“It’s really Maddie’s loss,” Pete told her as the car they were following finally signaled its intention to park.
He scrunched down in his seat, again using his hands to shield his face, because the driver was clearly intending to back into the narrow spot. “I came to terms with mine a long time ago,” he said. “Lisa—Maddie’s mom—and I split up for good when Maddie was about a year old. Thirteen months and four days and…” He’d been at sea for most of those months, and home on leave for less than a week when Lisa had packed the car and left before breakfast, but Shayla really didn’t need to know that much detail. “Anyway, it’s not like my wife just died. I mean, she’s not even my ex-wife, because I could never get her to marry me.”
And that was TMI.
He peeked out at her from behind his hand-shield, but instead of looking like she wanted to jump out of the car, Shayla was nodding as if she appreciated what he’d shared. “You both must’ve been young when you had Maddie.”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “Very.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, they moved out of state and lived, well, pretty much anywhere that wasn’t San Diego because Lisa grew up here and hated it. That plus my deployments made it hard for Maddie and me to have any kind of real relationship, so here we are. Suddenly Lisa’s gone, and I have full custody of my kid, but we’re strangers. I’m clueless and Maddie’s miserable—apparently enough to run away.”
“She’s still grieving,” Shayla said as the enormous car continued its ponderous twenty-thousand-point turn. “And of course, you are, too. I mean, it’s only natural, regardless of how long it’s been since you and Lisa broke up. Is Maddie going to counseling?”
“We both are,” he said. “Separately and together.”
“Wow,” she said. She was genuinely impressed. “That’s great.”
“It’d be a lot more great if it was actually helping,” Pete told her.
“It takes time,” she said. “Okay, there are two boys in the front seat of the car, and they’ve definitely noticed that we’re just sitting here, not parking. I’m pulling in front of them so they can’t leave. What’s your Plan B if Maddie runs?”
Jesus, he hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t imagined Maddie would literally run away from him, but now that Shayla had brought it up…“Um…” he said.
“Okay. Maybe she won’t try to run,” the woman pointed out, “if you start the conversation with something like Look, I’m not mad at you; you’re not in trouble. I just want to go someplace where we can sit down and talk.”
Pete made a noise that was almost a laugh. “Except I am mad at her and she is in trouble.”
“Then you better come up with something more productive than um,” Shayla said tartly. “FYI, grabbing her and throwing her into my trunk is not an option.”
“I would never do that,” he said, and this time his laughter was more real.
“Just making sure. The Navy SEAL seems strong in you,” she said as the maroon sedan came to a final stop. “Rumor has it SEALs act rashly and cry a lot.”
“What?” Pete laughed as he opened the door to climb out. “Where did you hear that?”
“I have my sources,” she said with a smile. She leaned forward to look up at him through the open car door, her brown eyes encouraging in her pretty face. “You can do this. Just don’t forget to breathe.”
CHAPTER TWO
Shay watched as the Navy SEAL squared his very broad shoulders, took a deep breath, and started for the maroon sedan.
Teenagers could be bewildering and infuriating—even to parents who’d been-there-done-that starting with the terrible twos and surviving every awful phase in between.
As the primary caregiver of a grieving fifteen-year-old girl, this man was facing the biggest challenge of his life.
The good news was that he was smart and that he seemed, truly, to care.
Although if he’d cared a tad more over the past decade-plus, and had taken the extra effort to forge a relationship with his daughter, he wouldn’t be in this predicament right now.
Judgment on heavy stun! Harry’s familiar voice rang in her head.
“Shh!” Shayla attempted to silence him. But okay, yeah. Harry was right. She was judging. Again.
To be fair, the subset of divorced-fathers-who-don’t-spend-time-with-their-kids is a giant button for you, Harry allowed. Although, hello? You don’t have to give Lieutenant Hot SEAL your parenting stamp of approval before you play a few rounds of naked Scrabble with him.
She’d never played naked Scrabble, not even with Carter. Maybe especially not with Carter. Her musical ex-husband hadn’t been all that into the written word. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d played regular, non-naked Scrabble. And now the boys were more into games like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne, which, frankly, was one of her current favorites, too.
Harry snapped his fingers to get her attention back as he said, Well, maybe you should start playing naked Carcassonne. Because, damn. With your Navy SEAL, naked Watching C-SPAN would rate five shiny stars on the international enjoyment index.
Ha ha ha, Harry was so funny. His name is Peter and he’s not my Navy SEAL, she thought at him.
Maybe not yet, Harry said. But if you play your Carcassonne tiles right—
“Shh,” Shay hissed again, pushing him out of her mind as she put down her window. She wanted to hear the conversation—
And police it. Harry refused to leave.
Damn straight she was going to police Peter-the-SEAL’s conversation with his wayward fifteen-year-old daughter. She dug through her handbag for her cellphone, because her own Plan B involved calling 9-1-1 if there was trouble. She hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but she hoped if it was, the lieutenant wouldn’t take it personally. She knew, completely, that if Maddie did try to fend him off with a loudly proclaimed This man is not my father! or Bad touch! that the girl was probably just being a dickish teen. But since Shay didn’t know either of them, she wasn’t going to risk that the girl might be telling the truth. If she was, and no one believed her…That would be terrible.
Shay’s Plan B, should she need to use it, was to let the authorities sort it all out.
Excellent. Harry approved. But then again, he would, considering he worked for the FBI. Oh, and jot down the license plate number while you still remember it.
The maroon car had backed in, and didn’t have a plate on the front. If it had, she simply would’ve taken a photo with her phone.
As Shay quickly typed the letters and numbers she’d memorized into her phone’s notepad app, she watched Peter approach the sedan.
He motioned for the passenger in the front seat to open the door as he said, “I’m looking for my daughter, Maddie Nakamura…?” He leaned down a bit to see into the back of the car. “Long black hair, brown eyes, petite, about five-two…?”