Cheryl Harper - Saving The Single Dad

“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?”