Rushing Amy: A Love and Football Novel (4 page)

“Do you need some money, princess?”

“I have money,” she informed him. “We’re going shopping, and then we’re going to a movie.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Brittany, Morgan, and me. We’re taking the bus to Bellevue Square. Brittany’s mom is driving us home.”

“Brittany, Morgan and
I
, and you’ll be home by dark.”

“It’s dark at five o’clock now!”

“You’ll be home by dark,” he repeated. “No getting in someone else’s car that I don’t know, either. If you need a ride, you call me.”

“You’re busy . . .”

He cut her off. “I’m never too busy to come and get you. No R rated movies, either.”

“But the Rob Pa—”

“No.” He grabbed his robe off the foot of the bed, pulled it around himself, and sat down next to her. “I will see it first. If it’s okay, we’ll go together.”

“It’s just violent and there’s swear words—”

“This isn’t a negotiation.” He watched her lower lip quiver. “I’ve been informed that you need a dress for the upcoming dance. If you ask for Michelle at the Brass Plum, she has several on hold for you to try on. She promises me that no, you will not be a laughing stock, however, you
will
look your age.”

“Matt! Why can’t I pick out my own dress? I can’t believe you’re doing this! I’m not a baby. I can do it myself! Oooh!” She jumped up off the bed, flung herself out into the hallway, and he heard stomping footsteps all the way back to her room. The door slammed seconds later.

The greatest love he’d ever known started the moment a doctor had handed him a lustily crying infant, wrapped in a soft pink blanket. She had his hair, she had his eyes, she had the dimples at either side of his mouth, and she had his heart clutched in her tiny fist. One smile from his baby daughter, and he knew he would slay dragons for her. His ex-wife teased him that he loved Samantha more than he’d ever loved her. It was true. Matt’s entire life hinged on the fact his little girl was never, ever going to find out that he was putty in her hands, wrapped around her finger, and completely smitten. As a result, he set rules that made the Marine Corps look lax.

The silence from her room indicated she was most likely texting everyone she knew to tell them one more time that her dad was the meanest, most unreasonable man on the face of the planet. He picked up the phone on his bedside table, dialed her cell number, and waited for her to answer.

“Samantha, get dressed, and we’ll go out for breakfast.”

He waited through a long silence.

“I don’t like you very much right now,” she said.

“You’re going to have to try that one on someone else. Come on. After we eat, I’ll drop you and your friends off at the mall on my way to the production meeting.”

She thought for a few moments. “Fine.”

He resisted the impulse to laugh.

M
ATT PICKED UP
the menu at Pancake Corral and pretended he wasn’t listening to the chattering of a table full of teenage girls. Pancake Corral wasn’t one of those white tablecloth places, and he was glad. The décor was homey. The food was good. He also appreciated the family atmosphere, which came with a side of humor. A sign close to the front door proclaimed, “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.”

He peered over his menu. “Ladies. Why don’t you decide what you’d like for brunch, and we’ll all order?”

Brittany and Morgan were frequent visitors at the Stephens residence. They’d befriended Samantha in preschool, and the three girls still saw each other often. This morning, though, a fourth school friend was with them. Natalie had made it clear she wasn’t happy about Matt’s order to put their cell phones away while they were eating. She wore a tight, revealing knit top he wouldn’t let his own daughter purchase, let alone wear. She was staring at Matt, and he was growing increasingly uncomfortable with her obvious interest. Since when did a little girl try to pick up on a man old enough to be her father?

“Chris asked Melanie to the dance. His parents are getting them a limo,” Natalie informed the other three girls. “The Hummer one.”

“Wouldn’t that be sick? Trevor’s not getting a limo. His parents are driving us. His dad made a reservation at John Howie Steak for dinner, though,” Brittany flipped her long blonde hair over one shoulder. Matt knew Brittany’s dad, and he’d be making a phone call. It was hard for Matt to believe that Brittany’s parents would go for this kind of thing at all. Fourteen was much too young for a date. Brittany and her “date” were probably having dinner with her parents.

Morgan wrinkled her nose. “My parents took me there a long time ago. The vegetables are good, but I didn’t like it.”

“You’re still a vegetarian?” his daughter asked. “Don’t you eat bacon?”

“I only eat it once in a while.”

Matt hid his amusement behind the menu. He managed to get the four girls to order an actual breakfast, whether they liked it or not, and ordered for himself. The female, twenty-something server wrote down the order, but she spent so much time looking at Matt he wondered how she managed to make notes.

She winked at him. “I’ll keep the coffee coming.”

“Perfect.” He handed over the menus. She hurried away, and Samantha let out a groan.

“She likes him. We can’t go
anywhere
. You just watch. She’s going to try to talk to him again, and she’ll give him her phone number.”

“Nobody flirts with my dad, except my mom,” Morgan reassured her. “They kiss in the kitchen when they think I’m not looking. It’s kind of gross. They’re old.”

“At least your mom and dad like each other. My mom calls my dad ‘the sperm donor.’ She says he’ll stick it in any—”

Matt interrupted Natalie. “Ladies. Are you all shopping for a dress today, or are you on the lookout for something else?”

Natalie, Samantha and Brittany began to speak at once, while Morgan glanced down at the table. Matt remembered Samantha mentioning Morgan not only lacked a “date” for the dance, but her dad had lost his job recently. Matt assumed that Morgan’s parents were having a tough time financially as a result. He’d always enjoyed his conversations with Morgan and her family. They were down-to-earth people who stressed family time over material things, and he appreciated their influence on his daughter.

An idea took hold as he listened to three girls chatter like magpies and observed the quieter one, who was valiantly trying to seem happy for them.

Breakfast arrived. He handled the typical conversation about “fat” and “calories” well, he thought.

“If you ladies refuse to eat, you’ll have to go running with me later, won’t you?”

Four horrified faces gazed back at him.

“You’ll burn this off by lunchtime anyway. Eat up.”

He took a large bite of his omelet. He slid the business card with the server’s scrawled telephone number on it that arrived with his breakfast into his pocket. He’d toss it into the trash can outside the front door of the restaurant; he never disrespected a woman with control over his food.

He herded four girls into his car to leave after breakfast, while texting one of his co-workers. He was going to miss their meeting. He needed to do a little shopping.

M
ATT PULLED INTO
the parking garage outside Nordstrom and found a space. The girls scrambled out. He slid his arm around his daughter’s shoulders as they walked to the store’s entrance.

“Listen, kitten, I’m going to join you for a little while this morning.”

Samantha acted like he’d just deleted all content off her iPod. “Matt, I can handle this myself! Don’t you have a production meeting?”

Morgan’s eyes got huge. “You’re still calling your dad by his first name? My dad would—I would be grounded for the rest of my
life
.”

“I think it’s cool,” Natalie opined.

Brittany just shook her head.

“Well, now she’s forced to go shopping with me, isn’t she?” Matt joked.

Twenty minutes later, he sat in a comfortable chair outside of the dressing room in Nordstrom’s teen department. One of the salespeople was bringing dresses in and out of the rooms at a furious pace. He was in the midst of a murmured negotiation with the manager of the department, who was taking notes.

“The little dark-haired one’s name is Morgan. She’s a close friend of my daughter’s, and things are tough for her family right now. I want to pay for a dress, shoes, whatever else it is she needs. We can’t let her find out I’m doing it, though. How are we going to work this?”

“You can either give her a gift card, or you can buy the items today, and we’ll have them sent to her house.”

“Let’s have the items sent to the house, and I’d like to put a gift card in there for another fifty dollars or so, just in case.”

“Wonderful.”

Matt dug out his wallet, handed the woman his Nordstrom card, and settled back into the chair again. He didn’t have a lot of extras as a kid. He knew how hard his mom worked to pay for the basics—shelter, clothing, and food. He didn’t want to ask her for stuff she would have a hard time getting for him. He still remembered the look on her face when she’d figured out he outgrew more clothes and shoes, or needed something she had to scrimp and save to pay for. He got a paper route as a kid, too. He paid his own sports fees for football and gave his mom the rest of the money for the household bills. It still wasn’t enough.

He’d tell Morgan’s parents that the gift came from Samantha. In the meantime, he wondered if one of his colleagues might have a job for Morgan’s dad. He’d make some calls later.

Samantha emerged from the cacophony of giggling that was the dressing room and twirled around in front of him.

“What do you think?”

The dress was silver, mid-calf length, with thin straps holding up the bodice, and some kind of silver sparkly netting over the skirt. The sash at the waist was black. She’d probably wear Army boots with it, but Matt’s heart squeezed in his chest. His little girl was growing up. She would find some boy and fall in love, and Matt would commit some kind of bodily harm on him if that boy ever made her cry. She tried to play it cool, but her shining eyes and flushed cheeks told him she loved the dress. Of course, it was exactly what he wanted her to buy—pretty, but modest. He wouldn’t mention that fact.

“I like it. It’s a nice dress, and you look beautiful.” He raised an eyebrow. “I suppose we need some shoes to go with it.” He held up the slender tube of pale pink, sparkly lip gloss another salesperson had brought from the downstairs makeup counter. “They told me you might like this, too.”

She thought he didn’t know about the pencil she used to line her eyes. His ex-wife, Laura, had put the blue streaks in Samantha’s hair herself. She reluctantly allowed Samantha to use a little mascara as well, which turned out to be a mistake. Samantha used as many coats as possible on each application. He knew she was dying to use “makeup.” She’d be waiting awhile for that, but a little pink lip gloss on a special occasion didn’t hurt anyone.

The young woman in question completely forgot her teen attitude, and flung her arms around him. “Thank you! Oh, thank you. Do you really like it? I think it’s so pretty. Plus, the lip gloss is sick. It’s exactly what I wanted!”

He breathed in the scent of her hair and some body spray she insisted on marinating in, which would never be as sweet as the babyhood smells he remembered. She was all arms and legs now, but he knew she would be even more stunning than her mother. He was going to spend the next ten years keeping the male population away from her. For the moment, though, his little girl was hugging him. This was a great day already.

She pulled away from him, regarded him with serious eyes, and whispered, “I need to talk to you.”

“You do, huh?”

“Morgan needs a dress. Her parents can’t afford it, and she’s so sad. Natalie is being really mean to her, too. We shouldn’t have invited Natalie.” She plunked herself down on her dad’s knee. “I have about a hundred dollars I saved up that I can use. Maybe you could take the rest of the money out of my allowance. Please?”

Matt felt like the Grinch, whose heart had grown three sizes in thirty seconds. Mostly, he was proud of her. She was listening to the things he and Laura tried to tell her, and she was willing to use her own money to help someone else.

“So, you’ll give up your allowance to buy Morgan a dress? It’s quite a bit of money,” he said.

“I know.” Samantha’s excitement dimmed a little. “She’s my friend, though, and—well, I can babysit or something if I need extra money, can’t I?”

“You know I don’t want you babysitting during the school year.”

Her face fell. She fidgeted with the tag on the side of the dress, and didn’t meet his eyes. He saw her chin quiver, and he pulled her closer.

“Listen. It’s already been taken care of. It won’t cost you a dime.” He took a breath and gave her a squeeze. “It feels good to do something nice for someone else who needs it, doesn’t it?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Yes.”

“Now, don’t tell Morgan. It’s all going to be sent to her house. I’ll talk to her mom before it shows up.” He gave her an awkward pat on the back. “You know you can come to me anytime if you have a problem or you need help.”

“Uh-huh.” He felt her nodding against the side of his neck.

“I’m proud of you.”

In a voice so soft he barely heard it over the commotion in the store she murmured, “Thanks, Dad.”

Chapter Three

A
WEEK HAD
passed since Emily’s wedding, and Amy hardly thought of Matt Stephens at all. Well, she wasn’t thinking about him when she was asleep anyway. Surely he got the hint when she didn’t call him back, but her conscience nagged.

The least she could do was buy him a cup of coffee for making sure she made it back to her room safely, not to mention rescuing her from taking a header off the hotel room balcony. Then again, she’d rather be dragged buck naked over broken glass than face him again. Just the memory of that evening made her flinch. Obviously a cup of coffee did not mean a committed relationship, but between her continuing embarrassment and unwillingness to open herself up to more heartbreak, she was not picking up the phone to call him.