Building the Perfect Daddy

by Brenda Harlen

  “Gryff always wants treats,” Jordyn noted.

  “Can I give him tweats?” Kylie asked.

  “One treat,” her aunt instructed.

  “’Kay,” the little girl agreed, reaching into the box.

  “Speaking of treats,” Jordyn said, “I think the situation calls for cupcakes.”

  “Cupcakes?” Kylie echoed hopefully.

  “What situation?” Lauryn asked warily.

  “The Ryder situation.”

  Lauryn shook her head. “He’s not a situation and I’m not baking cupcakes.”

  “I like cupcakes,” Kylie chimed in. “Choc’ate cupcakes.”

  “I know, honey. And Gryff would really like his treat now,” Lauryn said, urging her daughter back to the living room.

  But, of course, the cat—even with half an ear missing—had heard the box of treats being opened and had come to find Kylie, who simply opened up her hand and let Gryff have his snack.

  “See? Even Kylie’s in favor of the plan,” Jordyn said.

  Still, Lauryn hesitated. “I don’t want to send the wrong message.”

  “That you’re grateful to him for looking after your kids?”

  “And I don’t have a kitchen,” she pointed out.

  “You could use this one.”

  “I suppose you have all the ingredients I’d need, too?” she challenged.

  “Probably not,” Jordyn admitted. “But I can pop out to the grocery store.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry to run errands.”

  “And the grocery store errand just moved to the top of the list. What do you need to make cupcakes?”

  “Spwinkles,” Kylie chimed in. “We needs lots an’ lotsa spwinkles.”

  Even as Lauryn added the necessary ingredients to her sister’s list, she wondered if the cupcakes were somehow going to say a lot more than a simple “thank you.” And was that a message she was ready to send?

  Chapter Eleven

  Ryder’s morning didn’t start out too badly. After a meeting with the production team, he went for breakfast with Owen and Virginia. The waitress at the Morning Glory Café brought his breakfast platter with a candle in it, undoubtedly Virginia’s idea. The show’s producer never missed a detail.

  As he was driving away from the restaurant, his phone rang. When he connected the call, he was greeted by his sister singing “Happy Birthday,” loudly and off-key.

  “I’m on my way to the airport,” he said when Avery paused to take a breath. “Isn’t that punishment enough without adding your singing to the mix?”

  “Actually, that’s the other reason I called,” his sister said. “To tell you that your chauffeur services aren’t required.”

  It was possible that Justin had changed his shift at the hospital and was available to meet his mother-in-law’s flight, but Ryder suspected otherwise. “She’s not coming, is she?”

  “No,” Avery admitted.

  He shook his head. Just when he thought his mother couldn’t disappoint him anymore, she proved otherwise. Her last-minute cancellation didn’t bother him—meetings with his mother were inevitably awkward and strained—but he knew that Avery had been looking forward to her visit. More importantly, she’d been looking forward to Vanessa meeting her maternal grandmother.

  “Did she say why?”

  “The usual.”

  Which, of course, meant work. Nothing mattered more to Dr. Cristina Tobin—not even her children. Ryder used to admire her dedication—he’d certainly been told often enough that her research was important, that what she did saved lives. Now it just made him sad. Maybe she did save lives, but she did so at the cost of living her own.

  “Are you okay?” he asked his sister now.

  “Of course, I’m okay,” she said, her tone just a little too bright. “It’s not as if I didn’t know this might happen.”

  “Just because you’re not surprised doesn’t mean you’re not disappointed.”

  “You’re right,” she admitted. “And I was a little disappointed at first. Then I called Justin’s mom and dad and invited them to come for dinner tonight because I’d already bought the groceries to make chicken piccata, and Ellen was absolutely thrilled by the invitation because they haven’t seen their granddaughter in three whole days.”

  “Three whole days, huh?”

  Avery chuckled. “Are you feeling guilty now that it’s been seven days since you stopped by?”

  “I’ll see you soon,” he promised.

  “You could come tonight, too,” she offered. “There’s going to be plenty of food.”

  “I told you—I have plans for tonight.”

  “I remember that’s what you said,” she acknowledged. “I just wasn’t sure you were sticking with that story now that our mother isn’t going to be in town.”

  “I’m sticking with that story,” he told her.

  “Well, I hope you have a wonderful birthday, little brother.”

  “Thanks, big sis.” He disconnected the call and turned his vehicle around.

  He hadn’t been completely honest when he told his sister he had plans, but he was optimistic. He knew any number of women who would happily make themselves available to celebrate his birthday, but he didn’t want to celebrate with any of them. Instead he drove to the lumber yard, because he wasn’t opposed to a little bit of manipulation to get what he wanted.

  He was hammering the final replacement board into place in the front porch when Lauryn’s van pulled into the driveway. He quickly moved his tools and debris away from the door so that she could get to it without tripping over anything.

  Kylie walked beside her mother, balancing a covered plastic container in her hands. Lauryn was weighted down with a diaper bag and purse over her shoulder, the baby’s car seat in one hand and three grocery bags in the other. He dumped his tool belt and went to meet her.

  “Do you not understand the concept of a day off?” she asked in lieu of a greeting.

  “I like to fix things,” he told her.

  “Then you’ve definitely come to the right place.”

  He grinned at that. “Can I give you a hand with something, since both of yours appear to be full?”

  She jiggled the keys that were dangling from a finger. “If you could open the door, that would be great.”

  He did as she requested, then took Zachary’s car seat from her, too.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I swear he’s getting heavier every day.”

  “He’s got a few pounds on my niece, that’s for sure.”

  “He’s also six months older than Vanessa,” Lauryn pointed out. To Kylie, she said, “Go put those on the table in the dining room, please.”

  The little girl did as she was requested, then turned to Ryder. “We made cupcakes for you.”

  “For me?” he asked, surprised.

  She nodded.

  “As a thank-you for last night,” Lauryn said, starting to put her groceries away.

  “You already said thank you,” he reminded her, unbuckling Zachary’s restraints and lifting him out of his car seat. “And how did you make cupcakes without an oven?”

  “Jordyn let us use hers.”

  She was still busy with her groceries, so he gently laid the sleeping baby down in his playpen. “What kind of cupcakes?”

  “Choc’ate,” Kylie chimed in.

  “We made vanilla, too,” Lauryn said. “Because we didn’t know what you’d like.”

  “Chocolate are my favorite.”

  “Me, too,” the little girl told him.

  He smiled. “Did you help make them?”

  She nodded. “I put on the icin’ an’ spwinkles.”

  “Sprinkles, too? You must have known it was my birthday.�
�

  Lauryn closed the fridge and turned to him. “It’s your birthday—today?”

  He nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugged. “It didn’t exactly come up in conversation.”

  “We needs birfday candles,” Kylie told her mother.

  “You’re right,” Lauryn agreed. “Let’s see if I can remember where I put them.”

  She put on a pot of coffee first, and it only took her a minute after that to find the candles and matches—tucked away on the top shelf of the bookcase, far out of reach of her children. Then she selected one of the chocolate cupcakes—with lots of sprinkles on top—and set it on a plate before inserting a single blue-and-white-striped candle into the middle of it.

  Kylie looked at the candle, then at Ryder. “I fink he needs more candles,” her daughter whispered to Lauryn.

  “I think you’re right,” she whispered back. “But the number of candles he needs probably wouldn’t fit on a cupcake.”

  “How many candles are you, Wyder?”

  He smiled at her phrasing of the question. “Twenty-eight,” he told her.

  “Thatsa lotta candles,” Kylie said solemnly.

  “Of course, it seems like a lot to her,” Lauryn explained. “She just learned to count to ten—and sometimes she skips over nine.”

  But he could tell the number had surprised her, too, prompting him to ask, “Do you think it’s a lot of candles?”

  “It’s fewer than were on my last birthday cake,” she admitted, putting another cupcake on a plate for her daughter. “Did you wash up?” she asked Kylie.

  As the little girl scrambled down from the table to do so, Lauryn reminded her, “And don’t forget to dry.”

  “How many candles did you have?” he asked.

  Lauryn shook her head. “Not telling.”

  “Thirty?” he guessed.

  She ignored his question and focused on inspecting Kylie’s hands when her daughter returned to the table. After Lauryn nodded her approval, Kylie climbed back into her chair and Lauryn struck a match, then set the flame to the wick of his candle.

  “Now you hafta make a wish an’ blow out the candle,” Kylie told him.

  “What should I wish for?” he asked her.

  “What you want most,” she told him, lifting her cupcake to her mouth.

  “Hmm.” He glanced up at Lauryn. “I might have to give that some thought.”

  “While you’re thinking, wax is melting onto your cupcake,” she warned.

  He continued to hold her gaze as he let out a puff of air, extinguishing the flame.

  “Whad’ya wish?” Kylie asked, her mouth full of cake and icing.

  “I wished that you and Zach and your mom would have dinner with me tonight,” he confided.

  “You’re not supposed to tell your wish,” Lauryn told him, then admonished her daughter, “And you’re not supposed to talk with food in your mouth.”

  Kylie, still chewing on her cupcake, said nothing.

  “Why am I not supposed to tell my wish?” Ryder asked.

  “Because then it won’t come true,” she warned.

  He accepted the mug of coffee she set in front of him, stirred in a spoonful of sugar. “Are you really going to deny my birthday wish?”

  “You don’t have plans to spend your birthday with friends or family?”

  “Avery wanted to cook dinner for me, but my mother was supposed to be in town and I didn’t want to be part of a dysfunctional family reunion.”

  “Your mother was planning to come to town for your birthday and you weren’t going to spend it with her?”

  “Her plans had nothing to do with my birthday,” he assured her. “If not for the fact that she always sends me a card and a check, I’d think she didn’t even remember the date I was born.”

  “I’m getting the impression that you’re not very close to your mother,” she said lightly.

  “We’re as close as we both want to be.”

  She frowned at that. “There are times that it feels as if I can’t move in this town without tripping over one of my relatives but, at the same time, it’s comforting to know that they’re never far away if I need them.”

  “Your family is obviously a little different from mine.”

  “Still, I’m sure your mother is proud of your success.”

  He shook his head. “She’s never forgiven me for not going to medical school.”

  “Maybe you don’t have an MD, but you do have your own television show,” she pointed out.

  “My mother doesn’t watch television.”

  She sat down at the table with her own cup of coffee. “Has she seen the billboards proclaiming that you’re America’s Hottest Handyman?”

  “I sincerely hope not,” he told her.

  “Has she ever actually seen the results of what you do?” she asked curiously.

  “She’s not impressed—any man can hammer a nail.”

  “If she met my ex-husband, she’d know that’s not true,” Lauryn remarked dryly.

  Ryder managed a smile at that.

  “All done, Mama,” Kylie said. “Can I go wash up now?”

  They both shifted their attention to the little girl, who had chocolate icing, crumbs and sprinkles smeared on her face and hands.

  “No,” Lauryn told her. “You sit right there—I’ll get a washcloth.”

  “Are you gonna eat your cupcake?” Kylie asked him, eyeing Ryder’s plate hopefully when her mother had left the room.

  He might have offered it to her if he wasn’t sure his generosity would result in a scolding from Lauryn. “Of course,” he told her. “It’s my birthday cupcake and extra-special because you made it for me. But there’s one sprinkle—” he carefully picked a pink one off the icing “—that’s just for you.”

  He dropped the candy into her outstretched palm and she immediately transferred it to her mouth—and more icing from her hand to her face in the process.

  Ryder lifted the cupcake to his mouth to hide his smile.

  At that moment, Lauryn came back with a washcloth to wipe Kylie’s face and hands, carefully scrubbing each and every digit on both hands and the spaces in between. “Now you may go play,” she said to her daughter when she was done.

  Kylie slid off her seat and scampered away.

  “That was really sweet,” Lauryn said to him. “Sharing your sprinkles with her.”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “It was to Kylie,” she told him. “And to me.”

  “It was one sprinkle,” he said, uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him—as if there was something special about him because he’d had a two minute conversation with her kid.

  Apparently sensing his unease, she shifted the topic of the conversation again. “You were telling me about your mother’s visit,” she reminded him.

  “Just that her intended visit is why I told Avery that I already had plans for tonight.”

  “You lied to your sister to avoid seeing your mother who didn’t end up coming to town, anyway?”

  “It wasn’t really a lie,” he denied. “I did have plans—to stay far away from my mother. So...will you let me take you out for dinner tonight?”

  “Actually, my cousin’s wife and daughter are coming over tonight. Maura’s taking a babysitting certification course and I’m going to take advantage of her services to complete the inventory I left unfinished at the store yesterday.”

  He studied her for a minute. “I can’t figure out if you really have stock to count or if you’re brushing me off.”

  “I really have stock to count,” she said, with enough reluctance in her tone to convince him that it was true.

  “And if
you didn’t?” he wondered.

  “I still wouldn’t go out for dinner with you,” she admitted.

  “Because you’re not attracted to me?” he challenged.

  “Because you should be having dinner with the blonde in the red dress.”

  He didn’t expect that she would give a direct answer to his question—and he definitely hadn’t expected the answer that she did give. “What blonde in the red dress?”

  “The one you were with at Marg & Rita’s last week.”

  “I wasn’t with her,” he denied.

  “You left the bar with her.”

  Damn. He’d hoped no one had seen him slip out the door with Debby, but not for the reasons that Lauryn apparently suspected. “Only to give her a ride home.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanations.”

  But he wanted to explain. “She’s Brody’s little sister, who had a little too much to drink in an attempt to forget that she’d recently broken up with her boyfriend. I took her home, saw her safely inside, then went back to my own place because I knew that I had a roofing job to oversee early the next morning.”

  “You might have told me about the roofing job when I saw you that night,” she told him.

  He smiled. “I sort of did,” he reminded her. “But I’m glad you didn’t pick up on my hints or I might have missed seeing you in your...pajamas.”

  * * *

  Maura knocked at the door promptly at six o’clock. Though her stepmother, Rachel, was there to supervise, Rachel had asked Lauryn to pretend she wasn’t and to give her instructions to the babysitter as if she was on her own. So Lauryn invited Maura inside and showed her the notes she’d left by the phone, with appropriate snack instructions, television guidelines, bedtimes and her cell phone number clearly enumerated.

  “An’ I gets stowies before bed,” Kylie piped up.

  “She gets one story before bed,” Lauryn clarified.

  Maura nodded. “What time do you think you’ll be home?”

  “The inventory shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

  “I need seven more hours for my certification,” her niece reminded her.

  She smiled at that. “I’m definitely not going to be out that long.”

  “Stay out as long or as short as you need,” Rachel told her. “We can come back for more hours another time.”