Date With a Single Dad

by Ally Blake

His eyes scanned the page. As if sensing something important were occurring, the infant quieted and she plunged a fist into her mouth, sucking noisily and whimpering. Wyatt read the brief words, his back sagging into the chair, staring at the plain paper and then at the tiny girl in his hands.

  Holy jumpin’ Judas.

  Her name was Darcy. He said her name, tried it out on his tongue, his throat closing as the sound of his voice faded away in the quiet kitchen. The answer that greeted him was a fresh wail punctuated by a sad hiccup.

  The break had helped only to increase the baby’s vocal reserves. Her crying rose to a fever pitch and Wyatt closed his eyes, still reeling from the contents of the letter. He had to make her stop so he could think what to do next. His stomach rumbled loudly, reminding him why he’d come back to the house in the first place.

  Maybe she was hungry, too.

  As the inspiration struck he grabbed one of the bottles off the counter where he’d unloaded the diaper bag. At the first touch of plastic nipple to lips, Darcy opened her mouth and frantically started sucking at the milk inside. That was it! A sense of pride and relief raced through him as he went to the living room, sitting on the old couch with its sagging cushions and wiggling arms. He leaned back, rested his feet on a wood box he had pressed into use as a coffee table. Blessed silence filled the room as she drained the small bottle, her tiny body nestled into the crook of his elbow. She felt foreign there, unlike anything he’d ever held before. Not unpleasant. Just … different.

  Her eyes drifted closed once more. Had he actually put her to sleep, as well? Thank God. With some peace and quiet, he could take a look at that letter again, try to sort it out. One thing was for sure … Darcy—whoever she was—couldn’t stay here.

  The little lips slackened and a dribble of milk slid down her chin into the soft skin of her neck. He was struck by how tiny, how helpless she was. As gently as he possibly could, he slid her back into her seat and covered her with the blanket. Then he went to the fridge, got out an apple to substitute for the lunch he’d missed. He took a bite and returned to the letter he’d left open on the table.

  He read it again, and again, and once more for good measure. Half his brain told him there was some mistake. The other half, the part that nagged and taunted him each day of his life, nudged him cruelly and said he shouldn’t be surprised. The apple tasted dry and mealy in his mouth, and he swallowed with difficulty.

  Darcy was his niece.

  Born to a sister he’d pretended hadn’t existed.

  He rubbed a hand over his face. Oh, he’d known for a long time that his father wouldn’t win any awards for parent of the year. But he recognized the name at the bottom of the plain sheet. Barbara Paulsen had been two years behind him in high school. All the kids had known that she had no dad. She’d borne her share of ridicule, all right. Bastard Barb, they’d called her. He cringed, thinking about the cruelty of it now. He’d never joined in the teasing. It would have been too easy for the tables to be turned. He’d deserved the name as much as she had. There’d been rumors back then, of his father having an affair with Barb’s mother. Barbara’s dark hair and eyes had been so similar to his—and to Mitch Black’s.

  He’d always hated that he’d favored his father rather than his mother in looks. He didn’t want to be anything like his father. Ever.

  He’d chosen to turn a deaf ear to the rumors, but inside, a small part of him had always taunted that it was true.

  According to the letter, they shared the same father. It wasn’t much of a stretch for Wyatt to believe her. It had been no secret in his house that Mitch Black had married Wyatt’s mother to do the right thing after getting her in trouble. And it had been a disaster.

  Wyatt scowled, staring at the wall behind the table. Hell, even dead, his father still created ripples of destruction. Now Barbara—claiming to be his sister—found herself in the same position, and was asking for his help. Temporarily. But asking for it just the same.

  The fact that she had left Darcy on his step meant one of two things. Either she was as great a parent as their father had been, or she was desperate. Reading between the lines of the letter, he was leaning toward desperation.

  But it didn’t solve a damn thing where he was concerned. He was now in possession of an infant. And he was a single man, trying to run a ranch, who knew nothing about babies. Maybe he should simply call the authorities.

  He ran a hand over his face, heaving a sigh. The authorities, though, would call child welfare. He knew that much. And if Barbara were truly his half sister, she’d already suffered enough. He’d made no contact with her since leaving Red Deer. It had been easier to pretend she didn’t exist. Easier to ignore yet another symbol of the disrespect Mitch had shown his family.

  No, if he called, Family Services would take the baby away. Not just from him, but maybe from her, too, and the thought made his stomach clench.

  Once he made the call, there would be no taking it back. What he needed to do was buy some time. He needed to talk to Barbara. Figure out the whole situation and make a better decision.

  An ear-splitting scream shattered the air, scattering his thoughts into tiny fragments and making his eyes widen with the sheer panic echoing in his ears. He looked over—Darcy’s face was red and the cries had a new, desperate edge to them. What now? He walked the floor, holding Darcy in the crook of his arm, at his wit’s end. Until today, he’d never held a baby in his life.

  He needed help. Even to make it through this one day so he could figure out what to do next. Maybe he shouldn’t, but he felt responsible. Even if it turned out not to be true, he felt an obligation to make the right decision. It wasn’t Darcy’s fault she’d been left here. If what Barbara Paulsen said was true, she was family.

  You shouldn’t turn your back on family. He’d always believed it somehow, but had never had the chance to prove it.

  His muscles tensed at the persistent wails. He couldn’t do this, not alone. Who could he possibly call? His parents had been gone nearly five years. He’d been in the house only for the summer, after drifting around the upper half of Alberta for years now, earning his fortune in the oil patch and never staying in one place for long. He was alone, and for the most part that was how he liked it.

  Until now. Right now he could really use a helping hand.

  And then he remembered his neighbor. Not technically his neighbor either. He’d met Ellison Marchuk exactly once. She was housesitting for the Camerons, and despite being incredibly attractive, had no more sense than God gave a flea. Whatever possessed a woman to go traipsing through a pasture housing his bull—in search of flowers!—was beyond him. And then she’d had the nerve to call him grouchy, with a toss of her summer-blond hair. Grouchy as a wounded bear, if memory served correctly.

  Ellison Marchuk would not have been his first choice, but she was a woman and she was next door, both qualifications that put her head and shoulders above anyone else he knew. Surely she would have some idea what to do with a baby. At this point, looking at the tiny face twisted in agony, anyone would know what to do better than he did. His nerves were fraying more by the minute. He just needed help quieting her crying. He’d take it from there.

  Amidst the shrieking cries and against his better judgment, he wrapped the blanket around Darcy and headed for the door.

  Elli rubbed her eyes and slid a bookmark into the textbook, pushing it to the side. If she read any more today about profit-and-loss statements she’d go cross-eyed by the end of the week. Taking the courses by correspondence had benefits and drawbacks. Still, they’d help her get back on her feet, something she needed to do sooner rather than later. Being laid off from the hospital was just the icing on the cake after the year from hell. It was time to take action. To find a purpose again.

  Right now she just wanted a cup of hot chocolate and something to break up her day—make her stop thinking. She’d had way too much time to think lately. About all her failures, mostly.

  She jumped as someon
e pounded on the front door, and she pressed a hand to her heart. She still wasn’t used to the way things echoed around the vaulted ceilings of the Camerons’ house, including the sound of her footsteps as she went to the foyer. The house was so different from the condo she’d shared with Tim in Calgary. It had been nice, in a good area of town, but this was …

  She sighed. This was exactly what Tim had aspired to. This was the sort of McMansion he’d mapped out for them. Maybe he’d get it yet. Just not with her.

  The pounding sounded again. She peered through the judas hole and her mouth dropped open. It was the neighbor, the new rancher who lived next door. Her teeth clenched as she recalled their one and only meeting. Wyatt Black, he’d informed her in a tone that could only be considered brusque at best. He’d yelled at her and called her stupid. The remark had cut her deeply. Normally she would have brushed off the insult—she’d been called so many names as a clerk in the emergency room that she’d developed a thick skin. But in light of recent events, it had made her eyes burn with humiliation. She’d called him something, too, but she couldn’t remember what. She vaguely remembered it had been more polite than the words going through her mind at the time. She’d stomped back to the house and hadn’t seen him since.

  Now here he was, all six brawny feet of him. Elli pressed her eye up to the peephole once more and bit down on her lip. Dark hair and stormy eyes and a mouth pulled tight in a scowl. And in his arms …

  Dear Lord. A baby.

  As he knocked on the door again, Elli jumped back. Now she could hear the thin cries threading through the solid oak. She reached out and turned the heavy knob, pulling the door inward, and stepped out into the afternoon sun.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Elli’s eardrums received the full blast of the infant’s cries mediated only by Wyatt’s deep but stressed, voice.

  “What on earth?”

  Mr. Dark and Scowly stepped forward, enough that his body started to invade her space, and she stepped back in reflex.

  “Please, just tell me what to do. She won’t stop crying.”

  Whatever Elli’s questions, they fled as she looked from his harried expression down into the scrunched, unhappy face. First things first. Her heart gave a painful twist at the sight of the baby. He clearly expected her to know what to do. She hated how her hands shook as she reached out for the soft bundle. The little girl was clearly in discomfort of some kind. And this rancher—Black—was certainly not calming her in the least.

  Elli pushed the door open farther with her hip, inviting him in as she moved aside, trying to ignore her body’s response to feeling the small, warm body in her arms. This baby was not William. She could do this. She pasted on an artificial smile. “What’s her name?”

  He swallowed thickly as he stepped over the threshold, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Elli’s gaze locked on it for a moment before looking up into his face. He had the most extraordinary lips, the bottom one deliciously full above a chin rough with a hint of stubble. The lips moved as she watched. “Darcy. Her name is Darcy.”

  Elli felt the warm little bundle in her arms, the weight foreign, painful, yet somehow very right. She pressed a hand to the tiny forehead, feeling for fever. “She’s not warm. Do you think she’s ill?”

  Black came in, shutting the door behind him, and Elli felt nerves swim around in her stomach. He was not a pleasant man. And yet there was something in his eyes. It looked like worry, and it helped ameliorate her misgivings.

  “I was hoping you could tell me. One minute she was asleep, the next she was screaming like a banshee.” He raised his voice a bit to be heard over the screaming racket.

  Her, tell him? She knew next to nothing about babies, and the very reminder of the fact hurt, cutting deep into her bones. She scoured her mind for the things she’d learned about soothing babies from the books she’d bought and the prenatal classes she’d attended. Food seemed the most obvious. “Did you try feeding her?”

  “She seemed to be fine after I gave her the bottle from the bag,” he explained, rubbing a hand over his hair. “She drank the whole thing, sucked it right down.”

  Elli wrinkled her brow, trying to recall if Sarah Cameron had mentioned that their reticent neighbor had a child. She didn’t think so. He certainly didn’t act like a man who’d come into contact with babies before. He was staring at her and Darcy with his eyes full of concern—and panic.

  A detail pierced her memory, a remnant of classes taken what seemed like a lifetime ago. “Did you heat the milk?”

  The full lips dropped open slightly and his cheekbones flattened. “I was supposed to heat it?”

  Elli’s shoulders relaxed and she let out a small chuckle, relieved. Immediately she lifted the baby to her shoulder and began rubbing her back with firm circles. “She’s probably got cramps,” she said above the pitiful crying. It seemed the easiest solution at the moment. She began patting Darcy’s back. Hungry, gas, cramps. Elementary. At least she could fake knowing what she was doing.

  “I didn’t know,” he replied, a light blush infusing his cheeks beneath the stubble. “I don’t know anything about babies.”

  “You might as well take off your boots and come in for a minute,” Elli replied, not wanting to admit that she knew little more than he did and determined to bluff her way through it. She knew she’d made a mistake going into his bull pasture earlier this summer and she already knew what he thought of her common sense. She’d be damned if she’d let him see a weakness again.

  They couldn’t stand in the foyer forever. An enormous burp echoed straight up to the rafters and a laugh bubbled up and out of Elli’s lips at the violence of the sound coming from such a tiny package. She was pleased at having discovered the cause and solution quite by accident. The expression on Black’s face conveyed such abject surprise that she giggled again.

  “I’m Ellison Marchuk,” she introduced herself, her shoulder growing warm from the soft breath of the baby as she sighed against her sweater. “I don’t think we met properly last time.”

  “I remember,” he replied, and Elli felt the heat of a blush creep up her neck straight to her ears. “Wyatt Black, in case you forgot,” he continued pointedly. “Thank you. My ears are still ringing. I was at my wit’s end.”

  Elli ignored the subtle dig. Of course she remembered meeting him. It wasn’t every day a perfect stranger yelled at her and called her names. She was more polite than that, and had been making an attempt to start fresh. She lifted her chin. “You’re welcome, Wyatt Black.”

  Goodness, Elli thought as the name rolled off her tongue. The name matched him perfectly. She watched with her pulse drumming rapidly as he pushed off his boots with his toes. Even in his stocking feet, he topped her by a good four inches. His shoulders were inordinately broad in a worn flannel shirt. And his jeans were faded in all the right places.

  She swallowed. She needed to get out more. Maybe she’d been hiding out in the Camerons’ house a little too long, if she was reacting to the irascible next-door neighbor in such a way. Especially a neighbor with rotten manners.

  Elli led the way through the foyer into the living room, determined to be gracious. The room faced the backyard, then south over the wide pasture where Wyatt’s herd now grazed—the very pasture where she’d indulged herself in picking late-summer wildflowers in an attempt to cheer herself up. The fields here were huge. She’d had no idea she was in the same pasture as one of his bulls.

  “The Camerons have a nice place.” His voice came from behind her. “I haven’t been inside before.”

  “My father used to work for Cameron Energy,” Elli remarked. “The Camerons are like second parents to me.”

  Wyatt remained silent behind her and Elli added lack of conversational skills to his repertoire of faults.

  She took him straight to the conversation pit with its plush furniture. Windows filled the wall behind them, flooding the room with light, while French doors led out to a large deck. She gestured toward a chair, inv
iting him to sit. “Would you like her back now? She seems much more contented.”

  She held out her arms with Darcy now blinking innocently, her dark eyes focused on nothing in particular.

  “She looks happy where she is,” Wyatt replied, looking away.

  Elli took a step back and went to the sofa. She sat down and put Darcy gently beside her. He couldn’t know how caring for a child—even in such a minor way—hurt her. She worked hard to push away the bitterness. If things had gone right, she would have been in her own home cradling her own son right now. She blinked a couple of times and forced the thoughts aside. It could not be changed.

  “Won’t she fall off?” Wyatt’s hard voice interrupted.

  The rough question diverted her from overthinking. She didn’t know. How old were babies when they could start rolling over? She didn’t want him to see her indecision, and she adjusted the baby on the sofa so she was lying safely, perpendicular to the edge of the couch.

  “How old is she?” Elli guessed at a month, maybe six weeks. She still held that newborn daintiness. A precious little bundle who had been through what appeared to be a rough day if the mottled, puffy cheeks were any indication. Could a day with Wyatt Black be described in any other way? Elli ran a finger down the middle of the sleepers, smiling softly as the little feet kicked with pleasure. At least she’d elicited a positive response rather than more crying.

  When Wyatt didn’t answer her question, though, she looked back at him again. He was watching her speculatively, his eyes slightly narrowed as if he were trying to read her thoughts. She was glad he couldn’t. There were some things she didn’t want anyone to know.

  “What do you do, Ellison?”

  Ah, he hadn’t wanted to answer her question, and she didn’t want to answer his either. It wasn’t a simple question, not to her. Answering required a lengthy explanation, and it would only add fuel to his comment in the pasture that day, when he’d called her stupid. Maybe she was. A fool, certainly.

  Maybe it was time he left. There was something not quite right in the way he’d avoided her question, something that didn’t add up. He could mind his own business and she could mind hers and they’d both be happy.