The Single Dad's Redemption (8 page)

Chapter Ten

B
y Tuesday business had started to pick up. There were browsers in the store all day long and, with his third day of work, Connor had begun to slip into a comfortable routine—something he’d never expected could happen the day he’d accepted the job.

He worked on maintenance projects around the place unless Keeley needed to go check on her dad—then he manned the cash register and tried to revive his rusty social skills with the customers who stopped by.

More than a few, he suspected, were locals curious about Keeley’s new employee—like the two teenage girls who were now giggling together over by an antique jewelry display.

They whispered, their heads together, but now and then one of them shot a look in his direction. Belatedly, he realized that they could be surreptitiously shoplifting, so he strolled over and leaned a hip against the display case.

“Howdy, ladies. Finding anything you like?”

The brunette blushed deep pink and ducked her head. The one with long blond hair pulled up in a high ponytail blushed, too, but she lifted her chin and brazened it out. “We’re just looking around for a birthday gift.”

“Your mom? Or a friend?”

They exchanged glances. “Friend,” blurted the brunette. “Um, a girlfriend. At school.”

Well...that was certainly awkward, and reeked of guilt. Still, he hadn’t seen them pocket anything and the display on top of the locked glass case appeared intact.

The bells over the front door tinkled and Bobby Whidbey walked in, bent beneath the weight of his school backpack. His face lit up with a broad smile when he spied Connor. “Hello, Mr. Rafferty. I’m here! Hi, Sara. Hi, Elise!”

The girls looked at each other and snickered, then sidled past Connor and zoomed toward the front door.

Bobby watched them leave, his expression filled with innocent adoration, oblivious to their arrogant slight.

Connor felt his heart turn over. Things hadn’t changed since he’d been in high school himself, which was a sad commentary on just how heartless teenagers could be.

“Those are nice girls,” Bobby said. “And really pretty, too. I see them at school sometimes.”

“Are they nice to you? Do they talk to you at school?”

He thought for a moment, his brow furrowed as he processed his answer. “They’re busy,” he said finally, with a single, decisive nod. “They dance at football games and everything.”

“Cheerleaders?”

“Yeah.”

From their snide response to Bobby as they left, Connor guessed they were in the most popular clique at school, were full of themselves and in fact weren’t kind to him at all.

“Keeley left us both our orders for while she takes her dad to the doctor’s office,” Connor said. “Are you ready to work?”

“I’m the sweeping boss.” Bobby’s voice rang with pride.

“Exactly right. And you’re very good at it, too. I watched you working yesterday and I was impressed.” Connor reached for a sheet of paper on the front counter. “She says here that you get to sweep the floors, collect the trash and take it to the Dumpster out back. You also get to feed and water Rags. We’ll leave it at just that for now.”

Bobby dropped his backpack behind the counter and hurried to the back room, where the sound of industrious sweeping soon filled the air, punctuated by occasional sneezes.

A few minutes later a middle-aged man scurried in, checked his watch and then made a beeline for Connor. His narrow face, undershot jaw and twitchy motions reminded Connor of a rabbit.

“I need a gift for my wife and I need it fast. Any ideas? I have no clue. I’m meeting her for an early dinner in about an hour, and I forgot our anniversary.” He scowled. “I will hear about it for months if she finds out.”

The challenge of “the blind leading the blind” came to mind, but Connor summoned up a smile and tried to remember how Keeley handled her more befuddled male customers.

“Would she like something personal? There’s antique jewelry over in the case, and scarves are on the rack in the corner. Women seem to like both, far as I can tell.” Connor gestured to the back of the store. “Or would she like something for the house?”

The man’s panicked gaze darted around the room then landed on a giant antique basket filled with dried flowers, plus what appeared to be weeds and cattails. “That thing—over there.”

Really? “Uh...great choice.”

“Wrap it in a nice big box, some sort of shiny paper and a big bow. Extra-big bow. I want it to look elegant.” The guy checked his watch again. “And make it snappy. Like I said, I’m in a hurry.”

Make it
snappy
? The man was a good foot shorter than Connor, but he’d still managed to look down his nose while giving orders.

With a sigh, Connor eyed the bulky arrangement. “We don’t have gift boxes that big. But with that one, it’s sort of like giving fresh flowers—and those you wouldn’t wrap.”

“A fancy gift bag, then?” The man drummed his fingernails on the counter. “Surely you have those.”

“Yes, but probably not that large. Let me check.” Connor leaned down to check the supply shelves below the cash register and shook his head. “Afraid not. But I could put a bow on the side of the basket...or you could pick something else.”

“Really? That’s the best you can do?” He snarled. A red flush started climbing up his pale face and now the veins at his temples stood out in sharp relief. “Where is Keeley?”

“Errands. But she’ll be back within the hour. If you want to come back then—”

“I
told
you I was in a hurry, and
this
was a total
waste of my time.” He spun around, jerked the front door open and left, slamming it so hard that a glassware display in the front window rattled.

Temper, temper, Connor thought, shaking his head. Since Keeley left there’d been three pleasant customers and one complete jerk.

He headed to the back room, where he’d been re-caulking the windows between customers. “Hey, Bobby, would you like a Coke? My treat.”

The storeroom was silent, the broom lying on the floor by the back door.

“Bobby?” He scanned the area, glanced at the employee restroom. The lights were off, the door partly open. “Are you back here?”

Nothing stirred.

He glanced around once more then checked the front of the store. Maybe the kid had gone home for some reason?

It wasn’t until he went to the back again that he heard the softest rustle of movement and a faint whimper. “Bobby? Are you all right?”

He found the boy curled up in a tight ball, cowering behind a stack of boxes in the corner. “Bobby. It’s me, Connor. What’s wrong?”

If anything, the boy tried to melt even further against the wall, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees and his face hidden.

Baffled, Connor hunkered down close to him and nearly rested a comforting hand on his back, then hesitated. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Silence...then a soft whimper and a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.

“I was sure hoping you wanted to take a little break. There’s some soda in the fridge and Keeley left us some of those pretty purple cookies.”

Those offerings would have easily won him over when Connor was that age, but the boy didn’t budge. A silent sob shook through him, though, and at that Connor lowered himself to the floor, stretched out his legs and leaned against a shelf, close enough for support without actual contact.

Lonnie’s recent words about his ex-wife flashed into his thoughts
. Joshua is practically raising himself.

He had no doubt about the truth of Lonnie’s statement, and even now it tore at his heart. Who was there for his son, when he was sad or lonely or scared, if Marsha was off partying with her friends? Did she ever bother to get a babysitter or was he left alone? Did he feel as helpless as this poor boy next to him?

“I’ve been having quite a day,” Connor murmured. “How about you? Let’s see... This morning, I woke up to find a raccoon rummaging through my campsite. It broke into my cooler and made off with my hot dogs, buns and apples. And last night my tent leaked. Lucky we had just a gentle rain.”

Bobby didn’t move or say anything, but he emanated the terror of a trapped animal and Connor felt utterly helpless. He’d known from their first hello yesterday that this was a special-needs child, but what on earth had happened to him just now?

“So after the store closes, I need to stop at the hardware store for tent patching material and at the grocery store to replace what that raccoon stole,” Connor continued. He kept his voice soft and low, as he always had when halter-breaking a foal or stepping aboard a green two-year-old for the first time, and just kept up a continual stream of quiet words. “Have you ever had a run-in with a raccoon? That was a first for me. I think—”

A key turned in the back door lock and Keeley breezed inside with a couple of grocery sacks in her hand. She gave Connor a startled look. Then her gaze veered to Bobby and her face filled with compassion. “Oh, my.”

“He’s upset, and I don’t know why. He’s been like this for maybe twenty minutes.”

The bells over the front door tinkled.

Ignoring the arrival of customers, she dropped her purse and groceries on the worktable and knelt on the floor. She rested her hand on Connor’s shoulder. “I’ll take care of this, if you can just watch the front of the store. I’ll talk to you about this later.”

* * *

After talking to Bobby for twenty minutes, Keeley fortified him with a cheeseburger and malt at the coffee shop down the street, then took him home to the dreary clapboard house out behind the Pine Cone Tap at the edge of town.

Just six blocks from Main, it was like another world back there—a hardscrabble tumble of shabby homes and the hulking wrecks of abandoned cars jacked up on blocks. Despite the efforts of the mayor and town council, it devolved back down into hardship acres as fast as anyone tried to clean it up.

No one was home, as usual, or she would have had yet another private talk with his aunt Bess. With a sigh, she watched Bobby walk into the unlocked house, dragging his backpack.

She would try again tomorrow.

Back at the store by five, she found Connor ringing up a sale for the mayor’s wife and busied herself in the storeroom until the woman left to avoid a lengthy bout of chatter.

“I talked to Bobby for twenty minutes. Then I bought him a cheeseburger and a Coke and took him home,” she said on a long sigh as she joined Connor at the cash register. “But I wish there was more I could do.”

Connor’s eyes were wary. “I have no idea what happened. One minute he was happy. The next he was cringing in that corner.”

“It was nothing to do with you, believe me. And, honestly, I hardly know where to begin.” She paced the floor, thinking about what she’d seen and heard about Bobby’s sad life. And once again, she felt tears burn beneath her eyelids. “Bobby was born normal, as far as anyone knows. But his father was an abuser who beat his wife to death one night and didn’t stop with her—he laid into Bobby and nearly killed him, too. A four-year-old child. Can you believe it? I hope that man never, ever, gets out of prison.

“Bobby suffered brain damage and multiple fractures. That’s why he walks a little funny, and why his mental abilities are slow.” She drew in a long, steadying breath. “I know other kids are mean to him because he’s different, but if I overhear it, those kids get a talking-to they won’t soon forget. I even call their parents and report it to the principal at school for whatever good that could do, and I tell those kids exactly what I’m going to do. But it still happens—and it breaks my heart. After all he went through, he doesn’t deserve any more pain.”

At the ravaged look in Connor’s eyes, she wondered if he was thinking about his own son, whose wayward mother might have lived with just such a man without regard for the boy’s safety.

“Who takes care of Bobby now?”

“His aunt. I think she does care for him, but she’s uneducated, obese, and has trouble walking, so he doesn’t have many opportunities. Even with welfare, she works part-time in a seedy bar to make ends meet. So now and then I take him out and buy him some decent clothes. Otherwise the kids would just tease him more.”

“And you gave him a job.”

“So he’ll have money for school supplies and whatever it is that kids want at that age. He’s such a sweet boy.”

Connor shook his head slowly, his expression grim. “Can’t the county step in? The social workers?”

“I don’t know all the details. I’ve tried to find out through the county and at school, but I’m not family and privacy rights prevail these days. For all I know, he might have gotten counseling in the past, but if that’s true, he needs more of it.”

“So he’s basically falling between the cracks.”

Keeley nodded. “And it breaks my heart. I’ve learned that if a child is fed, healthy, gets to school every day and doesn’t show physical signs of abuse, it’s pretty difficult for an outsider like me to intercede. And that boy really needs help of some kind—he’s terrified if he hears so much as a raised voice. I can only imagine the nightmares he must still have after seeing his mom killed.”

“Well, that clears things up.” Connor’s jaw clenched. “A scrawny, bandy rooster of a guy came in this afternoon. He was rude and demanding, and when I didn’t have the right size gift box, he got pretty loud. He slammed the door on his way out.”

“And that’s all it takes for the poor kid.” She slumped into one of the wrought-iron chairs by the front window. “I know he’s living with a relative and that’s what the county deems best, but how I wish I could give him even a year of a better life.”

“At least he has a job here—and someone looking out for him.”

Her heart warmed as she recalled the moment when she’d come back and found Connor sitting on the floor with Bobby while keeping up a flow of gentle, reassuring words. “Thank you, Connor, for what you did for him.”

He shrugged, as if it had been nothing. But she knew in her very bones that he would be a good and loving father to his son; a good and loyal husband for someone.

She felt a twinge of regret at the thought.

She had to stay here and he would have to leave, so maintaining professional distance between them was the safest course. No doubt about it.