For the First Time. Stephanie Doyle

behind. Stop pouring all my money into rent on a studio apartment not much bigger than a closet. I considered Boston, Philadelphia and D.C. but then when Tom brought up Ben Tyler’s name... Well, everyone knows his reputation. Even in New York. I came here for him, but he sent me to you. Now you’re sending me away because you don’t like tattoos. Is that on all people? Or on women in particular?”

      Mark gritted his teeth. He would not be backed into a corner on this. “You and I both know you have problems with authority. It’s why you chose private investigation and probably why you couldn’t work with Tim Reid. He’s former FBI as I understand.”

      “He might be former FBI but he’s a current ass.” She winced, probably knowing that calling her former boss an ass was not helping her case. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. For the record, I didn’t have a problem with him, or his authority. He, however, had a problem with me and the fact that I have breasts. He’s not a big believer in women in the workforce in general. He’s an old-school, barefoot-and-pregnant kind of a guy.”

      “They still exist?”

      “He does. Which is how I knew I would never be partner.”

      “Is that what you want?” Mark hadn’t thought that far ahead. When he came back after Helen’s death his objectives had been pretty clear. Find a way to reconnect with Sophie and find a way to make a living out of doing what he did best: gathering information. He hadn’t seen much beyond that.

      Everything changed so quickly when he realized that it made the most sense to have Sophie live with him. Now she was his first thought every day. Then came the business. Strange that, despite his priorities, progress on his first objective was, to date, rather abysmal, while his second objective was prospering beyond his imagination. Hence the need for help.

      “Yes, I want to be a partner. I want a piece of what I create. Eventually. I’m willing to earn it over time.”

      “Why not start your own business? Then nobody can tell you what to do.”

      “That’s not practical at this point. I don’t have the savings I would need for a proposition like that and, well, health care. It’s a bitch. Got to have it in case one of my tattoos gets infected.”

      See, he thought. She was snarky. Nearly unprofessional. She’d referred to her former boss as an ass, for Pete’s sake. She had penetrating deep blue eyes and she was too damn smart. All of that spelled trouble, just like he’d thought.

      He was trying to establish something different in his life. Something solid and conservative. Something...that was the opposite of whatever he had been in his former life.

      Because being daring to the point of recklessness wasn’t something a stable father should be.

      “I’m sorry.”

      She nodded and stood. Then she pulled out a card case from the black purse she carried—a purse he highly suspected saw the light of day only when she was interviewing—and handed a card to him.

      “I’m staying downtown at the Marriott for the next few days. I figure I’ll take in the city, do the tourist thing before I head to D.C. I have an interview at a firm next week. If you change your mind, you know where to reach me.”

      Mark had to chuckle. “I turned you down for the job, yet you’re letting me know where you’re going to be in case I change my mind. That’s awfully ballsy.”

      Josephine—somehow that name didn’t fit—shrugged. “Look at my casework again. Tell me you’ll find someone more qualified.”

      She offered her hand and he took it. Her grip was firm and confident just like it had been at the beginning of the interview. Certainly not the handshake of someone who had been rejected.

      She wasn’t the right fit for him, but he wasn’t going to deny that inwardly he was sorry about that. The woman had guts. Guts, in his opinion, was a necessary ingredient in a successful life.

      * * *

      “LUCY, I’M HOME!” Mark opened the door to his condo in a city-center high-rise and wondered if tonight would be different.

      Probably not.

      He’d been coming home to his daughter for the past two months and not one night had she greeted him with a smile.

      He set down his briefcase, one he’d recently purchased to replace the leather satchel he used to carry. The satchel made him feel like Indiana Jones. The briefcase made him feel like his father. Mark figured that was a good thing. Might make him more fatherly.

      Like most Mondays, his daughter wasn’t alone. The tutor he’d hired for her a few weeks ago to replace the one who had quit to go on maternity leave was here. Nancy was a nice woman in her early thirties who had proved to be an outstandingly good hiring decision. She showed up when she was supposed to, never lingered when it was time to go. Sophie’s grades were being maintained at the highest level and Nancy was fairly cheap, all things considered.

      Watching Nancy, wearing plain jeans and a conservative sweater, collect her books to leave made him feel better. He’d definitely made the right choice by hiring her, he thought. Which meant he’d probably made the right choice letting Josephine walk.

      “Hi, Mark.”

      “Nancy, how are you?”

      “Oh, I’m fine.”

      Sophie sat on a stool at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. She was reading a textbook and didn’t look at him as he approached.

      “Hey.” He tried a different greeting.

      “Hey.”

      “Did you hear me when I came in?”

      “Uh, yeah. Was that supposed to be an I Love Lucy reference?”

      “Too old?”

      “Too lame, Mark.”

      He hated it when she called him Mark. “You know I would really prefer it if you would call me Dad.”

      She smiled then, but not the kind of smile he was hoping for. “Hey, I would prefer it if you had actually been a dad.”

      “Okay, well, I’ll be going,” Nancy said.

      Right. Who wanted to stick around to witness such familial bliss? “Thanks, Nancy.”

      “See you, Sophie. Don’t forget—not a word less than five hundred.”

      “No problem.”

      Mark watched Nancy leave and wondered, not for the first time, how he and Sophie must seem to her. Dysfunctional didn’t begin to cover it. She probably raced home to...well, no one. He happened to know that she was single and not seeing anyone. It had been part of what he had dug up during the background check on her—that and her Match.com profile.

      But no doubt she thought they were a mess. And that was the truth—he and Sophie were a mess. Their past—or more accurately, lack of a past—was the river that separated them. It seemed no bridge he could build would ever allow him to cross it. No matter how much he changed his life for her.

      Because, in the end, for so many years he’d been nothing more than a name scrawled on the bottom of a card. Certainly not a father.

      Despite that, he liked to think he hadn’t been a total ass to her mother. When Helen told him she was pregnant he instantly knew he had to do the right thing and offer marriage. Only Helen knew she’d done the wrong thing by deliberately getting pregnant to hold on to a man whose life ambition was the CIA.

      He thought he’d done everything right by her. He’d volunteered to refuse the CIA offer and find a more stable career—possibly with another federal agency, or scrap those plans altogether and go to law school. He damn certain had put a ring on her finger.

      In the end, Helen had been the one to back away. She must have figured out that no matter how tightly she tried to hold