Terry Essig - What The Nursery Needs...

“Yes,” Monica confirmed before Catherine had a chance. “Just a little while ago.”

Don moved all the boxes and papers that had been stacked all over the table and onto the countertop. “There, now we’ve got some room. You find those forks yet?”

“I think so—yes! Here they are.” Catherine looked up from the carton she’d just pulled the flap up from to successfully wave an eating implement.

There was an unexpected knock and all four heads turned to glance curiously at the back door.

“You expecting anybody?” Don asked Catherine, immediately slipping into the role of protective brother-in-law.

Catherine shook her head.

“Well,” Monica huffed, but at least she kept her voice down, “you’d think the neighbors would at least give you a day or two to unpack before they descend on you.”

“Amy, honey, would you get that for me?” Catherine asked. “I’ve still got to find the box with the dinner plates.”

A few moments later Amy returned with a girl about her age. “Aunt Cath,” Amy said, drawing the girl into the room, “this is my friend from school, Maura. Guess what?”

“What?”

“Maura lives right next door to you.”

Catherine said, “Awesome. You can see each other when you’re over, Amy.”

Amy nodded wisely. “I know.”

“And maybe sometimes when I borrow you from your mom so we can go out and do girl stuff, Maura’s mom will let me borrow her, too, and all three of us can go. What do you think?”

“Cool. Isn’t that the best, Maura?” Amy asked.

“Oh, I hardly ever see my mom,” Maura informed Catherine. “She sends me cards and stuff, but she’s too busy with her new family in Chicago and can’t get away to see me too much anymore. But I could ask my dad.” Maura, who’d been looking quite pleased and eager over this new development in her life, appeared suddenly doubtful. “Maybe he’d let me.”

Catherine smiled, briefly flashing her dimples. “It can’t hurt to ask, right?” she said to her new neighbor. But she couldn’t help wondering what kind of father wouldn’t let a child go out on a well-chaperoned excursion to such a nearby and unexotic destination as the local mall. “Amy, has Maura met your mom and dad? Maybe you’d better introduce them.”

Maura turned to beam a smile at Monica and Don. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Davies, remember me? I met you at the girls’ basketball game the other night.”

Before Monica or Don had a chance to respond, there was another knock on the door.

Don eyed the cartons of takeout in long-suffering martyrdom. “Good grief, this is turning into Grand Central Station. We’re never going to get to eat.” He groaned as Monica gave him an elbow in the ribs and a warning frown.

Catherine opened the back door to find a large and rather handsome, albeit frantic-looking, male on her back patio.

“Excuse me,” the stranger began before Catherine could get out a single word, “I live right next door,” and he pointed right next door to illustrate his claim. “My daughter seems to be missing, and I was wondering if by any remote possibility—Maura, there you are. My God, child, you almost put me into an early grave. Don’t ever just take off like that again, do you hear me?”

Catherine looked over her shoulder to see how Maura was taking this parental outburst. The child wore a long-suffering expression that made Catherine smile.

“Daaad,” his progeny moaned in despair. “What did you think, that I got kidnapped or something? I was making a salad like you said for me to do. I looked out the window and saw my friend Amy. I ran over to see if this was her new house, but it’s not. I’m just saying hello, and I’ll be back in a couple of minutes to finish the salad, okay?”

Jason took a calming breath, wondering as he did so if he would live through his daughter’s preadolescence. You could forget the actual teenage years. There was no doubt in his mind he’d be six feet under long before he managed to shepherd her through adolescence, but he would like to eke out another year or two of life before his heart gave up in disgust. “Maura, it wouldn’t have even taken two seconds for you to yell up the stairs and tell me what you were doing. Two seconds.”

“It’s not like I knew you were going to blow a gasket or anything.”

“Honey, I thought you were still mad at me and had taken off again. It took me three hours to find you after I yelled at you for the cigarette pack I found in your room.”

“Well, that wasn’t fair because I was just keeping it for Marissa. She didn’t want her mother to find it at her house.”

Jason arched a brow. “The only reason I even thought to look through your things was because some of your clothing smelled like smoke when I was doing the laundry.”

“Oh. Well—”

“Don’t bother. The point is I’d made it halfway through the student directory before Kelsey Earling’s mother admitted you were there. I wasn’t looking forward to going through that again.”

Jason took a deep breath to settle himself. “Okay. You didn’t run away. You have my apology for thinking such evil thoughts. Now, since you’ve already barged in on the new neighbors, why don’t you introduce me?”

“Cath,” Don practically barked, “the plates?”

“For heaven’s sake, Donald,” Catherine replied tersely. “I found you a fork, didn’t I? Just eat it out of the dam carton and keep quiet.”

Great, thought Jason tiredly. As if he didn’t have enough of it, the new neighbors were the kind who sniped at each other. How wonderful. Patiently he stuck the introductions out. “I understand your husband’s irritation. You’ve had a long day with the moving and all. And we’re interrupting your dinner. My name is Jason Engel, that’s my daughter, Maura, and we are leaving—right now. Maura, say goodbye to your friend. Welcome to the neighborhood. Nice to meet you all. Come on, kiddo, you’ve got a salad to finish up.”

Maura immediately dug in her heels. “But, Dad...”

After a year of raising his daughter all by himself, Jason was finally beginning to understand the necessity of heading this kind of thing off at the pass, child-rearing books be damned. “No ands, ifs, or buts about it, sweetie, we’re going. This falls under the general heading of rudeness and learning how not to be.”

Catherine was enjoying Maura’s antics. As for Jason Engel, well, he seemed frazzled, but all right in his own way. His heart seemed in the right place, at any rate. If she wanted to get to know the daughter better, maybe borrow her if she needed a kid fix and Amy was busy, Catherine knew instinctively she’d have to walk a fine line with the father and avoid alienating him. She could tell he was very protective of his offspring.

“If it’s any consolation,” Monica said to Jason, “your daughter waited a year longer than Amy here before trying a cigarette. Fortunately, it made her as sick as a dog and that was the end of that.”

“Mom,” Amy wailed with a horrified look. “How did you know?”

“You think I didn’t know what was behind your green complexion and upset stomach when you came home from that overnight last fall? With the way your clothing reeked of tobacco? Get real, kid. I wasn’t born yesterday.” Monica looked Jason Engel up and down speculatively. “I’ve got an idea,” she said. You could almost see the proverbial lightbulb flash over her head. “Don bought enough Chinese for one of my brothers and his wife, too, but they had to leave. Why don’t you and Maura finish up your salad and bring it over here? By the time you get back, Catherine or I will have found the plates and we’ll all share what we’ve got.”

Maura looked pleadingly at her father, and he knew if he said no, he’d be out buying more candy bars tomorrow. Oh, well. “Maura, it’s infringing. They haven’t even had a chance to open a box yet—”

“They could all come to our house, couldn’t they, Dad? That wouldn’t be infringing. It would be gracious on our part, right?”

Catherine had to hide a grin at the child’s ingenuousness. She turned her attention back to Jason and waited.

“Ordinarily, you’d be right,” Jason replied. “But as you well know, there are exceptions to every rule. Times when normal protocol doesn’t apply.”

Maura scowled suspiciously. “Like when?”

“Like when somebody gets so excited at seeing somebody they know, they race out of the house without turning off the kitchen faucet.”

Maura studied the floor. “Oh. But nothing bad happ—”

“Like when the lettuce that somebody was washing covers up the drain in that sink, causing it to overflow.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And finally, like when that same somebody’s father races into the kitchen to get to the tap, slides on the wet floor, tries to catch himself only to knock a bottle of salad dressing off the countertop and have it smash all over the floor leaving glass shards everywhere that he hasn’t had time to clean up yet because he went looking for his daughter. That’s like when.”

Maura looked everywhere but at her father. She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, sorry about that, Dad.”

Catherine finally took pity. “Sounds like you’ve had a heck of an afternoon,” she told Jason. “Let the mess sit there for a while. It won’t go anywhere. As long as you don’t object to the chaos here, I don’t mind. Sit down. Eat. Fortify yourself for the cleanup ahead of you.”

Maura looked at her father pleadingly.

Jason rubbed the back of his neck in a tired gesture. “All right, if you’re sure you don’t mind. I’ll go salvage what I can of the salad. I think I’ve got another bottle of salad dressing in the fridge. Maura, you come help.”

Maura grabbed Amy’s hand and tugged her along in her wake. “Amy can come too, right. Dad?”

Jason grunted his agreement as he opened the back door and held it for the two girls. They shot through the opening and kept right on going. He sighed. “When a gentleman holds the door for you, you’re supposed to say ‘thank you,”’ he called after them, shaking his head. Damn, but this parenting was work.

“I don’t have any beer in the house,” Catherine advised him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to bring your own if you don’t want pop or water.”

Jason shook his head regretfully. He could sure use one. “I don’t keep anything alcoholic in the house,” he said with a sigh of regret. Not since Karen had remarried and Maura had come to live with him. Bad example. “Water or soda will be fine. We’ll be back in five minutes, no more, I promise.”

As soon as the door slammed, Monica was up and standing on tiptoes to look out the kitchen window at their retreating backs. “Did you hear what that little girl said, Cath?”

“No, what?”

Monica grabbed both Catherine’s arms and held her still. She spoke softly, not wanting Don to overhear. “Cath, that child said it was just her and her dad living there. The mother’s remarried.”

“Yes, so?”

“So, he’s tall and has a nice body to go along with the height. If his hair was any darker brown it would be black, eyes to match. He’s as handsome as sin. Good God, the man even has manners. Forget about your blond, blue-eyes fetish for a minute. Did you see the way he held the door for the girls? My gosh, if I can see it, why can’t you? That, my dear, is prime marital material! I’m thinking that you can still have it all! Why, any idiot with even minimal level hormones could fall for that hunk. All you would have to do is get him to fall in love with you, and presto, instant family.”