Saving The Single Dad

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“Janet, it’s Brett Hendrix. I assume Parker’s developed a fever and needs to go home?” He crossed his arms over his chest and tried not to imagine how much stress this situation was going to cause.

“Oh yes, he’s a sick little boy. Nurse says he should go to the doctor.” Janet sighed. “Honey, I tried calling your mama, too, but I didn’t get an answer. That’s why you got the double ring.”

The thing about living in a small town like Sweetwater was that everybody was in everyone’s business. Most of the time, that irritated him to no end. Sometimes it could be a help, though.

“I’m in Nashville for training.” Brett pressed his fingers over his dry eyes and tried not to wish for a wife who would help out with things like this. That was wasting brainpower. “I’ll get her on the phone and send her over.”

“Okay, then,” Janet said. “Right now, he’s stretched out on the bed in the nurse’s office, cold compress on his forehead, but I can tell he feels awful. He didn’t even say thank you when I gave him his grape juice and that is not Parker.” Her concern was sweet and easy to hear. If he could pick a grandmother out of a catalog for his kids, she would sound like Janet Abernathy in that moment: caring, steady, ready to jump in with both feet. “Should I call Riley out of class?”

That would be a big help if his daughter could be forced to care about anything other than her own aches. Five years ago, Riley had babied her brother like her favorite toy. Now Brett had a hard time imagining Riley would do anything other than make things worse. Besides that, she was a kid. It wasn’t fair to expect her to take his place. “Not right now. Let me get my mother on the phone. If it will be any longer than fifteen minutes before she’s there, I’ll be in touch.”

As he ended the call, Brett checked the time. Almost noon. Surely his mother was out of bed for the second time by now. She got up to get the kids out the door, and then went back to bed until a “reasonable” hour.

“This better be reasonable,” Brett muttered as he punched his mother’s number. The contrast between Janet Abernathy’s sweet concern and what he expected from his mother was amazing in an awful way. Brett tried to clear his mind. When she didn’t answer the first call, his annoyance ticked up a notch. His job was important, and this was a requirement for the promotion he’d lucked into.

On the third try, his jaw was locked so tightly with tension that it was almost impossible to speak when she answered by saying, “What is it? What is so important?” It didn’t take two seconds to understand why she hadn’t answered immediately.

“Are you at the casino, Diane?” Brett asked. Not that he needed to. Someone close by hit a jackpot, and he could hear the victory music and tinny sounds of fake coins hitting metal.

“I am, but I’ll be home in time to meet the bus.” Her quick answer was evidence that she’d spent some time considering what to say if he called.

The slur on the last word immediately sent Brett’s anxiety into overdrive. “Have you been drinking?”

“Yes, but I’m done now. I’ll be sober in time to meet the kids by three.” His mother spoke carefully. She didn’t want a lecture. He had no time to give one.

“Parker needs to be picked up now. Not at three. He’s sick.” Brett pressed his hand against his forehead as he immediately searched for another option. Leanne was gone. He was hours away. His mother would have time to sober up and collect the kids before he could make it back to Sweetwater, and that was if he drove the whole distance with sirens blazing.

If he did that, he might as well turn in his badge and gun because no law enforcement agency in the country would overlook an abuse like that.

Maybe Ash? If he called his boss, Ash would step up. That was the kind of guy he was.

“Listen, just...” Brett didn’t even know what to say anymore. He hung up the phone with a click, sick with panic and the realization that whatever he did would mean he’d be facing the loss of his job.

Needing his boss to step up for babysitting duty would leave a permanent mark on his record, even if the guy was good through and through.

Brett paced closer to the door, one hand squeezing his nape. He scrolled through his phone, desperate for another solution. Janet Abernathy was so kind she’d step in to help, but could he ask an acquaintance to get his son to the doctor? Besides, she was at work with an important job to do.

When he scrolled back up and passed Christina’s name, Brett cursed under his breath.

Parker loved Christina. Out of all the choices he had, his son would choose her, even above his grandmother. Christina had her issues, mainly a bad reputation she’d earned early and a worse attitude, but she’d always been magic with his kids.

He gulped hard as he hit her number. What would it hurt to ask? He’d owe her a favor. That was easy enough.

“Hello?” Christina said, suspicion clear in her voice. “It says Brett Hendrix, but the Brett I know wouldn’t call me if he was on fire and I had the only bucket of water in town.”

There it was, the reaction he’d expected. Reaching out to her was a mistake. Brett squeezed the phone hard and battled the urge to end the call with a quick jab of his finger.

“I need your help.” His voice was gravelly, like the words were forced out around the brick wall he’d put up between the two of them. With this one call, he was weakening the protection he’d built for Parker and Riley. He hoped he wouldn’t regret it. “Parker needs you.”

“What’s going on?” she said immediately. Every bit of sarcasm was gone. All Brett heard was alert concern. That was the kind of reaction he wanted from his mother. “What does he need?”

Christina would help. Somewhere deep inside, he’d known she would. Some tiny bit of relief trickled into his brain and it was easier to think.

“Parker is sick at school. I’m in Nashville and my mother’s in Cherokee at the casino. The nurse thinks he needs to go to a doctor, but you could take a look at him when you get there and...” Brett cleared his throat. “Nope, I need you to pick him up and take him to the doctor.” She didn’t have kids. What did she know about fevers and making the decision to get professional help? It was better to get a trained person’s opinion. He wouldn’t trust Parker with anything less.

“Can you do that?” Brett heard the order lacing his tone. Putting a question mark on the end didn’t change much, but it would prevent her from hanging up.

“Yes,” Christina snapped. “Officer, I am on the job.” Then she cursed. “But I don’t have a car.” He could hear the panic edging into her voice. “I’ll call Woody. If he’s not out on the lake, he’s in town. It won’t take long.”

From the tension in her voice, he could tell she was doing the mental spinning he’d been doing before he’d contacted her. Between the two of them, they could come up with a solution. This was what he did, levelheaded planning. Why was it easier to do that with her than on his own? “What about my old truck? Can you walk over to the station and get it? How long would that take?”

He drove the reserve’s SUV most places, but the beat-up truck he kept on hand was nice for heading deep into the woods. No scratches mattered, and he could get away. Keeping it felt too sentimental most days, but it might save the day today. “Keys are in the glove compartment.”

“Okay, ten minutes up, and then I’m headed into town.” Christina’s voice was breathy as if she was already on the move. He appreciated the immediate response. How nice would it be to have someone like that around all the time? Christina didn’t complain or question; she moved. That was enough to ease some of his worry in that moment. If he had someone else like her in his life, he wouldn’t be the only one shouldering every problem alone.

Then he realized that it was still Christina on the other end of the call. There were about six different ways she could mess this up. “Call me when you get to the school, please. I’ll let them know you’re coming. You aren’t on the list, so it might take some talking on your part, but if—”

“Can’t talk, Brett, I’m running up a mountain,” Christina said before she ended the call. The return of her normal sassy tone was reassuring. He didn’t have anything solved yet, but things were not so out of control as before. As he imagined her racing up the road to the station, he wondered what sort of reports the rangers might get about a crazy jogger and smiled.

Christina had never worried overmuch about what people said about her. That was a quality he should try to grow himself.

While he waited, Brett called the school. Janet didn’t sound any surer of his final solution than he’d felt staring down his only option, but she agreed to let Parker go with Christina. Then he peeked back inside the classroom.

He should gather up his stuff and hit the road.

There was no way he’d be getting what he needed or even what he could manage to sift through and find from these classes. Not now. He’d be worried about his son and his mother and the last-chance solution he’d dragged back into the mix.

Remembering Ash’s serious face when he’d said it was time to finish the training or else made Brett pause with his hand on the door. Parker needed a doctor and a prescription. Christina could manage that. His mother would be home eventually. She loved her grandkids in her own way. He had a plan that could work.

But Christina was still in contact with Leanne. She’d mentioned a phone call the last time he ran into her. What if Christina seized this chance to do something crazy, like take Parker to Leanne, wherever she was now? When his wife had first run off, he’d refused to investigate. She’d always been wild. And she would do like she’d always done, turn back up when everyone least expected it, knocked down and desperate for help.

Leanne would always upset whatever normal life he managed to carve out.

Quitting the management class would be easy. He’d already postponed it twice because of upheaval at home. It would also derail his career. Ash had made it simple. He could fish or cut bait.

Half a second from throwing in the towel and forcing himself to come up with some other career choice on the long drive home, Brett stopped when his phone rang.

“I’m at the school. Parker’s with me.” Christina’s voice was tight with anger. “He should never have been sent to school today.”

“I figured.” He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the door frame. “I’ll head back as soon as I can. Can you stay with him until I get there?”

“We’re headed into Gatlinburg right now.” Christina cursed as the truck slipped its gears with a loud groan. “If this rust bucket makes it that far. I can’t believe the situations I get myself in.”

Brett understood her completely.

He’d never imagined he’d be a single dad, either.

“Yeah, I get that. Please, take him to the doctor, and then straight back home. If I hear that Leanne gets a visit or finds her way back into my house because of this, I will—”

“I don’t know where she is, Brett. Save your breath and your threats for some other woman who isn’t doing her best to get a sick boy some medication all the while driving a truck that should have been turned into scrap metal ten years ago.” Christina cursed under her breath as the truck groaned again. “Sorry, Parks. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Since the truck provoked the same reaction from him until he worked the kinks out, it was impossible to be mad about her language. The fact that she felt it necessary to apologize to his son and explain why convinced Brett she had enough love for the kid to pull it off.

“Can you stay with him?” Brett repeated as he tried to calculate how long he’d be. “I’ll be home by ten.” He thought he could do that without breaking the law too much.

“Listen,” Christina said before she paused, “don’t do anything crazy. I hear your panic. Until I picked him up, I shared it. He’s okay. I solemnly vow to do nothing other than what you’ve asked me to do. Do the right thing for you, Brett. I can handle this. Here, talk to Parker while I make this right turn.”

Brett could see the crowded intersection in his mind. In that truck, she’d have to concentrate.

“Hi, Dad, sorry I’m sick.” Parker’s voice was husky, as if a cough or congestion had roughened it, but otherwise he sounded fine. “Diane thought it was allergies.”

Yeah, she’d thought the same thing every time he’d had a cold himself. “No problem, bud. Aunt Chris is going to get you some cough medicine, some other stuff to help if you have an infection.”

“I should be all better by the time you get home and we can go fishing.” Parker’s voice perked up, and Brett relaxed. His son wasn’t dealing with the end of his career or the panic over finding reliable help or even the anger of his mother walking out. He was focused on one of his favorite things: fishing at Otter Lake with Brett. No matter what else happened in this world, his son was okay. He wasn’t broken by being left in a school office all alone. He was okay.

“We’ll see. Let me talk to Aunt Chris again. I love you, Parker.” Brett dodged the crowd that poured out the doors of the classroom and eased back in to pick up his stuff. By the time their break was over, he could be on the road to Sweetwater.

“Everything is under control, Officer. I’ll hang with Parker and Riley when the bus comes until your mother makes it home. There’s no need to drop everything.” Christina sighed. “That’s what you’re planning, right? To come back now because nothing and no one will be okay until you’re back in control?”

The sting of her words might have hurt, but it was impossible to argue with them.

“If he was your son, you’d do the same thing.” Brett wasn’t sure he’d ever considered the question about what kind of mother Christina would be, but at this point, it was front and center. He’d watched her with Parker and Riley ever since they were born. She’d always been as fiercely proud of the kids and protective against any slights as Leanne had, but she’d never once walked away from them. She was saving him, even though he’d made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

Christina’s loyalty to his kids was beyond reproach.

“I’ll lose my job if I bail on this training session.” As soon as the admission slipped out of his mouth, he regretted it. Giving her any sense of his weakness meant she’d have an opportunity to exploit it.

The silence on the other end of the call almost had him convinced it had dropped as she’d moved through the hills of East Tennessee.

He was prepared to end the call when she said, “Stay, Brett. Your mother and I have this handled.”

He wanted to argue.

Nothing he could come up with would have sounded sincere.

“I’ll pay you for babysitting them, Christina.” Twice what she deserved, obviously. “You can name your price.”

Her disgusted huff of breath prepared him. “I’m not going to charge you for getting to spend time with my niece and nephew, you stiff-necked, pompous...” Whatever she saw, hopefully his son’s inquisitive face, stopped Christina in her tracks. “But I’m keeping the truck and the keys for...a week. It’s the least you can do.”

Brett blinked slowly. She was right. It was the least he could do. In fact, if he’d been a more generous person, he’d have already offered her that when he heard about Leanne taking her car.

She could have asked for the world in return for her help. At the very least, she could have bargained hard for Leanne. Instead, she was only asking for the one thing a good neighbor would easily loan to another.

What was wrong with him? When had he become so hard?

“Definitely. You drive the truck as long as you need it, but I’m going to help you with...something.” He wasn’t sure what she needed most, a car or money, and he didn’t have much extra lying around the house, but he wanted her to understand how much he appreciated her stepping up.

“Can’t stand owing me a favor, can you?”

Brett hoped Parker didn’t hear the bitter tone of her laugh. They had so much history, all of it tangled and angry at this point. But she’d still come through when he needed her. How long would it take for the bad taste in his mouth over his complete lack of choices and the slight pinch of shame over how he’d cut her from his life in a self-righteous act labeled “protecting his children” to disappear?”

“You know me pretty well.” Of course she did. They’d grown up together. She could exploit so many of his weaknesses if she wanted, anytime, but she’d had that power all along and never used it. “Guess that’s something we have in common, the stubborn refusal to accept help.”

It wasn’t much in the way of a return volley, but he could live with it.

“Be prepared for payback. It won’t mean writing a check, either. I don’t want to sneak around to check up on Parker and Riley, not anymore.” Christina ended the call before he could say anything else or give her orders on what to do at the doctor’s office or when to call him. The rest of the class filed back into the room before he could hit the return button.

Then he realized what she’d said. She’d been sneaking around, visiting his kids behind his back? He would have sworn he knew everything happening with Parker and Riley.

He couldn’t investigate that now. Brett had a choice. Either he could gamble his career and race back to Sweetwater to take care of the most important thing in his life, his family.

Or...

He could trust the woman he’d been treating as completely untrustworthy for years to take care of Parker. That would mean admitting to and dealing with his own mistakes.

As the instructor stepped back up to the whiteboard, Brett decided to live with the anxiety and the worry and settled into his seat.

Never once in the time he’d known Christina and Leanne had Christina gotten herself in the type of trouble she couldn’t get out of. She would protect Parker with every hard lesson and clever trick she’d learned.

Living with the decision to keep his job instead of racing home to Parker would take some doing.

CHAPTER FIVE (#u353e52af-a712-5854-abe6-e3630d7c72ef)

“YOU STILL WITH ME, PARKS?” Christina said as she jerked to a stop in the parking lot of the closest urgent care place she could think of on the road down to Gatlinburg. Parker only knew that his doctor was in the city, but he couldn’t remember his name or his office.

Riley hadn’t answered her phone when Christina had tried sending up an SOS. Christina absolutely refused to consider calling Brett. He didn’t think she could do this, and his comment about not turning this into an opportunity to let Leanne in had made her angry enough to spit. The thought hadn’t occurred to her until he’d planted the seed.

If Leanne found out about this afternoon and that Christina hadn’t called her or more, she would be angry. Christina tightened her hands on the steering wheel. She’d have to worry about that later.