Blindsided (Indigo Love Spectrum) (28 page)

“That’s my question, young lady. That boy was all over you.”

Reese folded her arms. “Boy?”

“Don’t you dare do that to me!” he barked, not happy
with her insinuation. “You know exactly what I’m talking
about.”

“He’s a friend of mine.”

“Diana’s your friend. How come I’ve never heard about him?”

“How come I never heard about Tawny before she
graced us with her presence at lunch?”

“That was over a month ago.”

“Doesn’t matter. The point is, I don’t know all of your
friends, and you don’t know all of mine.”

“When said friend is hanging all over you, I need to
know about him.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. I am your father.”

Reese grunted. “Don’t remind me.”

“You don’t want me to care about you?”

“What I don’t want is you interfering in my life.”

“You’re sixteen years old. You don’t have a life yet.”
Norris drew a breath and lowered his voice that had
grown progressively louder. Patrons in the music store
started to stare. He took Reese by the arm and led her to a quiet spot near the mall entrance. “Jack may be a nice
kid, but he’s a young man with hormones. And watching
him touching you made me uneasy.”

“You act like he was groping me. His arm was around
my waist. I held his hand. Not exactly baby-making
stuff.”

“That stuff leads to the baby-making stuff.”

“I’m not an idiot. I know where babies come from
and how to keep them from happening.” She stuck out
her chin. “Something you at twenty and my
doctor
mother at thirty-five apparently had no clue about.”

Norris dragged his hands over his face. “You will slip in that dig every chance you get, won’t you?”

“It’s true.”

“What’s true is I care about you and I don’t want to
see you getting in over your head.”

“For showing interest in a guy? Norris, Angelica is the
three-year-old, not me. Now you can practice parenting
on her as much as you want, she seems to like it, and you
seem to be quite good with her, but I don’t need that
from you. And I don’t want it.”

Norris gritted his teeth. Once charmed by Reese’s
spirit, it now served only to test his patience. “You don’t
have a choice,” he said. “I am your parent, and while
y
our mother is thousands of miles away in another
country, I’m going to be that to you. In my quest to get
closer to you, I’ve been too accommodating with you. I
wanted to be your friend, but I have to be your father
first. You need to tell me where you’re going to be, when,
and with whom. You can tell Dahlia, too, but you
will
tell me. You will call me at least once in the morning and
check in with me by eleven at night. And before you go out with
Jack
again, you will ask my permission.”

“What?” Reese blasted, her eyes as wide as saucers.

“You heard me. Things are going to be different with
us.”

“Because
you
say so?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Because
I
say so.”

“This is because you saw me with Jack, isn’t it?”

Hell yeah!
“I think we need to establish some structure
in our relationship,” Norris said. “The old way isn’t
working.”

“You can’t control me.”

“I don’t want control, Reese. I want inclusion.
Through no fault of my own, I missed sixteen years of
your life. I’m not missing any more. I will be actively
involved in your life from now on. You don’t have to like
it, and your pouting tells me you don’t, but it’s the way
it’s going to be.”

“Can I leave now?”

“What are the rest of your plans for the day?”

“We’re going to the movies.”

Norris checked his watch. Three-thirty. “Which
showing?”

“Four-fifteen,” Reese answered.

“And after that?”

“We might get something to eat.”

“Call me after the movie when you know for sure.”
Reese rolled her eyes. “This is how it’s going to be
from now on?”

Norris folded his arms. “Yes, it is,” he said sternly.
“Great,” she grumbled. “Are we done?”

“Sure.”

Reese walked away, saying nothing.

“And, Reese?”

She turned back to him. “What?”

“It wouldn’t be wise to make me have to call you,” he
said, giving her pause if she had any notions of dis
obeying him. “I don’t think you’d like the outcome of
that.”

* * *

“Good night, Mrs. Lee. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
Dahlia waved good-bye to her last client for the day and
dropped her smock in her chair. “All right, ladies, I’m
done,” she said to Marcie and Mrs. Flo, who each had a
client to finish.

Marci waved goodbye.

“You leaving a little early tonight, Dahlia. You got big
plans?” asked Mrs. Flo, mindlessly flipping through the current issue of
Jet
magazine as she went about her business of snooping into Dahlia’s business while her client
dozed under the drier.

“
No, ma’am, I don’t have any big plans. I’m just going
to go home, make some dinner for Reese, and get ready
for church in the morning.”

Mrs. Flo raised an eyebrow. “That’s all?”

“That’s enough.”

“After the flowers, presents, and good food your
secret admirer sent over here, I would think you’d be busy
trying to keep that man happy.” Mrs. Flo closed the mag
azine and dropped it in her lap. “Maybe staying home and doing nothing might explain why those presents
stopped coming, hmm?”

“Or maybe he just brings them to my house when he
comes over, hmm?” Dahlia flashed the nosey woman a
tight smile. “Or maybe not. That’s where ‘private’ comes
into ‘private life.’ ”

Mrs. Flo squared her shoulders and grunted.
“Humph. I’m sorry I asked.”

“No, you’re not. But it’s okay. You can’t help your
self.” A gifted cosmetologist with dozens of faithful
clients, Mrs. Flo knew hair like the back of her hand. Too
bad she had to know everybody’s business the same way.
Dahlia grabbed her purse from her station cabinet. “I’ll
see you all on Tuesday.”

The phone rang as she made her way to the door. “I’ll
get it,” she called out to the ladies, picking up the phone
mid-ring. “DBS.”

“Dahlia, it’s Josette Lee. There’s a white man sitting in
a Mercedes outside your shop. I asked him if he was lost,
and he said no, but he didn’t leave. I thought he might be
waiting on that pretty blonde girl Marci is working on.

T
hat’s why I called you. He really liked my hair,” she
said, with a giddy laugh.

Dahlia smiled.
Could it be?
Over the past month she’d
done little more than think about Norris, and now it seemed he sat a few feet outside her shop. “Is the car
gray?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Norris.
“Thanks for telling me, Mrs. Lee. I’ll take care
of it,” Dahlia said.

“All right. Bye now.”

Dahlia hung up the phone and pulled her cell phone
from the waist clip on her jeans. She pressed and held the
number five on her keypad, the speed-dial button to
Norris’s cell phone, and walked out the door.

“Hi. This is a pleasant surprise,” Norris said.

“How long have you been waiting outside my salon?”

She approached the car and tapped on the passenger side window.

Norris laughed. “About ten minutes. But I’ve been
driving around the perimeter for the past hour or so.” He
ended the call and opened the door. “How did you know?”

“I have my sources,” she said, sliding inside.

“The sweet old lady with the nice hairstyle, right?”

“Your compliment made Mrs. Lee’s day.”

“That’s the Norris touch.”

Dahlia couldn’t help smiling. “You waiting outside
also concerned her, so she called to give me a heads-up.
Why are you out here? Is something wrong?”

Norris shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Can we go
somewhere and talk?”

D
ahlia nodded. They definitely needed to talk. “Sure.
How about my place?”

“I’ll follow you.”

* * *

Norris remained quiet as he walked into her house.
He sat on the couch, sighing wearily.

Dahlia sat beside him and touched his arm. “What’s
wrong, Norris? Is it your mother?”

“No. Reese.”

“What about her?”

“I saw her at the mall earlier. I think—hell, I know
she’s not happy with me.”

Dahlia groaned. “What happened?”

“I found her all hugged up with some boy.”

“Found her? Was she hiding?”

Norris grunted. “Not hardly. I couldn’t believe my
eyes.”

A horrible image of Norris ripping a poor kid to
shreds flashed before Dahlia’s eyes. Reese had mentioned his snippy attitude toward the waiter at Corlino’s Kitchen
for showing interest, so to have a young man actually
touch her, probably the guy Jack she’d mentioned she
liked, Norris probably went ballistic. “What did you do?”
Dahlia asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“What’s with the accusatory tone I hear in your voice?
You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I’m Switzerland. I’m not on anyone’s side. Now, you
tell me what you did.”

“
Dahlia, my sixteen-year-old daughter let some kid
practically paw her in front of everybody in the mall. I
reacted as any parent would.”

“I’m not a parent, so why don’t you break it down for
me.”

“I talked to her.”

“To her or at her?”

Norris shook his head, looking as if she had suddenly
started speaking in a foreign tongue. “I don’t under
stand.”

“No, you don’t. You’ve only known about Reese for a
couple of months, but she’s not a baby, Norris. Why do I
have the feeling you treated her like one today?”

“I know she’s not a baby, but she is
my
baby. I don’t
think I’ll ever get used to the idea of boys looking at my
daughter and seeing a woman. She’s not a woman yet,
and I don’t want boys looking at Reese and thinking the
thoughts boys her age think.”

“Like the thoughts you had at their age?”

“Yes!” He shook his head. “No.”

Dahlia laughed. “Uh-huh.” She tapped his knee with
her hand. “Finish telling me what happened with Reese.”

“When I saw her hugging this boy I never even heard
about, I was a little angry.”

“A little?”

“A lot angry. I was with Angelica and she spotted
Diana and Reese and they were with these jock types.
Completely taken, I might add. We talked alone, and
Reese rebuked me for my less-than-warm reception of
her friend Jack. I, in turn, shared my unhappiness about
h
er not telling me about him. That went on for a while,
and when all was said and done I let her know I expected
to hear from her twice a day every day, and she is to tell
me of any plans she makes before she makes them.”