Cynthia Thomason - An Unlikely Father

“To be perfectly honest, Officer,” he said, “maybe I shouldn’t have been parked where I was. The car is half on, half off the road.”

Muldoone smiled and flipped the cover over his notebook. “Don’t let her get to you, Mr. Anderson,” he said. “You can be sure Helen will give the judge that little detail. If I were you, I’d stick to your story. If not, you could end up losing your license. Helen has a way of turning the tables.”

The officer headed toward his patrol car. Before he got in, he turned back to Ethan and said, “What are you going to do now, Mr. Anderson? You want me to call headquarters? I’ve got the only patrol car, but I can have my partner come out on the golf cart, pick you up and take you back into town.”

Oh, right. Ethan remembered the head of security for Anderson Enterprises telling him that Heron Point cops rode around on golf carts. As much as he wanted to see that, and as much as he wanted to get out of the heat, Ethan declined the offer. “I’ve got to wait for the tow,” he said. “I could be here as long as two hours. You’re kind of remote on this island.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll probably see you when I’m coming back from the Sweeney place.”

Officer Muldoone got in his car and drove away. Ethan swatted at an aggressive dragonfly, got in the Town Car and turned on the air-conditioning. Most of the cool breeze went out the gaping hole where the door had been, but Ethan didn’t care. He didn’t suppose Diamond Rental was going to say much about the car returning without a full tank of gas.

WHEN SHE HEARD the knock on her door, Helen looked out the front window and swore. “Oh, hell.”

Her father silenced the Sweeney’s fifteen-year-old yellow Lab and wheeled around in his chair. “Who is it, Helen?”

“It’s Muldoone,” she said.

“What in the world does he want?”

“I clipped somebody on Gulfview Road today,” she said. Seeing the worried look on her father’s face, she added, “It was no big thing, Pop. The other guy’s fine. Our truck just got a scratch.”

“And you didn’t tell me this?” Finn asked.

The pounding on the door increased, and Helen turned the knob. “I knew there’d be time enough.” She opened the door. “Hi, Billy. Nice day, isn’t it?”

“Not for you, Helen.” He handed her a ticket. “Reckless driving. Again. You’ll have to make a court appearance on this one. About six weeks from now.”

She took the ticket. “I’m probably busy that day, but I’ll try to squeeze it in. By the way, how’s that guy, the one who got in my way?”

Muldoone sent her a strange look, one that hinted he was amused by her question. “You don’t know who you hit, do you?”

“No.” She hadn’t bothered to look at the business card, which right now sat on the bathroom counter. “Who is he?”

“Ethan Anderson,” Billy said smugly. “Does the name ring a bell?”

It did. Almost as if the bell were clanging against the side of her head with the intention of deafening her. “The guy from Anderson Enterprises.”

“Oh, yeah. And you sure taught him a lesson about Heron Point hospitality. If he doesn’t hightail it back to New York on the next plane, he’ll at least avoid you from now on.”

Could this day get any worse? Now she’d hit the one man people in Heron Point were looking to as a financial savior.

Sticking his head inside the front door, Billy said, “How’s it going, Finn?”

“It’d be better, Billy, if you hadn’t given us that ticket—and that news.”

Helen closed the door a couple of inches. She had to get rid of Billy. She had to go down to the edge of the water and scream as loud as she could where no one would hear her. “Okay, then, boys,” she said. “Enough chitchat.”

Billy stubbornly leaned his two-hundred-pound frame against the jamb, preventing her from shutting him out. “Hey, Helen, you still going out with that folksinger?”

“Sure am. We’re as cozy as a pair of fleas on a dog’s ear.”

He moved a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “You let me know when you break up. You still owe me a date.”

Helen couldn’t remember the debt, but even if it were true, there was no way Billy Muldoone was going to collect. “Right. You’ll be the first person I tell.” She shut the door and collapsed against it.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Finn said. “The ticket you just got or the fact that an Anderson has finally showed up in Heron Point.”

Helen had never understood her father’s resentment of anyone associated with Anderson Enterprises, and she’d grown tired of asking him. Finn would tell her when he was ready. “My money’s on the ticket,” she said. “You’re the only one in town who hasn’t been looking forward to Anderson’s arrival.”

Finn frowned. “You okay? You weren’t hurt in that little mishap, were you?”

“No. I’m just dandy.” She stared down at the ticket in her hand. That, and the bad impression she’d made on Ethan Anderson weren’t the most disturbing pieces of information she’d gotten today. In fact, they weren’t even a close second and third. The absolute winner in the bad-news category was that eight-letter word printed in blue on the plastic wand in her bathroom. It said, pregnant.

AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK THURSDAY morning Helen parked the Suburban behind the Lionheart Pub and entered the establishment through the back door. She’d been up since seven preparing fishing tackle for her charter trip the next morning, but she’d put off coming into town until she knew Donny would be awake. His last set at the Lionheart didn’t end until nearly two o’clock, and he liked to sleep in after performing late.

Helen hadn’t come to see him play last night. He’d called during his first break to ask where she was. She’d tried to sound cheery, as if nothing was wrong. She’d said she was tired and would see him the next day.

And now that she was going to face him, she didn’t feel any more confident about telling him the news than she had the day before. She’d hoped that a quiet night alone with her thoughts would result in a clear plan for what she was going to do about the pregnancy, but that hadn’t happened, because her decision depended heavily on Donny’s reaction. Now, as she came through the Lionheart’s kitchen, she pondered the two conclusions she’d come to sometime in the middle of a restless night. She would tell Donny today. He was the father. He deserved to be the only other person she confided in. And for now, she would think of her condition in terms of the clinical word pregnancy. She refused to think of herself as having a baby. That was too intimate. Too conscionable. And certainly, until Donny reacted as she hoped he would, too scary.

Vinnie, the Lionheart’s luncheon cook, looked up from a bubbling cauldron of spaghetti sauce as she walked by. “Hey, Helen, it’s kind of early for you to be here.”

“Hi, Vinnie. I could tell what you were cooking all the way over at the Finn Catcher this morning, and had to see for myself if it tasted as good as it smelled.” She took the spoon he offered, dipped it in the pot and slurped a healthy portion. The rich tomato sauce settled in her stomach like a lit firecracker, and reminded her that two cups of coffee and a helping of garlic probably wasn’t a fit breakfast for a pregnant woman. “Yep, just as I thought,” she said. “Delicious.”

He smiled with pride. “Come back for lunch. I’ll make sure you get a big helping.”

She laid her hand over her stomach. “I’ll hold you to that. Is Donny outside?”

“Yeah, hard at work as usual.”

Helen knew what that meant. Donny spent most of his waking hours building his sailboat. Luckily, the vacant lot between the Lionheart and the Heron Point Hotel was large enough to accommodate the twenty-nine-foot hull that he’d lovingly assembled in the three months he’d been on the island.