Doorstep Daddy

by Shirley Jump

  God, how he wanted to kiss her, taste her, feel her body against his. “And how did it feel?”

  “Like…falling off a cliff, only with a cloud waiting at the bottom to catch you.”

  Poetry. She was poetry when she spoke. “And did he love you, too?”

  She nodded, slow.

  “If you met someone you loved again, after years and years apart, how would it feel? If say—” his gaze met hers, and a surge of electricity sparked in the air, as if lightning had hit the floor “—you and I had once been lovers and we were being reunited?”

  “But we aren’t.”

  Every ounce of him was watching her lips move, noting the way she inhaled, exhaled. For a second, he wanted to recapture those days when he wrote the first book, when he too used to believe in love. He wanted to feel what Ellie felt—to believe in poetry, in the clouds. “Pretend we are. Pretend you used to love me. How—” his thumb caressed the edge of her jaw, and her breath caught, held, along with his pulse “—would it feel to see me again? Would you be sad…or—” now he did what he’d wanted to do ever since he’d met her, and traced the delicate skin along her lips “—excited?”

  “Uh…” her breath escaped in a soft whoosh, “excited. But…uh, scared, too.”

  He leaned in closer. “Because?”

  “Because you make me think about—”

  Dalton waited, but she didn’t finish the sentence. “Make you think about what?”

  “About what I missed out on,” she finished, the words a whisper, a sentence he wasn’t sure she meant for him. She cast her lashes down for one long second, as if she was waiting, anticipating, hoping—

  He’d kiss her.

  A heartbeat passed between them. Another. Desire raged in Dalton’s veins. When Ellie looked up at him again, his resistance nearly broke. Damn. What was he doing? How did it get to this point? How had they gone from nothing to an explosion like this in a matter of seconds?

  “Thanks,” he said, stepping back, breaking away, remembering who he was, why she was here, and most of all that she was a single mother who shouldn’t get tangled up with an irascible writer with a cloudy personal history. “That was exactly what I needed.”

  Clouds of confusion marred her bright green gaze, followed by a shadow of hurt. A shaky smile danced across her lips. “I’m…I’m glad.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” Dalton dropped into his chair and started typing, telling himself this was for the best. Getting involved with a package that came attached to a woman with a kid, all wrapped up with a white picket fence bow, would be a really bad idea.

  A monumentally bad idea.

  Instead, he poured everything he was feeling, every emotion churning in his gut, onto the page. He let those words flow from his heart to his fingers to the keyboard, the keystrokes flying as fast as hummingbirds, until the pages were filled.

  The words, which had been as recalcitrant as mules in mud, flowed like a river now. Ellie hung back for a long time, just watching him write. He wasn’t sure how to read her, so he just…didn’t. He did what he did best, and ignored people, burying himself in his work.

  Oh, she was an idiot.

  Twice now, Ellie had thought Dalton was going to kiss her. This time, she’d even been so stupid as to close her eyes and wait.

  And then what did he do? Say “thanks for the help” and sit down at his computer and start typing.

  She smacked her forehead. What was she thinking? That a woman with a baby was some sex goddess/desire queen that a single guy would go ga-ga over?

  Yeah, right.

  Talk about completely misreading the signals. She’d been out of the dating scene so long, she might as well sign up for Dating for Dummies. Either way, it didn’t matter.

  The last thing she needed right now was a relationship. Heck, she didn’t even have time for non-microwaveable meals, never mind men.

  Okay, so she had made and eaten one homemade dinner this week. But that had only been because she felt sorry for Dalton. Based on what she’d found in his refrigerator, the man was clearly bordering on the edge of malnutrition.

  She glanced at her watch. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before Sabrina would be awake. If she had any sense, she’d be using that time to work—not fret about a situation that would only complicate her life. A life that didn’t need any more complications, that was for sure.

  She headed downstairs and into his enormous great room, a two-story space filled with luxurious leather furniture, a massive stone gas log fireplace and hand-hewn mahogany tables. It had the density of manly furniture, but the comfort of a well-lived space. She could almost feel Dalton in this room, imagine him sitting on those sofas, sitting back against the soft, well-broken-in surfaces, watching a football game on a Monday night.

  There she went again. Thinking about a man who wasn’t even interested in her. She really needed to turn her brain off.

  Ellie punched in the work number on her cell, and concentrated instead on her high-strung boss. Five minutes of conversation with Lincoln, and she had put Dalton out of her mind.

  “Ellie, this isn’t working. I can’t have you out sick. When are you coming back? Are you feeling better? Tell me you are.” Lincoln’s voice rose with each syllable. “We’ve already had three meetings this morning. And I didn’t have your input. It was a disaster.”

  “Three meetings?” She could only imagine how frustrated everyone at work was feeling. “I e-mailed detailed notes this morning, Lincoln. There shouldn’t have been anything left on your agenda.”

  “We still had things to discuss. You have no idea how stressful this job is. How many details there are to cover.”

  Lincoln and his meetings. The man would have a meeting to talk about changing the toilet paper in the restrooms.

  “Like what?”

  “The format of the show, for one. I’m not sure I like the order we’ve come up with. Maybe we should shorten the intro by three seconds. It seems a little long. And move the soccer player up ahead of that piece on adoptions.”

  “Lincoln, the intro is fine. We’ve worked on it a hundred times. And if you shave three seconds from the intro, you have to reword the whole song. As for moving the soccer player, that will take away the incentive for people to hang on after the commercial break. You want people to sit through the commercials. The sponsors are the ones paying the tab.”

  Lincoln let out a huge sigh of relief. “See, this is what I needed to hear. You’re always right, Ellie. You should be here, not at home. You are sick, aren’t you?”

  She let out a little cough, feeling bad for faking an illness, but knowing if she told the truth—that she’d opted for a day off so she could spend some time with her daughter and help out Dalton—Lincoln would make her come in to work. “Of course.”

  “Well, tomorrow, I expect you to work two hours overtime. That’ll make up for not being here today. We can go over the shows for the rest of the month and—”

  “Lincoln, I can’t stay two hours late. I have to find childcare and—”

  “You will if you want to keep your job. I told you when you took this position that it would be demanding, Ellie.” He let out a chuckle. “What I really meant is that I would be demanding. You want this job, you need to put in the time.”

  She needed the job. Needed the income desperately. Finding another position would take time—time to scour the classifieds, time to apply, time to go on interviews. Ellie ran a hand through her hair. “I’ll be there, Linc.”

  “Thanks, Ellie. I knew I could count on you.” He hung up, a single man with a single drive for his show and his network, and no understanding at all that his employees might have a personal life outside Channel 77.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem,” Ellie said into the silent phone. And the one big thing she wanted to change—and couldn’t.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE baby would not cooperate.

  Ellie tried rocking her. Tried feeding her. Tried changing her wet diaper. And s
till Sabrina would not quit crying. Bri kept reaching out her arms, as if grasping at an invisible toy.

  And then Ellie realized what Bri wanted, the same thing Ellie wanted and shouldn’t have. “You know he’s not going to be happy, Bri. I’m not supposed to interrupt him before ten. It’s not his turn.”

  Sabrina just kept on crying. Ellie knew this mood. There would be no settling Sabrina down, not until she got what she wanted. And what she wanted right now, whether it was 9:45 or 10:00, was Dalton.

  Ellie crossed to Dalton’s office and knocked on the door. “Dalton? Can I come in?”

  “If you must.”

  As soon as she opened the door, Sabrina wriggled forward.

  “Someone wanted to see you. And she’s not going to be happy until she does. I’ve been trying everything to get her to stop crying, and apparently it’s you she wants right now.”

  “Me.” No question mark on the end.

  “Yep. Can you hold her for just a minute? Then I’ll get her out of your hair. I promise.”

  “Take the kid off your hands.” Another non-question.

  “Just for a minute,” she reassured him.

  “I guess I could.” He rose and headed over to Ellie, his scowl as deep as the Grand Canyon.

  Odd. Dalton had no issues with watching Sabrina. Pushing the stroller. Rocking the car seat. Handing her a pacifier, putting her on her blanket, even holding her bottle. But physically holding the child—

  It was like pulling teeth every time she tried to put Bri in his arms. She didn’t believe him for one second about the screaming/smelly thing. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t seem to like Sabrina. He just didn’t like to hold her.

  Maybe he was afraid he’d drop her. She knew lots of people felt that way when they first got around babies. “She won’t break, you know,” Ellie said, handing Sabrina to Dalton.

  “I kind of figured that,” he said. “Otherwise, she’d come with one of those care labels.”

  Bri stopped crying the second she landed in Dalton’s arms, and twisted around, trying to fit into the space between his arms and his chest. Dalton, though, kept his distance, managing to keep her from slipping in too tightly.

  “She really likes to snuggle,” Ellie said.

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t a baby kind of guy. Except…she suspected he really was at heart. She’d caught him smiling at Sabrina a few times, even joking with her. Ellie backed up a few steps, purposely putting some distance between them. “Uh…” He made a face. “I think she just…”

  Ellie grinned. “You’re holding her. Baby rules.”

  “You did that on purpose.”

  Ellie laughed. “Honest, I didn’t. But those are the baby rules. The one holding the kid when the diaper gets dirtied, has to change it.”

  “So not fair.” He held the baby toward her. “She’s yours. You change her.”

  Ellie crossed her arms over her chest, grinning as she stepped further back. “No.”

  “My sisters used to try to trap me this way,” he said, crossing the room to Ellie in three quick strides. Before she could move away, he’d grabbed one of her arms. “I amended the baby rules.”

  “Amended?”

  “Yeah. If I tag you, you have to help.” His blue eyes met hers. “Tag.”

  She laughed. “All right, I’ll help. But I call the top end.”

  “Oh, you play dirty.” He chuckled. “I like that, even if I’m losing.”

  Five minutes later, they had Sabrina on the floor, lying on a plastic mat. A package of wipes and a new diaper lay beside her. Dalton was on his knees, scowling. “I would never do this for anyone else,” he said to her.

  Ellie readied a wipe. “Trust me, if she wasn’t my kid, I wouldn’t do it, either.”

  “Hold your breath. I’m going in.” He undid the tape on the sides, and dropped the front of the diaper, and his scowl deepened.

  Ellie couldn’t help but laugh some more. Dalton looked up and met her gaze, and echoed her laughter. She handed him the wipe, then another, and another. In a few minutes, they had the baby’s diaper changed and their hands cleaned. “Was that so bad?”

  “Was it so good?”

  “It was for Bri.”

  He looked down at the baby. “Well, as long as it was good for her.”

  “After coming from a big family,” Ellie said, watching him and the baby, building a sort of rapport dance, “did you ever want to have kids of your own?”

  The question seemed to slam into him like a brick wall. Dalton handed Sabrina back to Ellie, that glacier from the park back in an instant. “I think she wants you now. I have to go back to work.” He spun on his heel and disappeared back upstairs.

  Conversation over.

  Sabrina looked at Ellie, as if her mother would have an explanation for Dalton’s mysterious behavior, but Ellie was just as mystified as the baby. Ellie knew one thing for sure—this wasn’t about Sabrina. It was about something that had happened to Dalton. Something he didn’t want to talk about.

  Apparently, the emotional blocks weren’t just in his books.

  Sabrina slept in the playpen, her belly full. Night had fallen, its thick blanket covering the neighborhood with dark ebony. Everyone in the little corner around Dalton and Ellie had gone to bed.

  Except Dalton and Ellie.

  In Dalton’s house, a single light burned on the second floor, where he and Ellie stayed in his office, neither of them aware of the hours that had passed while they worked. Once the baby had fallen asleep, the two of them had dropped into a natural rhythm with the book, as he talked out a scene, she gave him input, he wrote, then printed off the pages for her to read and critique. He’d put in the changes, then they’d start the process all over again.

  “Oh my goodness,” Ellie said, “look at the time.”

  Dalton glanced at his computer clock. “It’s one-thirty in the morning. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect us to keep working this late.”

  “That’s okay. It was fun.”

  He chuckled. “Writing? Fun?”

  “Well, sure. Don’t you ever have fun doing this?”

  He leaned back and stretched. “I guess I used to, in the beginning. But I haven’t thought about it being fun for a long time.” Then his gaze met hers, and something exchanged between them, like a rope uncoiling, then twisting up again. “But tonight, yeah, it was fun.”

  She smiled, one of the dozens of different smiles Ellie had that Dalton didn’t think he could begin to describe. “Worth the late night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know I’ll be paying for it tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make me pay, too.” He grinned. “Baby rules.”

  “Oh, yeah, those will apply. In spades.”

  How long had it been since he’d flirted like this with a woman? Had fun…off the page? Way too long, that was for sure.

  “I should get going,” Ellie said, sending a shiver of disappointment through Dalton. Regardless of the time, he didn’t want this moment to end. “But I wanted to mention one more thing before I left.”

  “Shoot.” About him? Or the book?

  “I don’t know if you want to add this or not,” she paused, “but if I were her…”

  “What? Go ahead, I can take the criticism. But be gentle. I’ve got a tender ego.”

  She snorted. “Yeah. And I’m a Sumo wrestler underneath all this.” She flexed her biceps, grinning. “Well, what I thought you should add, is your heroine thinking that he probably doesn’t feel the same way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In that section there?” She leaned past him, to point at a paragraph at the top of the page. “She watches him walk away, and I think it hurts her because she feels one thing and your hero feels another. Or maybe he doesn’t, because the reader doesn’t read his feelings in this chapter. All you have is hers.”

  “And you think I need to add her interpretation of how he feels.”

 
; Ellie nodded. Her clear green gaze met his. “Because you know men and they’re not so good at spelling out what they’re thinking.”

  “No, they’re not. Keep their cards close to their vest.”

  “But if he told her, she’d be able to react.” Again, her gaze held his. Asking a question? Or just offering input?

  All Dalton had to do was ask a few questions and he could be right back there, playing with fire again. The same fire he’d managed to avoid earlier, when he’d stopped that kiss before it started.

  Don’t ask.

  Let it go.

  Move on.

  He leaned back in his chair, one arm draped over the back, and studied her. “What would she be reacting to?” He never had been good at walking away from a pile of matches and some very beautiful kindling.

  “Depends on what he tells her,” Ellie said.

  She was asking him if he was interested. He could tell. By the way she was watching him, and not at all looking at the book. Asking if he’d walked away from kissing her because he didn’t like her—or because he did and he was trying to be a nice guy.

  “Because up until now, he hasn’t told her much of anything, has he?” Dalton said.

  “No.” The word came out as a breath.

  “Maybe he just didn’t know what to say.” He held her gaze. “Or maybe he didn’t want to change the rules of the game.”

  “Something sure changed, Dalton,” Ellie said, gesturing to the pages he’d just rewritten, “because five minutes ago, your heroine was a blue-eyed blonde. Now she’s a green-eyed brunette. Sound like anyone you know?”

  What was he thinking? How had that happened? “I…” His voice trailed off. He didn’t have an answer.

  Ellie rose and headed for the door. “Maybe both of us need to get our heads out of the fictional world. Because what happens there isn’t real. I’m a single mom, Dalton, and if there’s one thing I’ve got in abundance, it’s reality. And that means I don’t have time to turn the next hundred pages to find out how someone feels.”

  Then she was gone, leaving Dalton with the imaginary people in his fictional book, who were just as conflicted as him.