by Susan Wiggs
“You know,” she said to the bundle strapped to her chest, “I used to be a spontaneous person. Now I plan every move I make as though I’m crossing a minefield.”
From deep within the confines of her jacket, Charlie made a noise. She couldn’t see his expression, but judging by the happy gurgles emanating from him, he was contented enough to last for the short walk.
“And I have to tell you,” she concluded, “you’re worth every bit of trouble and more.”
Daisy allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief, to relax a little and enjoy being outside in the bright glare of the winter day. It was hard to believe someone so small could have such a huge impact on her life. Even when he was little more than a ball of undifferentiated cells, he had turned her world upside down. She was a teenager, for God’s sake. She hadn’t pictured a future like this. Yet here she was.
And she didn’t hate it. Most days, anyway. She adored Charlie, so that was good. But he did tend to complicate things. Like, everything.
And yet, there was this thing that happened with Charlie. Sure, she knew she would love her baby despite the fact that he was totally unplanned. Yet even during the months of waiting for his birth, she hadn’t anticipated what that love would actually feel like. Nothing had prepared her for this kind of love, how deep it ran, so deep it hurt, but in a good way. In a way that reminded her that here was the one person on earth who owned every bit of her heart.
No wonder the kid was so high maintenance.
“It’s true,” she said to him, trudging along the block at a leaden pace. “I used to do things at the drop of a hat, no planning involved, you know? I’d jump on the subway and off I’d go, with nothing but a wad of cash and my fake ID.” She patted the bundle in her jacket. “I swear, if you ever try to pull anything like that, you’ll be in such trouble.” She wondered if everyone did this—if they all swore they would be better parents than the parents who had raised them. She’d be willing to bet her own mother had felt that way when Daisy was little. Her mom always strove to be the best at everything.
And then, of course, it had become Daisy’s mission to prove her wrong.
Mom was supposed to have landed at JFK last night. Daisy figured the storm had kept her in the city, so they wouldn’t see each other for several more days. Daisy was used to her mom’s long absences so it was no big deal, though this time was a little different.
Since they’d last seen each other, Daisy’s dad had married Nina, which had to be weird for her mom. Also, Mom had been involved in that horrible incident in The Hague. She’d assured Daisy she was fine, but that could mean anything. Mom was always “fine.” It covered everything from breaking a nail to breaking a leg. Knowing Mom, she probably told everyone her marriage was “fine,” right up until the divorce.
“I won’t keep stuff from you,” Daisy said to Charlie. “Because I’ll know that when something isn’t fine, you’ll see right through me.”
Daisy squinted through the snow flurries. “Almost there,” she said, heading for the sitter’s front walk, which bore the fresh tracks of a snowblower. The main thoroughfare had been plowed, she could see. A few intrepid vehicles trolled slowly along, dwarfed by the huge dikes of snow left by the plows.
“People are idiots, driving in this,” she murmured, feeling virtuous for having walked. “What kind of idiot—oh, tell me he’s not here.”
But he was, of course. She recognized Logan O’Donnell’s BMW X3 with the SUNY decal on the back window. Although Logan was the baby’s father, he’d never even been her boyfriend, not really. They’d been two stupid kids in high school, partying with careless abandon. Nine months later, they were parents. Daisy had insisted she wanted nothing from Logan, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wanted to be Charlie’s father. She’d expected Logan to lose interest once he realized what it meant to be a parent. But he kept showing up like a bad penny.
Out of a sense of duty, Daisy had informed him about the meeting with the babysitter. She hadn’t thought he would actually show up, though, not today. In these conditions, it was a short but treacherous drive from New Paltz to Avalon. A person would have to be crazy to try it.
However, she’d found out a long time ago that it took more than a snowstorm to stop Logan.
“All right,” she said, standing on the porch of the babysitter’s house. “Deep breath.” She knocked at the door.
Irma greeted her with an effusive welcome. “There you are,” she said. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“It’s nice to get out,” Daisy said, unzipping her parka. “Hey, you,” she said to Charlie.
He gurgled at her and pedaled his arms and legs as though he hadn’t seen her in weeks.
“Yeah, back atcha,” Daisy said, sitting down to extract the fleecy blue bundle from the carrier. His sweet, milky scent lingered in the fibers of her sweater.
The baby sounded off happily as Irma hoisted him into her arms with reassuring confidence. “Come here, you little cherub.” Rounded and soft as a marshmallow, Irma held the baby while Daisy took off her jacket and snow boots. “Come in and make yourself at home. The others are down for a nap.” Irma looked after a brother and sister, aged one and two.
“Thank you.” Daisy followed her into the living room. It was a plain little house, child-proofed, with one room equipped as a play area, a basket of toys in the corner. It looked exactly like the sort of place you could picture leaving your baby.
Assuming you were okay with leaving your baby. Oh, God, thought Daisy. Am I becoming my mother? Am I leaving my baby so I can go after something I want, just for me?
The thought hung over her as she stood in the doorway. “Hello, Logan,” she said.
“Hey.” He strode across the room and took the baby from Irma. “Hey, buddy,” he said. And Logan O’Donnell, the bad boy of New York City’s exclusive Dalton School, whose fiery red hair and screw-you attitude tended to scare most people, turned into a grinning, adoring guy, just like that. A baby’s smile was a powerful thing.
Charlie jabbered away, lying in his lap while Logan extracted him from his snowsuit. Charlie clearly knew Logan, who visited at least once a week, his devotion to the baby a total surprise to Daisy. This was definitely not the Logan she had known in high school. Of course, Logan had gone through a lot of changes since then.
She watched him with his son, feeling an uninvited tug of emotion as he tickled the baby. Logan looked incredible, with the kind of smile that made a girl stupid enough to sleep with him. Charlie had inherited Logan’s red hair, and was beginning to look alarmingly like him. This did not please Daisy. Being that handsome never did a guy a lick of good—not for long, anyway.
Irma sat on the sofa next to Daisy and adjusted her smock apron in her lap. “So,” she said, “there’s good news and bad news.”
“Oh?” Daisy braced herself. Since Charlie’s birth, her life had grown quite complicated. She’d taught herself to wait and see what happened.
“So the good news is, my license for infants has been approved. I knew it would be, and I was just waiting for final approval.”
“That’s good. What’s the other news?”
“I have to get my feet done this winter.” She held out her feet, clad in quilted scuffs. “Bunions,” she explained. “Really painful. Runs in the family.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Daisy wasn’t sure what else to say.
“It’s going to be fine. The trouble is, I won’t be able to work for about three months. They have to do one foot at a time and the recovery takes several weeks. It’ll be impossible to look after kids.”
Logan seemed completely unconcerned. He fished a gel-filled teething toy from a pocket of the diaper bag and handed it to Charlie.
“Anyway, I’m sorry. I know this changes your plans,” Irma said.
“I’ll figure something out.” Daisy’s heart sank. She should have known Irma was too good to be true.
A small cry came from down the hall. “Somebody just woke u
p,” Irma said. “Excuse me.”
“Well.” Logan looked over Charlie’s head at Daisy. “Bummer.”
She nodded. “I’m going to have to figure out some other arrangement.” Her mind was already working the problem. “My dad and Nina would totally watch him for me, if I asked.”
“But you don’t want to ask.”
“No kidding. I mean, they’re great, but they just got married. Besides, it would feel like a step backward for me. I just got my own place, and I don’t want to go running back to them.”
“It would only be temporary,” Logan pointed out.
“Temporary has a way of stretching out to indefinitely,” she said. “I’d rather solve this myself.” Truth be told, it had been a battle to leave home in search of her own life. Her father and Nina ran a historic inn on the lake, and they had plenty of room. Living with them had been easy, perhaps too easy. Right after the baby was born, Daisy had felt herself getting comfortable and disappearing into the fabric of a life that was not her own. She was deeply afraid that if she grew to depend on her dad too much, she’d never learn to be independent.
“There’s no crime in asking your family for help,” Logan said.
“It’s complicated.”
“Family stuff usually is.” He grinned at Charlie. “Right, buddy?”
He would know, Daisy conceded. He came from a wealthy Manhattan family, and they had not made things easy for him. His workaholic father had big plans for Logan. His socially ambitious mother fantasized about her son being the toast of the town. Their expectations for him were enormous. The O’Donnells had wanted Logan to go to Boston College, their alma mater. He was supposed to study management and finance, take over the family shipping business. Instead, he’d opted to attend SUNY New Paltz, where he could be closer to Charlie.
Daisy could only imagine what the O’Donnells had had to say about that. Logan’s parents had never come to see the baby. They were in total denial, and believed Logan should simply cut all ties with Daisy, counting himself lucky that she wasn’t demanding a fortune in child support. They blamed her, of course, for the entire situation.
“I suppose I could put off school for another semester,” she said.
“You don’t want to do that,” he remarked. “I can tell.”
She hated that he knew her as well as he did. “I’ll figure something out.”
“I want to help,” Logan said. He’d been saying that ever since he discovered she was pregnant. At first, she thought he’d quickly get past the initial surge of manly responsibility. Instead, he had surprised her and probably everyone who knew him, and stuck around.
“I can figure this out on my own.”
“Damn it, Daisy. Why are you so set against letting me help?”
“Because I don’t trust you, okay?” She saw no point in trying to spare his feelings, not when it came to her son. Despite being the American Prince Charming, Logan had his dark side. He was—and by definition always would be—an addict. He’d done cocaine all through high school, somehow managing to keep disaster at bay until senior year. After a weekend of partying—the same weekend he’d gotten Daisy pregnant, he’d been arrested for possession and ordered into rehab. Defying the odds, he’d stayed clean ever since, going to meetings and, as far as Daisy could tell, living a life of sobriety.
She was proud of him for sticking with his program. She was gratified that he was so determined to be part of Charlie’s life. But sometimes she wondered if he came around because he wanted to or if it was part of his twelve-step program and he felt obligated.
“I don’t know what else I can do to make you trust me,” he said, his jaw working in agitation. “And I don’t know what you’re so afraid of.”
She felt bad, being so cautious with Logan. But Charlie was her child. She couldn’t take chances. “I’m afraid he’s going to get attached to you, and one day you’ll just quit coming around.”
“Hey, don’t you get it? I’m here to stay, Daze. I’m in Charlie’s life to stay and I deserve to be here. So get used to it.”
Another thing she was afraid of—that he would keep his promise. And then she just might find herself having to deal with the fact that, because of all that had happened between them, he was going to be a part of her life forever.
All right, so that was admirable, but it was also…she didn’t know quite how to deal with it. At their age, how could they be certain of anything? Would having Logan in her life leave room for anyone else?
Not that there was anyone else, but one day there might be. Two summers ago, before Daisy’s family had fallen apart and everything had changed, she’d met someone. Sure, they were kids and nothing had happened, but it was one of those meetings when you knew in an instant that this person might be important. A freeze-frame moment. As a photographer, Daisy knew how the camera could freeze a particular moment for its beauty or importance. That was how she felt meeting Julian Gastineaux, and he was…wonderful. She barely knew him but she knew he was important in her life.
And then there was Logan. Meeting him had not been a freeze-frame moment. They’d been in kindergarten in Manhattan, and he had dabbed blue paint on her pigtail and had to do a time-out as punishment. As teenagers, they’d had wild times together. She used to fantasize that he was Prince Charming, and that she was in love with him. It wasn’t real, though. It was beyond bizarre to think the two of them now had a baby together.
Correction, she reminded herself. They now had a baby. They weren’t together.
Ten
Sophie stood at the window of her borrowed house on the lake, watching Noah Shepherd finish shoveling off the front steps. She was finding her neighbor a remarkably pleasant diversion. Earlier, he had attached a snowplow blade to the front of his truck and cleared her driveway. She’d followed him in the rental car, which he’d pulled from the ditch with his pickup truck. He’d insisted on giving her a few basic groceries from his own pantry, since the roads were still impassable and probably wouldn’t be plowed for another day or two. He had also made a fire for her in the wood-burning stove and promised to bring more split wood tomorrow.
The man was one-stop shopping, she thought, watching the way his breath came in rhythmic, frosty plumes as he worked.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said when he finished and came inside, shaking the snow from his jacket.
“Sure you can,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m easy.”
You are, she thought. So easy to like.
“Did you get hold of your kids?” he asked, adjusting the vent of the wood-burning stove.
“I left voice mails. I’ll try again later.” She refused to let her worry and uncertainty show. Her children had become so casual about her absences. Her comings and goings were routine by now. Dear Lord, how was she ever going to fix this?
“So they live in town,” Noah said.
She nodded. “Daisy recently got her own place on Orchard Avenue, and Max lives with his father at the Inn at Willow Lake.”
He straightened up, gave her his full attention.
She twined her hands together until her fingers knotted tightly—a sign that the witness was nervous and about to crack. “And I have to tell you, this part of the conversation never gets easier, the part where I say my children live with their father. I’d find it easier to say I have an STD or a felony record.” Did Noah—did anyone—get how deeply humiliating this admission was?
“Man, you really like beating yourself up,” Noah observed.
“I don’t.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because—” She broke off. She wasn’t used to simply blurting out everything to a virtual stranger. “No one’s ever asked me that.” She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling a mixture of resentment and distrust.
“Do you have an answer?”
“I’m going to have to think about it.”
“You think too hard, you’ll lose the truth.”
“Thank you, Dr. Freud.” She sent him
a sideways glance. “Are we done with the ugly, personal stuff?”
“Up to you. If you want to talk, I’m all ears,” he said with a grin. “Don’t want to pry about your family situation. I figure you’ll explain when you’re ready.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Or not.”
“You shouldn’t feel lousy about the way you’re raising your kids,” he said.
“Again, thank you.”
“And guess what? There are women who stay home with their kids every day, and the kids are still wrecked. Then there are kids who chill in day care every day, and they’re fine. Whether you stay home or go to work is not the determining factor. It’s how you love them.”
“I didn’t know they taught human psychology in vet school.”
“Nice, Sophie.”
“I mean—”
“Figuring you out is not that hard,” he said. “Believe me, feline distemper is a lot harder. Anyway, no offense meant.”
“None taken,” she assured him. She found herself studying him, and wondered why she found him so wildly attractive. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but big and hearty, with an openness that was uncommonly appealing. And he had the most incredible eyes, brown, with long thick lashes. And his lips…Oh, Lord, she thought. She already had a crush on her neighbor. A crush? Yes. That was exactly what this felt like, a too-pleasant inner fluttering, the sort of thing a high-school girl might feel. Sophie had nearly forgotten the sensation, but meeting Noah reminded her that a person never outgrew some things.
“I’d better be going—”
“I won’t keep you—”
They both spoke at once, and both stopped at once. “Thanks for everything, Noah,” Sophie said, blushing as though he’d read her thoughts. “I really do appreciate it.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He took her mobile phone from the counter and keyed in his number. “Call me if you need anything, anything at all.”
There was a moment, a heartbeat of time, when it would have been the most natural thing in the world for her to lean into him, lift her face for a kiss. A kiss? Where had that thought come from? It wouldn’t leave her alone. She pictured it so clearly that she felt foolish. At the same time, she wondered if he’d felt it, too, that same momentary connection, an urge that came out of nowhere.