A Charming Single Dad
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Heatherly Bell
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18,4K
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26
Chapter One
Rafe Reyes woke when something very wet and cold touched his nose. His wake-up call was usually his daughter Susan’s little finger jabbing him awake.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes, and a big ball of golden fur tried to French-kiss him.
“Bleh!” Rafe sat up, rubbing saliva off his mouth.
“Oh, he’s so cute.” Susan giggled. “Sub loves you. He gave you a kiss!”
“He gave me a slobber.”
Susan stood by his bedside, still wearing her Little Mermaid pajamas. Her dimpled smile and bright blue eyes never failed to tug a smile out of him. He’d need to do something about her hair today. Blond waves swirled around her face and tangled at her shoulders. Pigtails today? Maybe braids. He’d become an expert at both.
She bent to hug Yellow Submarine, a Labrador retriever and her new best friend. From the moment she’d met him yesterday, they’d been inseparable. Sub, for short, had appointed himself Susan’s shadow.
“I want to go to the beach. I want to take Sub! He can chase me, and we can build castles.”
The cobwebs in Rafe’s brain slowly began to unfurl. Oh, yeah, he’d promised her the beach today.
“Okay, baby. Give Daddy a minute to put a shirt on.”
He and Susan were staying in the converted lighthouse belonging to Cole Kinsella, who had been a navy SEAL and served in the same team as Rafe’s best friend, Max Del Toro. Cole and his wife, Valerie, had been kind enough to put him and Susan up. Coming to Charming for Max’s wedding week meant Rafe had pulled Susan out of preschool for a couple of weeks, causing yet another argument with Liz. But it was summer, and the first time he’d had a visitation with Susan for this long since the divorce. He didn’t see any harm in their daughter enjoying a stay in the small, bucolic Texas Gulf Coast town.
This was the first vacation he’d had in years, and a welcome break from life in the big city of Dallas. He detested city living but Liz had a good job with a defense contractor firm. They’d moved to Texas from Atlanta, where she’d formerly been stationed, in one last attempt to save their crumbling marriage.
Rafe pulled a T-shirt over his head. “Last one to the kitchen is a rotten egg!”
Because every day he tried to be the father Susan deserved, Rafe gave her a head start. Sub didn’t need one as he bounded down the steps ahead of them both. Susan skipped down the winding staircase that had been repurposed from an old ship, holding on to the rail.
Rafe was still in a state of amazement caused by the converted lighthouse. Upstairs on the outdoor deck, an old-fashioned telescope made it possible to get a spectacular view of the gulf. There were portholes for windows, a modern kitchen and a living room with one of Cole’s old surfboards serving as a coffee table. Wood floors gleamed. Nautical themes were everywhere, but one might expect this from the home of a surfing enthusiast and former SEAL.
On the landing, Rafe swept Susan up in his arms. “Somebody didn’t get her morning tickle!”
Susan dissolved in a flurry of squeals and laughter, trying her best to get away from the tickle monster. The kitchen was still quiet; no sign of Cole or Valerie awake.
He set Susan’s wiggling body down. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“Pancakes!” Susan twirled around the kitchen. “With chocolate chips!”
Rafe had been told to make himself at home. During his stay, he planned to be indispensable to the couple expecting their first child. They had saved him hundreds of dollars on a hotel room. His merely adequate salary as a Dallas firefighter and paramedic didn’t allow much for extras like vacations in coastal beach towns.
Making his hosts breakfast seemed like a good place to start paying back the favor.
“Good idea. Even Cole and Valerie will appreciate my chocolate chip pancakes.” He got busy looking through cabinets for a pan, flour and ingredients. “Do you want to help?”
“Of course, I’m a great helper.”
Zero lack of confidence in this one. Then again, she parroted nearly everything he said. He’d learned early on that kids came with no subterfuge or filter. For this reason, and many others, he watched what he said in her presence.
“You are a great helper.” Rafe cracked an egg into the bowl and handed her a spoon to stir.
“When I was a little girl, I didn’t know how to do this but now I’m old, so I know.”
He smirked. “Yes, Susan. You’re old now.”
She meant older, of course, but her four-year-old conversational skills were still developing when it came to time. It wasn’t quite linear to her.
“Mommy’s old. And you’re old.”
Rafe might only be thirty-three, but he sometimes felt ten years older. Susan had utterly domesticated him, which he figured had everything to do with it. He was the weekend dad who filled his days with his daughter, taking her to parks and museums. Other than his work for the Dallas Fire Department, and Susan, he had no life. He didn’t date. Sadly, he’d become boring. But he hadn’t planned on being a divorced single dad at his age. He’d had no plans to marry, either. And when he’d pictured marriage, someday, it was only to the woman he’d loved for half his life.
But you blew that possibility to smithereens.
Yeah, best not to think about Jordan Del Toro. He’d see her soon enough, which would be as pleasant as a root canal without anesthesia and hurt twice as much.
Susan was still working on her first pancake, light eater that she was, while Rafe had already consumed three. Valerie and Cole came down the staircase a few minutes later, visible from the kitchen due to the open floor plan and vaulted ceilings.
“Good morning, you two,” Valerie said, mussing Susan’s hair.
Cole fist-bumped with Rafe. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“My pleasure. As my daughter will tell you, I’m the pancake whisperer.”
“Chocolate chip pancakes?” Valerie said. “Ever since I got pregnant, I’ve been craving chocolate. I think I love you.”
“No, you don’t.” Cole hooked an arm around his bride. “You love me.”
“I was talking to the pancake, but I would love you even more if you’d cook me anything with chocolate.” She gave him a quick kiss.
Rafe would have given his left heart ventricle to have had this kind of a marriage. But contrary to some cultural and religious beliefs, love didn’t necessarily grow because two people were committed to each other. It didn’t take root and flourish because those two people were compatible and desperately wanted to make their family work. Rafe had learned the hard way that you couldn’t help whom you loved. He and Liz had done their best to give Susan the home she deserved, but in the end they’d failed miserably. He’d managed to be a good father, but he’d done a poor job as Liz’s husband.
“What are your plans today?” Rafe asked, handing them both a plate of pancakes. “I promised Susan the beach.”
“Can we please take Sub with us?” Susan piped in. “He really loves me.”
“Sure can. Sub loves the beach.” Cole said. “I’ll go with you guys. I haven’t surfed for a week.”
“I’m going to the dress fitting,” Valerie said, covering her pancake with syrup. “This is going to be a disaster. Ava has us wearing strapless dresses.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Rafe asked.
“Well, I’m a lot bigger than normal. Everywhere.”
“Don’t worry, Jordan has this all under control,” Cole said. “If she has to sew brand-new dresses for y’all I have no doubt she would do it.”
“Tell her I said hello,” Rafe said, knowing Jordan would be a lot more receptive to a secondhand greeting through Valerie.
“Why don’t you take Valerie?” Cole suggested. “That way you can say hello yourself.”
Ah, Cole was taking pity on Rafe. Kind of him. “Thanks, but I told Susan we’d hit the beach.”
“I can do that,” Cole said.
“No surfing.” Valerie pointed. “Taking care of Susan will be good practice for you.”
“We’ll chase waves and build sandcastles,” Cole said.
“Is that okay with you?” Rafe tipped his daughter’s chin up to meet his gaze.
“I’m not a baby anymore. Sub will take care of me.”
Cole splayed his hands. “Hey, what about me? Why do I always lose to Sub?”
“Cole will take care of you,” Rafe corrected. “He’s in charge. When he tells you to do something, you’ll do it. Are we clear?”
Susan bobbed her head up and down. “Yeah, bro. I got it.”
Cole burst into laughter and fist-bumped Susan. “Genius.”
“I’ll go take a shower and get ready,” Rafe said.
At least he’d see Jordan Del Toro for the first time in a public setting where if she wanted to draw and quarter him, she’d be forced to reconsider.
Still, he hadn’t been this nervous since the day he’d come home to tell Jordan he’d be marrying someone else.
Jordan Del Toro handled chaos, and weddings were her specialty. Weddings were 80 percent of her event planning business, Jordan Makes Plans, and she’d seen some...stuff. There was this one time when guests had thought it cute to blow bubbles toward the bride and groom as they entered the reception hall. But it had rained the night before, making the wood deck slick enough for a bride wearing three-inch heels to nearly slip and fall. Thankfully, the groom had moved fast enough to hold up the bride. Crisis averted.
Then there was the bridesmaid Jordan had found outside the reception venue, passed out drunk, her left boob hanging out of the strapless dress. Jordan had helped provide coverage while the girl shoved the boob back into place, then led the bridesmaid to the ladies’ room so she could splash water on her face. She’d pumped her full of coffee. Crisis averted.
Yet another time, the groom was found making out with the maid of honor. Crisis not averted. She couldn’t win them all.
But for the wedding of her older brother, Max, to Ava Long, every crisis would be averted. She had experience. She had chutzpah. She had skills.
She had two senior citizens insisting that there be a poetry reading in place of a first dance.
“I’ve written a poem for Max and Ava that they will adore,” Patsy Villanueva said. “It’s quite romantic, if I do say so myself, and I’ve censored some of the spicier details since children will be present.”
“Instead of erotic poetry, I suggest quoting from the classics. Perhaps Shakespeare. Or Emily Dickinson. She was a true romantic.” This was from Etta May Virgil, president of the local senior citizen poetry group named the Almost Dead Poet Society.
Yes, they had a president.
“Emily Dickinson?” Patsy shook her head. “Poor woman. I suggest Jane Austen. Perhaps something from Emma? Or Pride and Prejudice?”
“Jane Austen was not a poet,” Etta May said.
“I beg to differ,” said Patsy.
Jordan took a sip of the strong brew supplied by Ava’s coffee company and served by the Salty Dog Bar & Grill. Her brother and two of his best friends owned and ran the place where she now sat and tried to relax before her appointments today.
“All sound like wonderful ideas,” Jordan lied. “I’ll run them by Ava just as soon as I can.”
“See?” Mrs. Villanueva elbowed Etta May. “I knew she’d listen.”
Waving, they both went back to their booth.
Jordan had arrived late last night to Charming, Texas, from her home in Santa Cruz, California, two weeks before the wedding. Because for the first time in her career, she’d planned a wedding long-distance. Also for the first time, she was a bridesmaid and wedding planner. The rest of the Del Toro clan would arrive next week, but she was far too much of a control freak not to be present ahead of time. Everything would go according to her carefully laid plans. She’d arrived early enough to anticipate, and avert, any crisis. This was her brother’s wedding, after all, and nothing could go wrong. It had to be perfect.
She told herself it was her constant desire to achieve utter perfection that was making her anxious, and not the thought of seeing Rafe for the first time in four years.
Jordan consulted the leather planner that rarely left her presence. Old-school, sure, but it worked for her. She was a tactile and visual person to the nth degree. To that end, she’d planned nearly every minute of the fourteen days she’d be in Charming. Final cake testing, dress fitting, picking up wedding favors, caterer details, videographer and flowers. A trip to the beach had been scheduled in or her sister Maribel would accuse her of being a workaholic. By her calculations, this left zero minutes to reconnect, or otherwise chat, with Rafe. There would be no small talk or “happy” reunion.
She would say a quick hello to both his daughter and wife, Liz, and Rafe, too, since it could not be avoided, and stay busy every second until Geoff Costner arrived. Geoff, her attorney boyfriend extraordinaire of two years, happened to be the best plus-one a woman could ever hope for. He was handsome, a great flirt, knew how to dance and was going to make Rafe rue the day.
Both her present and future looked bright, and soon enough she’d marry Geoff. They were perfect for each other, as all his colleagues continually reminded them. A month ago, he’d suggested they get married rather than continue to live in separate condos. He was right, of course, and even if it wasn’t the most romantic proposal, it certainly was the most practical.
Since he hadn’t officially asked, she’d simply told him sure, it was a good idea. Then she’d waited for a ring, or something a little more...romantic. When it didn’t come, she realized that Geoff just wasn’t the type. It would be up to her as the organizer half of the couple to firm up details and choose a date. He was a good man. Sure, he lacked skills in the romance department, but she could do without those. Romantic and passionate men tended to be over the top and, more often than not, their fervor burned itself out. Been there, done that. She was a lot smarter now.
“Sorry we’re late.” Ava bustled up to the booth, two older women in tow. She took a seat across from Jordan. “Jordan, this is my mother, Dr. Katherine Long, and Lucia Perez, the woman who helped raise me.”
Dr. Long resembled her daughter, but contrary to the always colorful Ava, was dressed in a classy black monochrome pantsuit. The matronly woman, Ava’s former nanny and practically a member of the family, had beautiful latte skin and short salt-and-pepper hair. She wore a bright, multicolored skirt and matching top. From the beginning, Jordan had asked enough questions of Ava to know that they were basically dealing with not one mother of the bride, but two.
“Are you both attending the cake testing?” Jordan consulted her planner. This was the first appointment today, but she didn’t have a note in that regard.
“Is that a problem?” Dr. Long exchanged a look with Lucia. “We had both planned for this.”
“Of course not,” Jordan said, snapping her book shut. “The more the merrier.”
“Ay, muy bueno, I came all the way from Colombia,” Lucia said in her thick accent. “What a special time this is.”
“They both just want to be a part of our day,” Ava said, her usual bubbly self.
Jordan had first met her future sister-in-law when she visited the Del Toro family in Watsonville, California, last Christmas. There was no way anyone could meet the effervescent Ava Long and not instantly like her. The only surprise was that someone as grumpy and uptight as her former navy SEAL brother had wound up with a Miss Sunshine.
“Would anyone like some coffee first or should we get going?” Jordan glanced at her Fitbit watch.
Efficient, because it gave her the time, how many steps she’d taken in a day and her heart rate. That last one was important because Jordan fully expected it to blow into the triple digits, and for the first time, not due to a difficult bride.
“We had coffee at the hotel,” Dr. Long explained. “And I skipped breakfast so that I could eat as many samples as possible.”
“I’m ready when you are,” Ava said. “First, cake testing. Next, dress fittings.”
Jordan climbed out of the booth. “We should get going. I like to be early.”
Early or on time were the only timelines on Jordan’s radar. She’d said goodbye to her carefree ways long ago.
