Tara Quinn - For Love Or Money

“And you resent that, don’t you? That I’m doing so well? That Wendy and I can afford to take a Caribbean cruise over Christmas? That we went to Vegas for Thanksgiving...”

She hadn’t known. Had never done either. But she and Dillon had always talked about doing both.

Focus.

She thought of her baby boy’s face when he’d high-fived her that morning because he’d put his tennis shoes on all by himself, crossed the laces and considered them tied. He’d been happier than when she gave him ice cream. And she was happier, too. So much more than she’d ever have been without him. More than a cruise or any vacation would ever make her.

She was doing this for Dawson. Getting the money for Dawson.

“You’re legally obligated to pay this.” And he knew she had a friend who would see that he did. But not until he made her beg. “I need the money, Dillon.”

“You’re desperate.” Eyes narrowing, he leaned forward. “You lost another job, didn’t you?”

She could lie. But knew he’d find out soon enough. He always did.

So she didn’t lie. She just stood there. As mute as Dawson would be without the therapies Dillon wanted to deny him. He had no way of knowing what Dawson sounded like. He’d never met the boy he’d fathered. Had no idea how Dawson sounded when he tried to communicate with her. No way of knowing that the therapy was helping Dawson learn to talk clearly enough to be understood.

“When are you going to admit that I was right all along? Look at you, Janie. What’s this, three jobs in as many years? Admit that you made a mistake. That you should have taken the choice we were given back when you had that first ultrasound. You should have ended the pregnancy.”

The words still hurt. Every single time. Because they deleted the happiest person she’d ever met from the face of the earth.

Gripping the door handle, she swung around.

“Janie.”

His tone had changed. For a second there, he could have been the man she’d married.

She looked over her shoulder. Maybe to remind herself that that man had never existed.

He was standing, pulled a few bills out of his wallet and walked over to hand them to her.

“Here,” he said. “Never let it be said that I don’t stand up to my obligations.”

If it had been just her, she’d have spit on those bills. But they were hundreds. Would pay for far more than a few months’ co-pays. She took them. Looked him in the eye as she said, “Thank you.”

“You deserve better than this, Janie.” He sounded sad.

And she figured he should be. She had the absolute best life had to offer waiting for her in a preschool across town.

While he’d lost the only thing of importance he’d ever had.

And didn’t even know it.

CHAPTER TWO

“KELS?” BURKE TAPPED on his daughter’s slightly ajar door just before ten that night. He’d let her have the evening her way. They’d stopped for the rice and salad bowl she’d wanted for dinner. He’d done some work on his laptop while sitting with her through the shows she’d chosen to watch on TV—if you could call her dead stare “watching.”

He’d helped with the laundry—even though it was her night to do a load and she’d said she was fine doing it alone...

“I’m decent,” she called through the door after a full thirty seconds had passed.

They’d had that talk last summer, too—with the help of her pediatric psychiatrist, Dr. Zimmers. He wasn’t to walk in unannounced now that she was wearing a bra and having her period. Didn’t matter that Burke was a doctor. He was a bone doctor. Kelsey’s emphasis on “bone.” And she was his daughter. And she had things to be modest about now.

“Can I come in?” he called.

“I guess.”

Better than whatever. He missed the little girl who used to beg to sit on his lap. Or ride on his shoulders. Ride high, Daddy! He could hear that tiny little voice like it was yesterday.

But it wasn’t. Not even the day before that. More like a lifetime ago.

She was on her bed, propped up with pillows, her tablet on her lap. Wearing the flannel, black-with-pink-heart pajama pants he’d bought her just before school started. With an old T-shirt left over from when her mother was a seventh-grade English teacher and insisted the three of them show team spirit, wear team colors and go to all of the athletic activities they could make.

Palm Desert’s vibrant red clashed with the pink heart. The vibrant gold, not so much.

Her long brown hair, usually in a ponytail, hung around her face. At least she was leaving it long. She’d tried to insist on coloring it purple that summer. He’d held firm against that one.

Leaning over to glance at what she was doing on her tablet, Burke took a seat on the side of the double bed. Keeping a respectable distance.

She turned her tablet around. “It’s just Friday’s Fashion Boutique, Dad.” She named an interactive fashion app that he’d seen her use many times before. Kind of like a modern-day Barbie doll, his mother had said when his folks had come from Florida the previous Christmas.

“A good parent checks, Kels,” he reminded her. Another thing he was not going to budge on. All parental controls were in place when it came to her use of electronics and social media.

She had a phone. She could call and had limited text capability—enough to reach him when necessary. Period. And he could see the numbers she called and texted every day if he chose to check.

He didn’t. But she knew he could.

“I don’t care if you look.” She shrugged, turning her tablet back around. She didn’t fight him. Never had when it came to her limited use of social media. And from the horror stories he’d heard from his peers, nurses, even his patients, he had real reason to be thankful for that.

“Dr. Zimmers called me today,” he said, getting right to the point.

She continued to move her finger along the ten-inch glass screen. Tapping and dragging.

“She wants to put you on medication.” He named a brand. Didn’t figure it would mean anything to her.

“I’m not taking it. You can force it down my throat and then I’ll stick my finger right behind it and throw it back up.”

Thirteen-year-old drama queen had joined them.

“We need to talk about that.”

Kelsey’s gaze was resolute when she put her tablet facedown on the mattress and looked at him. In that instant, he could have been looking at himself in the mirror when he was getting ready to put his foot down with her.

“We’ve talked about it, Dad. I’m not going to start taking some upper pill because I’m sad that my mom died. Or because I get sad sometimes when I think about it.”

“You’re sleeping way too much.”

“So get me up earlier. You’re the parent. Help me out.”

He could do that. “You’re a grump in the morning.”

“You can take it.”

She had a point.

“You spend too much time alone.”

“I’m dancing again. Be happy with that for now.”

“It’s not my happiness I’m worried about,” he said. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve heard you laugh out loud, Kels? Or since I’ve heard a note of excitement in your voice?”

He could talk to her about an imbalance of neurotransmitters that could lead to serious depression if not counterbalanced.

“Then give me something to get excited about.” Her quiet words, spoken to her tablet, stopped his thought process cold.

Rather than arguing with him, or giving him the rote “whatever,” she’d actually given him a positive opening. In two years’ time, it was a first.

Expecting a request for a smartphone, a trip to Disneyland or a week off school, he said, “I’m not talking about a momentary fix, Kelsey. You know that.” Though he was tempted to give her any of those things, all of them, to reward the open, non-defensive approach. “Maybe you need to try the medication...”