Angel of the Morning

by Judith Arnold

  He gestured toward the box on the counter. “That cookie store down the street? The baker is worse than a crack dealer.”

  “Her cookies are good,” Gwen agreed.

  “Are you free for dinner tonight?”

  She shifted her gaze from his face to the bag in his hand, to the shelf of wooden puzzles beside her, to the end-cap with the squeeze bottles, then back to him. “I’m spending this evening with Annie.”

  “Can we all have dinner together?” If he was going to learn how to be a father to the little girl, he could start by spending the evening with her, too.

  “Dylan.” Gwen took a step closer to him and lowered her voice. “I don’t know... Last night—”

  “—was last night,” he cut her off. He didn’t want to give her a chance to say no. “Today is today. I’m here. We need to make this work.”

  She pressed her lips together, clearly not pleased. “This?” Her voice remained hushed and taut. “There is no this.”

  “There’s Annie.”

  “She’s not a this.”

  “She’s my daughter,” he said. He kept his voice as muted as hers, but he glanced toward the counter just to make sure the clerk there couldn’t hear their conversation. He’d be happy to run up a flag on the town green proclaiming that he was Annie’s father, but Gwen obviously wasn’t ready to go public with the relationship. And with him, a flag would only be the start of it. The tabloids would go nuts with the news. Some photographer would snap a hideous picture of him holding Annie, and it would appear in all the supermarket rags with the headline, “Captain Steele’s Love Child.” There would be an inset photo of Gwen, looking grim and drab, pony-tail and no make-up.

  He was used to that crap. When he’d chosen a high-profile film career, he’d known an unwelcome publicity might be part of it. Gwen hadn’t asked for that, though. She deserved her privacy.

  As resentful as she looked right now, she also looked vulnerable. He wanted to gather her into his arms and reassure her. He wanted to promise her that he’d protect her and Annie from the paparazzi and every other threat to their wellbeing, that he’d be a positive addition to their lives. He was a decent guy. He’d do the best he could.

  He wanted to take her in his arms—but he wanted more than just to reassure her. Yes, he was a decent guy—but he wanted to press her to himself, to nuzzle the sexy hollow of her throat, nibble the skin beneath her ear, fill his hands with her lush, round breasts.

  He wanted so much. No wonder she looked apprehensive.

  After a long, tense minute, she sighed. “You can stop by after dinner,” she said. “I need some time alone with my daughter this evening.”

  “I’ll come at seven,” he said. He wanted to get to Gwen’s house while Annie was still awake. Bonding with Annie was more important than bonding with Gwen, he acknowledged. Last night notwithstanding, Gwen had a guy in her life. Maybe she loved the guy; maybe that was why she was behaving so skittish now. She might be riven with guilt for having cheated on her boyfriend.

  But whether or not Gwen was involved with someone else, Annie was still Dylan’s daughter. No boyfriend could change that.

  Besides, if Dylan showed up at Gwen’s house after Annie was asleep, he’d be tempted to do something that would make Gwen feel even guiltier. Alone with her, Dylan would want to make love again. Slowly. Softly, so they wouldn’t wake Annie up. They’d have to stifle their groans, suppress their cries. That would make the whole thing even more intense.

  Just thinking about it made him hot.

  Definitely, he’d go when Annie was still awake, and hope a five-year-old chaperone would be able to put a lid on his lust.

  ***

  Annie was bubbling like a pot of boiling water when Gwen picked her up from her after-school program. “We had this art teacher come today,” she reported once they were in the car, heading home. “She teaches art at the community center where I swim. She had us make...I’m trying to remember what it’s called. We glued cotton balls and ribbons and yarn on pieces of cardboard. And other stuff, too. Popsicle sticks. And this stuff that felt like leather but she said it wasn’t.”

  “That’s called a collage,” Gwen told her, eyeing her daughter in the rear-view mirror as she drove.

  Annie nodded enthusiastically. “That’s it! Collages. We made collages. Can I take her class at the community center? I love art. I want to be an artist when I grow up.”

  “I thought you wanted to be a dentist,” Gwen reminded her. That was what Annie had said after her last dental check-up, when the technician had cleaned her teeth with bubble-gum flavored polish and presented her with a toothbrush that had a sparkly handle.

  “I can be both,” Annie declared. “A dentist and an artist. And I’ll have a dog, too.”

  Her future sounded busy.

  Once home, they set to work in the kitchen. Annie, in her Winnie-the-Pooh apron, tore romaine lettuce into a salad bowl while Gwen seasoned a chicken breast and slid it into the oven to broil. She felt safe in her own home, away from Mike, away from Dylan.

  Coming clean to Mike hadn’t been a mistake; that had been the right thing to do, even though the truth had irreparably damaged their relationship. Making love with Dylan, though—that had been a huge mistake. She wasn’t young and carefree anymore. She couldn’t afford to behave so recklessly. She had responsibilities now.

  More than behaving recklessly, she couldn’t afford to be so distracted, the way she’d been today. All day long, her thoughts had been invaded by erotic memories, flashes of arousal triggered unexpectedly. Sorting through invoices in her office, she’d suddenly remembered the way Dylan’s tongue had felt flicking against her skin, and her thigh muscles had clenched painfully. Hanging a few mobiles above the counter, where they’d be sure to capture the attention of shoppers, she’d recalled the sensation of floating and drifting after she’d come. She’d remembered how hard Dylan had been, how strong, how deliciously heavy he’d felt on top of her, inside her.

  She couldn’t have those thoughts. They undermined her concentration. They shattered her equilibrium.

  As she cut broccoli into a bowl of water to be microwaved, she glanced over at her daughter. Annie was so innocent. Gwen swore to herself that she was entitled to her own adult pleasures, but in the presence of her spunky, beguiling daughter, she felt unworthy and sordid.

  She filled a glass with water for herself, and Annie’s favorite sippy cup with milk, and they settled at the table to eat. Annie rattled on for a while about her school day. The teacher had read a story about farms, and then they learned how to sound out some relevant words: barn, cow, pig, corn. These were easy words, Annie said. Gwen noted that the farm didn’t grow any multisyllabic crops—sorghum or alfalfa or pomegranates.

  “Annie,” she said once the little girl had wound down. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

  Annie gave her a wide-eyed look.

  “You know that man, Dylan Scott, who we went to the movie with?”

  “And we had pizza with him,” Annie reminded her. “And I played Legos with him. And he gave me a book.”

  “Right.”

  “He’s fun,” Annie said. “Can we see him again?”

  “He’ll be coming over in a little while,” Gwen told her.

  “Can we play Legos again?”

  “If it isn’t too late. Here’s what we need to talk about, though.” Gwen wished her water was a glass of wine, but she needed her wits about her to get through this conversation. “He’s your daddy.”

  Annie’s eyes grew wider. Gwen gazed at her wild mop of hair, as dark and wavy as her father’s. Her eyes were Dylan’s, too. Gwen could lay claim to Annie’s mouth and chin. Her nose was still a cute little button, resembling neither Gwen’s nor Dylan’s.

  “How come?” Annie finally asked.

  “How come what?”

  “How come he’s my daddy? He doesn’t even live here.”

  “He was here before you were born. He and I were
friends. But he left before I even knew I was pregnant with you, and I couldn’t reach him. So he didn’t know about you until he came back.”

  “He should have come back sooner,” Annie said reasonably.

  “Well, he couldn’t. He was busy working.”

  “You work, and you’re here.”

  “Yes, but that’s because I’m your mommy. I’ll always be here for you.”

  Annie poked at her broccoli with her fork as she mulled over Gwen’s promise. “My daddy won’t always be here for me,” she concluded.

  Her words pierced Gwen’s heart, not just because they expressed a rock-solid truth as Annie understood it, but because they expressed Gwen’s greatest fear. Dylan was here now, but he could leave at any moment. He was buying a house in Brogan’s Point, but he could afford to buy houses all over the world, and live wherever he wanted. He could make love with Gwen one night and leave the next day. He didn’t make promises. And even if he did, Gwen had no reason to believe him.

  The doorbell rang. Gwen checked her watch: seven o’clock. At least he could be relied on to show up on time.

  Annie bolted from her chair. “That’s him!” she shouted. “That’s my daddy! Can we play Legos?”

  Gwen raced after her daughter, who reached the front door and hovered impatiently, her hand on the doorknob. Gwen peeked through the window in the door and nodded her permission. Annie swung the door open.

  Dylan stood on the porch, looking ridiculously sexy in his worn jeans and his leather jacket. He held a small bag with the Cookie’s logo on it. “You already brought me cookies today,” she said disapprovingly.

  “That was for your staff. These are for Annie,” he said, handing the bag to the child. “I’m getting addicted to the cookies from that store.”

  Annie’s face radiated joy. “Can I have them, Mommy?”

  “You can have one,” Gwen said, not exactly thrilled. She didn’t want Dylan bearing gifts every time he saw Annie, as if he was trying to buy her affection.

  “You’re my daddy,” Annie informed him as she unrolled the top of the bag and peered inside. She pulled out a cookie and obediently handed the bag to Gwen, who rolled the top back up, her way of signaling that Annie wouldn’t get any more cookies tonight.

  The little girl scampered back to the kitchen, clutching her precious cookie. She knew she’d have to finish her broccoli before she’d be allowed to devour the treat. Gwen watched her go, then turned to Dylan. He stepped inside, gaping at her, his expression troubled. “You told her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought... I don’t know, I thought we’d tell her together.”

  Gwen shook her head. If they’d presented this news to Annie as a team, she would perceive them as just that: a team. A twosome. United.

  Gwen had feared, when Dylan first showed up in town, that he might try to steal Annie from her if he knew she was his daughter. She still harbored those misgivings. She was determined to maintain her position as the primary parent, the one who told her daughter all the important things. She and Dylan were not a team.

  “What did she think?” he asked.

  She thinks you’re going to leave. “She’s processing it,” Gwen told him. “She wants you to play Legos with her.”

  He looked relieved. But rather than chase after his daughter, he cupped his hand around her cheek. “We can do this,” he said, sounding so sure of himself, she was tempted to believe him. “Last night meant something. Annie means everything. We can make this work. Okay?”

  He was a good actor. So persuasive, so convincing. And really, she had no reason not to believe him, other than the fact that he was rich and famous and mind-bogglingly successful, charismatic and unreasonably handsome, and she was a single mother who worked her tail off to make a modest life for her daughter and herself. And the fact that, despite last night, and despite that night six years ago, she and Dylan hardly knew each other.

  And the fact that she could fall in love with him—which could be the worst mistake she’d ever made.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday afternoon, he took Gwen and Annie to see the house.

  It wasn’t his yet. Even without the delay of applying for a mortgage, the process of transferring ownership of the property took time. The deed had to be authenticated. A lawyer had to ascertain that there were no liens on the property. T’s had to be crossed, i’s dotted.

  But Dylan was already thinking about it as his house. Sometimes, he even thought about it as their house—his and Annie’s and Gwen’s.

  He’d had to wait until Saturday afternoon to show it to them. Gwen worked weekdays and Saturday mornings. Dylan kept himself busy during the days, conferring with Brian on licensing deals, reviewing promotional schedules for the upcoming Galaxy Force film, which was scheduled for release on Memorial Day weekend, and haggling with the screenwriters over issues he had on the next Galaxy Force film, which was slated to start filming early in the new year. He had to admit that Brian had a point: dealing long-distance with these things and accommodating the three-hour time difference made his job harder than it would have been if he were living in California. But he’d sworn to Gwen that they could make this work, and he was determined.

  He’d spent every evening with Gwen and Annie, at least. He wasn’t used to cooking, but he’d asked Gwen for a shopping list and driven to a supermarket on Route One, sparing her a chore and contributing to her pantry. If she was going to include him in her dinners, the least he could do was help pay for them.

  Of course, he’d have preferred to do much more. If she’d let him, he would have hired a cook for her, someone who could do all the shopping and food preparation so she wouldn’t have to do that herself. But he didn’t dare to suggest it. Gwen was a proud woman. She would have taken such a gesture as presumptuous, the actions of an arrogant rich guy throwing his money around.

  So instead, he’d bought potatoes and fresh tuna steaks—an indulgence she could rarely afford, she’d admitted to him—and a basket of locally grown apples. He’d peeled and cored the apples while she and Annie had prepared a pie crust. Annie had wielded the rolling pin like a pro. “I want to be a chef when I grow up,” she’d announced, and when Gwen had reminded her that she also wanted to be a dentist and an artist, she’d insisted that she could be all three.

  He and Gwen didn’t have sex again. Every evening, he would play with Annie or read to her or watch a video with her, and then Gwen would take over, giving Annie her bath and tucking her into bed while Dylan tidied up the kitchen or caught up on emails or otherwise sat around idly. He was willing to help out with Annie’s bedtime—not the bath, of course, but the tucking in, the bedtime story, the quiet, intimate moments when a parent might plant a dream seed or two. But he respected Gwen’s desire to have that time alone with her daughter. He knew he was an imposition on them. He didn’t want to encroach even more.

  So he’d wait until Gwen descended the stairs alone, having launched her daughter into slumber-land. He’d give Gwen a hug, a kiss or two—and he’d sense her withdrawal. He’d see desire in her eyes but feel fear in her body.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he vowed on Friday night. He’d kissed her, and she’d returned his kiss for a luscious moment before pulling back and stepping away from him.

  “You don’t know what you’ll do,” she responded.

  “Can you trust me?”

  “Can you give me some time?”

  He understood. He had to earn her trust. Patience wasn’t his long suit, but for her—and for Annie—he’d be patient.

  He was glad she’s agreed to visit his house with Annie on Saturday afternoon. He’d arranged with Andrea to meet them at the house with the key, and the four of them entered the house together. Both Gwen and Annie appeared awed by the size of the entry foyer. The great room beyond impressed them even more. “Look, Mommy!” Annie had crowed. “This is so big! I can run around here.” She extended her arms as if they were wings, and sprinted in loopy circles a
round the empty room.

  “She runs around in our house, too,” Gwen muttered. But Dylan knew Annie couldn’t run so swiftly or so freely in their cozy little house, not without crashing into the walls.

  “Look at this,” Annie continued, racing to the fieldstone fireplace. “It’s bigger than me! You could build a fire and roast marshmallows. My friend Lucy has a fireplace,” she added for Dylan’s benefit. “Her mommy doesn’t let us roast marshmallows in it, though. She says they’ll drip on the floor and make mess.”

  “She’s also afraid you’ll get hurt,” Gwen reminded Annie. “You have to stay behind the screen, or you can get burned.”

  “I’m careful. I love roasted marshmallows.” Annie did another arm-flapping turn around the living room, her sneakers squeaking against the polished wood floor.

  “Want to see the kitchen?” Dylan asked Gwen.

  Andrea had been quietly observing Dylan, Gwen, and Annie, her expression a mix of bemusement and calculation. No doubt she was trying to figure out what Dylan had to do with the owner of the Attic and her rambunctious daughter. But she apparently felt the kitchen was a subject for women, and she spoke up. “It’s a bit outdated, but I think you’ll see it has enormous potential.”

  Gwen arched an eyebrow and followed Andrea past the formal dining room to the spacious kitchen.

  Dylan understood that arched eyebrow and the sentiment behind it. Andrea seemed to think Gwen would be in charge of the kitchen. She’d reached the assumption that this house would signify something to Gwen, that Gwen would have some say in enabling the kitchen to reach its potential.

  Dylan would like nothing more than for Gwen to design the kitchen to meet her needs and wants. He’d happily hand her a blank check and tell her to go crazy. Six-burner professional gas stove. Sub-zero refrigerator. Temperature-controlled wine rack. Two sinks, one against the wall and one in the center island. Counters of granite, engineered stone, marble, whatever she wanted.

  But he couldn’t even get her to sleep with him. Allowing him to coronate her queen of the kitchen implied much more of a commitment than simply having sex with him.