Free Impossible Dreams by Patricia Rice Page A

and always feared. In her experience, a helping hand usually meant
accepting shackles. She wasn’t any good at living within the boundaries
of other people’s rules.
    Maya pinched her eyes closed. Either way, she lost her
independence. Why not wait until after she was well rested to decide between a
rock and a hard place?
    Her irreverent humor bounced back as she shifted her belly
out of the car. Maybe she could accept his offer of a position as nanny and be
like the TV character who lived in wealth and flirted with her clueless
employer.
    The dubious charms of a wailing infant would end that career
soon enough.
    ***
    Removing cash from his pocket to pay off the baby-sitter,
Axell curbed his impatience as Maya occupied the woman with chatter, drew
Constance into the conversation, and appeared in no particular hurry to accept
the shelter and comfort of the room he offered her. As far as he could see,
Matty had settled quite comfortably into a fascinated trance in front of the
television.
    No matter what Maya thought, he wasn’t offering
charity. He’d simply grabbed the most expedient method available of
installing a mother figure in the house for Constance and stalling Sandra a
while longer.
    Somewhere on the ride here, his good intention of offering a
night’s shelter had developed into the insane idea that he’d been
handed the golden opportunity to solve all his problems. With the schoolteacher
in residence, Constance wouldn’t need Sandra. He was a quick study. Maybe
he could learn how Maya drew words out of his noncommunicative daughter. He
would give anything, do anything, to have the same rapport with his daughter
that Maya had. That Maya was a potential disruption to his orderly life was a
given he accepted as the price of learning.
    He was a desperate man.
    So, watch and learn, he told himself as Maya stroked
Constance’s hair, talked about the video Constance had popped into the
VCR, and pried a reluctant smile out of her as Maya compared the dragons on her
toes with the one in the movie. A minute later, Constance was begging to have
her new Nikes painted and was clinging to Maya’s hand as if she
wouldn’t let go.
    He still didn’t see how she did it.
    Instead of lingering in the family room doorway, Axell
strolled in and sat on a massive leather footstool near Constance. He took the
unadorned Nike from his daughter’s fingers, held it up to the TV
dinosaur, and tried to join the conversation. “Purple and green?”
he asked facetiously, while Matty ignored them in favor of the video.
    Constance drew closer to Maya, whipped her long hair back
and forth, and held out her hand for her shoe. She didn’t say a word.
    He didn’t have time for this. Exasperated, he handed
the shoe back. “Will you show Maya and Matty to the room next to
yours?”
    For a moment, her thin face lit from within. Then it
shuttered and she nodded warily. Still, not a sound.
    “Give your daddy a hug,” Maya whispered in tones
he could hear. “He has to go back to look after all your friends in the
kitchen.”
    That was a hell of a way of looking at it, but Constance
willingly turned and grabbed his neck for a swift hug before retreating to
Maya’s side. Maybe it was a female thing. Maybe little girls needed
mothers at this age more than they needed fathers.
    Still, her desertion pained him. He’d worked hard at
building the bar and restaurant to fill the void left by the death of his
parents, but he’d never had his father’s knack for making friends
of his customers. Dissatisfied, he’d tried filling his lonely existence
with Angela. He’d hoped his daughter’s birth would plug the gaps in
his marriage. Instead, his inability to interact with others had cost him his
wife, and now he was losing his daughter.
    Anguish seared his heart as he watched Constance cling to a
virtual stranger, leaving him more alone than ever. He didn’t know why he
kept trying, except he didn’t know the meaning of the