Daddy by Surprise (4 page)

“Cool. Never watched a TV show being made, but I’ll be back in Denver by then.”

A good thing to remember, Kat told herself. In case his swoo started to get to her. A very good thing.

J
ACK WONDERED
why nobody warned him that the roar of a motorcycle engine magnified the pain of a hangover. The noise and vibration traveled up his spine making his brain feel as if it might explode inside his helmet. He’d meant to take another handful of painkillers before he left his hotel room, but a call from his mother had thrown him offtrack. Now he had to hurry or he’d be late for his appointment.

“Stop acting like a petulant little boy,” his mother had scolded. “Jaydene will come around eventually.”

Come around.
The irony of her word choice would have amused him if he hadn’t been slightly nauseous from the greasy meal he’d consumed the night before.

“Mother, as I told you before I left Denver, Jaydene and I are history. She wants a different kind of life than I do.” One that involved multiple sex partners.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. She’s a senior loan analyst on the fast track for my old job. You’re an orthodontist with a flourishing practice. I introduced you to Jaydene for a reason.”

Until that moment Jack had forgotten that his mother had set him up with Jaydene. He’d arrived for dinner one night at his family home and had found a stranger at the door. A striking, thin brunette in very high heels.

In his gut, Jack had known for some time that something wasn’t quite right between him and Jaydene. For one thing, he didn’t share her fascination with provocative, sexually themed paintings and sculpture. For another, she talked constantly—especially when they were making love. Giving directions or being verbal about one’s pleasure was one thing. Carrying on a thrust-for-thrust play-by-play got old, in his opinion.

But his mother had claimed the two were perfect for each other, and Jack tended to humor his mother. Partly out of habit and partly because his father had demanded it. “Your mother’s word is law around here, son. She’s smarter than both of us put together. What Rosaline says goes.”

Well, Jack was sick to death of bossy, manipulative women. He was on a motorcycle in the middle of nowhere to prove to himself that he could make decisions without benefit of a committee. This meant taking risks his mother would abhor and his ex would admire.

If he survived the bike ride to Kat Petroski’s house.

When he’d finally opened his eyes that morning, he’d told himself he was going to call her to cancel. Only a total schmuck would consider getting a fake tattoo. But the thought of numerous needles pricking his skin made him queasy. He hated needles so much he wouldn’t undergo even the most benign dental procedure without complete sedation.

Was there some kind of subconscious link between his fear and his feelings for his dentist father? His sister seemed to think so, but Jack didn’t like to dwell on the past. His father was dead, so any anger or disappointment he harbored toward the man was a waste of energy.

Still, one thing Jack had learned from hanging out in the bar so long last night was that no amount of alcohol could numb his anxiety enough to make him get a real tattoo.

A fake one was going to have to do.

And if he were being honest, he wanted to see Kat again. If for no other reason than to assuage his curiosity. She’d appeared in his dream early that morning. A winsome spirit with a lute that she claimed she couldn’t play. “I’m looking for a man who can make my lute sing,” she’d said.

“Is that a clever way of asking for sex? Did my ex-fiancée send you? What is it with you women? Is sex all you ever think about?” he’d railed at her from the fence he’d been sitting on.

She’d cocked her pretty head and grinned. “I bought this lute for my son and I need to find a teacher. If I wanted to have sex with you, I’d say so.” Then she’d licked her bottom lip and given him a suggestive look that made him wake up with a woody.

Juvenile. Silly. He attributed his distressed libido to the fact he hadn’t had sex in four months. At least he hoped that’s all it was. She really wasn’t his type. And he planned to remember that even if her kids weren’t around when he got there.

He passed one garishly colored billboard hawking some kind of tourist trap called the Mystery Spot, then half a mile later he saw the sign Kat had mentioned. It featured a giant white tepee set against a bright blue sky. Native arts and crafts for sale. Four miles ahead at the Sentinel Pass turnoff.

He eased off the gas and looked around. He didn’t want to have to backtrack.

Nice area, he thought, starting to take stock of the scenery. The highway wound through the middle of a wide valley bracketed by pine-covered hills to the right and a red-capped bluff of some sort to the left. The homes spread out along the road seemed hedged in by the escarpment.

Jack didn’t think he’d enjoy living someplace that could be mowed down by an avalanche come winter.

“You worry about the most improbable things, Jackson,” Jaydene once told him. She’d always used his given name, instead of his nickname. She claimed it was more dignified.

As soon as he spotted a split-rail fence leading to a steep driveway, he put on his blinker and checked over his shoulder to make sure it was safe to turn. He was still getting used to the feel of his bike, which was both fast and vulnerable.

A cacophony of barking dogs greeted him as he veered to the right toward a small, but neatly maintained manufactured home. No animals came out to nip at his tires, but the noise didn’t let up until he turned off the engine. He put down the kickstand and got off. His butt felt tingly and a little sweaty. Something else they didn’t tell you when you were bike shopping.

The sound of a door slamming made him turn toward the house. A young boy flew down the steps and raced to where Jack was parked.

“Sweet ride, man,” the kid said. “Are you lost?”

“I’m looking for K—”

“He’s in the right place, Tag,” a woman’s voice said from the porch. “But he’s half an hour early.”

Jack looked toward the house. Kat. Barmaid. Woman of his dreams.

“This guy’s here to see you, Mom? Why?”

“He’s a customer from the bar last night. I’m giving him a tattoo. Like I do at the street fair,” she added, obviously trying to make his presence no big deal. “I just talked to your dad, Tag. He’s on his way here.”

“With Aiden, too?”

Kat shook her head. “No. His mom’s keeping him home. You’re sure you didn’t have anything to do with what happened?”

“Mom!” the boy exploded. “I told you. Aiden went into the bushes to take a dump. He didn’t ask me for help.”

She stared a moment, lips pursed. “I believe you. I just hope he doesn’t decide he needs someone to blame.”

Jack watched the exchange with interest. If he’d ever raised his voice to his mother like that, she’d have had a bar of soap in his mouth so fast he wouldn’t have had time to blink. She also wouldn’t have trusted him so easily.

“Children lie,” she’d told him years later when his father’s accuser recanted his testimony. Too late to help his father regain even a small bit of what he’d lost.

“Your father learned that the hard way, son. I hope you’re not as gullible.”

Being accused of molesting young boys was bad enough, but being known as the son of a pedophile who beat the rap had its own sort of horror. And add to that the fact Jack’s wisdom teeth came in early, making his canine teeth shift forward.

Kids lied. They could also be very, very cruel.

“Hey, Fang Boy, how do you suck cock with vampire teeth?”

“If your daddy did it, you must diddle little boys, too, right?”

Jack had grown up fast. The first thing he did when he went to college was get braces, using the money his late grandmother had left him. He was so happy with the end result and how it made him feel about himself, he opted to specialize in adult orthodontics, instead of family dentistry.

“Fixing a patient’s bite is one thing,” his father had argued. “Messing with what God and genetics saw fit to produce is not our place.”

Jack knew his father secretly had hoped Jack would revive the Treadwell family practice after he graduated, but Jack had other plans. He didn’t like kids, and he would never willingly put himself in the position of being alone with one.

“Don’t touch the bike,” he told the boy, who was squatting a foot or so away, studying the bike’s engine.

“I ain’t gonna hurt it.”

“I know. Because you’re not going to touch it, right?”

The kid—Tag, his mother had called him—looked ready to make a smart-ass comeback, but he didn’t get a chance because his mother shouted from the porch, “Taggart John Linden, get up here this second. You are
not
going anywhere until you clean up this mess.”

The boy’s upper lip curled back and he muttered something Jack couldn’t hear, but he sprang to his feet and dashed away like a young gazelle.

Jack was tempted to get back on his bike and leave, but as he reached for the key in his pocket, he heard Kat say, “I’m ready for you.”

Her sweet tone was so far from provocative only an absolute, hard-up idiot would be turned on by it, but suddenly he didn’t want to be anywhere else.

I
T TOOK
K
AT
a few minutes to get things set up to her liking. She needed space to move around and visualize her canvas. Not that she considered herself an artist. But she had great respect for the history of henna art and she always tried to do her best for the customer.

“This is the first time I’ve had a client come to my house,” she said, studying the placement of the straight-back kitchen chair she’d brought outside.

“Really? Does that mean you’re a virgin, too?”

His voice was kind of scratchy—the ways hers was in the morning after she worked at the bar. But she had no trouble discerning the humor he’d intended.

“Yep. That’s me,” she teased back. “Both boys were the product of immaculate conception. Or so their fathers would like to believe,” she added softly.

“Divorce is never easy. My sister went through a tough one last year. No kids, fortunately.”

She pointed to the chair for him to sit down. “Yeah. Emotionally you already feel like a failure, but with kids in the picture you have to deal with their fear and guilt and hurt. It’s tough.”

He started to say something else, but she unfurled the drop cloth she would use to protect the deck with a crisp crack. Divorce wasn’t the best topic to discuss before starting a tattoo. Just thinking about her failures made her tense and unhappy.

“So, you’re from Denver. Nice city.”

He gazed at her a moment before shrugging his surprisingly broad shoulders. Had they gotten wider and more masculine overnight?

“It’s home.”

“You have family there?” Not too obvious, right? She assumed he was single, but assumptions had gotten her in trouble in the past.

“My mother lives about a mile from me in one direction and my sister’s half a mile or so in the opposite direction. No wife or kids. I was engaged until a couple of months ago.”

Aha. “You traded your fiancée for a Hog.”

His smile looked pained at first, then it brightened. “And I got the better end of the deal, too.”

She chuckled softly as she opened her kit—a modified, plastic fishing-tackle box. “No bitterness, I see.”

“The breakup was a good thing.” His slight hesitation made her think this might be the first time he realized that. She could still recall the exact moment when the truth about her choice to divorce her exes hit home.

“Well, good,” she said. “You have a fresh start, a road trip and, soon, a temporary tattoo to take home with you.”

She stepped back and looked around, satisfied that everything was the way she wanted it, then handed him a plastic binder filled with laminated sheets of designs. Some pages included photos of the work she’d done on other clients. “Pick out which designs you’d like me to do and I’ll quote you a price. Take your time. I’m going to check on my son.”

Kat hurried inside, not liking the lack of noise she heard coming from Tag’s direction. Her son wasn’t above pouting until the last minute, then racing through whatever chores needed to be done—especially if he knew she was in a hurry. “Tag?”

He wasn’t in the living room, but she was relieved to see that the video game was off and the snack plate he’d used earlier was no longer on the floor. She hurried down the narrow corridor to his bedroom. “Tag? Are you ready? Your dad should be here any minute.”

She knocked once, then opened the door. The image of Tag standing at the window watching for his father was so sad and familiar she had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d stood just like that. Waiting and wondering.
Will Mom remember? Or will she be so busy with the other kids she forgets about me?

Kat was the only child her mother shared with Kat’s father. Kat’s half siblings included two older children from her mother’s first marriage and two younger kids from the guy she married after she divorced Kat’s dad. And the web of extended family—some blood relations, some not—on her dad’s side was just as complicated.

There had been times in her life when Kat felt like a jackalope—the mythical animal that was half jackrabbit, half antelope. She not only looked different from all of her half siblings, she always felt strange and unwelcome.

“Something wrong, kiddo?”

“I don’t like him.”

“Your dad?”

“That guy. The one on the motorcycle. He’s a fake, Mom.”

She vacillated between wanting to praise his insight—Jack wasn’t an authentic biker—and feeling compelled to correct his manners. “He’s a client, Tag. A stranger. And we have no right to judge him.”

Tag turned to face her. “Dad won’t like him, either. He might make us stay here until you’re done giving him the tattoo.”

“Your father doesn’t have any say in what I do, Tag, and I’m not a fool when it comes to taking risks. This guy isn’t dangerous.”

After hearing the story of Jenna’s rape in college, Kat wasn’t about to take chances. Plus, she’d worked in bars long enough to sense the dark side of people. Jack Treadwell might be a little down on women at the moment, given his recent breakup, but he didn’t seem the type to turn violent.

“Maybe not, but Dad isn’t going to like him.”

Kat didn’t really care what her ex-husband thought, but she didn’t want Tag to stay awake all night worrying. She picked up his bag and motioned him to follow. “Come on. You can wait on the porch with us until your dad gets here. Maybe if you talk to Jack, you’ll like him better.”

“He’s a—”

“Don’t say it. Whatever
it
is. You know the rule.”

Tag rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

“Anything,” she corrected. “Come on.”

He followed behind her with enough distance to make it appear he was leaving the house on his own, not because his mother made him. She dropped his bag on the top step, then picked up her duplicate order form and pen and turned to face her client. “So, what’s it going be?”

Jack looked up, apparently so engrossed in his choices he hadn’t heard her return. His eyes were an unusual shade of gray, which made her want to study them. He glanced down and pointed to a design on the page. “You’ve done some really nice stuff here, Kat. What a pity they wear off eventually. Have you ever considered doing the real thing?”

She kept one ear on her son’s faltering footsteps. “Not really. This is a hobby. To do it professionally I’d have to get more training, and I already have a career in mind.”

“Teaching?”

She blinked in surprise until she remembered Brian mentioning her major the night before. “That’s right.”

“Body art might pay more,” he said, his tone wry.

“That could be true in a state like South Dakota. Next door in Wyoming, starting salary for a teacher is almost 10K more.”

“So you’re planning on moving after you graduate?”

The screen door opened.

“No. I’ll be happy just to have summers off to be with my boys. I’m not going anywhere. Tag and Jordie love it here.” She motioned Tag to come closer. “I don’t think you two were formally introduced. Jack, this is my son, Taggart. Tag for short. His brother is at a powwow with friends.”

Jack leaned forward to shake Tag’s hand. “Good to meet you. Your mom said you’re going camping. Cool. Not something my father ever did with me.”

Tag’s hand looked small and grubby next to Jack’s. And something about the image made Kat’s eyes well up. She tried to hide her embarrassment by hurrying Tag off. “Wait on the step, honey. That way your dad won’t have to honk and get the neighbor dogs all riled up.”
Or get out to give me grief about my client.

To her surprise, Tag didn’t argue.

Once he was seated, she looked at Jack and said, “So, which did you choose? I think you said you wanted a couple, right?”

“This strand of barbed wire around my upper arm, for sure,” he said, flipping back a couple of pages in the binder. “And what about this one for my neck?”

She’d had an idea which she thought would look best and was pleased when his choice matched hers. “Good,” she said.

She was close enough to see his cheeks color a bit at her praise. She found his blush terribly sweet. And took a step back.

Sweet and swoo were a dangerous mix. “Anything else?” She tried to keep her tone stiff and professional.

He gave her an odd look but quickly skimmed ahead to one of the upper-torso shots. “This one caught my eye right off the bat.”

She felt her eyebrows shoot upward. “Really?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. It’s one of my favorites, but I don’t do it a lot because it costs quite a bit. And takes me nearly an hour.”

“Is time an issue?”

She glanced at her wrist. No watch. She’d forgotten to put it on. “Um…I guess not. Henna takes longer to dry, so that adds to the overall time, but if you’re sure about using the black…”

“Yep. Positive.” He reached down and picked up a brown paper sack. “I read the printout you clipped to the binder, but nothing in the report has changed my mind.”

Again, she wanted to ask why, but didn’t feel comfortable probing into personal matters in front of Tag. “I’ll give the ink a try, but no promises. We’ll start with your arm. If it comes out okay, then I’ll try another.”

“Excellent,” he said with a smile. “If it works out, I’d like this one right here.” He poked a spot to the right of his heart.

She stepped closer and leaned over to see which image he was pointing at. A rose with a thorny stem and tears dropping from the points. The image cried, “Back off and leave my broken heart alone.” At least that was what she’d been thinking when she’d drawn it.

Bloody thorns. A surefire swoo stopper.

“You got it,” she said, suddenly feeling much better about her decision to do this at home.

A second later, the neighbor dogs started barking.

“Dad’s here,” Tag called.

“Uncharacteristically good timing,” she murmured before dashing to the steps to give her son one last hug. He indulged her—probably to make up for earlier—then he hurried away, clomping down the steps in a noisy descent.

She stood for a moment, then waved when she saw father and son look her way. She didn’t hang around to see if Pete wanted to talk to her. Instead, she walked straight to her supply box and picked up her bottle of mehlabiya oil. She’d already decided to follow her usual procedures even if she agreed to try a different dye.

“I need you to take off your shirt, then scoot the chair closer to the railing. You’ll lean forward and rest your right arm like so,” she said, demonstrating.

“No problem.” His words were muffled and when she looked at him, she saw that he was in the process of yanking off his T-shirt. Arms lifted, he struggled a moment, his bare chest and torso displayed with heart-stopping clarity.

He was a perfect blend of Pete’s leanness and Drew’s roundness. And most women would have killed for that skin tone. No visible tan lines. “Do you go to a tanning salon?” she asked, without meaning to say the words aloud.

Once his head was free, he looked at her. “Pardon? Tanning? God, no. Too busy. But I swim laps. Heated pool, so I can do it year-round.”

A swimmer’s shoulders. Of course. She should have known. Pete had been on the water-polo team in high school when they first started dating.

She cleared her throat. “Can I get you a glass of water or a pop before we start?”

“Water would be good. My body is definitely dehydrated after all that booze last night. I hope I didn’t make too big a fool of myself.”

She shook her head. “I was afraid I might have to tattoo over bruises today, but luckily Mo and Curly left pretty quickly.”

His chuckle was low and intimate. Kat was sure he hadn’t intended it as sexy, but her body reacted as if it was. Damn. He wasn’t making this easy. But she was determined to stay detached and professional. Even if she had to hang out in the kitchen a few minutes and practice yoga breathing.

“Get settled. I’ll be right back.”

Jack watched Kat walk away. Well, walk wasn’t the right word. She seemed to bound with natural grace. She was a petite ball of energy, and he liked her. Her kid he could live without. Sullen. Even with his back to the adults, Jack had sensed the boy’s animosity.

My fault,
he thought.
I could have handled things better where the bike was concerned.

But what he didn’t know about kids could fill more pages than Kat’s tattoo portfolio. And he was okay with that. There were plenty of women around who didn’t have children. Maybe not quite as many who didn’t
want
children, but if he kept looking he’d find one.

Someday.

In the meantime, he could appreciate Kat as a woman and an artist. He didn’t know why she didn’t regard herself as an artist, but the sketch he’d picked for his back was gorgeous. A Celtic cross with ivy and some kind of lily entwined around it. He’d been drawn to it immediately, and expected to pay dearly, although she hadn’t named her price yet.

“Hey, Kat, you were going to tell me how much. I want to be sure I have enough cash. I’m assuming you don’t take credit cards.”

She returned a moment later with two large acrylic tumblers filled with ice and water. The one she handed him had a straw. “This way you can drink without moving your neck,” she told him. “When I start on your back.”

After she sat her glass on her worktable, she passed him an invoice with his total bill circled at the bottom. “How’s that look?”

Cheap.
He’d add a healthy tip to bring it up to what it should be. “No complaints.” He handed it back. “I have the cash in my pocket. Do you want it up front?”

She shook her head. “Let’s make sure they turn out the way you hoped. Now, for the last time, are you sure I can’t talk you into real henna? It’s a centuries-old tradition and the color is really beautiful as it fades.” She frowned. “Technically, the dye is permanent. The reason it disappears is your body grows new epidermis and sloughs the dyed cells off.”

He shook his head. “If the chlorine in the racket club’s pool doesn’t affect me, nothing will. I swear on my life I won’t sue you if Brian’s stuff leaves a scar. Do you want me to sign some kind of consent form?”