Anna DeStefano - All-American Father

“The longer you took to get here, the more belligerent your daughter became.”

“Traffic over the bridge was a bitch, not that it’s any of your business.”

Bailey, or so her name badge read, twirled a tendril of hair between nervous fingers. She started to speak, stopped, then shrugged as if to say, what the hell.

“Your daughter’s getting in over her head.” She met his gaze dead-on, which took guts considering he was ready to explode and his expression no doubt showed it. “Stealing is bad enough, but—”

“I’m a lawyer. I don’t need a convenience store clerk to tell me that shoplifting is a serious offense. I just got an earful from the cop outside.”

“Did he bother to mention what your daughter took?” Her eyes narrowed.

“No. Stealing is stealing.”

“Not if you’re a twelve-year-old girl.” She reached for a purse and a familiar-shaped box. “You don’t remember me, Derrick, but you seemed like a pretty good guy in high school. When you find the time in your busy schedule, you or your wife might want to have a talk with Leslie about birth control.”

He stared at the twelve-pack of condoms. His mouth opened to fire a dozen questions at the departing Bailey, but he couldn’t find the words.

His baby girl was apparently flirting with the idea of being sexually active, and the sassy clerk at the Stop Right, the crotchety owner and even Detective Oaks had known before Derrick had.

“I KNOW I’M LATE,” Bailey blurted as she hustled into Margo’s Bistro.

Giving up on heading home to shower and change, she’d raced away from the Stop Right—and Derrick Cavenaugh’s domestic problems—and headed straight for the bistro.

“It’s slow for a Thursday night.” Margo Evans motioned toward the group of women she’d been sitting with at a corner table. “A few friends popped in. Nothing Robert and I couldn’t handle.”

Margo and her husband’s bistro had become the latest trendy meeting spot for the residents and business people who milled around San Francisco’s South of Market Area. A month or so back, Bailey and Margo had bumped into each other, literally, while Bailey bussed tables and circulated trays at a wedding the other woman attended.

Margo had needed weekday help in the evenings, which was perfect for Bailey. Her hands were full at her family’s bed-and-breakfast all morning. Every day. And the bistro’s pay beat the minimum wage Drayton grudgingly doled out.

“Get back to your friends.” Bailey slipped behind the counter. “I’ll see what Robert needs.”

Pushing through the double doors to the kitchen, she clocked in and grabbed her apron. Bailey had been embroidered in sunny yellow on the apron’s apple-green fabric. As if she belonged there, when Margo’s was just one more part-time job in the endless string she’d had since high school.

Dead-end jobs were necessary. They kept the bills paid. They weren’t anything close to the exciting life she’d dreamed of, but that was fine. So was arriving at her second part-time gig of the day, rumpled and twelve hours past shower-fresh. Whatever she had to do, however she looked doing it, Bailey didn’t mind, as long as she kept her grandmother’s business afloat.

“You want to take these out while I get the ladies their drinks?” Robert handed over a plate filled with specialty muffins and scones that were typically sold out after the breakfast rush. For Margo and her friends, he’d broken into tomorrow morning’s stash.

Bailey smiled and nodded, heading into the other room with the platter. Robert co-owned the bistro with Margo, and he had some big-time job in finance or banking. But nights and weekends, when he wasn’t hanging out with Margo’s kids, he was in the bistro lending a hand wherever she needed him. They were one part newlyweds, married just since August, and one part old married couple. The kind of couple that finished each others’ sentences and slipped into both romantic and silly moments as if they’d never known any different.

Their happiness would be enchanting to watch if their ready-made family didn’t reek of the kind of too-good-to-be-true situation that Bailey typically avoided.

“Here you go.” She set pastries in front of her boss and the other two women at the table.

“I tell you, he’s not going to come,” said the brightly dressed woman beside Margo who looked vaguely familiar.

“He’s in over his head.” Margo’s other friend managed to look both tough and gentle as she contributed to the evening’s gossip.

Margo chuckled. “That’s usually when most people think they have it all figured out.”

“Can I get you anything else?” Bailey asked, maintaining the illusion of privacy while she stood close enough to take their next order. She was there, but she was invisible.

The service industry is in our blood, Grams kept saying, passing off the Greenwood family’s legacy of perpetually serving, while others relaxed and took a break from their lives, as a magical gift bestowed upon only the chosen few.

“No, thank you, Bailey. This looks lovely.” Margo smiled, as if the way Bailey had placed the plate of desserts on the table was a slice of heaven on earth.

“I’ll get your drinks.” Bailey backed away, her return smile forced.

She needed this job. To keep the Gables Inn out of the red, she’d take two or three more just like it. Her new employer’s overly exuberant appreciation was a small cross to bear, even if it held a hint of pity for how much Bailey and her grandmother were struggling.

“Drinks ready?” Bailey picked up a tray at the counter Robert was now working behind.

The door chimed behind her. Robert nodded his head in greeting to whoever had come in.

“Selena gets the espresso, straight up.” He loaded Bailey’s tray. “And Margo likes her lattes.”

“Selena?”

“The artist.”

Ah.

The woman wearing the vibrant combination of a deep plum tunic and sage-green skirt, who Bailey could have sworn she’d met somewhere before.

“You came!” She heard Selena exclaim.

Bailey turned. Her experienced hold on the tray of steaming drinks deserted her at the sight of Derrick Cavenaugh holding the beautiful artist’s hand and smiling as he chuckled—genuinely chuckled—at something she was saying.

Crash!

Then everyone was staring at Bailey and the broken pottery littering the floor.

BAILEY GREENWOOD…

Derrick had wrangled her name out of her boss, while he’d failed once again to talk the irritated man into dropping the shoplifting charges.

Little Bailey Greenwood…

The name was vaguely familiar, but besides the heather-green eyes, he had only a distant memory of an overly bright kid who, as a freshman, had kicked his and everyone else’s butts in senior calculus class.

And now she was working the counter at a suburban minimart?

The kid behind the Stop Right register hadn’t blinked before spilling that his coworker wasn’t on her way home at six in the evening.

Bailey’s always scrambling for work. I think she’s hooked up with some coffee place in SOMA, something like two nights a week….

Leslie had shot into her room and locked the door after their silent drive home. The sitter was already paid for, since Derrick had planned to stay at the office late to work on Reynolds-Allied briefs. He’d made sure Savannah was settled, then he’d headed back to town, to track Bailey down. Maybe to talk her into…

Into what?

After he’d treated her like a nobody back in Langston, he had no right to ask for anything.

“Oh, dear.” One of the women sitting with Selena set off to help Bailey clean up.

“I’m sure babes swoon at your feet on a daily basis,” teased Selena, his only friend from high school who’d never been impressed by his impending greatness. The only Western alumni he’d kept up with over the years. “But I bet having one throw food is a new twist.”