The Sweetheart Rules

by Shirley Jump

  He’d never imagined that Bridget would get pregnant. Or have the baby and never tell him. Or that Bridget would die, and he would be here, more than thirty years later, as nervous as a teenager about to take his driving test, and trying like hell to say three little words.

  I’m your father.

  Diana caught him looking and broke away from the couple to head over to him. He thought about leaving, almost turned away, then stopped. He wished he’d worn the suit again instead of the simple collared shirt and plain jeans he’d picked up at Goodwill yesterday. This kind of moment required a suit and tie, but he’d been so flustered this morning, so unsure about even coming to Diana’s office, that he’d forgotten the borrowed suit was hanging neatly in the motel closet.

  Until he stood on the tiled floor, he hadn’t even been sure he’d actually make it through the doors this time. In the three days he’d been staying at the Rescue Bay motel he’d tried five times to make it from the parking lot and into Diana’s office, only to back out at the last second, those old doubts and insecurities winning the battle once again.

  The adoption event provided a good cover—lots of people, less pressure—and he’d thought he could blend in with the others, observe from afar, and leave without saying a word.

  Coward. He hadn’t driven this far to watch his daughter work. He’d come to talk. There was no more turning around and skulking back to the motel. There was here, and now.

  “Can I introduce you to one of our dogs?” Diana said. She had a nice voice, friendly, lilting, like a song on the radio. “We have several wonderful pets still available for adoption. Or if you’re more of a cat person, we have some great cats in the cat area, just through that door there.”

  “I’m… I’m not here to adopt a pet.”

  “Okay. Well…” Her voice trailed off. “If you’re here to surrender an animal to the shelter, I can get the processing—”

  “I’m not here for that, either.” He took a step forward, and that was when he noticed her eyes. For a moment, he was thirty years in the past, looking into Bridget’s eyes and thinking he would never love anyone the way he loved her. Then he blinked and saw the curve of a dimple in Diana’s cheek, the dusting of freckles on her nose, parts of his own face reflecting back.

  His daughter. His child. The person he had waited three decades to meet.

  “I’m here to meet you. I’m Frank Hillstrand. And…” He took a breath, let it out. “I’m your father.”

  Thirteen

  Mike broke for lunch a little after one. Jackson had promised to arrive at nine to help, and thus far, the boy was a no-show. Mike had debated whether to tell Diana, then thought better of it. She had enough on her agenda today with the adoption event.

  Yeah, that was why he hadn’t talked to her since this morning. Why he was avoiding her. Not because of that kiss.

  Every time he got within five feet of that woman, his brain went on vacation. What the hell was he thinking? Diana Tuttle couldn’t be more hearth-and-home, settle-down-in-the-suburbs if she were a remake of a Doris Day movie. He was the last man who should be getting wrapped up in that kind of fantasy.

  He thought of the scars on his back, scars he had kept hidden for a long, long time, and knew deep in his heart that a man like him had no business trying to play the family man. If anything could jerk him out of that fantasy world he’d been playing in earlier today, it was that.

  He had no guidebook for being a good parent. No instincts for how to take care of a child. When he thought of childhood and parenting, the first words that came to mind were pain and heartbreak. What kind of example would he set for his daughters? Better to stop deluding himself with this vision that he could be better than his past, that he could forge a different path from what he knew.

  That was the message in those scars, and one he shouldn’t forget.

  He crossed the yard and headed for the food table that Olivia was manning, with Luke by her side. Luke was tending the grill, cooking hot dogs, while Olivia was handing out paper plates and buns to the few people remaining in line. The girls sat at a picnic table, Ellie playing with her bear while Jenny had her arm curled around a book to block her furious writing and drawing from curious eyes. Jenny glanced up when he approached, then dismissed him just as fast. Ellie clambered off the seat and dashed over to him. “Daddy! Daddy! Are we going to go get ice cream? Cuz Teddy wants ice cream. And I wants ice cream.”

  “Did you eat lunch?” Mike asked.

  Ellie shook her head. “Uh-huh.”

  Mike arched a brow.

  Ellie toed at the ground. “No. Cuz I want ice cream. I don’t want lunch.”

  “You have to eat lunch and then I need to go to the lumber store, pick up some supplies, and install the framing.” He tugged the schedule out of his back pocket, then skimmed the next few hours. “At seventeen hundred, I’ll come back to get you girls, and then we’ll have dinner at eighteen hundred.”

  “And then we get ice cream?”

  “We have a schedule to keep, Ellie. Maybe tomorrow we can find time to—”

  “I told you he wouldn’t do it,” Jenny said. “Just quit asking, Ellie.”

  Ellie pouted. The bear flopped over her arm, like he was disappointed, too. “Okay, Daddy.”

  What, no temper tantrum? Maybe he was finally getting the hang of this parenting thing. “Thanks for understanding, Ellie. I’m going to go grab a couple hot dogs before I head out for supplies. Why don’t you come with me and get something healthy to eat?”

  “I’mma not hungry.” She trudged away and climbed back onto the wooden seat.

  “Way to go, Mr. Grinch,” Luke said, handing Mike a paper plate with two hot dogs on it.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “One of the best parts of being a kid is having ice cream for lunch or cake for dinner. When I was a kid, my grandma would do what she called Switch Dinners. Sometimes we had pancakes for supper, sometimes it was cake. You just never knew.” Luke chuckled. “Heck, I still do that sometimes.”

  “Better than take-out pizza seven days a week,” Olivia said, giving Luke a light jab.

  “Well sometimes someone is too busy to cook.” Luke tossed her a smile that spoke of late nights and shared secrets, then turned back to Mike. “Let’s just say we have the pizza place on speed dial here. And I hope to hell I have a lot more nights ahead of me where I’m ordering takeout because my wife kept me prisoner in the bedroom.”

  “Anyone ever tell you that you over-share?”

  “Not since kindergarten.” Luke grinned.

  Mike rolled his eyes and shook his head. Something a lot like envy bubbled in his gut. Crazy. Mike didn’t want to get married again. “You two are making me nauseous with all that lovey-dovey crap.”

  “Who are you kidding? A tornado wouldn’t interrupt your meal schedule.” Luke plopped some potato salad on Mike’s plate, then added a third hot dog.

  “Hey, regular meals are an essential part of life.” Mike grinned, then took a bite of hot dog. Then he glanced over at the girls, both of them sitting at the picnic table, as listless as flags on a still day.

  “It won’t hurt them to eat ice cream,” Luke whispered in Mike’s ear. “And it’ll win you serious brownie points.”

  “The ice cream parlor is not on my itinerary. I only have three hours before I need to—”

  “Screw the itinerary.”

  Mike scoffed. “When have I ever done that? Schedules are part of life. You can’t just up and—”

  “Yes you can. You’re not on base, soldier, you’re on vacation, in a beach town, with your daughters. If they want ice cream for lunch, live a little and take them down to the boardwalk. It’s hot, everyone’s crabby, and ice cream sounds like a really good idea.”

  Mike grinned. “You just want a cone for yourself.”

  “Hell, yes, I do. Lunch service is over, the adoption event is nearly done, so everyone’s free. Go get those two girls and let’s go. It’ll do you good to
get off schedule. You’re so regimented, you make a drill instructor look like a preschool teacher.”

  Mike wanted to explain that the schedules kept him sane. Gave him a measure of control over a life that had rarely been in control. It had become such an ingrained part of his personality that the mere thought of tearing up the schedule made Mike antsy. He glanced again at his daughters, and decided one impulsive trip for dessert wouldn’t make too much of a dent in the list. Maybe he could reshuffle a few things, treat this like an unplanned contingency, like a storm that blew into Kodiak in the middle of training exercise. “All right. Just this one time. As long as we’re back by—”

  “We’ll be back when we get back.” Luke shut off the grill and loaded the leftover dogs onto a plate. “And you’ll live through the uncertainty.”

  Mike probably would. But he wouldn’t like it. He had enough uncertainty in his world right now. Last thing he needed was more of the same.

  He thought of the schedule in his pocket, the one that kept him busy and occupied from dawn to dusk. In between tasks, he put out fires with the girls and made sure they ate. Nowhere in those line items did it say quality time, R&R, ice cream for lunch, or anything that smacked of fun. He glanced again at his daughters, who sat tense and still, watching the entire exchange, and noticed something that drove a knife through his heart.

  Both of them were looking at him with wary blue eyes filled with anticipated disappointment. They expected him to say no. In that moment, he saw another child, a little boy who wanted so badly to hear a Yes, we’ll leave this time and we won’t come back, and never had. Every time, it had been Let’s give this one more shot. It’ll get better, I promise.

  “Girls, let’s go. We’re getting ice cream.”

  Ellie leapt to her feet, shouting and running toward him. Jenny cocked her head for a second, as if unsure she had heard him right, then slid off the bench and followed her little sister. Mike thought he saw a glimmer of a smile on Jenny’s face, then it was gone.

  But the smile had been there, and that was enough to give Mike hope. Ellie fell into step beside him and slipped her little hand into his big one. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said, and in that moment, Mike thought his heart seemed to swell to five times its size.

  “Anytime, El. Anytime.”

  She beamed a pixie smile at him and skipped beside him all the way to the car. Jenny kept pace on the other side, no longer hanging back, but not quite with him and El yet.

  It was a start. And it was enough.

  A few minutes later, they were piling into his rental car, with Luke riding shotgun and Olivia in the back with the girls. “Maybe I should see if Diana wants to come,” Olivia said.

  Mike started to protest, then realized his reasons for saying no would all center around kissing Diana, something he wasn’t going to discuss, and definitely not bring up in front of his daughters. “Sure,” he said, as casual as if he were remarking on the weather.

  When Olivia got out of the car and headed for the shelter, Mike noticed Luke smiling like a loon. “What are you grinning about?” Mike said.

  “You. Acting all cool.”

  “I’m sitting in an air-conditioned car. Of course I’m cool.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. You’re interested. You were interested before, and you’re interested now.”

  “Daddy’s in-tras-ded,” Ellie whispered to Jenny.

  “Let’s not talk about what I’m interested in or not interested in when there’s two little teapots with very big ears in the backseat.” He thumbed toward the girls. Last thing he needed was questions from Ellie—or worse, Ellie deciding to go to Diana and mention he was in-tras-ded.

  Because he wasn’t. At all.

  Except for that kiss. Okay, and the one before that. And all the ones he had fantasized about since the day he met her. Those kisses had been an aberration, and for a man who rarely stepped outside the lines, an aberration equaled risk. Then why did he keep going back for more? Why couldn’t he have just ended it this winter and left things that way?

  God, he was a mess. The one thing Mike Stark hadn’t been in almost two decades. His brain kept up this constant tug-of-war between the world he knew and the world he glimpsed every time he was around Diana.

  Get a grip, get on schedule, get back to Alaska. That was the only cure Mike knew for what ailed him.

  Olivia returned to the car and leaned on Luke’s open window. “That’s weird. The shelter said that Diana just left. She said she might not be back before the end of the day. I’m going to stay and help, since she’s gone.” She pressed a kiss to Luke’s lips. “Bring me back a coconut almond cone.”

  “Your wish is my command.” He grinned, then kissed her again.

  Mike put the car in gear. “If this keeps up, I’m going to have to start taking Dramamine every time I see you two.”

  Luke chuckled and buckled his seatbelt. “Spoken like a man who wants the very same thing for himself.”

  “You’re wrong, my friend. Very, very wrong.” Maybe if Mike said it enough times, he’d believe the words, too.

  • • •

  Diana had run from the very thing she had wanted her entire life. Her father showed up, offered to talk—and what did Diana do?

  Make up a lame excuse about a doctor appointment and run out the door so fast, there’d been a dust cloud behind her. She’d gotten in her car, not knowing where she wanted to go, only that she wanted to go somewhere. To think. To recover. To deal.

  The sand was soft under her feet, sinking with each step like an accommodating host, welcoming her to the tranquility of the Gulf. It was late afternoon, nearly dinnertime, and few families dotted the beach. She had left her shoes in the car, loosened her hair from its usual ponytail, and let the ocean breeze tease and tangle the locks.

  She’d lived in Rescue Bay all her life, but in the last fifteen years, she could count on one hand the number of times she had come to the beach. She loved it here, loved the way the water seemed to ease a body’s stress just in the gentle swish-swish of the waves. Yet life got in the way, and too often, Diana was at the office instead of…

  Well, instead of anywhere. She went to work, she went home, and that was it. Kinda sad life for a woman in her thirties.

  The tide washed in around her ankles with swirling, soft caresses. Diana closed her eyes, drew in a breath, and just… was.

  After a moment, the hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she got the distinct feeling she was being watched. She opened her eyes, turned. At first, all she saw was the dark outline of a man, his tall silhouette offset by the sun. Then the shape moved forward and her breath caught and her heart stuttered.

  “I’ve come over here to tempt you.”

  Mike’s deep voice slid through her bones, settled in all those dark places inside her that craved one more night with him. “Tempt me? How?”

  God, she was a weak woman. Just the sight of him and the word tempt had her panting.

  He stepped out of the shadows and up to her, wearing that sexy grin she couldn’t resist. He was a full head taller than her, and every time he got close, she wanted to curve into his body, into the protective umbrella his size offered. She kept trying to remember why he was so wrong for her, but her hormones were screaming too loud.

  “With something I think you need right now. A lot.”

  A kiss? By God, yes, she needed a kiss. A repeat of that one in the kennel that had curled her toes and left her weak in the knees.

  It took her a second to connect Mike’s words with the item in his hands. A chocolate ice cream cone, dotted with chocolate sprinkles.

  “You bought me an ice cream?”

  He grinned. “Isn’t chocolate the only thing a woman wants when she’s stressed?”

  Diana took the ice cream and swirled a large chunk off the top with her tongue. She caught Mike watching her, and heat curled in her gut. “It’s not the only thing.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He took a s
tep closer, and now everything in her went hot, and the ice cream barely touched that heat. “What else does a woman want when she’s stressed?”

  One word, and Diana could ease this ache in her belly. Could make those fantasies stop… or at least make one of them come true. One word, and she could be back where she was in January, which was a very hot place indeed.

  Instead of saying that one word, she changed the subject and turned away so she wouldn’t be caught in his gaze anymore. “The ocean really is amazing, isn’t it? Just so bright and blue and pretty.”

  He came to stand beside her and share the view of the water of the Gulf whispering in and out against the sand. She could feel the heat of his body, warming her, tempting her, whispering its own siren call. A few inches to the left and she could be touching him, could have that heat against her.

  “Want to talk about it?” Mike said.

  “Talk about what?” She took another bite of ice cream. The dessert slid against her tongue, smooth and cold, followed by the sweetness of the sprinkles melting in her mouth. Perfect.

  “What had you running out of the shelter event and heading for the beach.”

  “I didn’t run out. I took a break. And I came here because it’s peaceful.”

  “So in other words, you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Fair enough.” Mike nodded. “I have a whole list of things I don’t want to talk about, too.”

  That piqued her curiosity. What did he keep off the conversational table? And why? She wanted to ask, but realized a person who didn’t want people to pry shouldn’t go around prying first. Yet she didn’t want him to leave, didn’t want to be alone with her ice cream and her thoughts just yet. “Then what should we talk about?”

  “Sex?” He grinned. “Or the weather.”

  She laughed, and took another bite of her ice cream. “Or we could talk about how you found me.”