Karen Young - Sugar Baby

She was there almost before Mack was out. Midteens, Claire guessed. Standard shorts and T-shirt, expensive watch and sandals. This was obviously his daughter. She had the same near-black hair and distinctive blue eyes. Although right now she was too tall, all arms and legs and too thin, one day all those characteristics would be assets and she would be drop-dead beautiful. Claire wondered about his wife. Ex-wife?

“You said you’d be here at five,” the girl said with undisguised hostility. She jerked open the door to climb inside, but Mack stopped her.

“Just a minute, Michelle.”

“What?” She looked straight ahead, her face sullen.

“I told you to stay away from Jake Reynolds. He’s bad news.”

“This is Ann-Marie’s house. I don’t have any control over who comes and goes here.”

“You’ve been here all day. When did Jake get here?”

She shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“You know the rules, Michelle.”

She tossed her dark hair. “You have too many rules.”

“I have a right as your father to set boundaries. That’s your problem, Michelle, you’ve never had any rules.”

She turned then, her eyes shooting blue fire. “We’re gonna start in on my mother now? How bad she is? What a loser she is, right?”

He sighed. “This isn’t about your mother, Michelle.” He glanced in the Jeep and caught the expression in Claire’s eyes. “We’ll discuss it later. This isn’t the time or place.”

With a huffing sound, the teenager climbed into the back seat next to Danny. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t bring it up.”

Mack got in behind the wheel, but didn’t start up. He turned to introduce Claire and Danny, but his daughter interrupted him.

“You must be the scarlet woman,” she said, looking at Claire.

“Michelle!” Mack thundered. “Apologize… now! ”

Instead of apologizing, Michelle muttered the S-word.

Danny looked intrigued. “Mommy says when you say nasty words it’s only because you can’t think of better ones.”

Michelle gave him a contemptuous look. “You must be Carter’s brat. But now that I look a little closer, you could be Mack’s. You look more like him than Carter and, after all, he’s been loose and fancy-free for twelve years.”

“Michelle, I’m warning you…that’s enough! And don’t call me Mack.”

“You’re definitely a McMollere, though. Don’t worry.”

“Am I going to have to stop this car and gag you?” Mack demanded through his teeth.

“I don’t think I’m a brat,” Danny said, picking up on the only thing he understood in what Michelle had said. “Ryan’s a brat. Everybody says so.”

“Who’s Ryan, your brother?” The girl glanced at Claire. “There’s more where he came from?”

“Excuse me.” Claire spoke quietly, turning in her seat to give the girl a telling look. “None of this conversation is appropriate. If you have any other observations along these lines, please save them for a time when Danny isn’t present.”

“I couldn’t have said it better,” Mack said with a scowl. “We’re waiting for an apology, Michelle.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sorry.”

“What are you trying to do?” Mack said. “Embarrass both of us in front of these people?”

“You’re half right… Daddy. ” She said this last with scorn.

“Meaning you only want to embarrass me.” For a long moment, he simply looked at his daughter. Claire sensed his anger and frustration. His bewilderment. She wondered what had caused so much hostility between father and daughter. Mack turned to Claire. “Sorry about this. You’ve guessed that this is my daughter, Michelle. I apologize for her manners. I wish I could say that it won’t happen again, but since you work in the library at a high school you know that no one can predict the behavior of a teenager.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay.”

“I can do my own apologizing, thanks,” Michelle said.

He took off his sunglasses and with his thumb and forefinger rubbed his eyes wearily. Behind him, his daughter sat staring stonily out the window. The silence in the Jeep stretched uncomfortably.

Danny had watched and listened with fascination. His eyes were big now as he looked at Michelle. “You’re in trouble.”

His whisper carried easily to the adults in the front seat. Their eyes met. And for a second, Claire almost forgot where she was. Who he was. They were simply two single parents, each struggling with the problems of trying to rear children.

He leaned forward then and started the car and the spell was broken.

WHEN THEY TURNED OFF the highway about twenty minutes later, Mack told her that they were on McMollere land—over two thousand acres of flat, treeless bottomland planted exclusively in sugarcane. Fields and more fields of the green plants had reached a height exceeding eight feet in the August sun. The crop was nearing maturity, he explained. Then in the fall, in a flurry of activity, it would be cut, the strappy growth burned off, loaded on large trucks and hauled to the processing plants. Also owned by the McMolleres.

“What are those things?” Danny asked, pointing to mechanical beasts moving slowly up and down in various spots throughout the fields, like pecking birds.

“Oil pumps,” Mack explained. “There’s oil beneath the surface of the cane fields.”

“That’s how you get it out of the ground?” Danny was spellbound.

“That’s right, hotshot.”

Oil wells and sugarcane. Black and white gold. Claire sat stunned, taking it all in. The McMolleres’ wealth was more extensive than she’d realized. As was their power. She fought the fear rising in her chest.

“Is it okay to call you Uncle Mack?” Danny asked suddenly.

“That sounds fine to me,” Mack said, ignoring the snicker from Michelle.

“Did you like my dad? He was Carter McMollere.”

Claire met Mack’s startled glance. Why was he so surprised? she wondered. Did he expect her to bring Danny to meet Carter’s family and not explain to the child just who Carter McMollere was? Did they think Danny had reached age five without asking who his father was and why that man wasn’t a part of their lives?

“Yes, I liked him. He was my brother,” Mack said.

“Did you play with him?”

Enough, thought Claire. “Danny, let’s save this conversation for later, okay?”

“When, Mommy?”

“Just later, sweetie.” To her relief, Mack turned the car into a narrow lane. Finally.

Michelle had the door open almost before the Jeep stopped. “Well, here it is, kid,” she said, giving Danny a hand as he scrambled out after her. “Your heritage. Take a look.”

“What’s a heritage?” Danny asked, squinting in the sun at the imposing residence.

“Ask your mommy,” Michelle said, throwing a hostile look in Claire’s direction. “I’ll bet she has the answer to that one.”

“Michelle. Go to your room.” Mack’s expression was fierce. The girl shrugged and turned, heading for the front door.

Claire was used to teenage behavior. Before she took the job as a librarian, Claire had been an English teacher and had experienced her share of impudence and sheer bad manners from teenagers. She had found that such behavior often came from a deep well of hurt in a child. What, she wondered, was causing this girl such pain?

But there was no time to ponder the problem. As Michelle entered the house, two people came out. Claire reached for Danny, pulling him protectively against her, then turned to face Angus and Wyona McMollere, her son’s grandparents.

Later she realized that Mack was the force that had eased those first awkward moments. He had introduced his mother first. Wyona McMollere was tiny, no more than five feet tall. Her skin was fair and unlined, her hair delicately blond. Her hand trembled as she touched Danny’s hair, then his cheek. Claire guessed the woman to be about sixty, but her vague and distracted manner made her seem older.