Surprise Daddy

“But nothing. We’re done. When did I ask for an apology? I don’t have time to sit around all day waiting for the Doc to give her a damn prescription, and I definitely don’t have time for bruised egos.” He barely acknowledges her, shifting his gaze back to me, harsher than ever. “Work on your technique if you’re looking to stay for the long haul.”

My mouth drops open. I’m shocked, appalled, and a dozen kinds of offended.

Just like that, Papa Bear is gone, carrying the sweet thing on his shoulder through the office divider opening that’s barely big enough for his shoulders.

“Holy shit. The nerve!” Quinn’s voice cracks. She snatches the tube from my hand and carries it over to her end of the room for analysis, shaking her head. “I’ll go straight to management. Someone needs to put that asshole in his place, keep him away from here. He can go to Davenport next time he needs a checkup. We’re not his doormats.”

It’s tempting. Very, very tempting, but then I remember how far Davenport is, especially in the winter when the winds do whiteout like second nature on the Iowa roads.

Banning him from the clinic will just inconvenience the little girl, who’s far more likely to need our services than Mr. Crass-hole.

“Let’s just drop it, okay?” I’m smiling by the time Quinn whips around, popping a stick of gum into her mouth, chewing her irritation away. “It could’ve been worse, I mean. Mia was a total doll and the procedure was fine. I’m just glad he didn’t stick around longer.“

“Mr. Howard, no soliciting! It’s clinic policy. Hey, wait!” June’s voice rings out behind us, loudly, and we hear her chair sliding as she stands up frantically.

Silence. Quinn rolls her eyes, turning back to her screen. “Suit yourself. You’re a nicer person than I’d be, Sadie, but I can’t hold that against you. Why don’t you take five or ten and go see what else the idiot did? I’ve got the sample.”

“Fine.” A break is actually what I need.

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath, hoping the asshole is really gone, until I’m next to June. She’s next to the table in the waiting area, plucking a pile of torn white paper scraps off a business magazine, muttering to herself. “Nanny, my sweet tush. You’re the one who needs the babysitter, you big, pissed off, stupid lug of a –“

“What’d he do now?”

June turns, startled by my appearance. I smile an apology and hold out my hand while she pushes the mess of papers into my palm. “I told him this isn’t the place to leave his junk lying around. Of course, he can’t be bothered to even have a professional looking card made.”

I flick my fingers over the torn scraps. They all have the same four words written on them with a phone number in his blocky, crabbed script. Even his handwriting is threatening.

NANNY WANTED.

CALL MARSHAL.

There’s a phone number underneath.

“Take them to the trash, will you? Before the doctor comes in to debrief. I can’t have him seeing this. Last time Ms. Myers left a couple papers about her bake sale, I never heard the end of it.”

I nod, crumpling the dozen or so uneven white scraps in my palm. I leave June alone at her desk and step into the hall. I’m just in time to flatten myself against the wall before a frowning Cartwright passes, without so much as a good morning.

The figure turning down the hall, heading out to the reception area and then to the parking lot, is the reason why.

Against my better instinct, I follow, stopping just around the bend, staring out the frosted glass.

It’s absurd, really. But maybe I’m worried for the little girl, or part of me just wants to know what turns a man into an antisocial buffalo.

The Castoff stands there with his daughter, kneeling down, fixing her coat. He double-checks her mittens and then plants another kiss on her forehead through the hoodie, giving the clinic behind him the stink eye one last time.

Our eyes meet.

I look away.

Seething blood crashes against my ears, drowning out this weird, mysterious piece of the world I can’t quite make sense of. The Castoff, Papa Bear, Marshal the Crass-hole is gone the next time I find the courage to look through the glass. I catch a flash of his SUV rolling by, big and black and loud, cleaner than it should be for a man who lives off the grid, deep in the woods by the bluffs.

Supposedly.

Rumors, rumors, and what are they worth? None of them explain how he can be so sweet to his own flesh and blood, while he’s a total brute to the rest of us.

I hate rumors. And I hate it even more that I want the bitter truth about Marshal.