Jennifer Greene - Single Dad

No one had been in the shop but Killer, and the price tag for the missing unicorn was forty-five bucks. A little late, Ariel recalled finding the child at the corner between the magic aisle and the crystal display—and the stricken, guilty look in those chocolate eyes.

Damn.

For a short five seconds, Ariel debated tracking down her miniature thief. The little delinquent had mentioned her last name. Penoyer? Wasn’t that it? Nothing so common that scouting a telephone number should be too challenging—if she wanted her unicorn or her forty-five bucks back.

The mental debate didn’t last long. The money was no big deal; the principle mattered more, but the red-line truth was that she’d rather chew rats than get the child in trouble. The image of that dad who didn’t believe in magic—”at all ”— prowled through her mind.

Killer’s dad sounded like a hard-core realist. Stern. Unbending. An unyielding rule lover. Basing her judgment on the few comments the child had made about him was hardly fair, but it didn’t really matter if she was right or wrong. She’d never know him. One lost unicorn simply wasn’t worth the risk of getting the child in trouble, and that was that.

* * *

“Ariel!”

“Hmm.” Ariel heard her partner calling, but she didn’t look up from the workbench. The chances of Dot actually needing her for anything were about five million to one. It was nearly seven—closing time—which Dot could handle blindfolded in her sleep.

Spread in front of Ariel was a tray of seed pearls. She adjusted the gooseneck lamp for the third time. The coral cameo brooch was a real find. A little cracked, but not too bad. The brooch was circled with seed pearls, a style common around 1910, but two pearls had been missing when the piece came in. Fixing it was no challenge, but finding two seed pearls of the right color and size was a real blinger.

“Ariel! There’s someone out here to see you!”

“Hmm.” Using tweezers and a magnifying glass, she held up another seed pearl to the light. Dot had been handling customers for several hours, the same amount of time she’d buried herself in the back with repair projects. She was determined to finish this last one before calling it quits.

The two-day heat spell hadn’t broken, and the airconditioning just refused to reach back here. She’d jettisoned her shoes hours ago, piled and pinned her long blond hair off her neck, hiked up her skirt and unbuttoned her blouse. She was still hot. And beginning to suffer from starvation.

She studied another seed pearl in the lamplight, but her mind was indulging in a lustful, dawdling daydream about bathtubs and butter-brickle ice cream. The daydream wasn’t as good as a nice, wicked fantasy about sex—but almost. Her apartment was over the shop. If she ever finished this blasted brooch, she just might climb the stairs, lock the door, strip and immerse herself in a cool scented bath, a spoon and a pint of ice cream in hand. So it was a little decadent. Who’d know? Who’d care?

And she could already taste that to-die-for-delicious butter brickle.

“Ariel, for heaven’s sakes, didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Hmm? Oh. Sorry, Dot, my mind was in another universe....” She spun around, expecting to see her partner in the doorway—which she did. But Dorothy, with her short-cropped Afro and bifocals and tastefully tailored clothes, had always been the stable member of their pair. Why she was standing there, winking and rolling her eyes, was beyond Ariel. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Dot shot her another “meaningful” wink. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m leaving. The register’s locked and the Closed sign is up, so you won’t be disturbed. I’ll be in tomorrow at nine.”

“Fine, see you tomorrow.” Ariel still hadn’t fathomed what all the winking was about, until her six-foot friend shifted past the doorway.

There were two people just behind Dot. A man and a child. Ariel recognized the miniature female delinquent in the orange fluorescent tennies in a heart’s blink—she’d thought about Killer more than once over the past two days. But it was Killer’s dad who riveted her attention.

She didn’t have to guess about the family connection—the physical resemblance was unmistakable. Mr. Penoyer had the same shock of thick unruly hair, midnight black, and the same liquid dark eyes as his daughter. But the squirt must have inherited her homely bones from some other source, because her daddy was one hell of a looker.

Ariel’s complete distrust in the institution of marriage never meant she was antimen. It had been a while, though, since she met a lightning bolt who inspired her feminine hormones to a 911 red-alert status. He wasn’t huge, maybe five feet ten, but the package was all lean, wired muscle. Apparently he’d come straight here after a day of working in the heat, because he carried a hard hat in one hand, and he was dressed in jeans, a worn navy T-shirt and scuffed work boots.

Judging from the character lines etched around his eyes, he was in his mid-thirties. Judging from the scowl cut deep as a well on his forehead, he was smoking with tension and temper. It wasn’t hard to figure out that he didn’t want to be here. The phrase “volatile powder keg” shot through her mind, followed by the disgracefully wayward thought that he’d be an incredible handful in bed—dangerous and exciting and unpredictable.

Not that his skills as a lover were relevant to anything. She wasn’t prospecting. It was just an objective observation.

In those same few seconds, he seemed to make some instantaneous objective observations about her, too. Those dark eyes laddered up her bare feet to her hiked-up skirt to her open-collared shirt to her wildly disarrayed blond hair. Modesty hadn’t been her concern in the privacy of the back room. Actually, modesty was rarely a front-line priority with her anyway—good grief, a body was a body. But hers suddenly felt different, alive and aware and definitely exposed. Heaven knew what he’d expected, but his gaze reflected the same kind of wariness he’d show an open vial of nitro.

“You’re the owner of this place? Ariel Lindstrom?”

He sounded so doubtful that she was tempted to offer him ID. “Yes.”

“Well, I’m Josh Penoyer. Patrice’s father.” With two firm hands on her shoulders, Killer was ousted from the safe hiding place behind his legs. “My daughter has something to say to you.” Killer clearly wasn’t fond of this plan, because she burrowed straight back for her daddy’s arms. “Patrice.” There was no meanness to his tone, but it wasn’t hard to identify the immobility of rock. Dad wasn’t gonna budge. The little one lifted dread-filled eyes. Sotto voce, he prompted her, “We’re sorry....”

“We’re sorry. Very sorry we took your unicorn.” Said-offending unicorn came out of a shorts pocket, wrapped protectively in several miles of tissue, and was placed on Ariel’s workbench.

“Oh, sweetheart...” Ariel started to say, but she was cut off.

“We have a little more to say than that, don’t we, Patrice?”

“Yeah.” Killer had to take a huge breath before she could get out the rest of the prepared speech. “We unnerstand that you could call the cops and put me away for the rest of my life, but we’re hoping you won’t. Because I would never steal anything again as long as I live. And because I’m real sorry. And because you were nice, and that makes it extra bad that I stole something from you, and I’ll probably never be able to forgive myself, even in my whole life.”

Ariel couldn’t wait another second before pushing off the stool and crouching down to the child’s level. “Well, we certainly can’t have you feeling that bad. It takes a big person to own up to her mistakes, Killer, and it means a lot to me that you did that. You brought the unicorn back, and you apologized. That squares things with me just fine.”