2. Derek
2
DEREK
“ P lease, no. No. No. No.” I slunk lower in the driver’s seat, feeling like a fugitive or a man on the run. Down I slid, scooting my butt further across the leather. My wallet dug into my ass, too big to be comfortable in its usual spot in my back pocket, but if I tried to shift too much, if I made a big movement, she might be able to tell that I was awake.
“Just keep walking. Walk away. Nothing to see here,” I whispered without moving my lips much.
I’d already relied on my sunglasses to hide my eyes. And slouching in the seat while I waited for Naomi to make her way through the dismissal line was already uncomfortable. I chose this SUV to accommodate my long legs, but sitting for forty-four minutes just wasn’t cozy for someone as large as me.
This wasn’t a damn stake-out. I wasn’t stalking anyone.
Nope.
This was just the hellish experience of an after-school pickup line.
I’d learned quickly that this wasn’t a drive-by-and-open-the-door sort of arrangement. No way. This required strategy, patience, and a cunning ability to adapt to changes.
If I wasn’t in this line by 2:10, I would be stuck waiting at least thirty more minutes as vehicles bottlenecked at the main road leading to the school. If I came too early, though, I’d be subjected to all the school staff loitering and wanting to chat.
Like Mackenzie Ford. She wasn’t my daughter’s teacher. She didn’t teach the same grade that Naomi was in. I didn’t care what Mackenzie’s job was at Preston Elementary. All I knew was that I had no obligatory reason to have to suffer a conversation with her. Naomi’s first grade teachers didn’t pester me too badly. They were all engaged, married, or saddled with a newborn. Those younger grade teachers all seemed taken, thank God.
Mackenzie, though, whatever she did at the school, was too available, a status she wanted to remind me about every time she detected my presence. Maybe she had a radar, constantly scoping for single men. But she unfortunately seemed to target me with an annoying dedication because of my sister-in-law.
She smiled as she walked, holding her coat tight against her body but not stopping her school ID tag from flapping at the end of the lanyard. As she passed each car in the pickup line, she smiled and made eye contact with the drivers.
Sure, I was happy they had ample staff on hand for security. And yes, it was nice to have pleasant people working at my kid’s school. But she took it too far.
Dammit!
I watched in the mirror as she approached my SUV. I had no decals or logos to make it more identifiable, but she must have memorized my freaking license plate. Her face lit up into a huge smile, and she hurried toward my driver’s window.
No. No. No.
I didn’t move. With measured, steady breaths, I tried to act like I was napping. Plenty of parents did it. Some brought work with them, laptops open and calls being held. Others ate a late lunch or snacked. Most scrolled on their phones and whiled away the time it took to collect their kids.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I didn’t react. I couldn’t. If she thought I was awake, I’d be suckered into talking to her, and quite frankly, I was sick of it.
All I wanted was peace and quiet. All I had to do here was wait like everyone else until I could be reunited with the light of my life. Naomi was the only thing I had to live for these days. She was the apple of my eye. The brightest ray through the darkness.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I gritted my teeth, realizing that this woman would not be giving up today. She was that persistent. That stubborn. That eager to talk to me that even if she saw that I was napping, she’d damn well make it her business to wake me up.
For fuck’s sake. I sighed, sitting upright more. My time of playing dead like a sleeping dog was over. I moved my arm toward the door and pushed the button to lower the window halfway. Cold air breezed into the car, competing with the warm current pushed out of the vents.
“Hey,” I said dryly, not even trying to pretend that I’d just woken up. Why bother? She wouldn’t care if I was napping. She wouldn’t have tried to wake me up if she cared about not bugging me.
“Derek! How are you?”
I sighed, rolling my head on the back of my head rest to face her and lower my sunglasses. My parents didn’t raise me to be an asshole, but what would it take for her to back off already?
“I’m fine. You?”
“Oh, I’m just getting so excited for the big recital,” she gushed. “Aren’t you?”
Am I getting excited to have to donate upwards of three hundred bucks toward “production costs” just so I can join the dozens of other tired parents as we all sit through a two- hour performance with our kids only actively participating for thirty seconds? No.
“Yep,” I lied. I didn’t have to come across as a total Grinch. Naomi would be adorable. She’d already perfected her small lines and parts. If only I could shave off the rest of it, it’d be endurable.
“Naomi is going to be such a star,” Mackenzie praised.
“Thanks.”
“I stopped in her classroom the other day for the first-and-fifth grade partners,” she said. “And you will get such a kick out of what she wrote down on her paper.”
Oh, no. “Oh, yeah?” I had a strong feeling where this was going. Naomi didn’t care much for her fifth-grade buddy who had been assigned to her. She claimed the girl was annoying and too boy-crazy to focus on any joint assignments that came up around holiday times.
It was a letter to Santa project. And if there was one thing I knew my daughter wanted, more than anything in the world, it was something I couldn’t give her. Something Mackenzie wouldn’t, either. No woman would.
Please don’t say she wrote that she wants a mommy for Christmas. Please.
“She says she wants three puppies.” Mackenzie laughed, shaking her head. “The things kids say.”
I lightened up, exhaling in relief that Naomi hadn’t written that she wanted a mother for a Christmas miracle. She never knew Jenna, her mother. My late wife was one of a kind, never to be replaced. “Three. Wow,” I replied.
“That would be such a handful,” Mackenzie said. She let her coat flap open. Then she tugged at her blouse, to prompt the fabric to show more of her cleavage. “I bet you already have your hands full with Naomi, huh? Being a single daddy has to be tough.”
I shook my head. “Nah. Naomi and I are great. We’ve got what we need. Just the two of us.”
“Well, I bet Stacy and Nicky help, too,” she said, giggling lightly.
I nodded. They were all who remained of the family now, and I appreciated their help—most of the time. My younger sister Stacy just had to be best friends with Mackenzie, and I didn’t approve of her trying to constantly matchmake me with her BFF. My brother-in-law loved being a hands-on uncle, too, but even he couldn’t convince Stacy to stop trying to foist women on me.
“But is that true?” she asked, lowering her voice into something more seductive than curious. “Do you have everything that you need?”
I nodded again, feeling like a damn bobblehead. “I sure do.”
“You don’t need…” She traced her finger along the edge of her open shirt. Leaning down toward my window, she didn’t leave anything to guesswork. This wasn’t the first time she’d tried to snare me and my attention. She wasn’t the first woman to try to direct my line of sight to what she thrust in my face. “You don’t need anything at all?”
“Nope.” I kept my face passive and blank. “I’m good.”
“Well, sure. You look good.” She smiled wider. “You look good enough to eat.”
“Not a fan of cannibalism, Ms. Ford.”
She laughed, tittering and throwing her head back like I was a comedian. “Oh, you are funny, too!”
Hardy. Har. Har.
“And what’s it going to take to get you to stop calling me Ms. Ford?” She reached through the window to swat at my arm, but since I’d only lowered it halfway, her gesture wasn’t as smooth as I bet she intended it to be.
“My bad,” I lied.
“Bad? You want to be bad ?” she teased, licking her lips.
For the love of ? —
“I just want to pick up my daughter and go home,” I replied curtly.
“Is that an invite for me, too?” She winked.
“No,” I stated, deadpan.
“Hmm. Maybe next time.”
Maybe never. “Look, Ms. Ford?—”
“It’s just Mackenzie,” she said, smiling again.
No. It would always be Ms. Ford. If formality could serve as a boundary between us, I’d keep it. “Listen. I’m not looking for anything that you’re suggesting.”
“Of course not. You don’t need to go looking.” She held her hands up. “I’m right here in front of you.”
I wanted to groan. “Like I’ve said before, I’m not interested.”
“Well, somebody’s gotta keep you warm on these cold winter nights…”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed movement. Kids streamed out of the doors, corralled into lines by grade. Finally. Thank God.
“There she is. Gotta go.” I rolled the window up before she could stall and try any longer.
When prompted, I moved up in line, shaking my head and counting my blessings that woman didn’t try to sneak through the window and onto my lap.
I’ve got to tell Stacy to stop this. She’s got to tell her to back off.
Naomi smiled as she saw my car, and once I reached the loading spot, she climbed into the backseat.
“Hi, kiddo?—”
“Oh, my gosh , that was a long day,” she groaned as she buckled in. “Hi, Daddy,” she added after the fact.
I smiled. Her mood matched what I felt over the last five minutes. “A good long day or a bad long day?”
“A medium long day,” she replied.
“Yeah?”
“Can we go for a walk when we get home?”
“Sure, kiddo.”
“I don’t wanna sit ever again.”
I chuckled, driving away. “You’re sitting right now.”
“Well, yeah.” She sighed. “But my booster seat is softer than the chairs at school. We had to do so many tests, Daddy. And then when people couldn’t get their computers to connect to the Wi-Fi we all had to start over. And over. And over.” She groaned.
“Technology can be like that,” I commiserated.
“Which is why I wanna walk,” she said. “I’m sick of screens and computers.”
I smiled as I glanced at her in the mirror. That comment made me feel good. It made me feel right. When Jenna passed away, I decided to do all I could to make Naomi have the best childhood possible. That meant moving out of Denver. That meant letting her have free air and land to move around on at the family property here in Preston. I learned quickly that the great outdoors and small-town lifestyle were the ideal way to raise a kid, and an hour later, as we walked side by side down the path of our extensive riverside property, enjoying all the acres we had to explore, I saw proof that I was right.
She looked happier, smiling under the sunshine. She skipped freely, without a care in the world.
“Daddy, when’s it going to snow?”
I smiled. Okay, a worry about having the resources to make a snowman wasn’t a bad thing. “Hopefully in time for Christmas.”
“Not for Thanksgiving tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t hear about snow coming tomorrow.”
She lifted her hand and pointed. “I still think we should put the horse stables there.”
I grinned, falling into this game of ours, daydreaming about what to put here on this land. I hadn’t done much with it, and there was a lot to consider. For now, we could enjoy the open space.
“Horses again?” I teased. “I thought you wanted to open up a puppy foster shelter.”
“That too.” She crossed her arms, looking at all the land. “Or maybe a bigger pool?”
I pointed at the river. “What about that?”
She nodded. “I do like going on the boat.”
We both loved nature, and I hoped she’d always keep her dreams this simple. This innocent and sweet.
“I heard that you revised your letter to Santa,” I said. I didn’t need to count on Mackenzie to tell me that. I’d seen it when Naomi showed me her homework, too proud of her handwriting to miss a chance of displaying her hard work.
“You want three puppies now? Not two?”
She shook her head. “It’s a lie.”
I laughed, shaking my head.
“I really just want a mommy.”
And just like that, my soul was crushed. My heart cracked again.
I wasn’t ready, but I didn’t know how to make her understand that. Jenna was perfect for me, and I doubted anyone would ever measure up to her. I had no desire to look, especially not at this time of the year.
As I watched her skip, holding my hand, I worried about how down she had to be to want to ask Santa for a mother. For not the first time, I wondered if I was doing her harm by being so stubborn as to not date and try to find a woman I could put up with.
It was too soon. Honestly, it was too hard, too impossible.
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready to move on like that.
A puppy? Now that, I could deliver.
A woman I’d want to keep in my life?
Yeah, right.