room. “Where is she?”

  The brunette sat up and gave a shrug. She looked him over frankly, then smiled. He saw to his surprise that she was considerably younger than he’d assumed. “Who’re you?”

  The question irritated him. “Seems to me you should have asked that before you opened the door.”

  She shrugged again, unconcerned, and said, “I don’t know where Heller is. She didn’t come home last night.”

  Jack felt the taste of acid in his mouth. Why was he surprised and, yes, disappointed? He shook his head. “You tell her Jackson Tyler was here.” He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. Extracting a card, he laid it on the arm of the sofa. “You tell her to call first chance she gets, either number. Understand?”

  The big girl nodded and picked up the card. “You’re from the school?” she asked, but Jack ignored her, turning back to the open door as a rusty old behemoth of a car bounced up into the yard and came to a halt.

  Heller Moore gathered her things and got out from behind the steering wheel. She leaned against the side of the car for a moment, head back as if absorbing the sunshine, then she straightened and walked around the front end of the car. Jack moved into the doorway and lifted his arms above his head, bracing them against the frame. She was at the foot of the stoop before she looked up. Shock and something else registered in her face.

  “You!” she exclaimed.

  Jack bared his teeth in a smile. Heller Moore had come home, and he meant to give her a welcome she’d never forget.

  Chapter Two

  Heller shook her head. She should have known she’d find him here. Well, she admired his dedication. Pity she was too tired to tell him so. With a sigh she climbed the steps and endured his glare until he decided to move out of her doorway. She went inside and carefully draped the clothing she’d worn to the store the day before over the back of the chair at the end of the kitchen table. She looked around the room, acutely aware of how small and shabby it must appear in Jack Tyler’s eyes. She grimaced at the sight of the popcorn bowl turned over in the middle of the living room rug.

  “Betty!” she scolded disapprovingly as she moved across the floor. She stooped and began cleaning up the mess. “I’ve asked you time and again to pick up after yourself.”

  “Sorry,” Betty grumbled. “But it just happened. I knocked over the bowl when I got up to let him in.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t have knocked it over if you hadn’t left it sitting in the middle of the floor,” Heller pointed out. She picked up the bowl and started toward the kitchen with it, only to walk straight into Jack Tyler. She bounced off his chest, one hand clutching the popcorn bowl, the other pushing hair out of her face. “Oops. Sorry.” She sidestepped and walked around him. As she carried the bowl into the kitchen, she said over her shoulder,
“I’m a walking zombie this morning. My replacement didn’t show up, so I had to work a second shift at the nursing home.”

  “Nursing home?” His voice sounded startlingly deep and resonant in such small quarters.

  She turned to look up into his face. My, he was big and undeniably handsome. She suddenly felt rumpled and plain in her faded green uniform. She lifted a hand self-consciously to the back of her neck, then scowled. What was wrong with her? She’d decided long ago to let the world take her at face value. What did she care what anyone thought as long as she knew that she was doing her dead-level best? If she looked like something the cat had dragged in, it was because she’d been up all night working in an effort to support her family. She fixed Jack Tyler with a cold glare. “We can’t all be school principals,” she informed him tartly. “Some of us have to make do as convenience store clerks and nurse’s aides.”

  To her surprise, his hazel eyes gleamed sympathetically before he looked away. “It must be difficult for you,” he said quietly, “working two jobs.”

  Difficult didn’t begin to describe her personal daily grind, but she found herself wanting to reassure him. She shrugged. “I manage.”

  She heard the slap of bare feet on the bare linoleum of the hallway floor and looked in that direction just as Cody wandered into view. His ash brown hair stuck up at odd angles. His bare chest looked painfully thin, the knobs of his shoulders protruding awkwardly before dwindling into stringy arms. There was a small hole near the elastic waistband of his threadbare briefs. She watched him knuckle the sleep from his eyes and felt a surge of motherly love. His big, hazel gaze wandered the room briefly before settling on her. He smiled, his eyes lazily moving on. Suddenly, recognition flooded his face.

  “Mr. Tyler?”

  “Hello, Cody.”

  His mouth dropped open, his eyes growing impossibly large in his small face. He shot a panicked look at his mother. “Am I in trouble?”