Judy Duarte: The Matchmakers' Daddy

At the time, Zack hadn’t thought of Bob as a friend, since there was a fifteen-to-twenty-year age difference between them. But the older man’s faith in him had been one of the first breaks Zack had received since his conviction.

And it wasn’t something he’d ever forget.

Zack swiped at his brow again. After lunch—about the time the girls had taken an interest in his work—he’d shed his shirt. But the heat of the summer sun hadn’t eased up much, even though it was nearing five and he’d been on overtime for an hour or so.

As he turned the dozer, he again looked at the wall where the children sat. The blonde lifted the hand that rested near her beverage, but before he could nod or acknowledge her, the little brown-haired girl reached to take a drink while juggling her teddy bear. The stuffed animal slipped from her grasp, and as she tried to catch it, she lost her balance and tumbled forward.

Damn. That was a long, hard fall for a little kid. He quickly decelerated, threw the gear into Neutral, lowered the dozer blade, then jumped from the rig and ran toward the crying child, who lay on the ground in a heap of pink and white.

His heart echoed in his chest, as he leaped over clods of dirt and twigs that had yet to be cleared.

The older girl tried to scramble off the wall, but was having a difficult time of it.

When he reached the child in the dirt, he knelt by her side. “Are you all right?”

“No,” she shrieked between sobs. “I broke my leg. And my back. And my bottom. And it hurts really bad.”

The crazy kid could have broken her neck. As she sat up and peered at her knee, which sported a blood-tinged scrape, she let out a piercing wail.

“I’ll go get Mommy’s doctor book,” the older girl said, as she turned and tried to figure out how to scale the six-foot wall.

“Why don’t you go get your mommy instead,” Zack suggested. He could use some backup. Surely the child’s mother could handle this situation a hell of a lot better than he could. For Pete’s sake, he’d never felt so inept in all his life.

“Our mom is at work,” the older girl said.

“And what about your dad?” he asked her.

“He’s in Heaven.”

Oops. What was he supposed to say to that?

Hoping to distract the crying child from her pain and get her thoughts off the loss of her father, he asked her name.

She sniffled, sucking back her tears in a ragged wheeze. “J-Jessie.”

“It’s Jessica Marie,” the older girl supplied. “My name is Becky. I was named after my grandmother, Rebecca Ann. She’s in Heaven, too.”

Zack didn’t want to touch the Heaven stuff with a ten-foot pole, so he clamped his mouth shut.

“What’s your name?” Becky asked.

He really didn’t want to get chummy with a couple of kids. But he didn’t want to be rude, either. “You can call me Zack.” He didn’t give her a last name; he didn’t see a point.

“Our mom’s name is Diana,” she added. “She’s very pretty. And she’s nice, too.”

He knew for a fact that some pretty mothers left their children alone. But he didn’t think nice ones would. “Who’s looking after you?”

“Megan,” Becky supplied. “Our baby-sitter. She’s a teenager.”

Thank goodness there was someone better qualified for this than him, even if his successor was in her teens.

The injured child—Jessie—had finally stopped crying, but the tears had left a telltale muddy path along her cheeks.

“Do you think you can stand up?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’ll try.”

“Good. I’ll help you. Then we can go find Megan.”

As he tried to pull the little girl to her feet, she cried out. “Owie. I can’t. My leg is still broken.”

It looked okay to him. Just a little red near the knee.

Oh, what the hell. He’d just have to carry her home. The crew was spread a little thin this week, so he was the only one working on this project until Monday. He glanced at the dozer that sat idling in the field. With the blade down, it was safe to leave it for a little while, but he went back to the tractor and turned off the ignition.

When he returned to the girls, he picked up the teddy bear and handed it to Becky, then scooped Jessie into his arms.

“You sure are strong,” Becky said, as she walked along beside him.

He shrugged. Jessie didn’t weigh much more than his daughter, but he figured Becky was actually referring to his size.

At six foot six and with the bulk he’d built up in the prison gym, Zack got plenty of notice on the street. And not just from kids.

“Your muscles are really big,” the smaller girl said. “Just like the ’credible Hulk. Do you get green and big when you get mad?”

A smile tugged at his lips. “I get a little red in the face and puff out my chest. But I pretty much stay this color and size.”

They walked along the block wall until they reached the end, then cut through an unfenced backyard to the street.

“Which house is yours?” he asked, eager to pass the baton—or rather the child—to the sitter.

Becky pointed ahead. “Our house is the white one with the yellow sunflower on the mailbox. My mom painted it. She’s a good artist.”

As Zack continued down the street in the direction Becky had indicated, she asked, “Are you married?”

It seemed like an odd question, but he answered truthfully. “No, I’m not.”

“That’s good.”

Uh-oh. Warning bells went off in Zack’s head. Surely the preteen didn’t have a crush on him. How was a guy supposed to deal with stuff like that?

“Our mom’s not married, either,” Becky added.

Their mom? Oh, the widow.

He wasn’t sure how that came up. But good. Maybe the childish crush thing was the wrong assumption.

“What about you?” he countered. “Are either of you married?”

They both giggled.

Jessie, who no longer appeared to be shaken by her fall, brightened and her brown eyes sparkled. “No, silly. We’re just kids.”

As Becky lagged behind, Zack turned and noticed she was struggling to keep up with his stride, so he slowed down. He had to do that when walking with Emily, too.

When the girl finally caught up to him, she asked, “Do tractor drivers make a lot of money?”

What kind of question was that? He was making union scale—a damn good wage, especially for a felon. And he’d be able to buy his own house someday. A place with a second bedroom he could fix up for his daughter and a backyard big enough to hold a swing set, a playhouse and all the other outdoor, childhood necessities he’d yet to learn about.

“I’m happy with my paycheck,” he told the girl.

“That’s good.”

He snuck a glance at Becky’s bright-eyed, freckled face and saw the wheels turning. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out the direction of her thoughts.

But maybe it was only his imagination. He’d never quite gotten a handle on the complex way women thought. So what made him think a preteen girl would be any simpler?

As they neared the children’s house, one side of a duplex, a plump, gray-haired woman stepped onto the porch shared by both families. She frowned and strode toward him, her stubby arms swinging, her chest heaving with exertion. She furrowed her brow and, as she drew near, pointed a finger at him. “What do you think you’re doing? You put that child down immediately, or I’ll call the police.”

Just the thought of the woman calling the cops made Zack’s blood run hot and cold. He’d kept his nose clean since a few months before the robbery at the Speedy Stop. But no one in the D.A.’s office had believed his story. After all, he’d been a known juvenile delinquent who’d admitted arriving at the convenience store with the robber and gunman.