Desperately Seeking Daddy. Arlene James
“Keep your shorts on, pal,” came the smooth rejoinder, “since that’s all you’re wearing.” She’d delivered the line without even looking up, ignoring the chuckles it elicited while punching prices into the cash register with one hand and placing articles into a paper bag with the other. “That’ll be six sixty-eight. Out of ten. Six sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-five. Seven. Eight. Nine and ten. Thanks. Come again. Next.”
She turned to the line on the other side of the checkout and began punching in a new set of numbers, while the previous customer moved away from the counter and was replaced by a new arrival from the line.
“You got first aid supplies in here?” someone called out from across the room.
“In the corner next to the ice machine,” she shouted, then dropped her voice to a more moderate level. “You owe me six cents, ma’am. That’s all right, forget the penny. Just remember when you hit that next pothole that the state didn’t get their full share. I’ll be right with you, sir. Want your candy in a sack, hon? That’s one, two, three, four, five at three cents a piece. Exact change. A cashier’s angel! Suppose there’s a patron saint? Saint Quick Stop, maybe?”
And so it went for a solid quarter hour, nimble fingers flying, answers, comments and wisecracks tossed out with dry humor and quick wit. In the midst of the chaos, she kept her cool, refused to be pushed by those who had nothing more taxing to do than wait their turns and complain about it, and made every movement a study in efficiency.
Jackson found himself watching her with interest and growing pleasure. He liked that wealth of light ash brown hair. It hung almost to her waist, thick and shining, with what, upon closer examination, appeared to be a smattering of individual silver hairs. She wasn’t exactly beautiful. Her facial features would never be called classical. Yet to Jack it was an extremely interesting face, with a broad forehead and delicate, pointed chin; thin, tip-tilted nose; and a small but mobile, rose pink mouth. She couldn’t stand more than five feet and two or three inches, petite but not really dainty, with small hands and short, almost blunt fingers. Beneath the open, oversize, cotton smock, faded T-shirt and worn blue jeans was a solid, compact body with all the requisite curves—ample curves and in comfortable proportions. Moreover she carried herself with confidence and pride, standing with back straight, shoulders squared, legs spread slightly, as if ready to take on all comers and expecting to walk away a victor. All in all, a very interesting woman. Very interesting.
Business was relentless, but as always she stuck with it, handling several tasks at once, keeping every sense alert and ignoring the physical discomfort of sheer exhaustion. The latter was especially difficult, given that her feet felt as if the soles had been pounded by metal rods, her back ached unrelentingly and her hand was cramping. Worse, she needed to make a visit to the ladies’ room, despite having confined her fluid intake for the whole morning to a few sips of badly needed coffee.
She winced inwardly even as she wished a regular customer good luck on the lottery ticket he had just purchased and turned to quirk a brow at the big, good-looking fellow who’d been blatantly staring at her from the moment he’d entered the store. He smiled, holding her gaze, and she barely resisted the urge to thin her lips in a gesture of disdain. The last thing she needed just now was a flirt. She kept her manner brisk.
“What can I do for you?”
He leaned forward slightly as if fearing that she couldn’t hear him from that great height. “My name’s Jackson Tyler.”
As if she cared. With neither the time nor the inclination to chat, she turned her back on him and started ringing up cigarettes, sodas and snacks for three women and a mob of kids.
He cleared his throat and said from behind her, “I’m, uh, the elementary school principal.”
“That so?” She counted six sodas at sixty-five and one on sale at forty. Make that two. She jerked her head at one of the mothers. “The little one in back there is about to drop her drink.” The little girl screeched like a banshee when her anxious mother rescued it from her too-small hands. No one paid her the least mind. Anyone with experience with a kid that age knew that most of them were banshees.
“The thing is,” Jackson Tyler was saying in his deep voice, “I need a moment of your time.”
“Don’t have a moment,” she said over her shoulder, whipping open a sack and dropping packets of cigarettes and candy bars into it. “Is that everything, ladies?” Receiving a nod in the affirmative, she gave the women their total and continued sacking while a whispered conference took place, bills and coins trading back and forth.
“You are Hellen Moore, aren’t you?”
He was persistent, she’d give him that. “Hellen? No.” She shook out another brown paper bag and began carefully setting cold drinks inside.
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed and puzzled. “Well, do you happen to know where I might find her?”
“Couldn’t say. Who gets the receipt and the change? Watch the bottom of that bag. Those bottled drinks sweat right through them in no time.”
She turned back to the big man, her gaze flicking over him in the seconds that it took those three mothers to start their brood toward the door. She was almost sorry that she couldn’t spare the time for a little banter. He looked like a pleasant sort, prosperous, cool and neat in soft tan slacks and a green-and-white-checked shirt with short sleeves and a button-down collar. His straight, golden blond hair had been parted just so, but was too fine and thick not to fall over his forehead. Soft hazel eyes were set beneath straight, thick brows the same bronze brown as the neatly trimmed mustache. He had a full upper lip and balanced features too large for any other face, any face without those brick jaws and that square, jutting chin. Ah well. No help for it.
“I’m kinda busy here,” she said bluntly. “Want to move along?”
He flattened enormous hands on the countertop and expelled a breath. “This is important. I was told that I could find Mrs. Moore here.”
She folded her arms, wondering if she was going to regret this. “I’m Mrs. Moore.”
“Cody’s mother?”
She was definitely going to regret this. “That’s right.”
“Isn’t your name Hellen?”
“No.”
“No?”
She rolled her eyes. “The name is Heller, all right? H-E-L-L-E-R. Now spit it out, bud, or disappear. I’m working here.”
“Yeah, she’s working here,” put in a wise guy from the other side of the counter.
She shot him a deadly look. “Put a clamp on it, youngster, and I’m going to need ID on the beer.”
“Uh, I must’ve left it in my other pants.”
“Yeah, right, and I’m a fairy princess, which makes you the toad. Better luck next time, and put it back in the cooler where you got it.”
He stomped off in disgust, sixteen if he was a day. She shook her head. Kids.
“Maybe you didn’t understand me the first time,” the big guy said. “I’m the principal at your son, Cody’s, school. Name’s Jack Tyler.”
For the first time, his urgency touched her. “Something up with Cody? School’s out, for pity’s sake. What could be wrong?”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable, the tip of one finger stroking his mustache. “Look, I’d rather not discuss it here. What time do you get off work?”
“Late.”
“Oh. Well, what time do you start in the morning?”
“Early.”
“I could meet you in my office at eight.”
Eight. She’d have to leave the house an hour early,