The Single Dad - A Standalone Romance (A Single Dad Firefighter Romance) Read online

  “I’m sorry, Punkin,” I said, earning an annoyed look. “I know it’s hard to be left out, but I’m sure there are things you can do this week that don’t involve the girls, right?”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but we’ll figure something out, I promise,” I said, wracking my brain to try and figure out what she could do while I was at work.

  “Great, I’m going to spend the whole break with my father,” she lamented dramatically. “I’m such a loser!”

  “Hey, I’m a great catch, I’ll have you know!” I objected.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes again. “Can we go shopping?”

  “Wait, I’m offering a solution to the problem, and I’m going to get stuck with the bill for the retail therapy?” I asked. Nina laughed as I signaled the server to bring the check.

  We spent the afternoon wandering up and down the mall as Nina looked for various things that she insisted she absolutely couldn’t live without. My sympathy extended from my wallet to the register in several places, and Nina left the mall smiling as several large shopping bags swung on her arms.

  At home, she headed straight for her room to try everything on again and play with her hair. I picked up my phone and saw a message from Emily, “Long day running errands and talking with the insurance company. I could use some wine about now!” I laughed and dialed her number.

  “Hey, how was your day?” she asked, as she picked up the phone.

  “Not bad. I spent it with a grumpy 16-year-old who has been abandoned by her best friends,” I said. “But I think we found middle ground somewhere between my Visa and Mastercard.”

  “Ah, retail therapy; I know it well!” Emily laughed. “That stinks about her friends, but that’s the high school thing. They haven’t yet learned to balance friends and lovers. It’s difficult.”

  “Indeed,” I said, as I thought about what Nina might be able to do without friends. “Any ideas as to what she could do on her own while I’m at work? Something productive, maybe?”

  “You mean, like joining a convent?” Emily laughed. I couldn’t help myself, and I laughed with her. “But seriously, there’s a ton of things she could do around here. In fact, I’m heading over to the Waltham Museum tomorrow to check out some of the collections. Maybe I could take Nina with me?”

  “You wouldn’t mind?” I asked, wishing that I had the day off so I could go with them.

  “I don’t think me minding will be the issue, Blake,” she laughed. “Nina might not want to spend the day with her History teacher.”

  “She might if I bribe her,” I said, thinking about how I could entice my daughter to spend an entire day of vacation in a museum with one of her teachers.

  “Well, I don’t mind taking her with me at all,” Emily said. “It might be a good way to inspire her to improve her History grade, and maybe it’ll be…”

  I heard her trail off and wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was, that it would be a good way to introduce Nina to our possible relationship. I still wasn’t sure I was ready to get serious about anyone, but if I was, then Emily was definitely a woman I’d want to get serious with.

  “Blake?” Emily’s voice brought me out of my thoughts.

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, I thought you’d gotten disconnected,” she said.

  “Nah, just thinking about how I’m going to get a teenager to do what I want her to do without her knowing it was my idea,” I said, feeling confused and a little frustrated.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” she offered. “Don’t overthink it. They are experts at manipulation and can smell it from a mile away.”

  “Good point,” I laughed. “All right, I’ll figure something out. I wish I could take the day off.”

  “I do, too,” Emily said softly. “That would be nice.”

  “We’ll see each other soon,” I murmured into the phone.

  “I’d like that very much,” she replied, before disconnecting.

  As I headed into the kitchen to cook dinner, I kicked myself for not inviting Emily to join us. I thought about calling her back and issuing the invitation, but that seemed a little desperate, so I let it go and focused on figuring out how to convince my daughter that a trip to the history museum would be a good thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Emily

  Knowing that Blake had to be at work by 9, I showed up early the next morning with bagels and coffee. He greeted me at the door with a smile and a kiss before leading me into the kitchen. Nina wasn’t up yet, so we took advantage of the few moments of privacy and made out like a couple of high school kids.

  I laughed as he grabbed me and pulled me to him, but my laughter soon turned to soft moans as he kissed me deeply. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled me closer as I returned his kiss. He cupped my face with his strong hands as we let our mouths do what our bodies desperately wanted to do, but couldn’t.

  “We have to stop,” I whispered into his lips, as I felt my legs getting weak. I wanted to strip his shirt off and taste every inch of his strong, broad chest, but I knew that heading in that direction wasn’t possible. When Blake lowered his head and slowly ran his tongue up my neck, sending shivers down my spine, I pushed him back and said, “Stop, we’re going to get caught!”

  “Who cares?” he whispered, as he kissed his way back up my neck and covered my mouth with his. My blood felt like molten lava as it surged toward my most sensitive spots. I groaned softly as he cupped one of my breasts and gently squeezed my nipple.

  “Blake, you need to stop,” I whispered more urgently. I was afraid that if we crossed the line that we were careening toward, it would lead someplace I wasn’t ready to go; namely, a confrontation with Nina. I placed the palms of my hands on his chest and pushed him back to a safe distance. I looked up into his warm eyes and said, “Seriously. We have to stop.”

  “I know,” he nodded, looking more than a little disappointed, then sheepishly offered, “I’m sorry, I just can’t help myself.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said, smiling warmly.

  “Know what feeling?” Nina yawned as she entered the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. She was still wearing her pajamas and looked much younger than her 16 years.

  “The feeling of having to get up and go to work when you’d rather spend the day perusing a museum,” Blake interjected.

  “Uh-huh, are these fresh bagels?” she asked, as she opened the bag on the counter and peered inside.

  “Indeed they are,” I said, as I pulled out several containers of cream cheese and set them on the counter. “And there’s coffee or hot chocolate here, if you want it.”

  “Ooooh, I haven’t had hot chocolate in a long time!” Nina exclaimed, as she claimed the cup with her name on it and grabbed two bagels from the bag. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m starving.”

  “There’s plenty there; eat up,” I encouraged, as I passed the bag to Blake with a smile. He grinned as he took it and pulled two bagels from it.

  We sat at the table eating in companionable silence until Blake looked up at the clock and said, “Shit, I gotta go, or I’m going to be late!”

  He stuffed the last bite of his bagel in his mouth and gulped down the remainder of coffee in his cup before he grabbed his bag and headed for the door.

  “You girls have fun today, okay?” he said, looking anxiously in Nina’s direction.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, waving him off. “I’ll go learn something and have a great time. I promise.”

  “Okay, good,” he said with obvious relief before turning toward me and adding, “Thanks for taking her with you, Emily. I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe?”

  “Oh, definitely,” I said, smiling up at him. “I’ll be around.”

  Once Blake had left, I looked at Nina and said, “I’m not sure what your dad told you, but if you decide you don’t want to go with me to the Waltham Museum, I will understand.”

  “He told me that I had
no choice and that if you told me I did, I was supposed to go anyway,” she said in a bored tone that I recognized as pure defensiveness. She sighed, “I guess I don’t really have a choice.”

  “Of course you do,” I said. “But I think it’ll be kind of interesting, so there’s that.”

  “Fine, I’ll go get ready,” she sighed again.

  I tidied up the kitchen while I waited for Nina to get ready. Although I’d cooked breakfast for Blake and Nina on the morning after Christmas, I hadn’t really examined the room in any meaningful way. Now I looked at it with fresh eyes and saw a kitchen that was warm and inviting. Blake had painted the walls a warm shade of red, and there were plants situated on floating shelves around the windows, giving the room a colorful touch. He’d obviously spent time thinking about how to make this house feel like a home, and it showed.

  When Nina was finally ready, we headed out to the car and drove over to the Waltham Museum, where Burt Maddox was waiting to show us around. Burt and I had become friends when I’d first taken the job at Waltham High School, and now he called me when there was a new exhibit, or when they added something to one of the collections.

  Today’s visit was the result of an overhaul of the manufacturing displays. The museum had been working on upgrading the tours and modernizing and restoring some of the displays. Burt had called me the week before to let me know that the exhibits would be open for viewing this week, and I was excited to see the work the museum curators and restoration experts had done.

  “Burt! How are you?” I called, as Nina and I entered the museum lobby.

  “Well, well, well, if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes, Emily!” Burt laughed as he came out from behind the front desk. He was well into his 70s, but he didn’t look much older than 60. His gray hair was slicked back away from his clean-shaven face and, as usual, he wore a button-down dress shirt with a sweater vest and a matching tie.

  “You’re looking snappy, Burt,” I said, as I appraised his outfit.

  “Got a new vest from the grandkids for Christmas, and a matching tie from my new girlfriend,” he grinned.

  “How is Holly?” I asked. Burt’s wife had died young and left him to raise their two children alone. He did so, and then once they were out of the house, he’d gone out and started dating. Holly had come along around the time Burt had decided to give up, and they’d been together for almost 20 years. Neither one had wanted to get married, so they decided to live in sin and scandalized the old-timers they hung out with. Holly had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease the year before, and they were struggling to adjust to the constantly shifting landscape that it had created.

  “She’s doing as well as can be expected, but her memory is slipping away a little more every day,” he said, without a trace of sadness. “We enjoy the good days and endure the not so good ones. It’s all you can ask for! Now, who is this young lady you’ve brought with you?”

  “Burt Maddox, I’d like you to meet Nina Gaston,” I said, as I stepped back. “Nina, this is Burt.”

  “Nina Gaston, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Burt said, holding out his hand. “I think I know your father, Blake.”

  “Yes, that’s my father,” Nina nodded, as she took his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Maddox.”

  “Oh, please call me Burt, dear,” he said, laughing softly. “Mr. Maddox was my father, and he was one ornery son of a gun!”

  Nina and I laughed as Burt turned and motioned for us to follow him. We walked down the wood-paneled corridor toward a large door at the end of the hall. Burt’s shiny black dress shoes clicked on the polished wood floor in a rhythm that was disciplined and precise, and I smiled as I thought about how he’d described his time in the Army and how it had been a cornerstone of his philosophy of life.

  “Now, I’m going to show you something no one else has seen yet,” he said with a conspiratorial grin, before pushing open the heavy oak doors to reveal a room that was filled with light and air. I inhaled sharply as I looked around and realized that this was the new manufacturing wing of the museum.

  “Oh, Burt, it’s absolutely amazing!” I whispered, as I turned around, taking the whole room in. “You’ve outdone yourselves.”

  “They really put a lot of work into it,” he nodded, as he stepped over to a display case full of watches. “They shined it all up and built new cases for these things.”

  “What did it look like before?” Nina asked, as she surveyed the room.

  “It was dark and dingy, and it was hard to see what was in the collection,” Burt said, as he reached down and pulled open a drawer in the display case. He shuffled a few papers around and then pulled out what looked like photographs and held them out for Nina to see. “This is what it looked like a few years ago.”

  “Wow, that looks really old and run-down!” she exclaimed, as she shuffled through the pictures. “This is definitely an improvement.”

  A bell rang somewhere in the distance, and Burt excused himself to go answer it. I walked over to the start of the exhibit and began slowly examining the pictures and artifacts that represented the very beginning of the manufacturing industry in Waltham. Nina set the pictures down and joined me, but kept a safe distance as she scanned the pieces.

  “Why do people keep all of this stuff?” she asked. “I mean, have you ever seen the show “Hoarders?” It’s like museums are the organized version of all that crap!”

  “You’ve got a point,” I laughed, as I thought about how a historian would respond to her observation. “However, it’s not like museums just take everything that’s offered. They curate the collections so that only the most relevant pieces are on display. They try to tell a story with the items.”

  “Huh, a story?” she said, looking around.

  “Yes, for example, if you look at the section over here on Frances Cabot Lowell, you can see the letters he wrote to his family while traveling in England,” I pointed out the case that contained the letters and waited as Nina skimmed them.

  “He said something about looms,” she said.

  “Indeed he did,” I nodded. “Do you know what he is famous for?”

  “Not a clue,” she shrugged.

  “Based on what he learned during his travels, he established a water-powered cotton mill that allowed him to complete all the steps needed to manufacture fabric under one roof,” I said, showing her paintings of Lowell’s factory, which would become Boston Manufacturing Company. “By 1815, the cloth that was made in Waltham was on sale in Boston. Do you know what that was the start of?”

  “Um, the fashion industry?” Nina guessed.

  “No, but that’s a good guess,” I chuckled. “It was the beginning of the industrial revolution, which changed everything in this country.”

  “Wait, making cloth changed everything in this country?” she asked.

  “No, the creation of the water-powered mill did,” I said, smiling as a look of wonder spread across her face. “It allowed manufacturers to use power rather than humans to do the work of manufacturing. It led to the creation of many other forms of early technology, and led to the expansion of mills in Waltham and the surrounding areas.”

  “That’s pretty amazing,” she said, as she bent over a case that contained pieces of the water-powered loom and studied them. I waited to see if she had more questions, but after a few minutes, I moved away and let her move through the exhibit at her own pace while I explored the new section on immigrant labor in Waltham during the second half of the 19th century.

  “There’s so much I didn’t know about this city,” Nina said, as she stepped up next to me and looked at the map that was highlighted to show where the immigrant workers came from during the Industrial Revolution. “It’s incredible to see the way that people migrated for jobs back then, too.”

  “A lot of people think that immigration is a new issue, but it’s really something that this country has been figuring out how to deal with since its inception,” I said, as I thought abou
t the ways in which French, Canadians, and Italians were the groups that were looked down upon back then.

  “Did the people who lived in Waltham dislike the immigrants back then?” she asked.

  “Oh goodness, the Irish were seen as the blight on Boston and the surrounding cities when they began arriving in large numbers during the Potato Famine,” I said, thinking about how different groups had become the scapegoats for national fear and loathing. “There were signs that said ‘No Irish Need Apply’ in windows all over Boston because the ‘true’ Americans believed that the Irish, and the Catholics, were drunken criminals, and local workers were angry because the Irish were desperate for jobs and would undercut the American workers when it came to wages.”

  “But weren’t they just trying to survive?” Nina asked, as she looked at the pictures of the Irish workers gathered around a mill wheel.

  “Yes, that’s pretty much what all immigrants try to do,” I nodded. “It’s just that it takes time for those on the inside to adjust to outsiders. Part of it is that they compete for jobs, and part of it is that they have different customs and traditions that don’t always match up with the way people are used to living.”

  “They’re scared of new things,” she murmured. “It’s always fear that makes people enemies, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, not knowing what else to say to her since she’d hit the nail on the head. Nina silently moved away as she looked at more pictures and examined the artifacts connected to the mills.

  “Ms. Fowler!” Nina called from the other side of the room. “Did you know they had classes designed to Americanize the immigrants? They had to attend the during their lunch hour!”

  “Yes, indeed,” I said, smiling to myself because I could hear the excitement in her voice as she discovered something new that related to things she could see were still going on in the world around her.

  “How can companies do that to people?” she asked. “How can they expect them to spend their own time becoming something they’re not?”