Date With a Single Dad

by Ally Blake

  ‘Try playing me at any board game on the planet and you’ll be singing another tune, my friend.’

  Instead he chose another indoor game, which left them both winners.

  And afterwards, scads of coffee or no coffee, Meg fell asleep on the floor of the pool house, wrapped in his old, warm, soft, favourite, red, woollen blanket and in his arms. Her face peaceful, the dark rings beneath her eyes gone.

  Content. Happy. Home.

  EPILOGUE

  SIX weeks after making Juniper Falls her home, and a little over a month after Quinn Kelly’s colossal and extremely moving state funeral—attended by no less than three foreign heads of state—Meg stood waiting at the gates of the Juniper Falls resort. Her high ponytail bounced about her shoulders as she hopped on the spot, and her hot-pink high heels kept getting stuck in the grass.

  She glanced down at her brand-new engagement ring—a pink diamond solitaire as chosen by fashionista-in-the-making Ruby—glittering beautifully on her left hand and thought for about the hundredth time that her life couldn’t feel any different than it had two months before.

  Quite apart from becoming more at home with her spectacularly beautiful new digs, her new man, and the new little girl in her life, she was still attending sporadic events as Meg Kelly, the face of the Kelly family, ones she had hand-picked herself. She was still volunteering at least twice a week at the Valley Women’s Shelter, only now she did so without any kind of disguise, internal or external, and the satisfaction it gave her had increased a hundredfold.

  But this day, at the beginning of the next to last week of the summer school holidays, she was going to work for her new family’s business.

  A big white bus finally came through the Juniper Falls gates. It had barely pulled to a stop when what seemed like a thousand kids spilled out. Bedraggled urchins the lot of them. With dark eyes all but popping out of their pale faces as they took in elegant Waratah House and the lushly encroaching rainforest.

  Meg clapped her hands loud enough for the group to quiet down. ‘Okay, guys, I need you to do me a big favour and get yourself organised in one long line, alphabetical by first name.’

  ‘What if two of us have the same name?’ a big kid with a missing front tooth asked.

  ‘Excellent question. Then the one with the longest big toe goes up top. Right?’

  A couple of kids whipped off their shoes and holey socks, just in case.

  Meg grinned. ‘If you have it done in five minutes, there’s ice cream waiting for you in the restaurant.’

  The loudest whoop she’d ever heard had her holding her hands over her ears and running for the side of the bus as the kids frantically introduced themselves to one another, which was the actual point of the exercise.

  After the bus driver, whom Meg waved up the hill towards food, Zach was the last to hop off the bus. He looked as raggedy and wide-eyed as the rest of them. After an hour’s trip up the mountain with this lot she wasn’t surprised.

  She sidled up to him and wrapped her arm around his waist. ‘There’s my big, brave, manly man. You survived.’

  He said, ‘The week’s not over yet.’

  Together they watched the Juniper Falls ground crew, headed by Felicia—now the resort’s official Children’s Activities Co-ordinator as well as Ruby’s some time babysitter—keeping the kids whipped into an eager frenzy.

  ‘I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness Ruby’s a reader not a runner,’ Zach said.

  Meg bit her lip. She knew better. The first time she’d seen Ruby she’d been swinging up a storm, her clothes covered in evidence of further adventure. But that was another mystery her dad would never have to know about. Now there was an extra pair of eyes looking out for Ruby, eyes experienced in the ways of feisty young girls, those mysteries ought to become fewer and further between.

  Meg laid a hand on Zach’s chest. ‘I’ve babysat Brendan’s girls a thousand times. Believe me, let them run it out and they’ll sleep where they fall come dark.’

  ‘From your mouth to God’s ears.’

  They watched on in silence as the rowdy kids walked single file towards the restaurant.

  ‘Can you believe they’re really here?’ she asked.

  Zach shook his head.

  An idea Zach had thrown out over dinner one night had become Meg’s obsession. The whole week at the resort had been booked out for a hundred pre-teens, some treading water in the foster system, others from families who’d been through Meg’s shelter.

  Zach had put out word within the Olympic fraternity and several well-known athletes would run them ragged. The resort’s staff would teach them things like how to resolve issues with words not fists. Rock-star mates of Meg’s were to host a couple of dance parties, celebrity chefs to cook up healthy, fun food. And they’d be spoilt rotten.

  But best of all, exposing these kids to Zach’s story, and subsequent success, would broaden the horizons they dared to reach for. Exposing Meg to these kids had already broadened hers more than she’d thought possible.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder as a mass squeal of delight echoed from the restaurant.

  Zach said, ‘I hate that Ruby’s missing this.’

  ‘She’ll be back in a couple of days, so she won’t miss much. I know I’ve said so a hundred times, but thanks for letting Mum have her. Ruby will be a brilliant influence on Brendan’s girls, and having all three girls has been the highlight of Mum’s month. She’s promised not to mention croquet lessons, or Baroque appreciation classes or a course in commedia dell’arte.’

  Zach nodded silently, his back ramrod straight.

  ‘You’ve got used to having her home these holidays, haven’t you?’ she asked.

  He slid a hand over her hair, tugging the end of her ponytail, and nodded.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Me too. We don’t really have to send her back to school next week, do we?’

  He kissed the top of her head. ‘You’re the one who came from the good family—how did you end up being the bad influence?’

  ‘I’m Libran. I will do anything to make people love me.’

  ‘Mmm, and there I was thinking people couldn’t help loving you just because you’re you. And all along it was the accident of your birth.’

  ‘Happy accident?’ she asked, looking up at him again.

  He appeared to think about it for a moment. Then two.

  Meg moved to pinch his arm, but he caught her hand in time and held it behind her back. Heat slid through her centre, the kind that still caught her off guard after all these weeks, the kind she didn’t see herself ever getting used to.

  And then he kissed her with the kind of sweet, sensitive, all-consuming passion she never planned on getting used to.

  Eons later they pulled apart when the sound of big tyres crunching against the white gravel drive split the peaceful silence.

  The next of the four remaining buses was pulling in, and Dylan’s harrowed face was peering out the front window. Tabitha bouncing about next to him the likely reason.

  Meg grabbed Zach’s hand and pulled him inside the first bus. They jogged to the back bench seat and hunkered down with Meg atop Zach’s lap, her arms about his neck so that they could watch from a covert vantage point as Tabitha, Dylan and his fiancée, Wynnie, attempted to corral their group.

  ‘You should have let Rylie do a series on her TV show about what we’re doing here this week, you know,’ Meg said. ‘The publicity would have been amazing.’

  ‘It would have. If we wanted publicity.’

  The public figure and the private benefactor in Meg both struggled to be given free rein. ‘But think of the fundraising opportunity—’

  ‘I have more than enough funds to do this any time I want.’

  She sat up straight. ‘As do I. But I wish the world knew what an amazing man you are.’

  ‘So long as you know, and Ruby has a vague sense of it, and your family suspects, then the world can think whatever it wants.’

 
‘You know what else?’ Meg asked, curling closer. ‘This way I get to keep you all to myself. And talking of having you to myself, how many sleeps till we head off to St Barts for the Grand Opening?’

  ‘Ah, twelve.’ He ran a finger down her nose before sliding it beneath her chin. ‘We still have time for it to be a honeymoon instead, you know.’

  Though the idea felt just as thrilling now as the first time he’d suggested it, she knew that she wanted her family, her whole extended family, to be a part of the happy day when it finally came.

  ‘A quickie wedding?’ she said. ‘A four-day honeymoon? Sometimes I think you don’t know me at all.’

  The finger beneath her chin moved to slide behind her ear and she struggled not to purr.

  ‘Fine. Then when we get back,’ he said, his voice gentle, ‘can we continue that talk from the other night?’

  She nodded. Her next breath in shook. And then she smiled. ‘We can do better than that. I made an appointment with a fertility specialist at Monash IVF in Melbourne for not long after we come home. They practically invented the procedure, so if we’re going to start finding out the possibilities of maybe one day having another child, then that’s where we start.’

  Zach leaned in to plant a kiss on her lips. Talk about heartwarming. ‘No matter what happens, always know I’ll always love you.’

  She kissed him back. ‘Always know I’ll always love you too.’

  He nodded. Promise sealed. He moved in for another kiss, when Meg stayed him with a finger.

  ‘I just had a horrible thought,’ Meg said, biting back a grin.

  Zach’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do I really want to know?’

  ‘What if Ruby asks for commedia dell’arte classes?’

  ‘I’m not going to be the one to say no.’

  ‘Yeah, me neither. They were actually kind of fun. Oh, look.’

  The next bus pulled up and Cameron and his wife, Rosie, stood at the front clapping madly and singing some travel song they’d forced on the poor kids in their bus.

  ‘You know what else is fun?’ Zach said, nuzzling against Meg’s ear.

  She turned back to face him. ‘Do I really want to know?’

  Zach slowly pressed Meg down against the leather seat, waved at her the keys he’d used to lock the bus door, and grinned. ‘Yeah, you really want to know.’

  Proud Rancher,

  Precious Bundle

  Donna Alward

  About the Author

  A busy wife and mother of three (two daughters and the family dog), DONNA ALWARD believes hers is the best job in the world—a combination of stay-at-home mum and romance novelist. An avid reader since childhood, Donna always made up her own stories. She completed her arts degree in English literature in 1994, but it wasn’t until 2001 that she penned her first full-length novel and found herself hooked on writing romance. In 2006, she sold her first manuscript, and now writes warm, emotional stories for the Harlequin Romance line. In her new home office in Nova Scotia, Donna loves being back on the east coast of Canada after nearly twelve years in Alberta, where her career began, writing about cowboys and the west. Donna’s debut Romance, Hired by the Cowboy, was awarded the Booksellers Best Award in 2008 for Best Traditional Romance. With the Atlantic Ocean only minutes from her doorstep, Donna has found a fresh take on life and promises even more great romances in the near future! Donna loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website at www.donnaalward.com, visit her MySpace page at www.myspace.com/dalward, or through her publisher.

  To my girly girls, Ash and Kate.

  Love you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  OF ALL THE MISHAPS that had happened today—stubborn cattle, broken gates, his ATV running out of gas—Wyatt Black definitely hadn’t seen this one coming.

  His boots scuffed in the dust leading to the sagging porch, his gaze riveted on the oddly shaped lump next to his front door. It was rounded and … pink. Pink? After a pause, he quickened his steps. A sound came from the bundle, a small squeaking sound.

  Three steps later his heart pounded as his eyes confirmed his initial assessment. It was, indeed, a baby seat. For a few brief moments he’d nearly convinced himself he was seeing things. But there was no mistaking the pink canopy. He took the veranda steps slowly, confused. What the hell?

  Two steps away from the seat he could see a small white chubby hand, the fingers curled in, delicate pink fingernails tipping the tiny digits.

  And then there she was. A small mite of a thing, eyes closed and lips sucking gently in and out with her breath as her hands moved restlessly. A hint of dark fuzz peeked out from beneath a stretchy pink hat, and a blanket patterned with white and pink teddy bears covered all of her but her hands. A baby. And beside her a navy-and-white cloth bag, as if announcing she was staying for a while.

  Wyatt’s heart raced as the necessary questions flew through his mind. He put down his toolbox with a quiet thud. Who was this child’s mother and, more importantly, where was she? Why had a baby been left on his doorstep?

  It was inconceivable that this miniature human could be meant for him. There had to be some mistake. The alternative was momentarily staggering. Was it possible that she might be his flesh and blood? He stared at the lashes lying on her china-doll cheeks. She was so little. He counted back several months, then breathed out in relief. No, it was impossible. A year ago he’d been outside Rocky Mountain House working as a roughneck. There’d been no one. He had always kept his relationships on the unserious side and short. There’d been no sense letting a woman get her hopes up when he hadn’t been in a position to settle down. He wasn’t into playing games.

  He exhaled fully. No, this baby wasn’t his—he was sure of it. The core of tension in his body eased slightly, but not completely. The baby couldn’t be his, but that still left the question—whose was she?

  And what was he supposed to do with her?

  As if hearing his question, she lifted her fringe of black lashes and he caught sight of dark eyes. The hands waved even more as she woke. Then, as if knowing he was the last person she should see, her face scrunched up pitifully and a thin cry pierced the silence.

  He breathed a profanity in shock and dismay. He couldn’t just leave her there crying, for God’s sake! What should he do now? He knew nothing about babies. He glanced around the yard and up the road, knowing it was a futile exercise. Whoever had left her on his doorstep was long gone.

  He reached out and grasped the white plastic handle of the car seat, picking it up with his right hand and tugging open the front door with his left. He certainly had to get the baby out of the September chill—surely it couldn’t be good for her. He didn’t even stop to take off his boots, just went straight through to the kitchen at the rear of the house and put the seat on a worn countertop. The thin cry echoed—seeming sharper, stronger in the confined space. Wyatt took off his hat and hooked it over the knob of a kitchen chair before turning back to the unhappy bundle.

  He lifted the blanket, momentarily marveling that a creature so tiny and fragile could emit such a shrill, ear-piercing cry. A quick search of the recesses of the seat revealed no clues to her identity, and he ran a hand through his hair as the cries increased, feet wiggling furiously now as well as hands.

  “Shhh, baby,” he murmured, his stomach sinking beneath the weight of the situation. He couldn’t just leave her this way. He reached out to unfasten the buckle strapping her in and pulled back once he caught a glimpse of his hands. He’d been herding stubborn cattle and fixing run-down fences all morning. Pulse still hammering, he rushed to the sink and the bar of soap he kept on the rim in an old chipped dish.

  He scrubbed his hands in the water, all the while looking over his shoulder at the baby, his nerves fraying as the cries grew more impatient. Instinct told him that he should pick her up. Babies needed to be soothed, right? After all, he’d be pretty ticked off at being strapped into a seat all day. He threw the hand towel next to the sink and went back to the seat. “S
hhh,” he repeated, desperate now to stop the crying. “I’ve got you. Just stop crying.”

  He released the strap and reached out, took the baby, blanket and all, from the seat and rested her on the crook of his arm.

  The red blotchy face signaled more crying, and the wee body stiffened with outrage.

  “Hey,” Wyatt cajoled, wondering now if he shouldn’t call 911. Surely this was an emergency. How many people came home to find a baby on their doorstep, after all?

  How had this possibly happened?

  Dimly he recalled that a bag had been on the veranda along with the seat. It was his best hope for a clue, he realized, so, baby and all, he opened the sagging screen door with his hip and retrieved the bag. His boots thunked on the scarred hardwood as he went back to the kitchen and the counter, putting the bag on top. Trying to ignore the crying, he wrestled the zipper with one hand while holding the baby tightly with his other arm. Perhaps in here there would be a name, an address. Some way to sort out this horrible mistake and return the baby to where she really belonged.

  He pulled out a handful of tiny diapers, then a pair of pajamas with soft feet, and a stuffed animal. One, two, three bottles … and a can of some sort of powder added to the collection on the counter. Then more bottles. He ran his hand along the inside of the bag. More clothes, but nothing else.

  Irritation flared, now that the initial shock was fading away. This was craziness, pure and simple. For God’s sake, what kind of person left a baby on a stranger’s porch and walked away? What kind of mother would do such a thing? What if he hadn’t come back for lunch and she’d been left there all day? He let out a frustrated breath. Okay. Without a doubt the smart thing to do would be to call the police.

  And then he felt it. Something stiff near the front of the bag. He lifted a Velcro tab and reached into a front pocket. An envelope.

  Adjusting the baby’s weight on his arm, he opened the flap, went to a kitchen chair and sat down. Heavily.