Love, Marriage And Family 101. Anne Peters

he or Becky’s parents could say had been able to make her understand the necessity. She didn’t care about Mike’s unbreakable contract, didn’t want to hear that they were practically bankrupt, or that the sizable sum he’d earn in the next six months would allow him to take another position with his company for less pay and with virtually no travel.

      That was the position he now held here in Long Beach, California. A town that, in many ways, was as far removed from Marble Ridge, Idaho, as the moon. But even so, it was a community in which Mike had hoped to make a new beginning for himself and his child. To make up for lost time. To become a family.

      So far, their month here together had been a disaster.

      Sighing, Mike pulled into the lot of the supermarket he’d come to know better than he ever thought he’d have to. Grocery shopping was just one of the many new dimensions to his life.

      Pushing his cart up and down the aisles, he hoped to spot the items they were out of since he’d forgotten—again—to bring the list he’d made that morning. Cruising the aisles wasn’t the most efficient way to shop, but what the heck.

      He detoured abruptly when he spotted the by-nowfamiliar—and dreaded—redhead who lived two doors down from him. A forty-ish and still quite attractive divorcée, Pamela Swigert had been the first to welcome Corinne and him into the neighborhood. She had two children, both of whom had names Mike considered as strange and outlandish as their mother’s flamboyant wardrobe. The daughter, Latisha, was Corinne’s age, while the poor kid named Warlock was twelve.

      Latisha didn’t go to Corinne’s school, but the two girls had struck up a desultory friendship of sorts. Though not sure how or whether to discourage the association of these two vastly dissimilar girls, Mike was nevertheless uneasy about the changes Cory’s appearance had undergone with Latisha’s tutelage. Instead of the preppy, brown-haired young girl from Idaho who favored Laura Ashley, Corinne now dressed in Goodwill castoffs and had bleached her chopped-off hair a sickly white.

      As to Pamela Swigert, upon learning that there was no Mrs. Parker, she had taken to unexpectedly dropping in with offerings of food and parenting advice, neither of which Mike particularly appreciated any more than the flirty come-hither attitude that accompanied them.

      He had neither the time nor the inclination to enter into any kind of romantic liaison with a woman, any woman. But most certainly not with a neighbor, even if she had been his type, which Pam decidedly was not. Trouble was, he had no idea how to let her know that without hurting her feelings.

      Which was why Mike chose avoidance whenever possible, inconvenient though that was. Like right now, with Pam Swigert in the frozen food section where Mike needed to get some things, as well. A pizza, for one thing. It was Cory’s favorite food and Mike figured if they shared one for dinner, the talk they were going to have to have just might go a little easier. Hell, he’d get her Rocky Road ice cream, too. As soon as the coast was clear.

      Mike backed up a few steps and peered around the corner. And stifled an oath when he found himself practically nose to nose with a delighted Pamela Swigert.

      “Mike!” she exclaimed, fluttering night-black eyelashes that never failed to fascinate Mike, they were so impossibly thick and long. False, Corinne had scornfully proclaimed them. “I thought that was you I saw skulking by a minute ago.”

      She tapped him on the arm with a flirty moue. “Not trying to avoid me, were you?”

      “Lord no.” Mike mustered a grin. “Just a bit preoccupied, I guess.”

      “Problems?” Pam was instantly all sympathetic concern. “Anything I can do?”

      “Oh, no.” Heaven forbid. To change the subject, Mike craned his neck to look past her. “This the frozen food aisle?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. “Thought I’d get us a pizza—”

      “Pizza?” Pam squealed, pointing to the two large rounds in her own cart. “Can you beat that! Great minds do think alike, I swear. I’ve got enough here for you to join Warly and me. It’ll be fun.

      “Come on,” she insisted prettily, gripping his arm when Mike pulled back, ready to say no. “Don’t be a poop.”

      A “poop"? Mike shook his head, chuckling a little ruefully as he gently but firmly peeled Pam’s fingers off his arm. Sparkly little hearts on. her inch-long, deep red nails momentarily arrested his gaze before he lifted it to her skillfully made-up face.

      “Thanks for the invite, Pamela,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s just not a good time for us to be sociable right now….”

      Pam’s smile remained in place, but one pencil-sharp eyebrow arched. “Since by ‘us’ you obviously mean yourself and Corinne, dear heart, I suppose that means you don’t know after all.”

      “Don’t know what?” Anxiety slammed into Mike’s gut like a boxer’s fist.

      Pamela’s light laugh held an edge of uneasiness. “About the rock concert at Milton Stadium. I dropped the girls off there half an hour ago.”

      “What?” Mike had to hold on to his cart with both hands to keep himself from grabbing the woman and shaking her till her capped tceth rattled. “You took Corinne to a rock concert without my permission?”

      Faced with his barely leashed fury, Pamela blanched. “W-well,” she stammered before gathering herself together with a flare of indignation. “I thought she had your permission.”

      “Did she say she did?”

      “Not in so many words, no.” Pam tossed her glossy mane with obvious pique. “But she certainly had, the money.”

      “Money?” Just that morning Corinne had demanded her allowance—fifteen dollars—because she was broke. Mike had told her she’d get it as soon as she did her chores.

      “How much money?” Mike asked, sickness gathering in the pit of his stomach.

      “She had a fifty-dollar bill.”

      

      She had a fifty-dollar bill. Letting himself into the house, Mike was still reeling from that statement and its implications. His daughter was no longer just a rebel at odds with herself, her father and her circumstances, she was a thief. A thief!

      Thunderstruck, Mike had abandoned his grocery cart and walked out of the store without another word to the visibly shaken Pamela.

      Dropping onto a chair at the kitchen table where a cereal box and two milky bowls bespoke this morning’s hasty departure, he felt as if he had taken a beating—defeated and sore right down to his bones. He felt so deeply and utterly betrayed that he would have wept had he had the tears.

      Putting his elbows on the table, he dug his fingers into his scalp and despaired of ever being able to reach his daughter after this.

      What had the teacher said after he’d spelled out to her how things were between Corinne and him?

      “Time, patience and love, Mr. Parker. That’s what your daughter needs from you right now. Except for the basics such as pulling her weight around the house, leave the rules and the discipline to me here at school for the time being….”

      So how do you propose I handle this, Ms. McKenzie?

      Mike raised his head. He looked around the cozy kitchen, his eyes flicking over each familiar item they’d brought with them from Idaho as if he’d never seen any of it before. His gaze stopped at the white porcelain cat with its slightly chipped, raised black paw.

      It was Becky’s cookie jar, which now served as the bank for the emergency cash he liked to keep around the house. A couple of hundred dollars, for those unexpected incidentals. It was a carry-over from his parental home, and probably no longer even necessary in this day of credit cards and ATMs.

      Slowly, his eyes never leaving the silly cat, Mike rose from his chair and walked over to the shelf on which it sat.