Distracting Dad. Terry Essig

but she was cute. Not pretty. Cute.

      But cute could be good.

      All Nate’s manly protective instincts went on red alert and he scowled. Who had let this little baby doll loose on her own in the world? What kind of parents did she have that they’d let a maybe eighteen-year-old alone with nobody to watch out for her? Morons. This Allie had morons for parents.

      Allie gave Nathaniel Parker an odd look as she kicked off her flip-flops and prepared to wade in. The guy looked like he was in a trance or something. What was he staring at? Self-consciously she rubbed along her upper lip, feeling for remnants of the pb and j she’d scarfed down while waiting for some sign of life up above her, but she didn’t feel anything.

      “Are you okay?” she asked, moving closer.

      “What?” Nate shook his head to clear his brain and put a hand down in the water to help with his balance. “Sorry. I just—spaced out there for a moment, I guess.”

      Allie splashed her way over to squat next to Nate. “What have we got?”

      “A problem. A real problem. See this pipe here?” Nate gestured to the culprit pipe that was spurting water down under the sink. “It’s broken. My father must have bumped it and loosened it last night when he was playing around with the garbage disposal. See how close it is to the disposal? Pressure must have built up during the day until it burst.”

      “Yeah, looks like,” Allie agreed, looking at Nate expectantly.

      “Yeah.” Nate nodded solemnly. “Looks like.”

      “You going to fix it?”

      “Um. Well. Where’s the water turnoff in your place?”

      Allie reached past him and turned a knob. “Right here.” The flow slowed to a trickle.

      Nate moved her hand aside and tightened the knob farther. The water shut off completely. “Great. Now let’s see. I guess I need a wrench or something.”

      “Call a plumber,” Allie advised. “Where’s your mop?”

      “No, look. See? If we just align these two ends again and give this thing a couple of twists—”

      “What is it with men? You can’t ask for directions even if you have no idea where you are. You can’t admit when you’re in over your head with a home repair. What is wrong with calling in a professional? Look at this mess!” Allie made a wide sweep with her hand and Nate had to lean backward to avoid being hit.

      “It would have taken a plumber one third the time and I’d have a bed to sleep in tonight if you and your father hadn’t decided to play handyman last night.”

      Nate puffed up with indignation over that. He’d practically ordered his father to leave his plumbing alone last night. This was not his fault. The blame lay squarely with his dad. “Now just hang on a second—”

      But he never got to finish his sentence.

      Allie rose in disgust. “Men. What was God thinking of?”

      He could ask the same about women, Nate thought, but had the good sense to keep the sentiment to himself. “Look—”

      “And where’s the darn mop? There’s no point in even starting on my place until yours is taken care of. It’s just going to keep dripping down otherwise.”

      You had to be impressed. He towered over her, yet she didn’t back away. It was as if Allie didn’t even notice the size difference. Nate opened his pantry door and got out a mop. “You, uh, have any unmarried female relatives in the forty-to-fifty age range?” he asked as he began sopping up water. “Mother? Aunts?” Any female biologically related to this termagant would have no problems keeping his dad under control. Nate would bet the business on it. Same gene pool, after all. Same domineering attitude, he figured.

      Allie had gone into the bathroom to raid his clothes hamper. She had several dirty bath towels in her hands, which she threw on the floor. “Unmarried female relatives? What are you talking about?”

      Nate squeezed out the mop over the bucket he’d retrieved. “Nothing,” he mumbled, and was mortified to feel a blush creeping up his neck. When was the last time he’d blushed? Good grief. His father had him so crazed, he wasn’t even filtering his thoughts. They were simply entering his head and exiting his mouth. “Nothing at all.”

      Allie gave him a suspicious look before picking up a sodden towel and twisting it over the bucket. “You need to do your laundry,” she said. “Your hamper’s full.”

      “I know,” he replied humbly, not willing to argue with the termagant. She was on a roll and with good reason, Nate grudgingly admitted to himself. He had ruined her apartment, after all, which meant that when he finished his own lengthy cleanup, he’d be only half-done. With that thought, Nate excused himself and called his father.

      “Pop, get over here,” he said into the receiver. “We’ve got a problem.” He stressed the plural pronoun. “And there’s somebody you’ve got to meet.”

      The senior Mr. Parker showed up in time to watch the last bucket of water being dumped down the toilet. He entered the condo with windblown hair and a lot of grumbling over the abrupt summons. He’d been studying his computer manual, he groused. Had just started getting the hang of those little icon things and what the heck was so all-fired important?

      Nate had gotten his blue eyes from his father, Allie noticed. And probably his hair color as well, though it was hard to tell from the older man’s graying crop. Allie would guess Nate to be in his late twenties to early thirties, which meant his father was at least somewhere over the midcentury mark. The man had aged well. Physically fit with broad shoulders and relatively flat stomach, Nate’s dad still had all his hair, excellent posture and only faint crow’s-feet extending from the corners of his eyes. If Nate took after his father, his wife would have no complaints thirty-odd years down the road.

      His dad’s handshake was firm when Allie stuck out her hand. “How do you do, sir?”

      “Ted,” Nate’s father corrected. “Call me Ted. And I do fine.” He frowned at his son. “Most of the time. When this one’s not giving me ulcers.”

      If anybody was giving anyone ulcers, Nate thought irritably, his dad was doing Nate’s stomach lining in, not the other way around. “Your timing is impeccable, Dad,” Nate said. “The dirty work is over.”

      Allie frowned. “Don’t forget about my place.”

      Nate smiled painfully. “Right. How could I?” He sighed. “Dad, you take the clothes basket down to the laundry room and get a load of towels started, will you? There are quarters in my top bureau drawer. I need to go downstairs and see how bad Allie’s condo is.”

      But his father wouldn’t hear of it. “No, I’ll go. I caused the problem, I guess, although I can’t believe it since I didn’t touch the pipes. I only worked on the garbage disposal, which is not leaking, from what I understand.”

      Nate rolled his eyes. The pipes were only right next to the garbage disposal.

      “Still, I’ll check out Allie’s place. You go ahead and get your laundry taken care of. Allie and I will be just fine.” With that pronouncement, Ted took Allie’s arm to lead her out of the condo. “So, my dear, how old are you?”

      “Twenty-eight, Ted.”

      Nate narrowly missed dropping the heavily laden hamper on his foot. Twenty-eight? No way. He thought he’d been generous with a guess of eighteen.

      “Really?” he heard his father say. “My, my, getting up there. Any boyfriends? Serious ones, that is. Little thing like you could use a man to look after her, right?”

      “Actually I’m quite capable of looking after myself.” Allie glowered over her shoulder at Nate. “That is, unless some big strapping male with nothing better to do with his time decides to flood my condo.”