Doorstep Daddy

by Shirley Jump

  Connie nodded, resolve cementing joy on her face. “That takes care of me. Now, what’s your excuse for being here so long?”

  Ellie shrugged, realizing she had indeed been at the television station for much too long, working for a boss who was demanding and stubborn. A boss she didn’t even really like. “I came over here when Cameron did and stayed after he died…because it was easier than facing one more major change. And I kept thinking, eventually I’d find my niche, and I’d find a way to create those stories I’d always dreamed of making.”

  “Instead, you’re catering to soccer players with egos bigger than the Prudential building. And staying here instead of dealing with…well, everything.”

  Ellie laughed so hard, her stomach hurt. “Yeah, and I’m not any happier doing it than you are. Maybe you should pick up two copies of the paper at lunch.”

  Connie grinned. “You got it, Ellie. You got it.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  JULIA’S voice hadn’t changed a bit in twelve years. When she said hello, Dalton swore he could still hear the sounds of that summer, feel the heat of the sun on the back of his neck, hear the surf pounding against Nantasket Beach, and most of all, feel the weight of his mistakes on his shoulders.

  “Julia, it’s Dalton.”

  Silence for what seemed like ten years, but was probably only ten seconds. Still, every one of those seconds passed in agony. The moments hissed by on the phone line. “It’s been a long time, Dalton. What do you want?”

  He let out a breath. “To say I’m sorry.”

  If she was surprised, she didn’t show it in her voice. Then again, what did he expect? For his apology to be welcomed with open arms, a gushing thank you? For some big Hollywood moment?

  Maybe he had. The writer in him had imagined something different. Imagined a moment of quiet reconciliation. Maybe so he wouldn’t have to face the uncomfortableness that was coming.

  “A lot of years have passed,” she said.

  “I know. I…well…” He let out another breath. If this was a blank page, perhaps it would be easier to find the right words. Then again, maybe not. “I should have called a long time ago, Julia.”

  She didn’t say anything. That, Dalton decided, was worse.

  “And most of all, I should have been there for you more after…after all was said and done.”

  “You just left.” There were no more accusations in her voice, but maybe with time, those had ebbed. On her side perhaps they had. For Dalton, plenty of self-accusations still echoed in his mind.

  “When I came home from the hospital,” Julia went on, “you were gone, off to college, off on your own life.”

  “I know.” He had left town. Left everything. Thinking that was the easiest way out. But had it been? Had leaving done him any good in the end? It certainly hadn’t been the right thing by Julia, not by a long shot. He knew that now, but at the time, when he’d been young and immature—

  Well, it had been the young and immature choice.

  “I was really mad, Dalton, for a long time, because I felt like you escaped.” Years of questions raised the notes in her voice, brought the doubts and accusations swimming back to the surface. “And here I was stuck in that town, dealing with all the stares and the whispers. I didn’t have a college acceptance waiting for me afterward like you did. I had a job in a small town New Hampshire deli, where everyone knew what happened to me.”

  How could he have done that to her? If Dalton could turn back the clock, or travel back in time and speak to the Dalton he’d been then, he would. He’d tell that young man to get a grip, to face reality and to stand up to what had happened, rather than turn tail and run out of town. Because Julia had needed him, and that should have superseded any fears.

  Instead, he’d been a teenage coward, taking the easy way out, leaving town simply because he could while his girlfriend had had to clean up the mess they both had made. Shame and regret warred in his chest, and he wished he was standing before Julia, to offer his apology in person, instead of sitting in his living room hundreds of miles away. “I’m sorry, Julia. I was running away, I guess. I should have stayed. Waited a semester to leave.”

  “It’s all right. It’s in the past,” she said, her words offering a salve for old wounds. “I understand now. I guess I would have done the same, if I could have.”

  How ironic, Dalton thought, that he had called to apologize, to close the gap between them, and Julia was the one who was giving him comfort. When really, he owed her so much more than he could even begin to repay. He ran a hand through his hair and tried again, searching for the words—impossible words, really—that would tell her how incredibly sorry he was. How he’d go back and do it all again, if only he could. “I’m sorry, Julia, so very sorry. I should have called you more, been there, come home. Something. I was young and stupid, and there just isn’t a playbook for what to do when this kind of thing happens before graduation. But most of all, I was really scared,” he added, admitting the feeling that had ridden the highest through those years, the one that had driven the wedge between the two of them. “Really scared.”

  “Me, too.” Her voice was lost and small, as if she was eighteen again, and both of them were staring at that pink stick, horror running between them like a river. Their lives had flashed before them—futures shattered, paths suddenly detoured.

  Then he finally voiced the words that had waited a dozen years, the ones he kept to himself, because speaking them aloud brought up all the pain of their decision, and brought to life the very thing he thought he could forget.

  And couldn’t. Not for one second. “Do you ever think about him?”

  “Every day, Dalton,” she said softly, and her voice broke like glass hitting a wall. “Every single day.”

  Dalton slumped into a chair. “Me, too.”

  A long pause. In the background, he could hear the sounds of children playing. Julia’s children? He liked to think so. Liked to think that she’d had other children with her new husband, that she had found the peace that had so eluded Dalton.

  “Do you think he’s happy?” Julia asked.

  That was the question that had plagued Dalton most. Kept him up nights for years. Filled him with regret after regret. The one question he couldn’t answer. Had they made the right choice? Was their son happy? Healthy? And most of all, better off adopted out to strangers than he would have been with his own parents?

  Had he spent the past twelve years laughing and smiling, raised by people who loved him as much as Ellie loved Sabrina? Covered with kisses and hugs, tucked in snugly at night, with the feeling that his world was safe?

  “I’m sure he is,” Dalton said to Julia, because he knew that was what she needed to hear. And what he told himself every day of his life.

  Because it was the only way he could live with the decision they’d made at seventeen to let someone else raise their child.

  Ellie finished out her day, and even though she had given the classifieds a look-over when Connie brought them out at lunch, she hadn’t found anything that interested her. There had been pages and pages of jobs that fit her experience and her background.

  But only one job offer that gave her everything she wanted.

  Along with a few strings she didn’t.

  She sat at her desk, answering a few more e-mails before she shut down her computer. When she was done, she picked up the picture of Sabrina. “Oh, baby,” Ellie said to the photo. “What’s the best decision for both of us?”

  The weight of making the right choice hung heavy on Ellie’s shoulders. Emotionally, she had no doubt that being with her baby day in and day out would be the best option. But financially…

  Would it be wise to give up a steady paycheck for one found working for a solo writer? A man who could just as easily decide tomorrow that he wrote just fine on his own, and he didn’t need her anymore?

  Or was she simply finding reasons not to grab this opportunity?

  An hour later, she had finished the da
ily battle with Boston’s stop-and-go traffic, and reached her street. And there, standing in the driveway, was the answer to her dilemma.

  Mrs. Winterberry.

  Viola Winterberry had seen a lot of stubborn and stupid people in her seventy years on earth, but her two neighbors on Larch Street took the cake. She held Sabrina—Viola could swear the sun rose and set in that baby’s face—and stood between Dalton Scott and Ellie Miller, wondering whether these two adults would ever grow up.

  “I am taking this little one home with me,” Viola announced. She put up a hand before the two so-called grown-ups could interrupt. “The two of you could probably use some alone time, and I know I have missed this baby to bits since I’ve been gone. And considering I’m going to be going back to my sister’s in a couple of days, I want to spend every second I can with my grandneighbor.”

  That was the word she’d given to her relationship with little Sabrina, a phrase she’d coined to explain how much she loved this little piece of heaven, and how much she looked at her as a member of her own family. Viola’s own daughter lived clear across the country in California, which kept her grandbaby too far away for Viola’s liking. So she poured all her excess spoiling into Ellie and Sabrina.

  “Mrs. Winterberry, you don’t need to do that,” Ellie said. “I’m sure you’re tired from your trip. Sabrina just woke up from a nap, and she’ll be a handful.”

  “A handful of lovin’, is what I say.” Viola smiled. “Now let me enjoy my grandneighbor for a couple of hours, and you two go out. Get gussied up. Have a dinner in a real restaurant, not the kind you drive through. When was the last time you did that, Ellie?”

  Dalton looked over at Ellie and gave her a grin. “Yeah, when was the last time you did that?”

  A flustered flush filled Ellie’s face, which suited Viola’s purposes just fine. These two might end up growing a brain cell after all. “I don’t need—”

  “You do,” Viola insisted. “Now go put on your nicest dress. In fact—” she ran a discerning glance over his attire “—I think he needs to do the same.”

  “Why, Mrs. Winterberry, are you saying my T-shirt and jeans aren’t good enough to take Miss Ellie out?” He gave her a grin.

  “I wouldn’t let you take my garbage out in those jeans, Mr. Scott. Now, go make yourself presentable. Ellie deserves to have a gentleman escort her on a date, not some man who looks like a heathen on a motorcycle.”

  “Date?” Ellie said. “Mrs. Winterberry—”

  “I do believe it’s time for Sabrina’s dinner,” Viola said, sliding Sabrina’s diaper bag off Dalton’s shoulder and onto her own. “Have a nice evening, everyone. And don’t worry about coming back too early. I want to stay up and watch the ten o’clock movie.” She sent them a knowing smile, then turned toward her own house, marching off before either of them could voice any more objections.

  Sometimes, Viola decided as she headed inside, noting Ellie and Dalton still standing on the sidewalk, dumbfounded at how they’d been outflanked by a woman nearly two and a half times their age, an old dog could teach those young pups a few tricks.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ELLIE had expected Dalton to do the bare minimum—whatever it took to make Mrs. Winterberry happy, and get her off their backs about going out on a “date.” A quick meal at a local diner, or maybe a couple steaks at the roadhouse around the corner.

  Then she saw the limo.

  And Dalton in a navy suit, waiting outside the long, silver luxury automobile.

  She headed down her stairs, one at a time, her jaw dropping more with each step. “What the…? What are you doing, Dalton?”

  A grin curved across his face. “Just following Mrs. Winterberry’s instructions.”

  “I don’t remember her saying anything about a limo.”

  He took a step forward. “She did say something about romancing you.”

  Ellie reached the bottom step. “No, I don’t think she did.”

  Dalton put out his hand, waiting until Ellie had placed her palm in his. “No? Well, it was inferred.”

  “I hardly think—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips, cutting off her sentence. “I definitely think you are long overdue for a little romancing, Ellie Miller.”

  Her pulse quickened. She tried to swallow, to breathe, but couldn’t. A tremor of anticipation pooled in her veins. Long overdue for romance? Well, that might be, but oh, the trouble a little romance would evoke. She definitely wasn’t doing a very good job sticking to her new ground rules. Not at all. So far, she’d violated nearly every single one.

  She followed him down and into the limousine, where she was immediately cocooned in a plush leather interior. Chilled champagne waited by their seats, alongside a slim vase holding a single pink rose. Ellie turned to Dalton, awestruck. “You…you thought of everything.”

  “Just because I can’t write a romantic scene doesn’t mean I can’t dream one up.” He handed her a champagne flute, as the car started to move. “To an unforgettable night,” he said, clinking his glass with hers.

  “It already has been.” Ellie took a sip, the sweet golden liquid slipping down her throat with ease.

  Dalton leaned forward. His blue gaze locked on hers, holding her as tight as a spider with a web. Then he leaned forward, ever so slowly, and took the champagne from her. He put the glass in the holder, never breaking eye contact, the hold mesmerizing, more intoxicating than the alcohol. “You look amazing, Ellie. The skirt you wore earlier today was beautiful, but this dress—”

  “Thank you.”

  “—is even more incredible, stunning, gorgeous, astounding—”

  She laughed. “I get the point. You don’t need to drag out your thesaurus.”

  He cupped her jaw, fingers dancing along the edge of her hairline. “Oh, but I do. Because I don’t think even you’re aware of how utterly beautiful you really are, Ellie Miller. In jeans, in a skirt. When you’re sitting on a park bench, looking up at the sun, or just waking up at my house.”

  “Is this all part of the plot to romance me?”

  He shook his head, slow, his gaze still tight on hers. “It’s not a plot, a book, or any kind of fiction at all. It’s simply what you deserve. A wonderful night out.” Dalton took her hand, the gesture so sweet, so gentlemanly, that it caught Ellie off guard.

  They sat together in the back of the limo, chatting about nothing really, just silly things like the weather and the neighborhood. To Ellie, the small talk was a nice reprieve from the worries about bills and work and the baby. Too soon, the limo slowed to a stop. The bright awning of The Merlot Garden hung in front of them, announcing the entrance to a small Italian restaurant known for its world class wine list and exquisite attention to detail. “I’ve always wanted to go here.”

  “A friend of mine owns this place. It’s wonderful.” Still holding her hand—a wonderful experience in and of itself, and something she hadn’t expected—Dalton led her inside the cozy restaurant.

  “Dalton! Come in, come in!” A large man in a black suit with a bright pink tie strode forward the instant they entered Merlot Garden. He grabbed Dalton in a quick hug, then released him, affection clear between the two men. “And who is this beautiful lady?”

  “This is Ellie Miller. Ellie, this is Jordan Valkerie, the owner. We met in college. He was a miracle worker with a hot plate and a microwave.”

  “A contraband microwave, I might add,” Jordan said with a hearty laugh. “But we won’t tell the dean that.”

  “There was a lot we didn’t tell the dean,” Dalton added.

  The two men chuckled some more, trading war stories about college, including Ellie in a round of raucous tales about late-night parties, wild pranks, and class cutting, as they walked toward a booth at the back. “Here you are. Enjoy your meal.” Jordan waved them in, then disappeared into the kitchen.

  Velvet curtains swathed either side of the booth, providing a quiet, private little nook. Soft instrumental music played over the sou
nd system, and a fat vanilla colored candle provided muted lighting. The setting couldn’t have been more romantic if it had been a movie.

  A waitress came by and took their drink orders, leaving behind a basket of fragrant, hot focaccia bread and olive oil for dipping. “This place is wonderful,” Ellie said. She sat back against the seat, soaking up the atmosphere, enjoying simply being out in public, in a real restaurant rather than a kitchen with a jar of baby food in one hand. “Have you come here a lot?”

  “Do you mean, have I brought a lot of dates here?”

  “I didn’t ask…”

  “I have been here a lot, but only to let Jordan feed me. But I’ve never taken a woman here on a date.” He gave her a grin. “I couldn’t romance you by repeating a scene I’d already written, now could I?”

  “No.” Once again, a thrill ran through Ellie. But it was quickly chased by questions.

  Why was Dalton doing all this? He’d already made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested in a permanent settling down kind of life. He wasn’t the kind of man who wanted to be a husband, a father. And really, she wasn’t going to waste her time dating men who had no future in Sabrina’s life. Nor was she sure she was ready for more. For a future with another man.

  Dalton knew that. Which brought her right back to the same question. Why would he go to all this work tonight, if he had no intentions beyond this evening? In every kiss, she read more than just a night, and yet…

  His words said something else altogether.

  “Your bottle of Chardonnay,” the waitress said, presenting their wine, and two glasses. She poured the golden liquid, then waited for Dalton to taste and murmur acceptance, before leaving again.

  “The lobster ravioli here is amazing,” Dalton said. “And so is the portobello mushroom lasagna.”

  Ellie folded her hands over her menu. “Dalton, why are you doing this?”

  “I thought you might want a recommendation or two, since I’ve been here before. But if you want, I can call Jordan over. He’s tasted everything.”