“What’s going on tonight, Joe?” Jason sounded like he was afraid of the answer.
Joe smiled. “I plan to be busy.” He dropped the napkin on the table. “Clean up your mess, boys, and lock up when you leave.” He sauntered, all the way to the front door, pulling his jacket on as he went, and humming.
#
“Cakes need frosting. That’s why we have syrup.” Three-and-a-half-year-old Matilda Louise was about to pour said syrup over the two remaining bites of already-soaked pancake on her plate.
Emily managed to grab the pretty glass decanter in the nick of time, and said, “Baby, you’ve got plenty of syrup. Look, it’s formed a little pond in the middle of your plate.”
Frowning deeply, Matilda Louise crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. “I want more syrup and I wanna do it myself!”
If she’d had a camera on her, Emily would’ve snapped a photo just then. Her little girl was cute when she was mad, and too smart for her own good. Her gold and honey curls framed her face and decorated her forehead, and her round baby cheeks were as pink and plump as apples. A plastic tiara with pink “jewels” sat crookedly on her head.
Not for the first time, a wave of remorse washed over Emily for never telling Joey he had a little girl. Sure he hadn’t wanted her. But if he’d ever seen her… Who could look at Matilda and not love her?
“Honey, look how the syrup on your plate made a little puddle there? It’s almost like a swimming pool for your pancakes.”
Tilda looked. Her brows rose, and then a slow smile spread across her face. She stabbed an inch-sized square of pancake, lifted it way up over her head, and said, “Go swimmin’, pants-cake!” Then she smashed it down into the syrup puddle, and sticky droplets exploded in a dozen directions.
“Oh, Matilda….”
“Don’t you worry about that one little bit,” said Ida Mae, coming through the gorgeous hardwood double doors. She’d served them breakfast in a glass enclosed sunroom, all soft yellow paint and bright white trim, and those antique doors with the oval glass insets. After serving them, Ida Mae had left them to enjoy their incredible breakfast in private. She reappeared with a silver coffee pot, held it up with a question in her eyes, behind a pair of Mrs. Clause specs. “Refill?”
“Yes, please. And you have to let me help you clean up.”
“Nonsense.” She filled Emily’s cup. “You did a very good job on your breakfast, Miss Matilda,” she said. “And so…” She opened her palm to reveal a tiny red and white striped candy cane.
Matilda’s eyes widened. Then she shot a quick, worried look at her mom. “Can I?”
“Sure you can.”
She snatched the candy from Ida Mae’s soft palm so fast she knocked the syrup decanter over, but Emily caught it in time, met Ida Mae’s eyes, and they shared a smile. Then she turned back to her baby girl. “What do you say?”
“Thank you very much,” she said, pronouncing every syllable with exquisite care. “And for the breakfast, too. It was delicous.”
“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a little girl to cook for.”
“Don’t worry. It will be lunchtime before you know it.”
Ida Mae laughed out loud, then turned as the doorbell chimed. “I’ll go get that.” She hurried away, leaving the coffee pot on the table.
“I’ll go get that, too!” Matilda scooted off her chair and went running behind Ida Mae.
“Tilda, baby, it’s not your house.” Emily chased her toddler, catching up just as Ida Mae opened the front door to reveal tall, lean, handsome Joey McIntyre standing on the other side. And she froze, because the moment she’d been dreading and trying unsuccessfully to prepare for, had arrived. She wasn’t ready. She hadn’t decided how to tell him, what to say, how to explain…
But she didn’t have a choice. She met his eyes, and he met hers, and then he looked lower and saw Matilda Louise standing in front of Emily, gazing up at him with her big brown eyes, and Em realized all at once that they were his big brown eyes, too.
#
Joey almost fell over when he saw the miniature version of Emily standing four feet inside Ida Mae’s front door, with Emily behind her, hands on her tiny shoulders. There was no question the little girl was hers. She had Emily’s copper and honey curls, and her elfin nose. What a stunner she was, tiara and all.
He managed to regain his powers of speech, and said, “Good morning, Miss Ida Mae. I didn’t know you had a real live princess staying here.” Then he sketched a formal bow. “Good morning, your highness.”
The little girl giggled. “I’m not a real princess,” she said.
“You sure do look like one.”
Tilda smiled, and turned to hug her mom’s denim clad leg.
Emily stroked her curls. “Hi, Joey. This is my daughter, Matilda Louise. Tilda this is Joey. He’s an old friend of Mommy’s.”
The little girl released her mom’s leg, gripped both sides of her own flouncy skirt, and bent her knees in what he thought was supposed to be a curtsy. Joey’s heart melted. He had a thing for kids, and this one was a something special. “Nice to meet you.”
“Very nice to meet you, too.”
“Come on in, Joey,” Ida Mae said. “Why don’t you all visit in the sun room? I’ll bring a fresh coffee cup.”
“It’s this way,” Matilda said, and she grabbed Joey’s hand and took off. He didn’t have much choice but to follow. As they jogged past Em he sent her an apologetic smile.
He thought he heard her mutter something but couldn’t make it out, and then he was being pulled into the sunny former back porch of Ida Mae’s grand old house. The porch had been converted into the prettiest, sunniest little room ever, long and narrow, with a wall of window panes facing her back yard.
Ida Mae intercepted them before they could sit down at what had clearly been their breakfast table. “Over here, by the windows,” she said. “Nice and clean. I’ll clear that mess up and get right out your hair.”
She put the big silver coffee pot on the clean new table, added fresh cups, and a glass of juice for Tilda. Then she made quick work of clearing the other table.
Joey said, “That’s a nice swing set you’ve got out back, Ida Mae. Is that new?”
“New in June,” she said. “My boy Travis built it when he came to visit.”
“That’s amazing,” he said, admiring the wooden set and nodding.
“It has a climbing wall,” Matilda told him. “I climbed almost all the way up it already.”
“That’s probably higher than I could get,” he replied. “Ida Mae, remind me to get Travis’s number from you before I leave.”
“You want a swing set built?” she asked, amused.
“Among other things. There’s nothing for kids at the Long Branch, and there’s plenty of room. I was thinking a miniature golf course, a big swing set, maybe a go-cart track. And definitely a paintball target range.”
“My goodness, those are some big plans. I’ll jot down Trav’s number for you, hon. I’d love it if he had an excuse to spend some more time in town.” She nodded at Emily. “Just let me know if you need anything.” Then she headed out, carrying all the dishes and things from the breakfast table away with her.
Joey smiled and looked back at Emily. Then he frowned. She looked as tense and tight as he’d ever seen her, lips pressed into a small, straight line, eyes worried, and maybe damp.
He frowned at her, then looked at the little girl again. “Do you want to show me how you can climb the rock wall?”
“Yeah! Can I, can I?” she asked her mom. She was already on her feet and looking eagerly toward the back door.
Emily nodded. “If you’ll wear a jacket.”
“Why! It’s not cold. I’m hot already.” She stomped a foot, crossed her arms, and Joey had to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Em told him with her eyes not to dare laugh at her daughter’s defiance. He got the message. “I’m wearing my jacket,
” he said. “It looks nice out, but there’s a bite in the air.”
“A bite?” Tilda widened her eyes.
“That just means the air is cold, honey,” Emily said. She was already taking a jacket off the back of a nearby chair.
“Oh, is that your jacket?” Joey asked. “I love Dora, too. So does my little niece Dahlia. She’s five. How old are you, Tilda?”
“I’m almost four.”
“You’re three-and-a-half.”
“That’s almost four.”
“I’ll tell you what, my niece Dahlia, she would be jealous of that jacket.”
Smiling, Tilda took the jacket from her mother’s outstretched hands, ducked away when Em tried to help her put it on, and wrestled herself into it. It took about four times as long as it would have taken Emily to put it on her, but Joey knew the deal. She was at the I-can-do it-myself age.
She got the jacket on, then opened the glass-paned back door and hurried across the deck, down the steps and over to the swing set to begin climbing.
Joey held the door for Emily, who had filled both their cups and was carrying them outside. They sat on the steps and watched Matilda climb. Every few seconds, Tilda checked to make sure their attention was still on her.
“You didn’t tell me you had a little girl,” he said. “She’s beautiful, Em.”
“Thanks. I um…I was planning to introduce you to her. I just wasn’t quite ready yet.”
He frowned. That was an odd thing to say. And she seemed so tense and…wait a minute. The little girl had said she was almost four, and he started doing math in his head. “How close did you say she is to turning four?”
He watched her face. She closed her eyes.
“April,” she said. “She was born April thirtieth.”
“April.” He counted backwards from April, nine months, and the bottom fell out of his stomach. “Then she was conceived in July. That same July we…”
“Hey! You stopped watchin’!” Matilda called.
He stared at the little girl, then at her mother again. “Emily?”
Emily opened her eyes and met his. “Yes, she’s yours.”
He felt like a spiderwebbing fracture spread over his entire world in that moment. He had a little girl. He, Joe McIntyre, was a father.
And Emily had kept her from him for three years and seven months. He stared from the child to her mother and back again.
“Why in the name of God didn’t you tell me?” And then he frowned, and his anger heated up to a low simmer in his gut. “Where the hell do you get off, not telling me I have a little girl?”
“You don’t have a little girl. I do. And I’m telling you about her now.”
He got up to his feet, glaring down at her.
She got to hers as well. “You’re furious. I didn’t expect that.”
“What did you expect?”
“I expected you wouldn’t care any more now than you did then. I expected you’d assume this was some kind of a shakedown and demand a DNA test. Actually I still expect it, once the shock wears off.”
He just gaped at her. “What…what…what kind of a man do you think I am?”
“Same kind you always were. Selfish, spoiled, and aspiring to be the world’s richest playboy.”
“For love of God, Emily.”
“Mommy?”
“In a second, Tilda.” She looked at the little girl, then at him again. “You should go. Cool down, digest this. We’ll talk again.”
“You’re damn straight we’ll talk again.”
With that, he strode across the back lawn to the little girl, crushing his anger down inside him with every bit of will he owned. He looked at her, there on the fake rock-climbing wall with the sunshine making her hair look like spun gold. Reaching out, he touched a soft curl, and his throat closed up. “You’re about the prettiest little girl in the whole state of Oklahoma, you know that?”
Her smile lit her whole face.
“I have to go right now, but I want you to know, I’ll be back. And if you need help with anything, anything at all, ever, I’m your guy. Okay?”
She nodded, frowning, maybe sensing his overwhelming emotions. Emily was coming right up behind him, all nervous and jerky, like she thought he might snatch her or something.
“I do got one problem,” she said softly, and very seriously.
His heart melted. “What is it?”
“I’m afraid Santa won’t be able to find me on Christmas Eve.”
He wanted to pull her off the rock wall, hug her to him, and never let go. But he didn’t want to scare her. To her, he was just a stranger. Because of Emily, she didn’t even know she had a daddy.
“Well, you’re in luck, little lady. Santa's a personal friend of mine.” He glanced back at Emily to be sure she would hear every word. “I’m taking my niece and two nephews to see him this afternoon, as a matter of fact. I’ll take you too, if you want.”
“Joey, I don’t think that’s—”
“Please, Mommy? Pleeeaase, can I go see Santa?
He turned to Emily. “He’s in the park in town. You can be there too, if you want. It’s not a big deal.”
She looked at him as if his words confused her. But finally, she nodded. “Okay. All right, we’ll come.”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you at the diner by the park at four.” Then he leaned in closer, almost to her ear, and whispered, “You’d better be there, Emily. You try to take off with my child, and I’ll follow and I’ll find you. And you know I have the resources to do it.”
Chapter Three
After Joey stormed around the boarding house to the front and took off, his oversized truck roaring like an agitated bull, Emily stood there, trembling from her head to her toes and seething.
How dare he? How dare he call Tilda his child and how dare he use his filthy money to threaten to take her?
If he thought he could push her around like that, he’d better think again, because—
“Mommy, I don’t feel very good.”
She spun to face her little girl, realizing she’d taken her eyes off her for at least thirty seconds. Disaster could have rained down. But the only disaster was that Matilda was leaning on the rock wall with her hands on her tummy. “I think I had too many pants-cakes.”
Em’s own stomach tied itself into a knot and she hurried to Tilda, feeling her forehead, looking into her eyes. It’s just the pancakes. She ate four of them and a cup of syrup. That’s all it is.
Please God, let that be all it is.
Scooping her little girl up, she carried her inside, holding her close. “I’m gonna find us a doctor, baby, and make sure you’re okay.”
“But I still get to see Santa with the nice cowboy, right?”
Emily nodded. “Right.” She needed to make nice with Joey McIntyre and his family, regardless of their treacherous, heartless, money-grubbing ways. She needed them.
Matilda needed them.
Ida Mae saw her as she moved through the house toward the stairs, and came hurrying behind them. “Is everything all right? Did she fall?”
“Belly ache,” Emily said.
“Too many pants-cakes,” Matilda moaned with an extra helping of drama.
“I’m sure she’s fine, but um…is there a local doctor or clinic? You know, just in case.”
“Sure is, hon. I could throw a stone and hit it. You want me to give Doc Sophie a call?”
“If you could just get me the number…”
“Of course. Take her on upstairs, honey, I’ll jot it down and bring it along.”
Emily carried her girl up the stairs, into their beautiful two room suite, and set her down on the claw footed sofa. Its fabric was red, swirled with pink roses and vivid green vines. A flat screen TV was hidden behind the beautifully tooled wooden doors of an armoire, so as not to clash with the Victorian theme of the place. She opened those doors and worked the remote to find a cartoon. By the time she had a pillow tucked behind Matilda, a blanket over her, and a digita
l thermometer in her mouth, Ida Mae was tapping on the door.
“Come in,” Em called.
Ida Mae did, just as Emily pulled the thermometer out of Tilda’s mouth and took a look. “Ninety-eight point four,” she said aloud.
“You know, she looks perfectly fine to me,” Ida Mae said. “Better than you do at the moment.” She leaned in and handed her a three-by-five index card with a phone number written on it.
Emily took it, nodded. “I’m sure she’s fine. Thank you, Ida Mae.”
“Are you fine, though?” Ida Mae was looking from Matilda to Emily over and over, her eyes wise and curious. “You have reason to react this strongly to a tummy ache, Emily?”
Em looked up from the phone number card, caught the woman’s probing eyes and said, “I’d better make this call. Thanks, Ida Mae.”
Taking the hint, Ida Mae nodded and said, “I’ll leave you to it, then. You just call me if you need anything, though. Anything at all.”
“I will. Thanks again.”
Nodding, she left.
Emily looked her baby over, running her palm over her little forehead repeatedly, pushing her curls back. “Does it still hurt, honey?”
“Yes. Awful.” She thrust out her lower lip to emphasize how bad she felt.
Em got out her cell phone and tapped in the number. The phone rang. A cheerful female voice answered. “Dr. McIntyre’s office. How can I help you?”
“M-McIntyre?” She blurted stupidly.
Matilda sat up on the sofa, her eyes going wide. “I gotta go potty! I gotta go!”
“I-I’ll call you back,” Emily said. She ended the call, tossed the phone, grabbed her little girl and ran for the bathroom. She set her on the toilet, and Matilda Louise scrunched up her entire face, bared her teeth, and passed a loud, long fart.
Then she giggled and giggled and giggled. “That was nasty!” she said.
“Very nasty.” Em waved her hand in front of her face, helped Tilda down, gave her an unnecessary clean up and righted her britches. “How do you feel now?”
Tilda put her hands on her middle, then said, “Hey! My tummy’s all better!”
Oklahoma Starshine Page 3