Susan Mallery - The Sassy One

“Francesca,” her adviser said. “You finally remembered where to find me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Francesca walked in and settled in front of Emily’s desk. “I’ve finished my outline.”

“You’re kidding.” Her adviser, an attractive woman in her forties, picked up the papers Francesca held out. “I’ve been telling you that you can’t spend all your time tormenting innocent bystanders, but I wasn’t sure you were listening.”

“I always listen to what you say.”

Emily smiled. “If only that were true.” She drew on her glasses and pushed her dark hair off her forehead. “All right. What have we got here?”

One of the four-year-olds picked up a kid-sized chair and threw it at the boy across from him. Kelly’s mouth dropped open.

“Are they supposed to do that?” she asked, pointing at the second boy, who promptly hit the first. They both burst into tears.

Dan muttered something under his breath and raced out of the observation room. Kelly wasn’t exactly sorry to see him go. Some of his theories were interesting and stuff, but he’d gotten way too technical. At first she’d been insulted that Francesca had said she was only twelve, but after ten minutes of listening to Dan, she understood why.

She stood and strolled out of the room, back into the hallway. Francesca had said she would be about a half hour and that time was nearly up. She spied a chair by the office Francesca had told her she would be in and plopped down to wait.

She and her dad were supposed to play chess again that night. Last night Kelly had barely figured out how the different pieces moved. She knew now that she’d been tricked. It would be years before she was good enough to beat her dad and win that DVD player, but that didn’t bother her at all. He’d known what he was getting into when he made the offer. Maybe he was planning on keeping her around for a while. While he was kind of a stick in the mud about some things and annoying, he wasn’t really so bad. He was-

Kelly jumped as she realized she could hear what was being said in the office. She leaned back against the frosted glass window so the words would be more clear, then stiffened when she heard her own name.

“Kelly is the daughter of a friend of mine,” Francesca was saying. “She’s a wonderful dancer and takes classes all the time. We’re hanging out together this week. It’s been lots of fun.”

“Sounds like a great mini-vacation.”

“It is. Kelly is really easy to be with. Basically a great kid.”

While Kelly didn’t appreciate the “kid” remark, Francesca’s words made her feel good.

“I saw you two walk in,” the other woman said. “She has beautiful hair.”

“I know. She hates the curls, but I think they’re amazing.”

The other woman laughed. “I tried to get a perm that would do what her hair does naturally. Eighty dollars and three hours later, I looked like a badly cut poodle. It was very disheartening.”

Kelly bit back a smile.

“She also has the most adorable freckles,” Francesca said. “I think they’re charming. Ah, to be that young and pretty. When I watch her dancing, I feel like an old crone by comparison.”

“Honey, by comparison, you are an old crone.”

Francesca laughed. “Gee, thanks.”

Kelly stood up and quickly walked to the far end of the hall. Her face burned and her stomach was all jumpy. Every time she’d overheard her mother talking about her-which wasn’t very often because only a few friends even knew she existed-Tanya said mean stuff. Nothing like this.

Francesca thought she was pretty. Francesca liked her. If Francesca and Sam got together, then Kelly might never have to worry about being sent away.

She thought about how her mother had always hidden her and ignored her. Francesca would never do that. She would never leave her child. She would never forget birthdays, or say things that hurt Kelly’s feelings. She knew a lot of her friends had stepparents, and while some of them were okay, others were really awful. What if her dad started seeing someone else?

That couldn’t happen, she told herself. Francesca was exactly who she and her dad needed in their lives. Somehow she would find a way to bring them together.

Wednesday morning Sam adjusted his tie, then stepped back into his closet to collect his cell phone, wallet, and jacket. He had another meeting with the Brazilian clients, then a working lunch with his office manager. A local business association wanted to sponsor a mini film festival the following summer and had asked Sam to meet with them to discuss security.

He glanced at his watch. Francesca was going to be taking Kelly to dance class that morning, so he could get into the office early and get a head start on his day. Without her, he couldn’t possibly get everything done. She was-

He reached for his wallet, but instead of grabbing it, he accidentally knocked it onto the floor, where it fell open. As he bent to pick it up, he noticed a strip of silver. Anger exploded.

“Damn her hide,” he muttered.

Straightening, he examined the platinum credit card. It was right where it was supposed to be. Right where it hadn’t been the afternoon before when he’d stopped and gotten gas.

“Kelly!” he roared as he walked out into the hallway.

His daughter poked her head out of her bedroom. She was already dressed for her dance class. Her hair was a mass of curls, and she held a white ribbon in one hand.

“Stop yelling,” she told him. “I’m right here. What’s up?”

She was so casual about it all, he thought, fighting the need to put his fist through the wall.

“You took my credit card,” he said, his teeth clenched.

“What are you talking about?”

She sounded concerned and baffled, as if she had no idea what he meant. But he’d known her long enough to recognize the slight tension in her thin shoulders and the stubborn set of her chin.

“Yesterday I noticed my Visa card was missing from my wallet. This morning it’s back where it belongs.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. So you want to blame me. Maybe you misplaced it or didn’t see it when you looked before.”

“It wasn’t there. So I called and canceled it last night. Funny how there had only been one charge on it. To a clothing store on the Internet.” He narrowed his gaze. “I canceled the order, too.”

“You did what?” she demanded. “That is just so typical. You want to ruin everything.”

He’d caught her stealing, and he expected her to go on the attack, but he was still stunned by her blaming him for stopping the order.

“You stole from me!” he yelled.

“You stole from me, too,” she said as she stepped into the hall and glared at him. “You had no right to take away my old credit card. I wasn’t doing anything bad with it. And I wasn’t doing anything bad this time, either.”

“You were stealing. Maybe that’s okay in New York, but it’s damn wrong here.”

“I asked for an allowance, and you said you’d think about it. You haven’t said anything since, and I couldn’t wait any longer. I didn’t have a choice.”

“So this is my fault? What is wrong with you? If you’re grown-up enough to steal, why aren’t you grown-up enough to take responsibility for what you’ve done?”

“I’m only twelve. What do you want from me?”

“Better behavior than this. You’re grounded.”

“There’s news.” She folded her arms over her chest. “So you really like being a bully, don’t you. When you were little, did you beat up on the smaller kids?”

He hadn’t thought it was possible to get more angry, but he’d been wrong. “Do not make this about me, young lady. You are the one who stole from me. I can see I’m going to have to start locking up my money and credit cards, which is a pretty sorry state of affairs around here.”

“Why don’t you just lock me up, too?” she taunted. “It’s what you want to do.”

“It could just be me, but from where I’m standing, it sounds like both of you need to take a deep breath and calm down,” Francesca said.

Sam turned and saw her leaning against the railing by the stairs. Relief flooded him. At least she would know what to do.

“When did you get here?” he asked.

“Somewhere between the opening shot and the last salvo,” she said. “Want to talk about it?”

Kelly glared at her. “He’s a hundred percent wrong. Don’t you dare take his side.”

“Don’t speak to her in that tone of voice,” Sam ordered.

Kelly huffed. Sam glared. Francesca had the feeling she should have slept in and avoided the whole fight. But now she was here, stuck in the middle of what could be a sticky situation. Because as much as Sam had the right to be furious with his daughter, there was one piece of the puzzle missing. Why had Kelly taken the credit card?

In the past few weeks her stuff had arrived from New York, she’d been to the mall to flesh out her wardrobe, and from what Francesca had been able to tell, she was adjusting well and pretty happy. So why would she risk her father’s wrath and steal his credit card?

She turned to Sam. “Tell me what happened.”

He recounted going to get gas the previous afternoon, finding his credit card missing, and then calling to cancel it.

“There had only been one charge that day,” he said. “To an Internet clothing company.” He glared at his daughter. “We all know how Kelly likes to shop with a keyboard.”

Francesca ignored the sarcasm. “Okay, Kelly, let’s hear it. Did you take the credit card?”

Sam started to say of course she had, but Francesca held up a restraining hand. “Please let her answer.”

The preteen sighed heavily. She ducked her head so her curls fell in her face. “It’s not what you think.”

“See?” Sam said.

Francesca ignored him. “Kelly, are you going to answer the question?”

Kelly raised her head and thrust out her chin. “Okay, I took it, but it’s not what he thinks.”

Francesca studied the girl’s green eyes, seeing the shadows of pain and fear. This hadn’t been an act of defiance, she realized. It was something else entirely.

“What I think is that you took it and used it without permission,” Sam said, still sounding furious. “And you’re going to be punished.”

Francesca agreed that no reason was good enough to avoid all consequences, but she still wanted to know one more thing.

“Why?” she asked softly.

“What?” Sam turned to her. “What does it matter why? She wanted more clothes. More whatever she doesn’t think she has enough of.”

“You’re so stupid!” Kelly yelled. “You think you know everything, but you don’t. You don’t know anything!”

Francesca sighed. “Kelly, you know better than to speak like that. Calling an adult stupid is never a good idea. You’re making your father more angry, and you’re using up your good-will with me.”

Kelly’s mouth trembled. “It doesn’t matter. Just punish me. I don’t care.”

She cared so much, it hurt Francesca just to look at her. “Tell us why, please.”

Kelly sucked in a breath and faced her father. “It was a leather jacket for you,” she said, her voice high and shrill. “For your damn birthday, okay? I asked for an allowance and you blew me off. You didn’t even want to talk about it. Your birthday is next week, so what was I supposed to do?”

Sam’s expression tightened. “Don’t you swear at me, young lady. You’re already in enough trouble.”

Francesca nearly fell over. All he’d gotten from Kelly’s confession was that she’d used a bad word? What about the fact that she wanted to get him something for his birthday? The means might suck big time, but the motive was pure.

Kelly’s mouth trembled. Francesca knew exactly what she was thinking. That she’d tried to show she cared, that her father mattered to her, and he’d thrown it back in her face.

Without saying a word, she turned and raced into her bedroom. The door slammed and the lock clicked.

Sam groaned. “Great. I was waiting until the weekend before taking out her lock. I can see I should have done it last night.”

He headed for his bedroom. Francesca hesitated, not sure who to go after first, then she remembered Sam would be leaving for work in a matter of minutes while Kelly would be around all day.

“Sam, wait,” she called as she hurried after him. “You can’t leave yet.”

She found him in the closet, slipping into his jacket.

“I have out-of-town clients,” he said. “This will have to wait. I don’t want Kelly to go to dance class today. I don’t want her going anywhere. She should stay in her room and think about what she’s done wrong. We’ll talk about it tonight.”

“You and she may talk about it tonight, but you and I are going to talk about it right now.”

He sighed. “Francesca, I don’t have time for this.”