“Sunday is family day. I haven’t been working on Sundays.” He could say that now, although that hadn’t been the case with the restaurant downstate, and he couldn’t guarantee he could completely avoid Sunday work here once La Table Frais opened.
A shadow crossed Fiona’s face.
He had been depending on his mother for childcare a lot since he’d taken Fiona and Stella to see La Table Frais. Getting back to work had lifted some of the fog that had plagued him for so long and let him see a life where he was doing more than going through the motions, living for more than his daughter. It had made him realize he’d been ignoring God’s message by turning into himself and not opening himself to His guidance for fulfilling the duties of a father.
“Stella might stay with you. She seemed comfortable with you today at your place.” Even if he hadn’t been. The apartment had seemed so full of Fiona, with pictures, knickknacks, books, bits of her life.
“Think about it,” she said.
She and Stella were all he could think about.
“This should be fun,” Fiona said, filling the silence. “I haven’t been sledding in longer than I can remember.”
Sledding, a nice neutral topic. “Me, either. It’s the first winter Stella has been old enough. My wife wasn’t much of an outdoor person.”
Fiona slid him a sideways glance.
Why had he brought up Cate? He knew the answer. Old instincts. He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d used the memory of Cate as a way to fend off any woman who’d expressed an interest in him. But Fiona’s interest was in Stella. This time, he’d brought her up to fend off his own interest.
“Are you?” Fiona asked.
“Am I what?” Somehow he’d lost the thread of the conversation.
“An outdoor person?”
“Yes, I was, all seasons, although I haven’t had much time the past few years. But I always tried to get in at least some skiing when we came up here for the holidays.”
“I’ve always wanted to try skiing,” Fiona said. “I’ve never been.”
“I’m surprised,” he said. “I mean, growing up around here. Didn’t your high school have a ski team?” He bit his tongue. From what he’d gathered about Fiona’s family, they probably couldn’t have afforded the cost if she’d wanted to join a team.
“Yes, all of them did. I had to watch Mairi a lot, though, so Mom could work.”
“I’m going to have to remedy that by taking you skiing. And Stella. I couldn’t have been much older than she is the first time I went.”
“Seriously, you started skiing when you were three?”
“About then. We all did. My mom skied competitively. She would have made the US national team if she hadn’t broken her leg the week before final tryouts.”
“Another reason I haven’t tried skiing. I’m a chicken.”
He jerked his head toward her. The admission surprised him. Everything he’d picked up about Fiona pointed to her being up for any challenge. “We’ll start with the sledding, then, and see how it goes. Deal?”
Fiona grinned. “Deal.”
“Here we are,” he said a minute later, coming to a stop next to several other cars in the country club parking lot. “I’ll wake up Stella.”
“Want me to get the toboggan off the rack while you do?”
“If you want, you can undo the restraints. I’ll get it down.” He climbed out and opened the back door. “Stella, sweetpea.” He touched her shoulder. “We’re here at the hill to sled with your friends.”
The little girl’s eyes popped open and her gaze shot to the now-empty front seat. “Where’s Feena? Feena friend.”
“She’s untying the toboggan.”
“My saucer,” Stella said as he unfastened her from her seat.
“It’s in the back. We’ll get it, too.” He lifted Stella out and walked her to the other side of the SUV, stopping to get Stella’s snow saucer out on the way.
“All set,” Fiona said.
He leaned the saucer against the SUV and lifted down the toboggan. “Who wants a ride?”
“Me, me.” Stella hopped up and down before climbing on.
“I’d better grab your saucer,” he said, holding the toboggan’s pull rope in one hand and reaching for the other sled with the other.
“I can carry that,” Fiona offered.
“Feena friend carry my saucer,” Stella said.
Fiona’s face brightened so that it outshone the afternoon sun on the sparkling snow. “I can do that.”
“Teamwork. I like that,” Marc said, passing the saucer to Fiona.
“Teamwork,” Stella echoed.
Oblivious to the biting blast of wind that came off of Pharaoh Mountain, Marc walked with Fiona and Stella toward the low rectangular building where they were all meeting in the snack area. They could be a friendly team today.
* * *
This was more like it. Light, friendly. Fiona didn’t know what caused Marc to seem so uncomfortable on the drive here. As for her, she was still basking in the glow of her niece calling her a friend, and she’d managed to keep her response low-key.
Fiona glanced sideways at Marc’s strong profile and thought about his offer to take her skiing. While she wasn’t sure she’d take him up on it, that was the sort of thing friends did. They were going to be seeing each other a lot while dealing with Stella, not to mention their work relationship. She could drop some of her reserve, let a friendship develop if it was going to. She’d kind of done that with Marc’s twin, Claire, already.
When they reached the building, Stella hopped off the toboggan and Marc leaned it against a wall next to another sled.
“Stella,” a high-pitched voice called from behind them.
A bundled-up little girl in a bright pink snowsuit plowed toward them at a pace that surprised Fiona.
“Daddy.” Stella tugged on the bottom of his jacket as if he could have missed the child who was now right next to her. “Mia from school.”
“Ah, your friend. Hi, Mia. And this is Ms.—”
“Fiona,” she finished for him, remembering how Noah had called Marc’s sister Ms. Renee at the balloon races.
“No.” Stella stomped her little foot, making the light snow fly like a small white cloud. “No Ms. Fiona. Fiona friend.”
Fiona would have picked Stella up and hugged her if she didn’t know better than to push things.
“Hi, Fiona and Marc, isn’t it?” Mia’s aunt, whom Fiona had talked with at the adult meeting they’d gone to before the balloon races, caught up with her charge.
“Hi.” Fiona wracked her brain for the woman’s name and couldn’t come up with it.
“Mia is all ‘Stella this and Stella that’ when I pick her up from The Kids Place after work on the days Stella comes. And there’s a little boy, Luc, who apparently doesn’t color up to the girls’ standard.”
Marc burst out laughing, softening the planes of his face and throwing off the underlying steel Fiona too often saw in his expression. “Poor Luc,” he said. “The word is that he scribbles.”
“Yes!” Stella said, followed by Mia’s “outside the lines.”
Mia’s aunt slapped her mitten-covered hands to her cheeks. “Horrors,” she said gaining another chuckle and a softer look from Marc.
The easy banter between Marc and Mia’s aunt made Fiona wonder if they knew each other from school or something. That kind of back-and-forth had never come easy for Fiona, not with the flame of self-protection she’d always kept lit to guard her from blurting out something that, as her mother had always said, “people don’t need to know about us.”
“I’m sorry,” Marc said. “I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Katherine...Beagle. My friends call me Kat.”
Fiona watched Marc struggle not to smile, disturbed by the kernel of want sprouting ins
ide her for Marc to be as much at ease with her as he was with Kat.
“I know,” Kat said. “I spent my early teen years dreaming of marriage just to get a different last name, but here I am, still Kat Beagle. Ruff.”
Marc joined in Kat’s laughter.
Fiona stepped closer to the two of them and tugged her hat down farther over her ears.
“It didn’t help that I was taller than all of the boys, too thin and had braces and Coke-bottle glasses.”
None of that described the vivacious brunette now. Fiona looked past Kat to the two little girls who’d walked closer to the building and the toboggans. Stella was pointing, and Mia touched one toboggan and then the other. The slight movement of one of the sleds caught Fiona’s eye. She closed the few feet between her and the girls and grabbed both of them before the toboggans toppled down where the girls had been standing.
“Aunt Kat!” Mia tore away.
Fiona dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Stella. “It’s okay.” Her heart pounded.
“Too tight,” Stella said, pushing at her.
Fiona let her go. Marc loomed above them, not saying anything. Someone had to be watching them. She sucked in her cheeks. Had she spoken aloud?
“She didn’t scream,” he said.
“Pardon?” A weight lifted from her shoulders. She hadn’t spoken her criticism.
“Stella—she usually doesn’t like people other than family touching her.”
I am family. Fiona watched Marc disentangle the two toboggans.
The door to the clubhouse pushed opened. “Marc, Fiona, Kat, you’re here,” Noah said. “That makes everyone. Let’s go.” He motioned to the others keeping warm inside. They fanned out to retrieve their sledding equipment. “When we’re done, we have cookies and hot chocolate and hot apple cider.”
“Apples!” Stella repeated.
Marc frowned at the toboggan.
“Is there a problem?” Fiona asked.
“The food diary. Stella loves apples, but apples and nuts are foods that seem to bother her.”
“The cider should be fine. It’s the peels that are the problem. I noticed your mother used unpeeled apples in her apple crisp.”
Marc wrinkled his forehead. Did he think she was criticizing his mother’s baking? More than that, why was she being so hypersensitive?
“Stella loves Mom’s apple crisp. It has walnuts, too. You checked out the websites Dr. Franklin gave us? I didn’t,” he admitted. “I thought I’d wait until after Stella’s next appointment when we know more. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”
Fiona tapped her boot in the snow. She knew Marc was concerned about Stella. Didn’t he want to know as much as possible? Of course, Dr. Franklin hadn’t made an actual diagnosis yet. “No, I knew from Beth.”
His facial muscles tightened.
“Everyone ready?” Noah asked. “We’re going to restrict our sledding to the longest gentle slope. Follow me.”
“I’ll grab Stella’s saucer,” Fiona said.
“No.” Marc looked off into the distance. “We’d better stick to the toboggan. The crusty snow makes it too dangerous for the saucer.”
Fiona didn’t question him. Stella would be safer on the bigger sled, where Marc would have more control.
“Hop on, sweetpea,”
The little girl did, and the three of them followed the group.
When they reached the top of the hill, Noah pointed down. “My associate, Sara. Some of you met her in the clubhouse. She’s at the bottom of the hill as our spotter.” He waved and a woman in a plum-colored ski jacket waved back. “She’ll signal ‘all clear’ for the next family, so we don’t have any mishaps.”
They lined up, with her, Marc and Stella near the end. But in no time, it was their turn.
“The snow looks fast,” Marc said as he pulled the toboggan to the takeoff spot.
“Fast.” Stella clapped.
After watching the other families zoom down, Fiona wasn’t sure fast was good. She visualized the three of them loaded onto the toboggan, which seemed to have shrunk since he’d unloaded it from his SUV. She could sit in the front to steer and Stella could sit behind her as a buffer, with Marc in the back. Wouldn’t that be safest?
“Me first,” Stella said.
“That sounds good to me,” Marc said. “You, Fiona and me. How does that sound to you, Fiona?”
Fiona restrained herself from asking, are you crazy? and pointed out what she thought was obvious. “Stella can’t steer the toboggan.”
Marc knit his brows. “Of course she can’t. The ropes are long enough for me reach with my arms on either side of you and hold the lines to steer.”
Yes, she could see that, and that was the problem. His arms enclosing her.
“You can hold on to Stella and put your feet on the curled front end to help me.”
The satisfied expression on Marc’s face said that he thought he had it all solved. Except his solution had her sandwiched between Stella and him. He lined up the toboggan and held it while Stella climbed on. Fiona followed, leaving Marc as much room behind her as she could.
“Take the ropes while I get on. I’ll need my hands to push us off.”
“Okay.” She grabbed the ropes, wiggled a little closer to Stella and bent her knees closer into the little girl.
“Too tight,” Stella said.
Fiona wriggled back. She couldn’t risk one of the meltdowns Marc had told her about.
“Ready?” he asked.
Fiona breathed in the sharp winter air. “Yes.” As ready as she was going to get.
Marc pushed off and took hold of the guide ropes, his strong arms still enclosing her.
“Whee!” Stella squealed with abandon.
Fiona relaxed in her little cocoon and enjoyed the ride.
Near the bottom of the hill, the toboggan hit a rock outcropping exposed by the earlier sledders. The impact bounced them into the air. Fiona felt every muscle in Marc’s body stiffen as he yanked the ropes to keep them from turning over. He lost the battle, and Stella slipped out of Fiona’s grasp. She and Marc tumbled after.
Pushing herself up to her knees from the face-plant she’d made in the snow, Fiona wiped the crusty flakes from her eyes and, heart pounding, searched out Stella. Marc already had her in his arms and was rubbing noses with his daughter and kissing her cheeks. Fiona allowed herself a moment to bask in the warmth of their family love.
“’Nuff kisses, Daddy. Down. Feena.”
Marc placed Stella next to him and pivoted toward Fiona, a sheen of sweat on his cheeks.
Her shoulders dropped. He’d forgotten her. Fiona shook her head. What was she thinking? She couldn’t expect him to be as concerned about her as he was about his daughter.
He placed her next to him. “You okay?” He offered Fiona a hand up.
“I’m fine.” She let him draw her to her feet and brushed the snow off her jeans.
“You’re sure?” He held onto her hand.
“I’m sure, but while Stella is probably good in her snowsuit, I’m afraid we may be feeling wet and cold in a few minutes.”
“Kisses, Daddy.”
Marc dropped Fiona’s hand and reached to pick up Stella.
“Not me.” Stella pushed at his hands.
Marc stilled. Then it hit Fiona. Stella had said me instead of Stella. Fiona thought back to the other day when his eyes had lit and she couldn’t read why... Stella had called Luc “my friend,” not “Stella’s friend.” Her heart leaped at her niece’s progress.
Stella pointed. Marc straightened and followed her little arm.
“Feena kisses.”
Marc’s gaze dropped to Fiona’s lips. She unwillingly stepped forward at the same time he did, closing the distance between them to inches. She was no longer worried about f
eeling chilled. He leaned in. She mirrored his stance.
“Hey! You guys all right?” Sara, who’d been spotting at the bottom of the hill, reached them.
Fiona jumped back.
“Yes,” Marc answered, the word a combination of strangled and gruff.
“More,” Stella said, grabbing her father’s hand and tugging him toward the overturned toboggan.
“I need to get a little warm and dry before I take another run,” she said. If I take another run.
Sara made an okay sign up the hill, and Fiona started the trek up.
She touched her gloved fingers to her lips and shivered. Marc had wanted to kiss her. Right in front of everyone on the hill. And she hadn’t wanted to stop him.
Chapter Nine
He’d become a coward. Since last weekend’s sledding trip with the Bridges group, Marc couldn’t get the vision of Fiona’s upturned face, rosy cheeks and lips and Stella chanting “kisses” out of his head. He couldn’t deny it. He had wanted to kiss Fiona and had a gut feeling she hadn’t been against the idea. He’d thrown himself into his work, just as he had in New York when life had gotten hard for him. He slammed his SUV to a stop in his parents’ driveway behind Fiona’s car.
What was she doing here? Tracking him down for his evasive responses to the couple texts she’d sent him? In his dreams. Both of the texts had been about work. He trudged to the kitchen door, let himself in and stomped off the snow—and some of his agitation—on the mat just inside.
His mother’s voice floated through from the dining room. “I really thought he’d be here by now, before Stella fell asleep.”
He had, too. Stella rarely fell asleep for anyone but him. But he’d gotten involved in the hands-on work of laying the tile for the kitchen floor, and then one of the guys had had to leave. Marc had volunteered to stay. The physical labor had felt good.
“She curled right up and nodded off on the couch before I finished reading her the story she wanted,” Fiona said.
Mom laughed. “Yeah, with John’s TV program and snoring providing the right amount of monotonous background noise to keep her asleep.”
A Mom for His Daughter Page 11
