by Jane Toombs
“I hadn’t forgotten that you’re a high-powered freelance consultant.”
The way he said it ruffled her feathers, making her next words angry rather than reasoned. “The truth is some of us realize it’s important to rise as high as we can.”
After a moment, he said, in an icy voice, “Others of us understand the importance of knowing when we’ve reached the place we want to be.”
“Like my father?” she retorted.
“So now we’re back to how like your father I am?”
He was impossible. “I think it’s time we both went to bed,” she snapped. “Separately.”
“What else?” He rose and strode off into the moonlight, leaving her alone on the porch.
She watched until he disappeared into the darkness before getting up and going into the house. What an infuriating man. He’d not only walked off on her, but left having had the last word.
She made sure the baby was all right, then put on her nightgown and curled on the couch under her quilt. She certainly didn’t care to come face-to-face with Dan again tonight. All she’d really meant was that she could imagine her father complaining about her going to work and leaving the baby with a care-taker—the baby he hadn’t wanted her to have in the first place.
Naturally she couldn’t fall asleep, but she kept her eyes closed when she heard Dan come in the back door, doing her best to breathe slowly and evenly. She thought he paused by the couch, but she wasn’t sure. Then she heard him climbing the stairs to the loft. Where he’d be getting into the bed where she’d given him a back rub. And here she was lying on the sofa, where he’d given her a back rub.
Just as well they were leaving the cabin in the morning. There were too many memories here, memories she had to lose.
Back in Archer there would be none.
When he came downstairs in the morning, Dan hoped Fay would be herself and not spout a lot of superficial conversation neither of them wanted to hear. Silence he wouldn’t mind, but false cheerfulness after a night of too little sleep was sure to put him even more on edge.
As he made the coffee, bits and pieces of last night played back in his mind. Like her father, was he? What the hell kind of statement was that? He might not want children of his own, but he’d never advise anyone who was already pregnant to get rid of a baby. What a woman decided to do was up to each individual and, as far as he was concerned, if a man wasn’t the father of the child in question he should keep his mouth shut.
Dan didn’t think he’d get along with Fay’s father. Not that he figured he’d ever meet him.
He knew from what she’d said about the cabin that she must have mixed feelings about leaving. He damn well did. She’d been right about them needing to return to the real world, though. And none too soon. A clean break was best. He never would marry again and he was none too sure he’d even like the high-powered Archer Fay. As for Marie…
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He didn’t want to think about not seeing the little girl again. Megan had said yesterday that it was strange how quickly a baby could work her way into your heart. He shrugged. Instinct. Must have to do with why the human race had survived.
“Do I smell coffee?” Fay’s sleepy voice asked.
He glanced toward the couch and saw her sitting up, hair tousled, the pink back in her cheeks. She looked infinitely desirable. “Thought I’d finish up the eggs by making cheese omelets,” he said, turning from her.
“Sounds good,” she told him. “I’ll get dressed and help.”
So far she sounded matter-of-fact. Which suited him. Could be she was as relieved as he that this sojourn was at an end.
At breakfast they had little to say to each other. What was there left to say? Afterward, she fed the baby while he cleaned up the kitchen. Then it was time to finish whatever packing hadn’t been done and load the truck. When he had his gear in, he picked up the cradle and started out with it.
“Are we stopping by Megan’s again to drop off the cradle?” Fay asked.
He shook his head. “I cleared it with Bruce and Megan already. They both want you to keep the cradle.”
She stared at him. “But—but it’s a Sorenson family heirloom.”
“We’d like you to have it.”
“What a wonderful gift. I’ll treasure it.” She turned her face away, but not before he saw tears in her eyes.
With the truck loaded, Marie bundled into her car bed and Fay buckled into the front seat, Dan took a minute to look around, taking a deep breath of the pine-scented air before climbing into the pickup.
“We’re off,” he said as he maneuvered the truck along the narrow drive.
Fay said nothing until they were almost in Evergreen Bluff, which they had to go through on their way. “The photos,” she said. “We forgot to pick them up.”
“Did that yesterday. I stuffed them in the glove compartment.”
“Without looking at them?”
“Guilty as charged.” No way was he going to tell her he was in no mood for reminders yesterday. Or today, for that matter. That’s what photos were—reminders.
She pulled out the envelope and opened it. “Two sets,” she said. “So we can each have one.”
Great. Just what he didn’t need. He would send his set to Megan.
At first Fay’s comments ranged from, “Isn’t she cute?” to “You look positively grim in this one.” Then she stopped talking and, he saw she was sorting them into two stacks, her expression sad.
He turned on the radio.
“Must we listen to country music?” she snapped.
Since he wasn’t a great fan himself, he flicked it off.
“I put your set back in the envelope,” she said. “Remember it’s in the glove compartment again.”
“Yo.”
“There’s a word I’ve always hated.”
She hated yo? “You sound a bit testy.”
“You’d be that way, too, if you didn’t get a decent night’s sleep. That whippoorwill started up sometime after midnight and I thought he’d never stop.”
“I heard him.”
“So you know what a pest he was.”
He’d heard the bird because he was already awake. Or still awake.
Long before they reached the Mackinac Bridge, Fay fell asleep. She didn’t rouse until the baby woke up just below the Straits. He pulled over and parked in a rest area so Fay could nurse the baby. He got out to stretch his legs while she did.
When they resumed driving, Fay turned on the radio and found a station playing jazz. “Do you mind?”
He could take or leave jazz, so he shrugged. Under the circumstances, he preferred any kind of music to conversation.
By the time they reached Archer, he felt so morose he didn’t trust himself to say anything. Fay directed him to her apartment and, while she carried the baby in, he unloaded the cradle and her belongings, bringing them into her apartment. On one of his trips back and forth, he met the landlady.
“Mr. Sorenson is a friend of mine,” Fay told Mrs. Monroe.
He muttered a polite greeting to the gray-haired woman and went back for the last item, the car bed.
The landlady was bending over the cradle, cooing, when he returned. He quelled the need he felt to hold the baby one last time and turned to Fay. He managed to say “Goodbye,” despite the tightness that threatened to shut down his throat.
She looked up at him, her hazel eyes unreadable. Because the urge to gather her up and hold her to him was almost unbearable, he turned and, without another word, walked out of her apartment and, he figured, her life.
Chapter Eight
Because she hadn’t slept much the night before, Fay fell asleep early in her own bed in her own apartment in Archer. She woke hearing Danny Marie’s hungry wails from the cradle she’d placed beside her bed. There was a brand-new crib in the second bedroom, along with the other baby paraphernalia, but she’d wanted her daughter close to her. She lifted the baby from the cradle and carried her into the n
ursery, where the changing table, diapers and a comfortable rocker waited.
After Danny Marie once more wore clean diapers, Fay settled into the rocking chair with her to nurse. “We’re alone, little one,” she murmured. “Just you and me, the way it’s supposed to be.”
Peanut, Dan called the baby. No, she wasn’t going to start reminiscing. The time in the cabin was over. Done with. He obviously felt the same way, his abrupt goodbye was proof of that. Couldn’t wait to get rid of them both. Not that continuing the relationship would have worked anyway. Hadn’t she rejected the idea even before she got back here? Why should she feel hurt because he’d come to the same conclusion?
When Danny Marie finished nursing, Fay burped her, then held her so she could look into her daughter’s face. Blue eyes gazed back at her. Not Dan’s eyes, of course, but close to the same color. Fay sighed. So she missed him. In no time at all she’d get used to being on her own again. She’d never minded it before, had enjoyed the privacy, in fact.
Privacy was something she cherished. After they became engaged, Ken had wanted her to move in to his condo with him. She’d refused, even though he’d pointed out she’d be doing that after they married. In fact, the argument had been part of what had made her rethink the entire idea of marriage. That and the sudden emergence of Ken’s jealousy. Naturally she sometimes had lunch with clients when she was out of town, it was part of the package and often the best time to discuss any problem that had arisen.
Since Ken also worked out of town for his firm, he knew about business lunches. Why he’d suddenly decided to equate her business lunches with her cheating on him was beyond her comprehension. Until one of her friends pointed out that maybe he was using his business lunches to cheat on her and figured she must be doing the same thing. Though she’d never confronted him about that, it wasn’t long before she backed out of the marriage and the relationship.
She sighed. While those had been contributing factors, what really made her change her mind was the realization that she didn’t love Ken. She remembered telling Dan how guilty she’d felt when Ken died. Dan had held her while she cried, saying it hadn’t been her fault and, somehow, had made her feel better.
Just the same, it was a shame Ken would never know he had a daughter. On the other hand, he’d never indicated he’d wanted children. Had he? She’d never know. Dan didn’t, he’d made no bones about that.
“It’s really strange,” she told her daughter, “how I wind up thinking about Dan no matter what’s on my mind to begin with.”
Danny Marie smiled at her.
Fay smiled, too, wondering if the baby missed Dan as much as she did. She shook her head. Danny Marie was far too young to remember him.
Everything fades with time, Fay assured herself. Eventually I won’t remember, either. It’s not as though Dan and I were lovers. What we had in common was enforced intimacy, because he had to deliver my baby and then take care of both of us.
Over the next few days, while she tried to decide which of her regular clients to approach first, she kept expecting Dan to call, just to ask how things were going. Wasn’t it common courtesy? When he didn’t, she felt angry that he’d been able so easily to put their shared time in the cabin behind him. Why should she be missing him when it was obvious he didn’t care enough to even ask after the baby?
If all she could do was stew over the past, it definitely was time for her to start her consulting work again. On an impulse, she called the business owner she’d had to turn down during the last month of her pregnancy because the job he’d wanted done would have taken months rather than weeks to finish. If he still wanted her, her commute wouldn’t be far. An ideal situation.
“Congratulations on the baby girl,” he said. “No, I haven’t yet found anyone with your qualifications—or your reputation for getting things done and done right. I’m delighted you called. The job’s yours.”
“See,” she told Danny Marie after she hung up, “your mommy’s still numero uno.”
Fay then called Clara Monroe to make baby-sitting arrangements.
“I’ve been dying to get my hands on that cute little girl of yours,” Clara told her. “My grandkids are both long past the baby stage and I miss that. Bring her over and we’ll have pie and coffee while we discuss how this is going to work out.”
But, even though Fay trusted Clara implicitly, when she set off two mornings later to drive to work in a nearby city, she worried. She’d left three bottles of breast milk in the refrigerator, so that was no problem, but what if Danny Marie suddenly got sick?
Clara had the number of the baby’s pediatrician and she’d weathered illness in her own kids and grandkids.
Still, what if Danny Marie sensed a stranger taking care of her and got upset?
Unlikely. The baby had taken to Clara from the first.
What if—?
Stop it! she admonished herself. You know Clara is a loving, responsible person. Nothing is going to go wrong. Danny Marie will get along just fine.
Eventually she arrived at work and started in on the project needing completion. The immediate problems she spotted focused her mind on what she was doing rather than worrying about her daughter.
The next time she went in it was easier to leave the baby with Clara, but, as the days passed, Fay found what she was doing at work was not as all-consuming to her as it once had been. She missed being with her baby.
“Mommy has to work sometimes,” she told Danny Marie on the weekend when she took her in the carrier pouch to the park several blocks from the apartment. “Work means we pay the rent.”
Though the park wasn’t a woods, it was dotted with big old maples and an oak or two. The remains of daffodils and tulips added splashes of color. No piney smell, but the scent of lilacs sweetened the air. A squirrel scampered across the sidewalk in front of her and ran up an oak. “See, even wildlife,” Fay said as much to herself as to the baby.
The park reminded her of the one on the other side of town where her father used to take her when she was little. She remembered how she liked him to push her on the swing, higher and higher—way up past where her mother would ever push her. She’d never been a timid child.
Which brought her to that message on her answering machine that she’d not yet acknowledged. While she was away, her father had called to ask if she was okay. She’d left Aunt Marie’s number on her recorded message, so he had to know where she’d gone. Except she hadn’t gone there, had she? But she was almost positive he wouldn’t have bothered to call her aunt, so he would assume she was in Duluth. No need to call him back. She wasn’t ready to. Maybe she never would be.
And she certainly had no intention of ever getting in touch with Dan, who hadn’t left any messages.
Ten days at work and Dan was slowly going nuts. The chief had told him privately that the board decision was positive and would be official by Monday. He sure as hell hoped so. He’d never liked being tied to a desk. Which wasn’t the entire problem. Maybe if he’d been busier he wouldn’t be thinking about Fay and the baby so much. He’d had no clue they would be constantly on his mind. He worried as much about them as if they were family.
There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. No point in calling when she’d made it clear that she wouldn’t want to hear from him. What Fay needed, whether she realized it or not, was a marriage-minded man who’d take care of her and Marie. But he definitely was not that man, which he knew and so did Fay.
Okay, Sorenson, you want to make your move on a gal who needs you like she needs major surgery? Forget it, man.
The trouble was he couldn’t. Not until Monday, when the paperwork to put him back on full duty came through. He immediately immersed himself in a case that’d been hanging fire. He’d made some notes on the case before he got shot, but he was damned if he could find them.
By Wednesday, after looking over the office, the car he used for work and the apartment for a small notebook he’d made the notes in, he finally remembered wha
t he’d done with it. He’d shoved the notebook in the glove compartment of the pickup before he drove to the U.P. After he got off work, he went to retrieve it. The notebook was there all right, but, while pulling it out, he knocked an envelope with the photos onto the floor. When he picked it up, some of the photos slid out. Fay’s smiling face stared up at him.
Muttering a curse, he grabbed photos and notebook and slammed into the apartment. He fully intended to shove the photos in a drawer and be done with it, but, instead, he found himself at the kitchen table, spreading them out almost like a solitaire game.
He found the snapshot where Fay had claimed he looked grim. She’d been right. But the ones he looked at again and again were those of Fay. And the baby. He sighed, shrugged and picked up his cell phone.
Mrs. Monroe answered. “Oh, I remember you,” she said. “You’re the one who drove Fay home. But she’s not back from work yet, though she should be at any moment. Wait, I think I hear her at the door now.”
After a few minutes, Fay came on the phone. “Dan?” she said.
“Thought I’d call to see how things were going,” he said. “I hear you’ve gone back to work.”
“You don’t sound any too thrilled about it,” she said.
He’d heard the gruffness in his own voice, so he couldn’t very well deny it. “I’m not. Even though it’s none of my business.”
“I’m sure you know how the world turns,” she said tartly. “No work, no pay. Besides I was getting restless.”
“How’s the baby?”
“Getting along just fine with Clara.” Her tone told him he’d riled her. Which he hadn’t meant to do.
“The weather’s been good,” he said.
“You called to discuss the weather?”