“FORGET IT.”
“Kels, I really want to make this right.”
“Whatever.”
Sometimes a guy had to know when he wasn’t going to win. Sometimes even knowing, he couldn’t quit trying. Most particularly when his adversary was his thirteen-year-old daughter.
And in this case, he couldn’t quit even if he did win. Because he had something else he had to discuss with the woman-child sitting on the passenger side of his SUV. She’d flipped the button to activate the heated leather seats when she’d climbed in.
At which time he’d glanced at the outdoor temperature reading. A balmy 85 degrees. In the desert. California desert. And wisely kept his mouth shut.
“I’m sorry I was late. Dan Rhodes stopped in just as I was leaving. He’s starting tonight and needed a cortisone shot.”
Dan Rhodes, a Palm Desert high school basketball star and one of her late mother’s former students.
“Yeah, well, I told Melissa you’d look at her knee.”
And he’d let Kelsey down by not being at the dance studio on time to pick her up. Never mind that half the time when he showed up as scheduled, she harrumphed because she liked to hang out and watch the older girls—the ones in “company”—take class and run through routines.
“I’ll look at it tomorrow, before class,” he said now, though technically, unless her parents consented to him treating Melissa, there was nothing he could do but advise her to get it looked at. Which he’d already done. Three times in the past month.
As an orthopedist specializing in sports medicine, he’d given the girl’s dad his card. But he’d never heard from them.
“Whatever.” She was staring out the side window, her expression...bland. He’d been told—by someone among all the well-meaning counselor types who’d flooded forth to advise him after Kelsey’s mother had died—to watch out for belligerence. He’d be happy for it. For anything beyond...bland.
“Was Carlie at dance tonight?” Kelsey’s best friend had been having issues since Kelsey was chosen for junior company and she wasn’t.
Her head swung around then, eyes almost piercing as she studied him in the falling dusk. “What’s with your sudden interest in Carlie?”
Sudden? He gave his head a mental shake—ordering it to get in gear. “She’s your best friend.”
Kelsey’s snort didn’t bode well. “Not for like a year, Dad. Shows you how much you pay attention.” That last was uttered under her breath, so he pretended not to hear.
“You just want to know about Barbara.”
Carlie’s mother. They’d gone out. Once. Shortly after her divorce. When the girls had both been on a Girl Scout trip.
“If I wanted to know about Barbara, I’d call her and ask how she’s doing,” he said now, firmness entering his voice. It didn’t come often. But it was there when it needed to be. “Be angry with me for being late—that’s valid. But don’t disrespect me, Kels. I—”
“I know.” Her tone completely docile now, she cut him off. “You don’t deserve it, and I’m sorry, Daddy.” He could hear the tremor in her voice and hated that even more than the cattiness. “You’re the best and I love you.”
“I love you, too, squirt.” He cringed as the endearment slipped out before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to use it anymore. The mandate had come down that summer. She hated it when he called her that. Made her feel like a kid, she’d said.
“You haven’t called me that in a while.”
“You told me not to.”
“Well, you weren’t supposed to really stop.”
He wasn’t going to win. No matter how hard he tried. Because she was thirteen. And he just didn’t get it.
* * *
“LOOK, JANE, I GET IT. You need to pretend that the kid’s gonna be normal someday. As soon as his muscles develop. But he isn’t gonna be. Ever. And I don’t have the cash to fund your need to make him something he ain’t. Do yourself a favor, and me and maybe him, too, and just accept what is.”
If she hadn’t been standing in the middle of a bay in Dillon’s car repair business—his father’s business before him—Janie might have clenched her fists. Or done something even worse, like start to cry.
In the olden days, back when she and Dillon had been so in love they’d been crazy with it, her tears had brought him to his knees. These days, they gave him strength.
“I’m not asking for a favor, Dillon,” she told him, remaining calm by thinking of her son, sitting at a table in his preschool class, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, his face just inches from the table, while he put pencil to paper. If they were lucky, he’d make a mark that was distinguishable. “Per our decree, you are responsible for half of Dawson’s medical bills.”
“Speech therapy isn’t medical.”
“The state disagrees with you.” She handed him the paperwork she’d brought, showing that medical insurance would pay for the therapy. They just had to come up with the co-pay. A measly 20 percent. And she had to have the time off work to see that he got there.
The extra hours, those in which she helped her son exercise muscles and do his therapy “homework,” she was already handling. Like every single time Dawson ate and they played the blowing-bubbles-in-your-cup-through-your-straw game. Or every time she asked him for a kiss and he licked her cheek before turning to kiss her. They were games his speech pathologist had helped her design to strengthen his low muscle tone.
“If so, then why are you only just now bringing it to me? Who’s been paying all along?” His tone, challenging as always, hurt. Still.
How