Most Wanted Dad

Dear Mattie,

My little girl is growing up. You probably think that I haven’t noticed, and it’s true that I don’t really want to face it, but can you blame me? You’re all I’ve had since your mother died. I can’t believe I would even have survived the loss without my darling daughter. But I know that I can’t hold you too close. Somehow I have to learn to let you go. Otherwise, I’m sure to lose you. How could I bear that? Already I wonder if I know you sometimes. I ask myself, is that my girl beneath all the makeup and the wild hair? Then I do something foolish, and the young lady who puts me in my place has an uncanny twinkle in her eye, and there’s my Mattie, droll and sweet and loving. I miss her sometimes, and yet I know that we have to find our way together to a new kind of relationship, adult to adult. Be patient with me, Mattie. I’m trying. I’m praying for help. The one thing I beg you always to remember is that I love you and always will.

Dad

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ARLENE JAMES

says, “Camp meetings, mission work and church attendance permeate my Oklahoma childhood memories. It was a golden time, which sustains me yet. However, only as a young widowed mother did I truly begin growing in my personal relationship with the Lord. Through adversity He has blessed me in countless ways, one of which is a second marriage so loving and romantic it still feels like courtship!”

The author of more than sixty novels, Arlene James now resides outside Fort Worth, Texas, with her beloved husband. Her need to write is greater than ever, a fact that frankly amazes her, as she’s been at it since the eighth grade! She loves to hear from readers, and can be reached at 1301 E. Debbie Lane, Suite 102, Box 117, Mansfield, Texas 76063, or via her Web site at www.arlenejames.com.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

It was rude. It was nerve-racking. It was decidedly unneighborly. To an inveterate smoker who hadn’t had a cigarette in nine hours, it was utterly unbearable. No one had answered the door when she had knocked, not that anyone inside that house could have heard anything above the racket booming from what must have been a very impressive set of stereo speakers.

Amy clenched her teeth and pushed her hands through her hair. The new neighbors hadn’t been in the house next door a full week yet; she hadn’t even laid eyes on any of them, and already she was regretting that they’d ever moved in. She covered her ears with her hands, wondering how anyone could label that shrieking din “music,” and considered her alternatives.

She could sit here in her own home huddled in misery, and slowly go insane. She could have a smoke. She could go somewhere else. She could call the police.

No course of action held any appeal, but the last seemed the least objectionable, since it didn’t require her to actually get dressed and leave her house at two o’clock in the morning. In truth, the idea would have been no less offensive if it had been two o’clock in the afternoon. Amy liked staying home. She liked her TV programs. She liked her solitude. She liked her cigarettes. But smoking was not an option, however much she wished it was. She had promised her little niece, Danna, that she would quit, and for some reason, a promise to Danna seemed inviolable. Moreover, it was a reason that Amy did not wish to explore or clarify. After all, children had no place in her life. She and Mark had decided that long ago. Mark.

Mark would have known how to handle this situation without resorting to the police. Mark would have strolled over there and charmed the socks off whoever had the audacity to crank up that stereo to such deafening levels. Mark would have had the culprit humming Sinatra and lip-synching Streisand. Mark…who had been her life, who had suffered and died, leaving her so very alone.

It had been over two-and-a-half years since his death, and everyone told her that she was supposed to “be over it” by now, but she missed him still. And yet, something had changed. For a long time she had considered her purpose in life to grieve her husband. Before that she had known that her purpose was to be with him, to make him happy. Now she didn’t know what she was supposed to be about. She only knew that the blaring music from next door was about to split her skull, that she was going to go mad if something wasn’t done and that it was up to her to do it, because Mark was gone forever. She reached for the telephone. Moments later she was explaining the situation to a dispatcher at the Duncan Police Department.

“That’s right, the next to the last house on the end of the street…. No, there’s nothing on the other side, just an empty field, and the racket is coming from the last house…. Yes, and please hurry. I’m not feeling well…. No, I don’t need an ambulance, just some peace and quiet…. Thank you.”

She hung up and leaned forward, elbows on knees, sighing. Her head was pounding. Maybe if she could clear her mind the pain would go away. But when she tried to block all thought, her world became one throbbing ache. She reached instead for the memories that had so often sustained her, memories of the vibrant, charismatic, exciting man who had singled her out for his attention shortly after she’d graduated from high school and had promptly become the center of her universe. For a moment those memories shimmered before her mind’s eye as golden and bright as ever. But then they began to darken and change, bringing her instead the sight and sound and smell of the sickroom during the long, downward slide of her husband’s health, leaving him broken and dulled, a mere shell of his former self—fragile, thin, pale…querulous, resentful, difficult….

She shook off such thoughts, feeling them disloyal. She wouldn’t blame him. She wouldn’t. He had been dying, after all, and he had known it. How could he have been anything but resentful? Who could have expected him to remain his old cheerful self when his body had become that of a stranger? And if he had blamed her…Well, he hadn’t meant it. She had not put that cancer in his brain, and she had cared for him as tenderly and lovingly as any wife could have. He hadn’t known what he was saying. He hadn’t even realized that he was hurting her with his accusations and complaints. She wouldn’t remember him like that. She wouldn’t! Desperately she searched for a distraction, and suddenly the blasting, frenetic music that had only minutes earlier been the bane of her existence became her salvation.

Surging up to her feet, she let righteous anger rise within her. She was going over there to give that cretin a piece of her mind even if she had to beat the door down to do it! Throwing her bathrobe on over the boxer shorts and T-shirt that served as pajamas, she marched toward the door. But just as she wrenched the door open, a police car cruised down the street and braked to a halt in front of the house next door. A tall, powerfully built man in a Duncan City Police uniform stepped out from behind the wheel and strode straight into the offender’s house without so much as a knock. Amy was first shocked and then smugly pleased. Obviously she hadn’t overreacted at all. In an instant the music shut off and blessed silence ensued. Feeling vindicated and relieved, she closed the door and sat down to await the officer’s report.

Evans stormed into the house, appalled at the din emanating from his very own home. He strode across the narrow entry hall and into the spacious living room, stepping over his daughter on the way to the elaborate stereo system that he had purchased only last Christmas. She rolled over onto her back as he passed, then sat up on the floor as he silenced the noise with a flick of his wrist.

“You’re home early.”

“I’m not home! I’m on a call, thank you very much! Cripes, a disturbance call at my own house! What are you trying to do, get me fired two days into a new job?”

Mattie bit her lip, her emerald green eyes suddenly wide and childlike beneath the heavy kohl makeup. Evans winced at the sound of his own voice, at the look on her face, at the whole blasted situation. This was supposed to be a new start for them, a way to coax back the little girl that cloaked herself in the rebellious indifference of a modern Chloe. He still cringed when he thought of his little girl with that…that…musician.

Evans shuddered, remembering the freak with whom his sweet, generous Mattie had declared herself in love. The only hair on that buffoon’s head had been a long, ragged ponytail sprouting from his crown. He’d plucked his eyebrows into a Satanic arch and decked himself with chains that hung from rings piercing his ears and nose, and the only thing he’d worn on his back had been an electric guitar. The very idea of his Matilda being in love with that had sent him scurrying for a new position as far from California as possible. He’d lucked into quiet, middle-class, conservative Duncan, Oklahoma, almost immediately, and he’d accepted a demotion in rank, a pay cut, and the worst possible work shift in order to come here. He’d told himself that Mattie would adjust, but so far she’d merely glowered and grumbled and experimented with absurd new shades of color for her lovely, hip-length black hair. Tonight the overtones came in somewhere between purple and burgundy. While he was trying to decide on the exact shade, Mattie’s practiced indifference conquered her vulnerability.

“I don’t care one way or another about your silly old job,” she announced, flopping over onto her belly again and picking up the magazine she had been perusing.

For an instant Evans saw red, but then he tamped down the anger and dredged up as much fatherly concern as he could at the moment. “Maybe you don’t care about my job,” he said, “but I assume that you still care about me.”

She sent a slightly crestfallen look over her shoulder, then shrugged, but her voice was soft with emotion when she said, “You’re my father, aren’t you?”

He went down on one knee beside her and ruffled her hair as he’d done so often, before she’d started rinsing it with absurd colorations and stiffening it with starch. “Happily, I am,” he said, softening his own tone.

She bowed her head. “I didn’t think anyone would care. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.”

“It’s a quiet street,” he admitted, “and when you’ve lived your whole life one on top of another, I guess it takes some getting used to, but we do have neighbors, and they’re entitled to sleep nights. Speaking of which, why don’t you go on to bed now so that you can get up and have breakfast with me when I come home in the morning?”

She made a noise of disgust. “And spend the rest of my day sitting up alone or tiptoeing around trying not to disturb you? No thanks.”

He closed his eyes and began counting slowly to ten. He knew it was a difficult situation, but it wouldn’t be forever, and she needed to keep to a conventional schedule. School would be starting soon, and he didn’t want her senior year to be more difficult than it had to be. From what he’d seen of the kids around town so far, she was going to have some trouble fitting in as it was. She certainly didn’t need to show up every morning dead tired and bleary-eyed. But now was not the moment to raise the issue. He got to ten, took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Maybe there’s something interesting on cable,” he suggested. “Or maybe you’d like to start reading that book on local history that I bought—”

“I’ll try the cable,” she said abruptly, pushing up onto one elbow and reaching for the remote control.

Evans smiled to himself. Score one for reverse psychology. At least he’d gotten the hang of that lately. To think that it had all been so easy once! Mattie had been the light of his life since the day she’d come into this world, and he had once been the center of hers, but he supposed it was natural for her to shift her interests elsewhere. She was seventeen, after all.

Seventeen! Soon she’d be eighteen, and then would come high school graduation and college, he supposed, followed by independence and one day even marriage. As always, when he thought of Mattie leaving him, he felt a vague sense of panic, a flash of the old grief, but it was unfair to think that way and he knew it. She was his daughter, and daughters grew up and left their fathers’ homes for lives of their own—eventually. It wasn’t a happy thought, though.

His gut clenched every time he thought of Mattie leaving him for good. He’d be utterly alone then. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to fall in love again, he just couldn’t seem to find the right woman. He shook away the thought and turned his mind back to business. He wasn’t just the father or the homeowner here. He was also the officer of record, and as such, he had duties.

He dropped a kiss onto Mattie’s discolored head and pushed up to his feet. “I have to go,” he said. “I’ll check on you in a couple of hours. Try to get some sleep please.”

She mumbled something indecisive and fixed her attention on the television screen. Evans walked toward the entry, then paused and turned back.

“By the way, the complaint came from next door.”

She rolled onto her side and propped her head on the heel of her hand. “Really? You mean somebody actually lives there?”

“I told you someone did,” he reminded her. “She’s pretty reclusive, apparently, but she’s in there.”

Mattie wrinkled her nose. “Probably some old crone who came in during the land rush.”

“Whoever she is,” Evans remonstrated mildly, “we have to get along with her. She’s a neighbor, and you know what the Good Book says about neighbors.”

Mattie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, love thy neighbor, and all that stuff.”

“Exactly. Now behave yourself.”

She mumbled again, and he had the feeling that he didn’t really want to know what she’d said. “See you later, sweetheart.”

“See ya.”

“And keep the door locked,” he called from the entryway.

“Why should I?” she came back. “I thought we were living in the Garden of Eden here.”

“There is no Garden of Eden anymore,” he told her under his breath, and he locked the door himself when he went out, just to make sure. Then he turned his attention to the house next door and took a deep breath.

Amy switched off the television and got to her feet, thrusting her arms into the sleeves of her bathrobe again as she moved toward the door. She was prepared to be gracious and properly thankful. She was shocked, instead, to find a wildly handsome stranger in the uniform of a city police officer standing on her doorstep. His cap was tucked under his arm, leaving exposed a headful of thick, inky black hair that glistened in the porch light.

He consulted the clipboard in his hands. “Mrs. Slater?”

“Yes.”

The clipboard went the way of the cap, then he was extending a hand. “I’m Officer Kincaid, ma’am, Evans Kincaid, and, um, I live next door.”

Next door? Amy’s mouth fell open. “Oh, my goodness.”

He nodded apologetically. “My daughter lives with me. She’s seventeen, and you know how seventeen-year-olds are about their music…. Well, anyway, we hadn’t seen anyone around this place and she…she thought the place was empty, so…”

Amy had to close her mouth before she could make a reply, and the very idea that she might be gaping at this handsome man for any reason other than outrage was, well, outrageous. “The house is not vacant!” she snapped. “I’ve lived here four years, I’ll have you know.”

“Yes, ma’am, and she was making entirely too much noise,” he said calmly. “My apologies.”

“Well, I should think you would apologize,” Amy huffed, feeling inexplicably disturbed, “leaving a child completely unsupervised like that.”

“She’s not exactly a child,” Evans returned. “Her mother was only about six months older than Mattie is now when I married her.”

Amy hadn’t been much older than eighteen when Mark had swept her off her feet, either, but she heard herself saying snidely, “I expect it’s too much to hope your child bride might be able to control her own daughter, then.”

Leaf green eyes suddenly blazed, a muscle flexed in his finely sculpted jaw, and even in the dim light on the porch, she could see dull red pulsing beneath his bronzed skin. It occurred to her that she had, indeed, gone too far, but rather than feeling fear or even shame, she felt an odd exhilaration, a kind of thrill, as she watched him master his anger. Breathing through his mouth, head slightly bowed, shoulders squared, he very deliberately took control of the emotion so obviously flooding him. In mere moments that sleek, dark head came up and the angry color receded, leaving behind only the flash of fire in yellow-green eyes.

“My wife is dead,” he said bluntly, “and my Mattie is as fine a young lady as you’ll ever find walking God’s green earth! Sometimes playing her music too loud doesn’t mean she’s out of control! Now, I’ve apologized, and Mattie will, too, at a more appropriate time. If that’s not good enough for you, I suggest you press charges. I’ll call another officer to take care of it for you if that’s what you want. You just say the word.”

Amy blinked at him. She hadn’t actually thought of pressing charges. It was just a stereo played too loud. No unauthorized party had been going on, after all. But pride wouldn’t quite let her back down, not in front of this proud, handsome man. She lifted her chin. “I’ll think about it and let you know.”

Those green eyes flashed bright. “You do that. Good night, then, ma’am.”

“Good night.”

She practically closed the door in his face, then gasped at her own impudence. She couldn’t think what had come over her! The poor man probably wanted to strangle her, and him a police officer, no less. A widowed police officer. Widowed. They had that in common, at least. She shook her head suddenly. Well, what of it? He might be good-looking, and he might have a quick temper—which he controlled admirably—but what difference did that make if he couldn’t even control his own daughter? Without even realizing what she was doing or why, Amy put Evans Kincaid out of mind, choosing instead to concentrate on the daughter. She wasn’t thrilled about having a wild teenager living next door without proper adult supervision. The sanctity and peace of her home were all she had left, after all. Was it too much to ask to be able to hear her own television set in her own house? In the middle of the night, no less! Oh, this was not going to work. She could already see that this just would not work, no matter how handsome, er, widowed he was.

Evans forked eggs into his mouth and reached for his coffee cup. Correction, milk cup. His daughter had decided that coffee would only keep him awake, and she was probably right about that. He was having enough trouble adjusting to this new schedule as it was, but it took real concentration to keep from making a face as he swallowed the white liquid. Across the table from him, Mattie nibbled on dry toast and sucked her milk through a plastic straw with a ridiculous number of curls and loops in it. He remembered buying her that straw at one of the amusement parks in Southern California. How old had she been then? Nine? Ten? Younger than twelve, for sure, because she had been twelve when her mother had died.

Had it been five years already? Or was it closer to six? Yes, definitely closer to six, for his little girl would be eighteen in October, and this was already the middle of August. He himself had seen forty in June, which meant that Andie would have been thirty-seven in May, though to him she would always be eighteen. She hadn’t changed one iota from the sweet, loving girl whom he had married during his senior year in college. Even on the day that drunk driver had jumped the median in his truck and skidded through the crosswalk to knock his Andie all the way through the intersection, she could have passed for a teenager. He wondered what she would have been like now. Certainly not like that crab next door.

Next door.

There was a feud sizzling there, and he had to find a way to defuse it before it exploded in his face. It was the last thing he needed, being new on the job. He sighed mentally, suddenly feeling very tired and every day of forty. He put down both fork and cup and pushed away his plate, looking at his daughter. As usual, she sensed his regard almost immediately.

“What?” she asked, looking up.

“You have an apology to make, young lady, and there’s no sense in putting it off.”

She was clearly shocked, her mouth dropping open. “You’ve got to be kidding! It’s the crack of dawn!”

He glanced at the clock on the front of the wall oven behind her head. “It’s eight thirty-five. The whole world’s up.” He pushed his chair back. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

“Aw, Da-ad!”

“The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can get some sleep.”

“Rats!” Mattie grumbled, but she got to her feet, slinging her long hair over one shoulder.

Evans frowned at the spiked bangs, but he said nothing. Why comb out the bangs and leave the black eyeliner and the ghost-pale makeup? At least the dark red lipstick had worn off, along with the other makeup that made her look like a vampire. But he knew better than to say so. She’d simply accuse him again of not wanting her to grow up—and she’d be right, darn it.

He opened the back door and marched her through it, then off the porch and across the yard to the fence gate. It was already warm. He could hear a lawn mower farther up the street, but he doubted that would last long. Soon the day would blaze with three-digit heat. He’d been warned about these Oklahoma summers, and everything he’d been told was true. Not having to wear starched khakis in the heat of the day was the only good thing about working the night shift. On the other hand, it would be sundown before he could get to his own lawn, maybe tomorrow. It could go one more day.

The gate swung open easily beneath his touch, and he took pride in its smooth movement. It was one of the first repairs he’d made about the place. He liked to keep things in good shape, himself included. They walked side by side down the narrow drive, his late-model pickup truck safely locked inside the detached garage.

“This is dumb,” Mattie said sullenly. “If she was up at two o’clock this morning, she won’t be awake yet.”

“She will if she’d been in bed for a while before you woke her at 2:00 a.m.”

Mattie wrinkled her nose as they turned onto Mrs. Slater’s lawn. “But how do you know that?”

“Well, for one thing, she was wearing a bathrobe and, I presume, night clothes when I called on her.”

Mattie didn’t appear to want to argue with that, settling instead for a shrug. “What if she works? She’ll be gone already.”

“In that case,” he said, stepping up onto the front porch, “you’ll have to make this short walk again this evening.”

Mattie mumbled something under her breath. He caught and ignored the word stupid, not wanting to know whether it had been applied to him, their new neighbor or Mattie herself. He rapped smartly on the door, then pushed the doorbell for good measure. While he was waiting, he looked around at the front of the house. There was a brick loose in the border on the empty flower bed at the front of the porch, and several nails had pulled out of the soffit, leaving the underside of the eave—which needed painting—looking dilapidated. He could see a bit of flashing hanging down at the edge of the roof, too, and one of the window screens was torn. The place definitely needed some work.