Drive-By Daddy: Drive-By Daddy / Calamity Jo. Patricia Knoll

      “But are you using them?”

      Darcy couldn’t resist. “Sure. Watch.” She began tugging on her maternity top’s buttons.

      That cleared the room. The ladies bolted for the dining room around the corner, squawking about iced tea and calling home and how hot it was outside already. In the relative quiet of the abandoned living room, Darcy finally got to relax and look down at her daughter. “Your mother’s a stinker, Montana. But that may be the only thing that gets us through, kiddo.”

      Wrapped from her head to her toes in swaddling blankets, Montana yawned and frowned and made awful faces…and dropped off to sleep. “Great,” Darcy said to the otherwise empty room. “I’m such a fascinating conversationalist. I’ve either driven everyone away—” She tried not to think of a tall cowboy in a white Stetson. “—or I’ve put them to sleep.” She smiled down at her tiny daughter and cooed softly, “My lectures on Chaucer have the same effect on my students, baby girl. Yes, that’s right. Your mama’s boring.”

      Boring? I wish. Darcy thought about her upcoming car trip to Baltimore in January, a little less than eight months away. The child-care concerns she’d have once she got there. The effect of cold weather on a baby used to Arizona warmth. The demands of her new job. The grading. The paperwork. The seemingly endless classes she had to teach. The faculty give-and-take. The trying to pull her life together after her leave-of-absence, one she’d had to take after only one year at the university. It was a miracle she still had her position there. The new apartment she’d have to find since her upstairs one in the city only had one bedroom.

      It all crowded in on her now, along with the alleged independent life she was supposed to be building for herself. All that—and on the same campus as Hank Erickson. Montana’s real father. Feeling defeated and overwhelmed, Darcy leaned her head back against the recliner’s dense padding and closed her eyes. Heighho, Silver. Where’s the real Lone Ranger when you need him?

      The doorbell rang, startling Darcy into sitting upright and staring dumbly at the closed door. From around the corner, her mother called out, “Stay there, Darcy, I’ll get it.”

      Under her breath, Darcy mumbled, “That’s a good thing, Mother, because I can’t get out of this chair.” But what she was thinking, as she busied herself with rearranging Montana’s soft blanket around her little face, was, Oh, surely I didn’t conjure the man up. And I mean my Lone Ranger. Not the Lone Ranger. Well, either Lone Ranger, actually.

      Darcy looked up when her mother rounded the corner from the dining room. Barb, Freda, and Jeanette, all holding glasses of iced tea, were close on her heels. As one, all four of them headed for the door. And they all avoided looking at Darcy. Sudden dread filled her. Oh, this can’t be good.

      “Well, I wonder who this could be,” Margie Alcott chirped.

      Her mother’s voice, so falsely cheerful, told its own story, saying it would be just like Marjory Elaine Alcott to do exactly what she’d threatened yesterday—have Freda’s son use his sheriff/bloodhound skills to track that cowboy down. Johnny Smith could do it, too. It wasn’t as if Darcy’d been dumb enough to actually tell her mother that Tom Elliott had paid her a visit. But she supposed that anyone at the hospital could have done so. And probably had. They loved her mother. And were afraid of her.

      So, yes, it could happen, Darcy knew. And here was the result—her mother had found the cowboy and then she’d invited him out here today. If she did, then I have to kill her…if I can get out of this chair.

      At that point, her mother opened the door and stared outside. “Why, look. It is Vernon Fredericks. Hello.” She turned to Barb, the man’s mother. “Look, Barb. It is your son. Vernon. The town’s most eligible bachelor. I cannot believe he is here. On this day of all days.”

      It was worse than Darcy’d feared. Her mother wasn’t using contractions. Darcy made a face of despair. Oh, dear God, not Vernon Fredericks.

      “Why. What a nice surprise. Hello, son. How ever did you find me?” It was spreading. Now Barb had lost the ability to use contractions. Her stiffly repeated words sounded as if she were an amateur actor reading her lines from cue cards she’d never seen before.

      Darcy slowly shook her head. Yep. Going to have to kill them…all four of them.

      From outside, on the shaded verandah, a man’s whining voice said, “But you told me to come out—”

      “Why, Vernon Fredericks, you silly ass—I mean man, you silly man. Now, we did no such thing and you know it. Come in, come in.” Holding her iced-tea glass out carefully, Margie Alcott snatched the skinny fellow in off the porch, closed the door behind him, and then turned him to face Darcy. “Look. Darcy’s home with her new baby.”

      “I know. You told me she would be.” He was thoroughly bewildered, that much was obvious, as he looked from one woman’s face to the next. He was also balding and sweating and wearing an ill-fitting shiny suit.

      Here was Bachelor Number One, Darcy had figured out. Taking pity on him—he really was a nice, if timid, man—she gave him a little wave and a smile. “Hello, Mr. Fredericks. It’s nice to see you again. I enjoyed your story about me yesterday in the newspaper.”

      “You can call him Vernon. It’s okay.” This from bright-eyed, sweetly smiling Freda Smith. But the red-faced and unresponsive man himself had to be shoved forward by his mother. “Go say hello to Darcy, son. And remember to make a fuss over the baby.”

      Thus pushed, the older man…more than twenty years Darcy’s senior…stumbled forward across the thick carpet and fell, landing—amidst gasps and shouted warnings from all sides—on his knees in front of Darcy. Startled awake by all the noise, no doubt—and by her mother’s whisking her up and out of harm’s way—Montana began screaming.

      It was absolute chaos. Iced-tea glasses were plopped down everywhere. Helping hands reached out, taking the baby, helping Vernon to his feet, helping Darcy struggle awkwardly out of the chair, everyone shouting and blaming each other, all—

      The doorbell rang again. Everyone froze. Except Montana, who apparently saw no reason not to continue flailing her arms and airing out her lungs. Stiff and sore and clutching at Jeanette’s arm, Darcy sought and found her mother, who was bouncing and rocking her granddaughter and eyeing Darcy guiltily. But Darcy wasn’t about to let her off the hook. “Would this be Bachelor Number Two?”

      Margie pursed her lips and raised her chin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Darcy Jean Alcott.”

      “Oh no?” Darcy pointed to Vernon. “Explain him.”

      The doorbell rang again. Margie immediately handed Montana off to a thrilled Freda and stalked toward the wide entryway of her spacious ranch home. “I have to answer the door.”

      And then, with everyone hushed and waiting in the living room, she opened the door to the Arizona heat. And just stood there. Then, planting a hand at her waist, she said, “Well, I’ll be.” She turned around to the group. “Will you look who’s here? It’s the Lone Ranger.”

      OUT ON THE verandah, Tom pulled down the brim of his white Stetson. Yep. He should have turned around somewhere on the long sandy drive out here and gone the other way, especially when he’d seen all the cars. Hell, he shouldn’t even be here. Maybe he never should have even left Phoenix. But here he was. And so was Darcy.

      Tom felt like a fifth wheel. She didn’t want to see him. She’d made that plain the other day in her hospital room. But now that everyone was staring at him, he didn’t have any idea what to say. Except, “Howdy.”

      Still, no one said anything. He could hear little Montana crying. But no one moved. Tom focused on the big-haired, well-groomed older woman who’d answered the door, removing his hat and holding it in one hand, fiddling with the brim. “I’m here to see Darcy Alcott. That is, if she’s up to seeing another visitor right now.”

      “Well, she sure enough is. Come on in. I’m her mother. You