Firefighter Daddy (2 page)

“Did you paint the floor yourself?”

“I did. Do you like it?”

“I love it.” She peeked into the bathroom. It had yellow wainscoting and white fixtures and she loved the retro look of the black-and-white ceramic floor tiles, which were so perfect with the old-fashioned pedestal sink and clawfoot bathtub.

Betsy walked to the far end of the space. “There’s a Murphy bed in here,” she said, pointing to a wall unit. “It was the most efficient way to use the space, and when it’s open, it’s right under the skylight.”

“What a great idea.” Rory could imagine herself lying in bed, gazing up at the stars and trying to figure out which constellation she could see.

The kitchen area overlooked the backyard.

“There’s enough room on the balcony for a chair or two. The last tenant even had a little barbecue out there.”

Rory peered through the glass-paned door and shuddered. She had no intention of sitting out there, never mind cooking, three stories above the ground. It would be an ideal place for a few potted geraniums, though, and for Buick to soak up the sun.

“Oh, I hope you don’t mind that I have a cat,” Rory said. “He’s old and lazy and he stays inside all the time, but he’ll love the balcony.”

“I don’t mind at all. Now tell me, how do you know Annie?”

“She’s an old friend of my mother’s. I’ve been staying with her since I moved to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, but her apartment is
very
small.”

“It is that, all right. Annie and I have been friends for years, too. I wonder if I know your mother.”

“You might—her name is Copper Pennington.”

“You don’t say! I haven’t seen Copper in years, but I’ve been following her career. Doesn’t she have a show later this month?”

“In two weeks. Annie and I are going to the opening. You’re welcome to join us.”

“I’d love to,” Betsy said. “So, what do you think of the apartment?”

“It’s perfect. When is it available?”

“Right away, and it’s yours if you want it.”

“Really? Thank you! Annie told me how much the rent is. Would you like me to fill out an application and give you a deposit?”

“Heavens, no. Any friend of Annie’s is a friend of mine. We can look after the money when you move in. Do you know when that’ll be?”

Rory was tempted to say right now, but that wasn’t practical. “Would Saturday morning be okay?”

“It would. I’ll be sure there’s someone here to help you carry your things upstairs.”

“I should be able to manage,” Rory said, although after several trips up and down those stairs, she’d probably wish she didn’t have so many books and clothes. And shoes. And purses.

“It’s no problem. Come on downstairs and I’ll get the key for you.”

Five minutes later, Rory was back in her van with the key to her new apartment dangling from her key chain. All the karma her mother said she’d been storing up was finally paying off.

The fire-safety book with Mitch Donovan’s phone number still lay where she’d tossed it on the passenger seat. The messages he’d been sending out that afternoon had definitely been mixed.
Here’s my number.
But then it seemed as though he was thinking
please don’t call.
And now she
had
to call, but for all the wrong reasons.

One of the boys in the class had shoved Miranda off the steps during afternoon recess and she had retaliated. Although neither child had been badly hurt, it was school policy to talk to the parents when these things happened.

Since she’d moved to the city a couple of weeks ago, Mitch was the first
interesting
man she’d met—and calling him to arrange a class field trip would have been the perfect excuse to talk to him again. Calling to tell him his daughter had misbehaved…not so much.

There was a very good chance that he was spoken for, she reminded herself. At least, she assumed he was still married to Miranda’s mother, even though the way he’d looked at her suggested he was either single or would like to be.

Single or not, she had noticed that he had great hands, and there’d been no wedding band. She’d learned the hard way to pay attention to details like that. Not that the absence of a ring meant a man was single—another lesson learned the hard way.

Would a firefighter wear a ring while he was on duty? Maybe not. And now that she thought about it, Miranda often spoke about her father but she’d never mentioned her mother. The details were probably in Miranda’s permanent file, but she hadn’t read any of her students’ files. She preferred to get to know them on her terms. Miranda was bright and creative, but at times she was moody and unpredictable. This afternoon had been one of those times. Maybe she should look at Miranda’s file tomorrow. A quick peek couldn’t hurt.

She picked up the fire-safety pamphlet and took a closer look. The numbers he’d written on the cover were large and neatly formed. A man’s hands—and his handwriting—said a lot about who he was, so she always paid attention to them. Mitch had strong hands with long, perfectly proportioned fingers. While he had sat in her classroom on a too-small chair with his very long legs extended into the circle, he hadn’t looked the least bit self-conscious. His hands had rested lightly on his thighs, steady and unmoving, except for the few times he had lifted one or both to demonstrate something to her students. Even then, they had moved with purpose, and then they’d deliberately returned to their resting place on those hard, muscular thighs.

You don’t know they were hard and muscular.

“Oh, yes, I do.” It would take more than a dark navy SFFD uniform to disguise what was clearly the product of a dedicated workout regime.

In the commotion that ensued after the recess bell had rung, he had gently placed one of those big hands on his daughter’s shoulder. It had been a tender, fleeting gesture, more than a little protective, and Rory’s heart had melted just a little bit.

She set the pamphlet back on the seat next to her and slipped the key into the ignition. Her cell phone rang then, and her friend Nicola’s name and number appeared on the call display. She loved Nic dearly but she only ever called when she needed something, and Rory already knew what that was. “Hi, Nic. What’s up?”

“Rory! Did you get my text message?”

“Ah, no.” She glanced quickly at the display screen on her phone, then put it back to her ear. “This is a new phone and I haven’t figured out all the functions yet.”

“Really? Texting is so easy.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Anyway, I’m
so
glad I caught you. I need you to block off Saturday afternoon. I’ve arranged for the five of us to go into the shop for dress fittings.”

“I just rented an apartment. I’m moving on Saturday.”

“Where is it?”

“Just off Haight Street, maybe three blocks from the school. It’s perfect.”

Her friend laughed. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”

“That’s me, all right. Living the dream.”

“Do you think moving will take all day? I’ve already booked the seamstress for two o’clock. If you need help, I can send Jonathan over.”

Rory laughed. Jonathan would do anything for Nicola, even if it meant schlepping her friend’s belongings up two flights of stairs. “That’s okay. My landlady said someone will be here to help, and I don’t have that much stuff.”

And I’ll have Saturday evening and all day Sunday to get settled,
Rory reminded herself.

“That’s great. So you’ll be free by two? I can’t do this without my maid of honor.”

“I’ll be there.” Rory dug a pen and notepad out of her bag. “What’s the address?”

She scribbled it onto a blank page while Nicola continued talking.

“Jess’s part-time bartender is filling in for her at The Whiskey Sour. After the fittings we’ll all head over there for appies, drinks, girl talk, the whole nine yards. My treat.” Now
that
sounded like fun. It had been ages since the five of them had spent an afternoon together. “Count me in. Is Maria coming to the bar, too?”

“Of course. Being pregnant doesn’t mean she can’t have a little fun. She’ll just have to drink milk or something. Oh, and wait till you see the dresses. They’re a gorgeous shade of periwinkle blue, and I even found a style that will work for everyone and be easily altered to accommodate Maria’s baby bump. Isn’t that great?”

Rory ran a hand over her own perfectly flat stomach and tried to picture herself in a gown that could be
easily
altered
to accommodate a bridesmaid who’d be almost seven months pregnant by the day of the wedding. Maybe Nic was thinking this was her chance for a payback. At Maria’s wedding, the four bridesmaids could have been plucked off a cotton-candy stand at a carnival. At Paige’s, they had resembled a small forest of Christmas trees. Now it was…what…Goodyear Blimp time?

How could these intelligent and otherwise sensible women have such bad taste when it came to dressing their bridesmaids? On the bright side, she only had to be a bridesmaid one more time, providing Jess let down her guard long enough to let a man into her life.

“Listen, sweetie, I have a million things to do,” Nic said. “Have to run, but I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“See you then. Bye.” Rory tucked her phone into her bag and glanced up at the house one more time. In the big scheme of things, being a bridesmaid wasn’t so bad. She only had to put up with a bad dress for one day—and avoid catching one more bouquet. Not such a big deal, since life as a single woman in San Francisco was turning out to be pretty much everything she’d hoped for.

Chapter Two

In the grocery-store parking lot, Mitch held the rear car door open for his daughter, and, after she climbed into her booster seat, he tried to help her buckle the seat belt.

She snatched it out of his hand. “Dad! I can do it myself.”

“I know you can, princess. I’m just trying to help.” But she was right, and her protest brought Miss Sunshine’s silent reprimand to mind.

No helping.

On some level he knew that, but the need to do things for Miranda and be sure they were done right was not easy to overcome. As she fumbled with the seat belt, he noticed a tear in her jeans. “What happened to your knee?”

She slapped a hand over the hole. “Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“I fell, okay?”

His inclination to reprimand her for being disrespectful was overshadowed by concern for her well-being. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Da-ad! Just drop it. It’s no big deal.”

Let it go,
he told himself, resisting the urge to roll up her pant leg and make sure she really was okay. He reluctantly closed the door and walked around to the back of his SUV. He’d picked up Miranda after school and they’d stopped to buy the things on the list his mother had given him. As he loaded bags of groceries into the back, two college-aged women walked by, all coy smiles and making a point of catching his eye. Apparently they hadn’t noticed the child sitting in the backseat.

After making brief eye contact with one of them, he quickly looked away. He had enough of an ego to realize it wasn’t
all
the uniform, but mostly it was. Other than going to work, he rarely wore it in public, and this was why. The uniform did not blend into a crowd, and that’s all he wanted to do. Blend in and get by. People kept saying things would get easier, but so far, those people were wrong.

And, as if he didn’t feel lousy enough already, he had to toss in a healthy measure of guilt. He’d sat in Miranda’s classroom that morning and lusted after a pair of feet. What the hell had that been about? For the life of him, he couldn’t conjure up an image of Laura’s feet, and he couldn’t ever remember thinking they were sexy.

If he were being honest, he’d lusted after more than the feet today, but guilt seemed to do strange things to a guy’s ability to be honest. He was just having a normal reaction to a beautiful woman. Still, he shouldn’t have given her his phone number, and he shouldn’t be secretly hoping she’d call. He got behind the wheel, did up his own seat belt and pulled out of the parking lot.

Mind you,
he told himself,
there’s a lot of territory between admiring a woman’s assets and acquiring them.
Besides, he had his daughter to think about. He couldn’t imagine telling Miranda that he was interested in a woman who wasn’t her mother. How could a seven-year-old even begin to understand something like that?

“Can we go for ice cream before we go home?” Miranda asked, her annoyance over his questions about the ripped jeans already forgotten.

“Sorry, princess. Not today. We need to get these groceries home to Grams before dinnertime.”

Little girls were terrible at hiding their disappointment, and his daughter was no exception.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Saturday’s my day off. We’ll go down to Fisherman’s Wharf and have ice cream, just like we used to. Make a whole day of it.”

Maybe if they did something Laura used to love doing, some of his guilt would go away.

Miranda’s eyes lit up. “Can we take the cable car?”

No,
he wanted to say. Going to the wharf felt like a big enough first step. “We’ll see,” he said. Maybe by Saturday she’d forget about the cable car.

Even as he thought it, he knew the chances were nil. He’d have to come up with an excuse, though. Some things he simply wasn’t ready for, and riding the cable cars was one of them.

At home he pulled into the narrow driveway and pushed the remote for the garage door. They drove in, and his mother came out of her studio to meet them.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “I just finished up for the day.”

Between the three of them, they hauled the grocery bags up the stairs and deposited them on the kitchen table. As Mitch started unloading the contents, his mother picked up a small timer and set it.

“Something smells good. What are you cooking?” he asked.

“There’s a brown-rice-and-lentil casserole in the oven and a salad in the fridge.”

All organic, no doubt. He hoped Miranda would eat it without making a fuss.

“This isn’t for the stove, though. I’m reminding myself to check the kiln later and make sure it shuts off.”

“Is there a problem with it?”

“No. It’s new, and I want to be sure it’s working properly.”

There had been a kiln in this basement for as long as he could remember—since before he was born, actually—and he’d always taken for granted that it worked properly. Now that he’d moved back here with Miranda, it was good to know the equipment was new and reliable.

“Oh, good news,” his mother said, shaking her head at the box of cereal she’d hauled out of one of the bags. “I rented the attic apartment this afternoon.”

“I thought you’d decided to leave it vacant.”

“No, that’s what
you
decided I should do.”

“I told you I’ll take care of expenses now that Miranda and I are living here.” He hated the idea of having a stranger living in the house with his daughter. His mother no longer needed the money, but she had an independent streak a mile wide, and that meant not letting anyone look after her.

“Who’s moving in?” he asked.

“A friend of Annie’s. Actually, the daughter of a friend of Annie’s.”

“But you still checked her references, right?”

“Didn’t have to.”

“Because…?”

“Because she’s the daughter of a friend of Annie’s.”

He couldn’t believe his mother was so trusting. “How do we know this person will be a good influence on Miranda?”

“She won’t be living with us—she’ll be in the attic apartment.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, I know what you mean, all right, but last time I checked, it was a human rights violation to refuse to rent an apartment to someone because my son questioned her moral fiber.”

Mitch cared about only one human’s rights, and those were Miranda’s. “Does she have a job?”

“I assume so.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“No. Annie wouldn’t have sent her if she was a deadbeat.”

God help him, but there were days when he wondered if his mother was a good influence on Miranda. Maybe he should have told Miss Sunshine about the apartment. It would have been better to have her living here than a complete stranger.

“She’s moving in on Saturday morning. I told her you’d help move her things upstairs.”

Gee, thanks.

“Me and Dad are going to Fisherman’s Wharf on Saturday,” Miranda announced. She was polishing apples on her shirt, just the way her mother used to, and setting them in the fruit bowl, so she missed her grandmother’s reaction.

Mitch put the milk in the fridge and tried to ignore the feel of his mother’s gaze boring into his back.

“That’ll be fun,” she said. “I don’t think you’ve been there since your mother died.”

Mitch felt his spine go rigid.
Dead, died, death.
He
hated
those words. No seven-year-old needed to hear them, especially about her mother, but his mother had no trouble using them.
Tell it like it is,
that was her mantra.

Miranda, still filling the fruit bowl, seemed unfazed by her grandmother’s directness.

Helping the new tenant move upstairs would take up at least half the day. He and Miranda could still spend the afternoon at the wharf, but there definitely wouldn’t be time for a cable-car ride.

His mother picked up Miranda’s backpack. “Can you run this up to your room so I can set the table?”

“’Kay.” She flung the bag over her shoulder and was headed out of the room when Betsy stopped her.

“What happened to your jeans? Is that a hole in the knee?”

Miranda swung around, instantly defiant. “I already
told
Dad that I fell at school. It was an accident.”

“Miranda! That is no way to talk to your grandmother.”

“Sorry.” But she still looked more insolent than contrite. “I didn’t mean to rip them.”

“No problem,” Betsy said. “When you take them off, fold them up and put them on the chair in your room. When I have some time, I’ll mend them for you.”

Instead of agreeing, Miranda marched out of the room and up the stairs.

“Sorry about that,” he said to his mother after he heard his daughter’s footsteps in the hallway upstairs. “I don’t know what’s bugging her today.”

“She’s had to make a lot of adjustments in the past couple of weeks. New home, new school, new friends. She’ll settle down once she’s had a chance to get used to everything.”

He sure hoped so. “Do you need some help with dinner?”

“If you’ll set the table, I’ll mix up some salad dressing.”

He was taking plates out of the cupboard when his cell phone rang. He set the dishes on the table and pulled the phone out of his pocket. The number on the call display wasn’t familiar but he answered it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mitch?”

“Yes?”

“Hi. This is Rory. Miranda’s teacher.”

He’d known who it was as soon as she’d said hello. “Hi.” He’d been hoping she would call, but he hadn’t dared to hope it would happen this soon.

“There was a bit of a…well…an incident at school this afternoon. Maybe Miranda has already spoken to you about it?”

His thoughts went immediately to the ripped jeans. “No, she hasn’t. Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Serious enough,” she said. “She and one of the boys in the class got into a squabble during afternoon recess. Franklin pushed Miranda off the stairs, and Miranda tore her jeans and scraped her knee.”

“I noticed that, but when I asked her about it, she said she fell.”

“I thought she might not tell you what happened. That’s why I called to talk to you.”

“I appreciate the call.” What he didn’t understand was why Miranda hadn’t told him about it herself.

“Unfortunately, there’s more. Miranda got up and pushed him back.”

Mitch flashed back to his own childhood days on the playground. He hated to think of anyone pushing his daughter around, but he was glad to hear she could stand up for herself. “I guess kids will be kids.”

That was met with silence.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“I am. I was hoping you and Miranda’s mother would talk to her about this behavior, and about the appropriate way to handle disputes.” Her voice had taken on the same calm, cool tone she’d used that morning when she’d spoken to her students about putting on their thinking caps and their best manners. “Even though the other child pushed her first, she shouldn’t have pushed him back. There’s always a supervisor on the playground during recess and children need to ask for help when a situation gets out of hand and to learn that it’s inappropriate to take matters into their own hands.”

Give me a break.
“These kids are seven years old. Fighting back seems like a pretty natural reaction when—”

“Mr. Donovan. The school has zero tolerance when it comes to bullying and aggressiveness. It doesn’t matter who starts a fight.”

So now it was Mr. Donovan. “It sounds to me like Miranda’s the one who’s being bullied. Shouldn’t you be calling Franklin’s parents?”

“I already have. I wanted to let both of you know what happened so you can discuss it with your children and help them come up with a strategy for dealing with these kinds of situations.”

Seven-year-olds were supposed to have strategies? “Fine, I’ll talk to her…” As soon as he figured out what the hell kind of strategy she needed.

“Thank you,” she said. “My door is always open. If you ever have questions or concerns about anything that’s going on at school, feel free to come in and talk to me.”

So she could tell him to his face that he was doing a lousy job of raising his daughter? Not going to happen.

“Thanks,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“No. Goodb—”

He ended the call before she finished and shoved the phone back into his pocket. His mother had finished setting the table and was taking the casserole out of the oven. She looked at him questioningly. “Everything okay?” she asked.

“That was the teacher. Miranda got into a fight at school today.”

“That explains the torn jeans.”

“I wonder why she didn’t tell me what happened.”

His mother laughed. “She didn’t want to get in trouble.”

“But if some kid’s picking on her—”

“Is that what the teacher said?”

Mitch relayed the story, then he shrugged, still at a bit of a loss. “The teacher says I need to help her come up with a coping strategy.”

“That’s easy enough.”

It was?

Betsy took the casserole out of the oven and set it on a trivet on the counter. “I agree with Miss Sunshine. Physical violence is never the answer. If someone’s picking on Miranda, she needs to ask for help. It’s too easy for situations like this to get out of control, and the next thing you know, someone gets hurt.”

Good point. That was the last thing he wanted to happen to his daughter. “Can we hold dinner for a few minutes? I’ll go up and talk to her right now.” He might as well get it over with.

“Take all the time you need. I’ll just pop this back in the oven and keep it warm.”

“Thanks.” He still thought everyone was overreacting, and he sure as hell resented the implication that Miranda was a troublemaker. However, he didn’t ever want her to end up in a situation that put her at risk.

“What are you going to say to her?”

“Pretty much what you just said, I guess.” He’d never been any good at these sorts of things, which was why he’d always let Laura handle them.

T
WO DAYS LATER
, Mitch arrived home from his night shift at the fire hall, dog-tired but in time to help his daughter get ready for school. Her teacher was once again the topic of conversation. When he’d talked to Miranda about the playground fight with Franklin, he had done his best to conceal his resentment over Rory’s criticism. Miranda, he quickly discovered, harbored no ill feelings toward her teacher whatsoever. She had simply declared that all boys, Franklin in particular, were poo-heads, and then she’d readily agreed to talk to a teacher if anyone tried to pick on her again. He’d been left feeling that what he didn’t know about parenting was only surpassed by what he didn’t know about little girls.