Heiress for Hire (Cuttersville #2)(16)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"Exactly." He sighed in relief.

Without a cosmetology degree, she didn’t think she was qualified to do anything at the salon except maybe give advice, but it never hurt to inquire. "Thanks, I’ll check it out."

Amanda walked back toward the last bedroom, flipping on all the hall and bedroom lights as she went. She needed another look at that mirror. "How’s Piper?" She sincerely hoped Piper would embrace Danny as her father and wouldn’t waste unnecessary time punishing him for something he’d had no control over.

Though Amanda thought Piper’s mother could stand to be bitch-slapped for never telling Danny he had a daughter. Of course, she was dead, so that wasn’t really an option.

"She’s in the bath right now, hopefully using lots of soap."

"That’s good. You get all her new stuff unpacked?"

"No. There’s eight bags lying in my kitchen. But I’ll get to it in the morning."

A hazy milky color had clouded the mirror where it hung over an antique whatnot. Amanda ran her finger over the glass, leaving a slight streak.

"Danny, what is the story with the chick who cries in the mirror?" Shelby had told her that story once before, but she had only listened with half an ear, certain it was embellishment designed to boost excitement in the dead, dull country.

Dead was probably the only accurate piece of that assumption.

"Shelby can tell you the full story, but the gist of it is, she cries for her lost love, who was a thief and a murderer. And they say the women who hear her are destined for their own heartbreak in the near future."

That just figured. "Really? How fun. Because I just heard her."

And the last thing she needed to encounter was heartbreak.

Breaking up was hard to do, but it would be intolerable without a credit card for copious cosmopolitans and retail therapy.

Chapter 5

Danny ate his sunny-side-up eggs and picked through the box of junk Piper’s stepfather had left.

It told a sad story of what her life had been like.

There was precious little in the box to begin with, but what there was had seen better days. The blanket was worn and faded. The clothes were so small and dirty and torn up that he took them and pitched them right in the trash. There was a box of broken crayons, a small brown teddy bear with an unraveling ribbon around his neck, and a naked Barbie doll missing half her hair.

Danny gave the doll a shake, and her limp Mohawk twitched. "Who is this? Rogaine Barbie?" He eyed the pitiful hairdo as Piper came padding into the kitchen softly, her hand reaching out for the doll.

"This is Baywatch Barbie, but my cousin took all her clothes." She clutched the doll tightly and took a step back from him.

"Maybe next time we’re at the store, you can pick out a new outfit for her." Danny smiled and sipped his coffee, trying like hell to sound reassuring and confident and paternal. Damned if he knew how.

Piper shrugged, her favorite response.

He sucked in a deep breath and reminded himself this was going to take time. He was a total stranger to her. "Want some eggs?"

She eyed his plate with hearty suspicion. "Do I hafta have ’em like yours?"

"No. I could scramble them if you want. Don’t you like sunny-side up?"

Her head moved vigorously. "They look like eyeballs."

He grinned. "Okay, then. No eyeballs for breakfast. Scrambled coming right up."

Danny stood and touched Piper on the shoulder as he went past her to the refrigerator. It pleased him that she smelled clean and her skin looked so pink and shiny this morning. Yet at the same time, everything he saw, heard, considered, made him sick that her life hadn’t been a bowl of cherries. She’d gotten nothing but the pits.

He hadn’t slept a single second of the night before. He had paced and worried and planned until at dawn he’d started the cof-feemaker. He was on his third cup and was jittery with caffeine, but no closer to any solutions.

There was a farm to tend to. But he had a daughter now and a million and one things needed to be taken care of in the short term—like bedroom furniture and finding a pediatrician so she could have a checkup.

In the long term, he had to determine the legalities involved in making sure he had full custody, not to mention child care issues. In the fall, he would send Piper to Cuttersville Elementary, but for right now, he had no one to watch her when he was working the farm or out doing a part-time construction job that helped him pay the bills.

"After breakfast I’m going to do some laundry," he said as he pulled out a frying pan. "So why don’t you give me that hat you’re wearing and I’ll wash it with the rest of your new stuff?"

Danny was pretty certain vermin were breeding in that hat.

"I can’t take it off. I… I don’t have any hair," she whispered.

Startled, Danny dropped the pan and turned around. "What? What do you mean?" He moved toward her, and she flinched. He stopped walking, still a few feet from her, not wanting to scare her.

"Mark says no one should have to look at my ugly head." She leaned back against the table, holding her Barbie across her chest like a shield. The grubby hat was clearly a shield too.

It made sense then, at the same time it broke his heart, why he couldn’t see her hair falling out of her hat. There wasn’t any. Jesus. Danny dropped to a squat in front of her, wanting to cry for the first time in his adult life. For the first time since Shelby had miscarried his child.

"Why did your hair fall out, baby girl?" He was thinking cancer, which was killing him. He couldn’t find his daughter to lose her. He couldn’t.

"The doctor says its stress. He says maybe it will come back when I’m older." Piper touched her hat, looking a little panicked. "But you can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret."

While there was relief it wasn’t cancer, this answer came with raging, engulfing guilt. Sadness. Fear. How could he ever make this right? "I won’t tell anyone, Piper. I promise."

He lifted his hand toward her and saw her wince. He froze with his hand in the air before going with instinct and continuing on to give her shoulder a little squeeze. "Let me get that breakfast started. You must be starving."

Turning to the stove, he struggled to regain his composure, beat back the panic that zipped through his body like the caffeine from those three cups of coffee. This would work out. It would. He just had to be patient.

His front door flew open as he cracked the first egg.

"Danny?"

His mother. He should have known to expect her sooner than later. Gossip spread like dandelion weeds in this town.

"I’m in the kitchen, Mom."