Daddy By Surprise. Pat Warren

they’d finally begun selling. The income wasn’t much but the euphoria of seeing his name in print kept him going.

      Devin lovingly ran his hands over the dust jacket. He’d kept moving, traveling, learning, researching. A hundred short stories later, he decided to try a novel. His love of the west combined with his fascination with mysteries led him to concentrate on western mysteries, which only a handful of authors were writing at the time.

      He’d hired an agent who’d begun submitting his work to various publishers. It had taken three years—three long, hard years—before his first book sold. The following year, he’d published the second just as the first was published in paperback. Now, at long last, he was on his way, contracted for two more for more money than he’d dreamed possible.

      Replacing the book alongside his second novel, Devin anchored them between two brass owl bookends, gifts from his father. He strolled into his living room, stopping to look out the large double windows. He could see Camelback Mountain in the near distance, serene as always under a clear, sunny sky. He’d visited many parts of Arizona in his travels, and fallen in love with the redrock country he used as the backdrop for some of his books.

      Recently, when he’d decided it was time to leave the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles for a variety of reasons, he’d picked Scottsdale on the eastern border of Phoenix. Because it was small enough, western yet hardly provincial, classy yet homey. And it was only an hour’s flight to visit his family if he got the urge.

      Here he could live quietly with a minimum of interruptions and only an occasional pang of guilt for not being at the beck and call of his huge clan. Devin loved his parents and five siblings and their spouses and his eleven nieces and nephews. But there was total bedlam when all the Grays got together, which was often enough to distract him big-time. They all seemed to thrive on chaos where he preferred quiet solitude. He’d decided to rent for a while and see if he liked the area well enough to build his dream house here. Already Scottsdale felt like home.

      The almost constant sun rose early these days, and he’d been up with it, arranging his television set across from another old favorite, a stretch-back leather lounger. He’d hooked up his stereo in his bedroom and unpacked a few family pictures he set out in every apartment he’d ever occupied. Devin took a moment to study one framed photo of the entire clan taken at his parents’ anniversary party last year. There was no denying the Grays, for they all resembled their father with his black hair, green eyes and that prominent cleft in a square chin.

      His mother was a lovely woman, but not one of her six offspring had inherited her blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes. Yet she’d been the guiding force of the family, working long hours alongside her husband at the family hardware store, making sure it succeeded, then grew from one store to two, then three and finally six. She’d run the household of six children strictly, relying heavily on the help of her eldest, Devin. She’d piled a lot of responsibility on him at an early age and he’d come through, always there for household chores, baby-sitting, often discipline. Even attending college, he’d lived at home because the family had needed him. Perhaps that was why he’d escaped into travel soon after graduation.

      It had felt good, being on his own. Yet even on his travels, he’d been constantly called home for this emergency or that disaster where his help was needed. When he’d settled down in an apartment clear across town, they’d taken to inviting him over or dropping in constantly, hanging on the guilt if he begged off. He’d felt hounded, smothered. He’d simply had to get away.

      At the moment, he didn’t even have a phone, though they’d promised him service Monday. He’d put in an address change at the post office, but he was going to guard that information for awhile. He wouldn’t put it past several members of his family to come charging over to check out his new digs. An unmarried son, no matter what age, was always fair game.

      Through the window, he saw Molly’s Honda turn into the drive followed by a truck stacked high with furniture. Molly pulled up close to the back door, then quickly jumped out and walked over to the two men getting out of the pickup. One was tall and thin, young enough to still be in his teens, wearing a baseball cap backward. The other was middle-aged and balding with the start of a pot belly. Quickly the three of them began unloading furniture.

      Should he go down and offer to help? Devin wondered. Last night, he’d helped her in the kitchen because he was curious about her more than anything else. She’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want his assistance, as she probably would again if he went down. If solitude was what he wanted, if noninvolvement was what he’d decided on, if being left alone to do his work was his primary goal, then he’d best stay away. After all, she had two guys to give her a hand.

      Who were they? he wondered idly. People she’d hired? Relatives? Friends? Surely Molly wasn’t romantically involved with either. He watched as the teenager’s eyes followed her as she reached into the truck and hauled out a lamp. Devin couldn’t blame the kid. She was wearing another loose cotton shirt over jeans and white canvas shoes. Her face was free of makeup and her hair was pulled back and anchored with some sort of plastic gizmo. She looked about sixteen. Devin saw her smile at the boy before walking away and noticed the teenager’s face redden. Poor kid had a crush on her.

      Stepping back, Devin decided he could spend his hours more gainfully than watching his neighbor move in. He walked into his office, pulled out his chair and stared at the computer. From somewhere below, he heard a laugh drift up. Female, smoky, mellow.

      What the hell! They’d finish faster with another pair of hands. He started for the stairs.

      Devin saw that the two guys were in the pickup untying a dresser before unloading it. “Hi. I thought you could use a hand.”

      The kid wearing the baseball cap turned toward him. “Uh, yeah, sure, I guess.” He glanced over at his uncle.

      Hank glanced at the newcomer. “We can handle it, but thanks.”

      Real friendly, Devin thought. “I’m a neighbor,” he said by way of explanation.

      “Uh-huh.” Hank concentrated on untying a snagged knot, obviously hoping the man would go away.

      Annoyed, Devin picked up a kitchen chair that was standing alongside the truck and carried it onto the porch. The screen door had been taken off the hinges and placed off to the side. Giving a quick warning knock on the doorjamb, he walked in and spotted Molly in the kitchen. He strolled closer and saw she was setting up a small bowl that held an assortment of colorful stones, a hunk of fern and a blue fish nervously swimming around. “Hey, there,” he said, not wanting to startle her.

      Wiping off the bowl, she looked up. “Hey, yourself. Meet Jo-Jo, my beta fighting fish. My niece named him.”

      Devin set the chair down and leaned over for a closer look. “He doesn’t look very scary like a fighter should.”

      “He would if you were another fish. These little guys are so mean you can’t put more than one in a bowl or they’ll kill each other.” She scooted the bowl into the far corner of the kitchen counter and stood admiring him.

      “So you got him for protection, eh?”

      She smiled at that. “Actually, I got him because I wanted something alive in the house…” She waved toward the other side of the room. “…other than my plants.”

      She did have plants, Devin thought, gazing at two hanging baskets, a tall ficus in a red pot and several small containers along the two windowsills containing African violets. “They must keep you busy watering and trimming.” He didn’t have a plant or a fish at his place. Only his dog who right this minute was whining in the fenced yard wanting to inspect the men unloading the truck.

      Devin set the chair he’d carried in next to a white pine table, noticing in the sunlight that poured in through the windows that she had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, something he hadn’t seen last night. They made her look even younger. “I came down to see if you needed another pair of hands.”

      “Molly,” came a gruff voice from the open front doorway, “you wanna come show us