The CEO and Her Daughter's Secret Father novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Years

Four years later Ximena runs dispatch with her daughter in a booster seat when a new driver's application slides through the window, and she hires the face before he finishes the form; the little girl looks up and says, "You have my eyes."

At five in the morning the dispatch office smells of burnt coffee and diesel.

I like it best then, before the phones start.

Luz sat in her booster seat on the dispatch counter, swinging her yellow rain boots, with a crayon in each fist.

She would be four on Saturday, and she had decided that the whole office worked for her.

"Mama, that truck is late," she said, pointing at the board.

"That truck is always late."

"Why don't you fire it?"

"Because it's a truck, mija."

She considered this very seriously.

"Fire the driver," she said.

The night dispatcher laughed into his thermos.

I was reading Thursday's board packet, with the Escamilla Fresh Imports tab flagged in red.

I had read the same paragraph three times.

My mother had left a foil bundle of tamales on the counter an hour earlier and gone home to bed.

Luz had already eaten two and was working on a third.

At 5:04 the outer door opened, and cold air came in with a man.

I did not look up at first.

A form slid through the window under the glass, and a pen rolled after it.

"Driver application," a voice said.

"We're not hiring days," the dispatcher said.

"Nights, then."

The voice was lower than I remembered, and it had a gravel in it that I had spent four years learning to forget.

I looked up.

He wore a faded Lone Star cap and a tan canvas jacket that had been washed a hundred times.

The beard was shorter now and salted with grey, and there was more grey at his temples.

The split scar in his lower lip was exactly where I had left it.

His eyes met mine through the glass, and for one second neither of us breathed.

Then he looked away, politely.

I picked up the form.

The name at the top had been printed in careful block letters.

DELL HAVERFORD.

"I drove for your father's roster once," he said to the glass. "For nine days, four years ago. I'd like my old number back."

The dispatcher frowned. "That was before my time."

"It's in the file," I said.

My own voice sounded steady and strange.

I read the form. I did not need to.

CDL, current. Hazmat endorsement. No accidents. A phone number I knew would ring a dead line.

References, none.

The right thing was to refuse him.

The right thing was to call my uncle, call security, walk him to the gate.

Four years ago I had bought this man's life.

The price was still being paid.

I was not going to let him walk into the building where I paid it and undo it.

"Nights," I said. "The yard shuttle, bridge lot to Warehouse B. No border runs."

"I can do border runs."

"You'll do the shuttle."

"Yes, ma'am."

Something moved at the corner of his mouth, the old scar tugging.

It was almost a smile, and it hit me low in the stomach.

"Start tonight at nine. The dispatcher will give you your badge."

"I appreciate it, Ms. Arriaga."

He had read my name off the door.

I told myself that was all it was.

He turned to go, and then the office door opened again.

It was my mother, in her house dress and her coat, with her reading glasses swinging on their cord.

She had forgotten her dominoes.

"Who's this?" Soledad said.

"New night driver," I said. "Mr. Haverford."

My mother looked at him for exactly as long as it takes to read a license plate.

"Haverford," she said. "Eat something, you look like a tire."

"Mama."

"A hungry man is a bad driver. Take a tamal."

He took one, and thanked her in good Spanish, and she folded her arms and watched him do it.

Luz had stopped coloring.

She had climbed up on her knees in the booster seat.

Her chin rested on the edge of the counter, and she studied the stranger.

He noticed.

He turned slowly, and the tamal stopped halfway to his mouth.

Her curls were in two puffs, the way my mother did them, and her round cheeks were smeared with red salsa.

She had been looking at me with those same eyes every day of her life.

I had told myself for almost four years that I did not see where they came from.

"Hi," Luz said.

"Hi," he said, very quietly.

"I'm almost four."

"That's a good age."

Luz tilted her head, and held out the crayon in her right fist.

"You have my eyes," she said.

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