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