Angel of the Morning

by Judith Arnold

  “Screw that.” Dylan dropped his gaze from the ocean outside to the glass in his hand. It contained an inch of scotch and a couple of ice cubes. They clinked against the glass as he took a sip. “Six years ago, I knocked a woman up.”

  Another silence. Then Brian said, “Okay, buddy. Personal business. I didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t know, either, until today. But I should have known. You ran interference. The woman tried to tell me at the time, and you stopped her.”

  “Six years ago? I have no memory of this.”

  “Well, she has more than a memory. She’s got a little girl. My daughter. She said she tried repeatedly to contact me at the time, to let me know, and she finally got as far as you, and you threatened to have her arrested for harassment if she called again.”

  “Oh, man.” Brian’s sigh was loud, whistling through the phone. “Okay. This must have been right after the first Galaxy Force movie came out. It was crazy times, Dylan. You were suddenly a star, a fantasy stud. You were getting hundreds of calls and emails a day from women. They wanted you. They wanted to bed you. They wanted to own you. They knew you when you were eight years old. They went to college with you. At least a dozen of them claimed they were carrying your baby. They were crawling out of the woodwork, oozing out from under rocks. I had to protect you, Dylan. That’s what you were paying me to do, and I did it.”

  Dylan said nothing. In the first few months after his debut as Captain Steele, he’d been heralded as cinema’s newest hot guy. His privacy had evaporated; his face had appeared on celebrity websites, accompanied by stories of dubious origin. One supermarket tabloid had published a photo of him hugging his sister Grace—God knew where they’d gotten it—with a huge headline: Captain Steele’s Mystery Babe!

  The gorgeous little movie he’d filmed in Brogan’s Point, Sea Glass, went forgotten. Dylan was Captain Steele. A star. The stuff of women’s fantasies.

  He’d been vaguely aware of all that Hollywood noise. He’d wanted to tune it out, and he had—thanks to Brian. His manager had run interference, and Dylan had let him.

  “You’re not going to fire me, okay?” Brian went on. “We’ve been through a lot together. I’ve made you rich, and you’ve made me rich. I’m sorry The Angel didn’t work out, but I’ll get you more auditions. You won’t be Captain Steele forever. Once you finish your contract obligations to the Galaxy Force series, you can write your own ticket. I’ll write your ticket for you, so it’ll say exactly what you want it to say. Don’t throw away a terrific partnership just because six years ago I did what you were paying me to do.”

  Another gulp of scotch couldn’t wash away the truth in Brian’s words. Brian had only been doing his job, protecting Dylan from his voracious new fans. Acknowledging that fact didn’t make Dylan feel any better, however.

  “So...this baby mama. What’s the deal? Do we need to take care of her? Does she want money? How do you want me to handle this?”

  “I don’t want you to handle it.” Brian may have done what Dylan had wanted him to do six years ago, but that didn’t mean he’d done the right thing. “I’ve got a daughter.”

  “Yeah. Wow.”

  “I have to make things right,” Dylan continued, talking to himself as much as to Brian. “I have to fix this.”

  “I’m your fixer, man. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Nothing,” Dylan said. “Just be grateful I’m not firing you. Yet.”

  “It’ll all work out, buddy,” Brian promised him. “You’re a good man. You’ll do the right thing. Just let me know if I can help in any way.”

  How Brian could help was beyond Dylan. The man had no children of his own. He couldn’t begin to understand the tangle of emotions settling in Dylan’s gut like a knotted ball of yarn spun out of lead. Heavy, painful, impossible to unravel.

  He said good-bye, disconnected the call, and took another slug of scotch. And struggled to unravel those knots, to smooth out that leaden thread of yarn.

  First of all, financial obligations. Of course he’d pay child support.

  But did he want to be that little girl’s father? A real father, one who didn’t just write checks but participated actively in her life. Gwen didn’t want that. She’d already cast another guy in that role. Dylan had never even been granted an audition for it.

  What did he know about being a father? He was a doting uncle, sure—but being an uncle was easy. You could spoil your nieces and nephews all you wanted, and accept none of the responsibility for them. He adored his sisters’ kids, loved hanging out with them, loved family get-togethers when he could play catch with them or build architectural wonders out of Legos with them or give them piggy-back rides.

  But a family gathering was one thing. Day in and day out, disciplining a daughter, signing permission slips from school, sitting up at night with her when she had an ear infection, arranging his schedule—his freaking life —around a child? Did he want that? Even if he did, could he do it?

  Gwen had been doing it for five years now. All by herself. That just wasn’t right.

  And letting some other guy step in and take over Dylan’s role... That wasn’t right, either.

  He polished off his drink and returned his gaze to the dark seascape on the other side of the window. And realized his mind was made up.

  Chapter Eight

  At some point in the future, Gwen believed, Sundays would be her sleep-late days. The Attic didn’t open until noon, and even then, although she was on call in case an emergency cropped up, she usually took Sundays off. That was her prerogative as the boss. She felt comfortable leaving her capable staff in charge of the store in her absence.

  But while she didn’t have to put in time at the shop on Sundays, she didn’t get to sleep late. Annie still believed that as soon as the sun rose, so could she—and she was a lot noisier than the sun.

  By seven-thirty, Annie had abandoned the culinary masterpiece she’d been pretending to make in her toy kitchen for a real breakfast of waffles—the round ones, of course. Gwen wondered if they really tasted better than the square ones, but she wasn’t curious enough to eat one herself. A cup of coffee and a toasted English muffin were all she could manage.

  Sipping her coffee, she did her best to ignore the congealing drips of maple syrup on the table, the waffle crumb glued to Annie’s chin, the mysterious pink smear marking Annie’s pajama top. At least it wasn’t finger-paint, Gwen acknowledged with a sigh.

  She probably ought to run a load of laundry today. But Annie was babbling about some new movie Gwen had never heard of, a just-released animated feature about a singing kite, or maybe a singing cat. Gwen supposed she could take Annie to see that today. Maybe one of Annie’s friends would join them, Cara or Lucy. After breakfast, Gwen would look up the show times and make a few phone calls.

  She was tired—she was always tired; it came with the territory—but not as tired as she would have been if Mike had stayed over. She felt a little guilty that she’d sent him home after dinner, and even more guilty that she’d been relieved to see him go.

  Even though they’d been dating more than a year, and Mike had raised the subject of marriage, she still felt uncomfortable having him in her bed when Annie was asleep just across the hall. Mothers were allowed to have sex, Gwen reminded herself. But on the rare occasions she and Mike made love in her house, she was always anxious about whether Annie would see him there, and she invariably hustled him out the door before Annie woke in the morning. Since Annie rose with the sun, this meant Mike had to leave while it was still dark. One time, he’d overslept, and Annie had been mystified to find him staggering out of the bathroom early Sunday morning. “Did you have a sleepover?” she’d asked.

  Mike had thought this was hilarious. For the next few weeks, he’d kept asking Gwen if she was up for a pajama party. She hadn’t been amused.

  There had been no possibility of a pajama party last night, anyway. She’d been even more unsettled by Dylan Scott’s presence on her front
porch than she’d been the day before, by his presence at the Faulk Street Tavern. Even as she finished preparing dinner, as she tried to make conversation with Mike and Annie, as she kept Annie’s sippy cup filled with milk and laughed off Mike’s grousing about how much better real pasta tasted than the whole-grain stuff she insisted on serving, that song, “Angel of the Morning,” kept echoing inside her head.

  Touch my cheek before you leave.

  Dylan hadn’t touched her cheek. She was pretty sure he hadn’t left, either. He might have walked away from her house last night, but he was still here somehow, his presence reverberating in the air.

  That was the real reason Gwen felt guilty about having sent Mike home last night: she was preoccupied with thoughts of Dylan. Thoughts of what he wanted with her, what he wanted with Annie, whether he was going to force his way into their lives five-plus years too late. Thoughts of his penetrating gaze, his lean, lanky body, his beautiful mouth. Unwelcome memories of how that mouth had once felt pressed to hers, grazing across her skin, making every cell in her body sing with yearning.

  So she wasn’t entirely shocked when the doorbell rang as she was washing a gooey patch of syrup from Annie’s hair. She wasn’t angry when, despite her warning, Annie leaped down from the step-stool and raced to the front door. At least Annie didn’t twist the door knob once she’d reached the entry hall. She stood waiting for Gwen’s permission to open the door.

  Gwen peered through the window. She wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Dylan on the porch.

  She was going to have to deal with him. He knew the truth about Annie, and he’d chosen not to run away from it. So this meeting was inevitable. She might as well get it over with.

  She wished she was wearing something other than a pair of ratty jeans, a faded flannel shirt, and fleece slippers, though. She wished her nails were polished and her hair wasn’t tied back in a sloppy pony-tail. Not that she needed to look good for Dylan, but he was a movie star, after all.

  He hadn’t exactly gone all out in his grooming, either. The jeans he had on might have been the same pair he’d worn yesterday, and she recognized his slouchy leather jacket. He looked as if he’d shaved, however. She saw the smooth, sharp lines of his jaw and remembered how his face had felt when she’d cupped her hands to his cheeks, when she’d kissed him so many years ago.

  A dark shudder rippled through her. She didn’t want to remember, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

  He wasn’t scowling today, and he’d come bearing gifts. One fist hand held a bouquet of autumn flowers—tan and golden and russet chrysanthemums—and the other held a book. He smiled tentatively, handed the flowers to Gwen, and said, “Can we start all over?”

  She reluctantly took the bouquet. Accepting it represented something significant: that she was accepting Dylan, that she was willing to let him into her world. She reminded herself that when it came to her world, he had legal rights—to say nothing of biological rights. But the one night they’d spent together notwithstanding, he was a total stranger, an alien from the distant planet of Hollywood, and she didn’t want him disturbing the balanced, placid life she’d established for herself and Annie.

  He had already disturbed it. Nothing felt balanced or placid in his presence. Nothing felt normal, not even her heartbeat, her pulse thrumming inside her ears.

  If he hadn’t appeared at the tavern the other evening, and that song hadn’t played, everything would be fine between Gwen and Mike. They would have made love Friday—and maybe even last night. They could have had a pajama party.

  Nothing felt fine between them now. She couldn’t even think of having sex with Mike when Dylan kept showing up. He’d thrown everything out of whack. A pretty bouquet of mums wouldn’t change that.

  “This is for Annie,” he said, showing the book to Gwen. Now We Are Six, by A.A. Milne. “She had that apron on yesterday, with the Winnie-the-Pooh characters. And I figure she’s smart enough to handle poems for six-year-olds, even if she’s only five. Is it okay if I give it to her?”

  Gwen appreciated his checking with her before he presented the book to Annie. She nodded. “How did you find a bookstore open this early on a Sunday morning?”

  “I ordered it on-line and had it overnighted,” he said.

  She supposed that when you were a movie star, you could do things like that. If necessary, you could hire a private jet to fly the book to your doorstep. That he could get a book less than twenty-four hours after ordering it was just more evidence that he was from an alternate universe.

  Yet how could she resent him? Not only had he asked her permission to give Annie the book, but he’d noticed the characters on Annie’s apron last night.

  Annie eagerly accepted the book and started flipping through the pages. “I can read,” she bragged. “I’m in kindergarten.”

  Her reading skills weren’t exactly in the genius range, but she could probably get through some of the poems. Gwen cleared her throat and gave Annie’s shoulder a gentle nudge.

  “Thank you,” Annie dutifully said, craning her neck to gaze up at Dylan. The resemblance between the two struck Gwen like a fist to the gut.

  Gwen steered her attention back to Dylan. “Do you want something to eat? I made Annie some frozen waffles—”

  “The round kind,” Annie added.

  “No, thanks,” he said, his voice soft, hesitant. “I had breakfast at the inn.”

  “Some coffee, then?” He’d given her these beautiful flowers. She owed him at least that much.

  “That sounds great.”

  “Annie, Mr. Scott and I need to talk. If you’d like, you can go downstairs and play.” She knew that if Annie returned to the playroom in the finished basement, she would wind up either watching TV or playing a computer game on her tablet. Gwen tried to limit Annie’s screen time, but right now she and Dylan needed a few uninterrupted minutes to discuss their situation. When Annie let out a gleeful yelp and scampered down the hall to the stairs, Gwen told herself a half-hour of cartoons or computer games wouldn’t damage her daughter too terribly.

  Still, apprehension nibbled at her—apprehension about Dylan. Would he make demands? Accuse her of being a bad mother? Insinuate himself into her and Annie’s lives?

  He’d already insinuated himself. Whatever else they had to deal with, it couldn’t be avoided. He was here. She might as well find how bad this was going to be.

  Suppressing a sigh, she led Dylan to the kitchen. Having him inside her home unnerved her. If she were able to be objective about this, she’d be tickled to think she had a major movie star in her house, walking down her hall, standing in the middle of her kitchen. It was in need of renovation but she didn’t have the money for that. What must he think of the twenty-five-year-old linoleum tiles on the floor, the Formica counters, the coiled electric burners on her exceedingly non-gourmet stove top?

  At least the room wasn’t too messy. She gathered the dirty plates from the table, dumped them in the sink, then busied herself preparing a fresh pot of coffee. Behind her, she heard the quiet rustle of Dylan removing his jacket. She glanced around in time to see him drape it over the back of a chair. He moved to the window overlooking the back yard. A cardinal was helping itself to a feast at the bird-feeder on the other side of the glass. Gwen and Annie loved watching the birds come and go, and in the summer she kept several feeders filled. But with the colder weather, only the die-hard year-rounders stopped by to binge on the birdseed she left for them.

  The coffee maker gurgled. She found a vase and filled it with water, then stuffed the flowers into it, unsure of how she was supposed to feel about them. They weren’t the gift of a lover. He’d apologized when he’d handed them to her—but they didn’t make her feel any better about his having shunned her six years ago, when she’d tried to inform him she was pregnant. A bunch of chrysanthemums, no matter how pretty, didn’t make up for that.

  She carried the sugar bowl to the table, and a clean teaspoon. As a movie star, he might be ac
customed to cream in his coffee, but she didn’t have any. He’d have to make do with milk.

  Slumming in Brogan’s Point, she thought with a wry smile. What would his celebrity friends think?

  When the coffee was done brewing, she refilled her cup, filled a fresh mug for him, and took a seat at the table. He settled into a chair across from her and watched her stir some milk into her coffee. When she nudged the pitcher toward him, he held up his hand and shook his head. Neither of them spoke.

  The silence compelled Gwen to look at him. He returned her gaze, his eyes as dark as the coffee in his mug. As an actor, he knew how to convey emotions with those eyes, but right now they were opaque. Gwen couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking.

  “I talked to my manager last night,” he said. “I came close to firing him.”

  She waited.

  “He said that when you contacted me... I guess lots of women were trying to contact me then, right after the first Galaxy Force movie came out. They were all claiming they carried my baby. My manager figured you were just one more crazed fan.”

  No, I wasn’t just one more crazed fan. No point in saying that. She sipped her coffee.

  “I’m really sorry, Gwen. I mean—I’m not the kind of guy who doesn’t take responsibility for things. I’m a nice boy from Nebraska, right?”

  He flashed her a quick, breathtaking smile. She remembered sitting with him at the Faulk Street Tavern so many years ago, sharing memories of their Midwestern childhoods. He’d been so easy to talk to, so unaffected, so unpretentious. He’d told her he was a small-town kid. His grandparents and uncle were farmers, but his parents had moved to the big city—a speck of a town just a few miles from the family farm. His father had been a plumber, his mother the receptionist for the town doctor. Over dinner, he’d hear about everyone who was sick in town, and everyone whose toilets had backed up. He used to bicycle to the farm in the summer, to help his grandparents out. He’d loved hiding in the rows of corn, pretending he was a prisoner of war—a very clever one, who could sneak through the maze of stalks to freedom. Or he’d pretend the main barn was a ship and he was a sea captain. Farms were wonderful places for playing make-believe, he’d told her. He hadn’t realized he was an actor until he’d gotten to high school and his English teacher, desperate for boys to appear in the school’s production of Romeo and Juliet, had cajoled him into trying out. He’d won the part of Romeo, and he’d been hooked.