Blindsided (Indigo Love Spectrum) Page 17

  “Yes, weeks, Ryan. More than a month. The last significant conversation we had was when I informed her about the success of her audit, and that was business. I’m not pushing the personal issue anymore. Dahlia knows how I feel. I’m giving her space to deal with what she’s feeling.”

  “I saw Dahlia yesterday,” Lara said. “She asked about you.”

  “Did she?”

  “Uh-huh. She’s weakening.”

  “Really? She hardly says more than hello to me when I phone for Reese.”

  “That’s what women do,” Lara said. “Dahlia can’t let you know she’s thinking about you.”

  “But you just told me.”

  “That’s right, because she wanted me to.”

  “Huh?” Norris said, switching Angelica to his other side. “Did she ask you to tell me?”

  “No, she didn’t. But trust me, if you were to—I don’t know—pay her a visit, I bet she’d be glad you did.” Lara smiled broadly. “Just something to think about.”

  “Things better with Reese?” Ryan asked.

  Norris grunted. “Let’s just say they aren’t any worse.”

  “She’s a teenager, and you’re both still adjusting,” Lara said. “She just needs . . .”

  “More time,” Norris said. “I know.” He jiggled Angelica. “You ready to go?”

  “Yep!” she answered.

  “All right.”

  Lara kissed Angelica’s cheek. “You keep your eye on Uncle Norris, okay?”

  Angelica nodded. “I will, Mommy.”

  “Don’t spend more on her today than Lara and I make in a week,” Ryan told him, kissing Angelica’s forehead. “We want her to grow up to appreciate things and not just expect them because Uncle Norris can buy them for her.”

  Norris frowned. “Killjoy.”

  “Norris.”

  “All right, all right,” he said. “I won’t overindulge.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes and one toy store after arriving at the mall, Angelica had two new babies to play with. Norris walked through the mall with Angelica holding one hand and a bag with her two new dolls and a video game for Justin in the other.

  “I have two babies just like Mommy is going to have,” Angelica said proudly. “Thank you, Uncle Norris.” She beamed.

  “You’re welcome, sweetie.” Norris wondered if he could ever get a big smile like that out of Reese. “I was happy to get them for you.”

  “Uncle Norris, look!” Angelica pointed across the way to the music store. “Diana and Reese.”

  Norris looked over to find his daughter and her friend engaged in jovial conversation with two young African-American men, one of whom had his arm around Reese’s waist, an act she didn’t seem to mind, but one he minded a lot. Her flirting with a guy made him uneasy, but touching made him worried.

  “C’mon!” Angelica pulled him toward the girls, but Norris didn’t need any prodding. Angelica tapped on Diana’s leg, finally getting her cousin’s attention from the young man who had her all smiles. “Hey, Diana,” she greeted cheerfully.

  “Angelica, Mr. Converse, hello,” Diana said.

  “Hello.” Norris gazed at his daughter. “Hello, Reese. Who’s your friend?” he asked of the young man who seemed somewhat familiar to him, but way too familiar with Reese.

  “This is Jack,” Reese said, sliding her hand into her friend’s.

  “Jack? Like Cher?”

  Reese frowned, but Norris held his ground. She didn’t have to tell him her darkest secrets, but he deserved to know of her interest in some guy and what his full name was.

  “No, sir, Mr. Converse, I’m Jackson Armstrong,” said the young man, extending his hand. “My father works at your firm.”

  Norris shook Jack’s hand. “David,” he said, remembering Jack’s face from a photo on David Armstrong’s desk. A good man and great accountant, David had joined the firm a couple of years ago when several area non-profit organizations approached Norris for services. David had taken up the paying customers Norris found it beneficial to accept to keep a flow of capital on hand for financial planning classes in different communities. So far, things had been going great. In fact, he entertained the idea of hiring a couple more accountants to help with David’s burgeoning clientele. But being fond of David was one thing, and having his son hanging all over Reese quite another. “How long have you two known each other?”

  “Since Reese moved to Denburg. We’re classmates,” Jack explained. “She told me about finding out you were her father.”

  “Amazing, she hasn’t said a word to me about you. You two dating?”

  Reese glared at him through narrowed eyes. “Why are you here, Norris?” she said, her words intensely measured.

  “He bought me new dollies,” Angelica happily shared, swinging Norris’s hand. “Wanna see ’em?”

  “Maybe some other time, Angelica,” Reese said, managing to give the little girl a smile before fixing her angry frown back at Norris.

  Quiet settled around them. Norris couldn’t understand why Reese didn’t tell him about Jack. She asked him all sorts of personal questions, but she’d never once mentioned she liked a guy. Why had she kept this a secret? Wondering why only served to anger him. She had some explaining to do.

  Diana cleared her throat. “Jack, why don’t you and Barry go over to the food court, okay?” she said. “Reese and I will meet you over there in a bit.”

  The guys nodded and went on their way.

  “Mr. Converse, I’m going to take Angelica to the bathroom.”

  “But I don’t have to go,” said Angelica.

  “Then we’ll go to the carousel.” Diana flashed a tight smile at father and daughter and reached for Angelica’s hand. “You two go on and discuss whatever it is you have to discuss. We’ll be over there,” she said, making tracks to the merry-go-round.

  “You want to explain your behavior!” Reese blasted, once Diana and Angelica were out of earshot.

  “That’s my question, young lady. That boy was all over you.”

  Reese folded her arms. “Boy?”

  “Don’t you dare do that to me!” he barked, not happy with her insinuation. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “He’s a friend of mine.”

  “Diana’s your friend. How come I’ve never heard about him?”

  “How come I never heard about Tawny before she graced us with her presence at lunch?”

  “That was over a month ago.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I don’t know all of your friends, and you don’t know all of mine.”

  “When said friend is hanging all over you, I need to know about him.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me. I am your father.”

  Reese grunted. “Don’t remind me.”

  “You don’t want me to care about you?”

  “What I don’t want is you interfering in my life.”

  “You’re sixteen years old. You don’t have a life yet.” Norris drew a breath and lowered his voice that had grown progressively louder. Patrons in the music store started to stare. He took Reese by the arm and led her to a quiet spot near the mall entrance. “Jack may be a nice kid, but he’s a young man with hormones. And watching him touching you made me uneasy.”

  “You act like he was groping me. His arm was around my waist. I held his hand. Not exactly baby-making stuff.”

  “That stuff leads to the baby-making stuff.”

  “I’m not an idiot. I know where babies come from and how to keep them from happening.” She stuck out her chin. “Something you at twenty and my doctor mother at thirty-five apparently had no clue about.”

  Norris dragged his hands over his face. “You will slip in that dig every chance you get, won’t you?”

  “It’s true.”

  “What’s true is I care about you and I don’t want to see you getting in over your head.”

  “For showing interest in a guy? Norris, Angelica is the three-yea
r-old, not me. Now you can practice parenting on her as much as you want, she seems to like it, and you seem to be quite good with her, but I don’t need that from you. And I don’t want it.”

  Norris gritted his teeth. Once charmed by Reese’s spirit, it now served only to test his patience. “You don’t have a choice,” he said. “I am your parent, and while your mother is thousands of miles away in another country, I’m going to be that to you. In my quest to get closer to you, I’ve been too accommodating with you. I wanted to be your friend, but I have to be your father first. You need to tell me where you’re going to be, when, and with whom. You can tell Dahlia, too, but you will tell me. You will call me at least once in the morning and check in with me by eleven at night. And before you go out with Jack again, you will ask my permission.”

  “What?” Reese blasted, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  “You heard me. Things are going to be different with us.”

  “Because you say so?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Because I say so.”

  “This is because you saw me with Jack, isn’t it?”

  Hell yeah! “I think we need to establish some structure in our relationship,” Norris said. “The old way isn’t working.”

  “You can’t control me.”

  “I don’t want control, Reese. I want inclusion. Through no fault of my own, I missed sixteen years of your life. I’m not missing any more. I will be actively involved in your life from now on. You don’t have to like it, and your pouting tells me you don’t, but it’s the way it’s going to be.”

  “Can I leave now?”

  “What are the rest of your plans for the day?”

  “We’re going to the movies.”

  Norris checked his watch. Three-thirty. “Which showing?”

  “Four-fifteen,” Reese answered.

  “And after that?”

  “We might get something to eat.”

  “Call me after the movie when you know for sure.” Reese rolled her eyes. “This is how it’s going to be from now on?”

  Norris folded his arms. “Yes, it is,” he said sternly. “Great,” she grumbled. “Are we done?”

  “Sure.”

  Reese walked away, saying nothing.

  “And, Reese?”

  She turned back to him. “What?”

  “It wouldn’t be wise to make me have to call you,” he said, giving her pause if she had any notions of disobeying him. “I don’t think you’d like the outcome of that.”

  * * *

  “Good night, Mrs. Lee. I’ll see you in two weeks.” Dahlia waved good-bye to her last client for the day and dropped her smock in her chair. “All right, ladies, I’m done,” she said to Marcie and Mrs. Flo, who each had a client to finish.

  Marci waved goodbye.

  “You leaving a little early tonight, Dahlia. You got big plans?” asked Mrs. Flo, mindlessly flipping through the current issue of Jet magazine as she went about her business of snooping into Dahlia’s business while her client dozed under the drier.

  “No, ma’am, I don’t have any big plans. I’m just going to go home, make some dinner for Reese, and get ready for church in the morning.”

  Mrs. Flo raised an eyebrow. “That’s all?”

  “That’s enough.”

  “After the flowers, presents, and good food your secret admirer sent over here, I would think you’d be busy trying to keep that man happy.” Mrs. Flo closed the magazine and dropped it in her lap. “Maybe staying home and doing nothing might explain why those presents stopped coming, hmm?”

  “Or maybe he just brings them to my house when he comes over, hmm?” Dahlia flashed the nosey woman a tight smile. “Or maybe not. That’s where ‘private’ comes into ‘private life.’ ”

  Mrs. Flo squared her shoulders and grunted. “Humph. I’m sorry I asked.”

  “No, you’re not. But it’s okay. You can’t help yourself.” A gifted cosmetologist with dozens of faithful clients, Mrs. Flo knew hair like the back of her hand. Too bad she had to know everybody’s business the same way. Dahlia grabbed her purse from her station cabinet. “I’ll see you all on Tuesday.”

  The phone rang as she made her way to the door. “I’ll get it,” she called out to the ladies, picking up the phone mid-ring. “DBS.”

  “Dahlia, it’s Josette Lee. There’s a white man sitting in a Mercedes outside your shop. I asked him if he was lost, and he said no, but he didn’t leave. I thought he might be waiting on that pretty blonde girl Marci is working on.

  That’s why I called you. He really liked my hair,” she said, with a giddy laugh.

  Dahlia smiled. Could it be? Over the past month she’d done little more than think about Norris, and now it seemed he sat a few feet outside her shop. “Is the car gray?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Norris. “Thanks for telling me, Mrs. Lee. I’ll take care of it,” Dahlia said.

  “All right. Bye now.”

  Dahlia hung up the phone and pulled her cell phone from the waist clip on her jeans. She pressed and held the number five on her keypad, the speed-dial button to Norris’s cell phone, and walked out the door.

  “Hi. This is a pleasant surprise,” Norris said.

  “How long have you been waiting outside my salon?”

  She approached the car and tapped on the passenger side window.

  Norris laughed. “About ten minutes. But I’ve been driving around the perimeter for the past hour or so.” He ended the call and opened the door. “How did you know?”

  “I have my sources,” she said, sliding inside.

  “The sweet old lady with the nice hairstyle, right?”

  “Your compliment made Mrs. Lee’s day.”

  “That’s the Norris touch.”

  Dahlia couldn’t help smiling. “You waiting outside also concerned her, so she called to give me a heads-up. Why are you out here? Is something wrong?”

  Norris shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  Dahlia nodded. They definitely needed to talk. “Sure. How about my place?”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  * * *

  Norris remained quiet as he walked into her house. He sat on the couch, sighing wearily.

  Dahlia sat beside him and touched his arm. “What’s wrong, Norris? Is it your mother?”

  “No. Reese.”

  “What about her?”

  “I saw her at the mall earlier. I think—hell, I know she’s not happy with me.”

  Dahlia groaned. “What happened?”

  “I found her all hugged up with some boy.”

  “Found her? Was she hiding?”

  Norris grunted. “Not hardly. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

  A horrible image of Norris ripping a poor kid to shreds flashed before Dahlia’s eyes. Reese had mentioned his snippy attitude toward the waiter at Corlino’s Kitchen for showing interest, so to have a young man actually touch her, probably the guy Jack she’d mentioned she liked, Norris probably went ballistic. “What did you do?” Dahlia asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “What’s with the accusatory tone I hear in your voice? You’re supposed to be on my side.”

  “I’m Switzerland. I’m not on anyone’s side. Now, you tell me what you did.”

  “Dahlia, my sixteen-year-old daughter let some kid practically paw her in front of everybody in the mall. I reacted as any parent would.”

  “I’m not a parent, so why don’t you break it down for me.”

  “I talked to her.”

  “To her or at her?”

  Norris shook his head, looking as if she had suddenly started speaking in a foreign tongue. “I don’t understand.”

  “No, you don’t. You’ve only known about Reese for a couple of months, but she’s not a baby, Norris. Why do I have the feeling you treated her like one today?”

  “I know she’s not a baby, but she is my baby. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the idea of boys looking at my da
ughter and seeing a woman. She’s not a woman yet, and I don’t want boys looking at Reese and thinking the thoughts boys her age think.”

  “Like the thoughts you had at their age?”

  “Yes!” He shook his head. “No.”

  Dahlia laughed. “Uh-huh.” She tapped his knee with her hand. “Finish telling me what happened with Reese.”

  “When I saw her hugging this boy I never even heard about, I was a little angry.”

  “A little?”

  “A lot angry. I was with Angelica and she spotted Diana and Reese and they were with these jock types. Completely taken, I might add. We talked alone, and Reese rebuked me for my less-than-warm reception of her friend Jack. I, in turn, shared my unhappiness about her not telling me about him. That went on for a while, and when all was said and done I let her know I expected to hear from her twice a day every day, and she is to tell me of any plans she makes before she makes them.”

  “How did Reese receive that?”

  “She was angry. And I’m sorry she’s angry, but I’m not sorry I said what I did.”

  “I think you’re sorry about something. Your sullen expression before you began to explain said as much.”

  “I guess I could have delivered my words in a gentler manner. It’s just . . . seeing her with this kid. He seems nice enough, and his father works at my firm, but . . .”

  “But your daughter with a guy makes you see red.”

  “No, it makes me see fear. You’ve said Reese and I are a lot alike, and I have to agree with that. That’s what scares me. She flirts with young men.”

  “You flirt with women. Young and old. Mrs. Lee.”

  “Yes, but I know what I’m doing. And I’m a man.”

  “You did not just say that.”

  “Dahlia?”

  “Norris, Reese is a very smart girl. She’s not advertising or suggesting anything when she flirts. It’s just her way. It’s a part of her charm, like it is yours. As for ‘finding’ her with this young man, you really need to choose another term. I don’t think she was hiding anything.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t, but I still want to keep closer tabs on her, and I definitely want to spend more time with her. Gail’s been gone over six weeks, and Reese and I have spent little significant time together.”