Doorstep Daddy

by Shirley Jump

  How was she going to manage this? She clutched Sabrina tighter, trying to hold on to her emotions, her life, her sanity—and suddenly it all got away from her, escaping in a gush of tears as she realized Mrs. Winterberry’s absence meant one thing.

  If Ellie Miller didn’t find a miracle in the next five minutes, she’d lose her job. And in the process, lose everything that mattered to her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WHAT the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Dalton stared at the woman and her kid, standing in his sacred space. He’d stalked up to his office, figuring they would find their own way back out the front door. After all, she’d let herself in, she could damned well let herself out. But no, she’d gone and followed him.

  “You…you can’t walk away…I need help.”

  And worse, she was crying.

  “I need to work. And you need to go home.” He turned back to his computer. Pretended he didn’t see the tears. But they bothered him all the same. If there was one thing Dalton Scott couldn’t take, it was tears.

  He stood in front of his desk for the second time that day as helpless as a fish on dry land, while Ellie Miller held her baby and cried.

  “You’re right. This is my problem, not yours.”

  “Exactly.” He sat down in his chair. Pulled his keyboard closer.

  She didn’t leave. He could tell. Because he could still hear her crying.

  “It’s just…”

  He let out a long sigh and turned around. “Just what?”

  “I…” She bit her lip. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Hire a babysitter.”

  “I did. She’s not here.”

  “Hire another one.” He turned back to his computer. Looked at the words on the screen. They were all horrible. Every last one of them. Dalton started hitting the backspace key. In the last hour, this book had multiplied badness.

  “It’s not that easy.”

  She was still here? He spun back toward the woman and her kid. “I’m trying to work here.”

  Aw, damn, the tears were really pouring down her face. They’d made rivers on her cheeks. Even the kid was staring at him, as if saying what are you going to do about this?

  Well, he knew what he wasn’t going to do. He wasn’t going to let them stay here, in his office. This was his domain, and already Mrs. Winterberry had been here, disrupting his train of thought. He had enough problems writing, without adding these two into the mix.

  “Let’s go back downstairs,” he said, practically shooing them out the door. “Get a cup of coffee or something.”

  Why did he have to add that? His goal was to get them out the door, not serve hot beverages.

  A moment later, though, the woman and her kid were in his living room. She lowered herself onto the leather seat, a whisper of relief flickering across her delicate features. She dropped the car seat to the floor, and propped the kid on her lap, holding the baby tight against her chest. Together, they looked like bedraggled street orphans. Dalton almost—almost—felt his heart going out to them.

  Well, just for that he wouldn’t make any coffee. He dropped into the opposite armchair, watching the tears continue to stream down her face, still feeling about as comfortable as a porcupine in a roomful of balloons. He handed her a box of tissues from the endtable. “Here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She paused, and then her big green eyes met his, watery lakes filled with an ocean of thoughts.

  “Are you better now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t seem it.” Man, he could have just let it go at her “yes,” but he seemed to have this overwhelming compunction to get involved today.

  She glanced down at the tissue, clasped in front of her. “I can’t go back to work, not with Sabrina. And I can’t go home, because I can’t afford to call in sick until Mrs. Winterberry comes back. I’m barely paying my bills as it is. Without Mrs. Winterberry, I’m stuck and I don’t know what I’m going to do…” She started crying again, the tears falling in a slow stream, disappearing into the fuzz on her daughter’s head.

  Did he have a “please pull at my heartstrings, I’ll help anyone today” sign in his front yard or something?

  As much as Dalton wanted to tell her “too bad, lady, you’re on your own,” he couldn’t get the words out, not when he saw those tears, the slump in her shoulders, the despair on her face. He cleared his throat. “What you need is…”

  Ellie looked up.

  “Someone to watch the kid.”

  “You would do that?” The hope that filled her face blossomed like a sunflower.

  “I never said…”

  “It would only be for a day or two.”

  He put his hands up. “Lady, I have a job here. And it’s not going so well lately. Kids are an interruption—”

  “I know, I know. I’ve tried working at home with her and it was so hard.”

  Aw, that hope in her voice. He wanted to counteract it. Yell at her. Tell her he had his life just the way he liked it, thank you very much and get out of my house, but she was looking at him like he was her savior, and when he opened his mouth to say go home, find another option—

  He couldn’t do it.

  “Really, you’d be helping me so much. I can’t even begin to—”

  “Then don’t,” he interrupted. If she started to thank him one more time, he’d tell her no. He hadn’t even agreed to watching her kid, had he? No. He was going to tell her to find someone else. Yes. That’s what he’d do. He had a book to finish. A career to salvage. He didn’t need a baby underfoot, and he’d tell her so. Right now. “If I watched your kid for a couple days it would be a complete in—”

  She sprang out of the chair and crossed to him, as if she might hug him. “Oh, thank you! You saved—”

  “Will you stop thanking me?”

  What the hell did he just do? And worse, what did he just say?

  Oh, he was stuck now. She already assumed he was going to watch the kid. What was he going to do? Tell her no? And start the waterworks up again?

  Quickly, he turned and headed toward his kitchen, away from this new burst of emotion, and most of all, the potential for a hug from her and the kid. She’d taken his words and assumed he said yes and now he was in a mess. A mess of his own making.

  From his own stupid words. Apparently, his lack of writing ability extended to his verbal ability, too.

  “I’m going to make some lunch,” he called over his shoulder. “You, ah, want some?”

  It was a lame change of subject. An escape, really. But suddenly he’d had to get away from those eyes, from that burst of joy on her face. It had been so powerful, so…

  Trusting.

  As if she’d just put her whole world in his palms.

  She had no idea what she was doing. And he should have thought before he’d opened his big, idiot mouth.

  He didn’t want a kid in his house. Definitely didn’t need a kid in his house. He’d almost had this one out the door and here he’d accidentally invited it to stay for a couple of days by not saying what he’d meant to say fast enough. And all because she’d started crying. He was definitely getting soft. Maybe if he got in the kitchen, he could make her a ham sandwich and in the meantime, come up with a way to get out of this deal. A way to soften the blow of saying, hey, I changed my mind. Find another neighbor.

  Clearly not reading his mind—or his need for space—Ellie trotted right along behind him and into the kitchen, the kid in her arms. “I’m so glad you offered to watch her. I really am desperate. My job is—”

  “I don’t need to hear the details.” He opened the fridge, ducked his head inside, trying to head off further personal information.

  She was a hard woman to ignore, and not just because she kept on following him. Dalton had no idea how he had missed this particular neighbor. Well, being a hermit for the last three months didn’t help, but still, he had to have be
en blind not to notice this curvy brunette, with her vivid green eyes and full crimson mouth.

  A mouth that wouldn’t quit bugging him.

  “I’m a producer for a new TV show for Channel 77, and the demands on my time right now are incredible. Missing a day of work is out of the question. In fact—” she flung out her wrist and looked at her watch “—I need to get out of here before my boss has a coronary. But before I go, I really want to ask a few more questions. An interview, of sorts.”

  “Now you want to interview me? I already watched your kid. She came back to you intact, fed, and clean, didn’t she?”

  Ellie ignored that credential. “What do you do for a living? Are you available from eight to six every day? If this is going to interfere with your job, I’ll need to make some arrangements.”

  He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m a writer. I work here. It’s a pretty flexible job.”

  The kid perked up in the woman’s arms. Apparently, the job impressed the under-one-year-old set.

  “You must be doing pretty well. I mean, you have a really nice house.”

  He scowled. “Maybe I have a wealthy patron to support me.” She didn’t need to know how he’d started out as a successful writer, hitting the top of the charts, then slammed into a major block and plummeted to the bottom. Or how he’d spent the last year struggling to whip this latest opus into an acceptable form. How he’d sweated over every word, every page, and still ended up ripping out seventy percent of what he’d written. Because this book, just like the last few, was lacking the one element his editor had been on his back to add—

  Emotion.

  She smiled. “Will you still be able to balance your writing with watching my daughter? I don’t want to take away from your work.” She shifted the baby, who was watching him as intently as a puppy hoping to get lucky with a crumb. What was it with this kid? He seemed to have some kind of mesmerizing effect on it.

  Must be the stranger thing. She didn’t know him, ergo, she just stared. Like he was a shiny new toy.

  “I’m…stuck right now. I have time to watch a kid.” No, he wanted to scream at himself. He did not have time to watch a kid. But then again, this woman did need help. And it hadn’t been so awful this morning. Maybe he could suck it up for a few more hours, until she found some other neighbor to take on her and her baby. If he was lucky, the kid would nap the whole time.

  “Stuck?” Her brows lifted in a question. “What do you mean?”

  He pushed off from the counter and took a step closer to her. “Listen, this isn’t about my book writing skills. I offered to help you out and watch your kid. That’s all.”

  Okay, Dalton. So much for saying you changed your mind.

  “You’re right,” she said. “It’s just, as a new mother, I tend to get pretty overprotective, which means I also get really personal. So I’m sorry if I asked too many questions. I just want to make sure that if she cries or needs something, you’ll be there.”

  “Beck and call guy, that’s me.” The words were meant to reassure Ellie, but in the back of his head, he wondered what he was getting himself into. Taking care of a baby all day?

  Him?

  He had his life just the way he liked it. Alone, and quiet. He didn’t need a kid around.

  But this woman clearly needed someone to help her out—and it wouldn’t kill him to be a nice guy for twenty-four hours. Would it?

  Ellie shifted the baby to the other hip. The kid protested the move with a series of cries. Ellie rubbed her back, peppered kisses across her forehead, and Sabrina quieted. She laid her head on Ellie’s shoulder, her eyes beginning to shut. A surge of something Dalton refused to name rose in his chest—a feeling from long ago, one he’d pushed away.

  At the same time, Ellie’s cell phone began to ring. She dug it out of her pocket, let out a gust, muted the phone, then stuffed it back. As soon as she did, it started ringing again, which made the baby give up on the sleeping thing. Ellie brushed her bangs out of her face, then fished the phone out one more time and answered it. “Hi, Lincoln,” she said, continuing to rub the kid’s back with the other hand—making the whole balancing act look way too complicated to Dalton. The baby started to whine, so Ellie tried a pacifier that was attached to the kid by a clip and a ribbon, but the kid spat it back. Ellie returned to the back rub, but this time, the circular motion’s magic failed. “Yes, I’m on my way. Of course I have available child care. I just had to stop by for a—” She paused. “I know, I know this meeting’s important. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ll be—” An embarrassed smile took over her face. “He hung up. He’s a little tense.”

  Lincoln. A boyfriend? Boss?

  Husband?

  The kid voiced a protest, as if she understood what the cell phone’s ring meant.

  Ellie held out the baby toward Dalton. “I have to go. Thank you again.”

  “You’re leaving? Already?” Now that the moment was here, panic gripped him. She was leaving him with the kid? Now? Why had he made this offer? What had he been thinking?

  “Is that a problem? I thought you just said you could watch Sabrina.”

  “Yeah, well I hadn’t expected you to be leaving so soon.” He glanced at the clock. Only eleven in the morning. Six o’clock seemed like eons away.

  “Believe me, I wish I didn’t have to leave,” she said, bringing the baby back to her chest and holding her tight again. “If I could take Bri with me, or find a different way to work and still be with her…” Her voice trailed off and she let out a sigh. “But I can’t.” Ellie gave the kid another bunch of kisses, and this time whispered something nonsensical against her skin.

  Dalton swallowed hard. “You should go,” he said, even though he wanted her to stay. He simply couldn’t watch that look on her face for one more second.

  It opened up way too many doors he’d thought he’d firmly shut a long time ago.

  “You’re right, I need to go. One more thing. If anything happens to Sabrina,” she said quietly, a mother bear growl deep in her voice, “I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth, and throw you into jail until you’re a hundred and ten.”

  “I thought you trusted me.”

  She looked up from her kid’s head. “I need you. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone. Sabrina is all I’ve got and—” Her phone started up again. Ellie rolled her eyes, then flipped it open. “On my way, I swear.” The phone went back in her pocket, and was exchanged for a business card. “My cell phone number is on there, as is my office phone. Call me every half hour and give me an update.”

  “Update on what? If she burped?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re kidding me. Kids do nothing all day. They eat, they poop, they sleep. There. That’s your update.”

  Her jaw dropped in horror. He expected her to tell him off, but instead she turned away. A second later her shoulders were heaving and then, she was doing it again—

  Crying.

  Well, not exactly crying, more, holding her kid and looking like she might let loose with the waterworks at any second. Damn. He hadn’t been around this much estrogen since he lived at home.

  He stood behind Ellie, his hands at his sides, useless and awkward. His chest constricted, lungs caught. A part of him said to reach out and hug her.

  The other part said not to get involved. He listened to that part, deciding it was the side with more sense.

  She nuzzled at the kid’s head, as if she was breathing in her hair. Dalton focused his gaze on the name branded across his refrigerator and avoided the private moment as best he could. Except it was right there in his kitchen. Inescapable.

  “I hate leaving you. I hate it,” she said, more to herself than the baby, her voice nearly a whisper.

  “Then quit,” Dalton suggested. Ever Mr. Helpful.

  “I can’t. I have to pay the bills.”

  “Then quit complaining.”

  She wheeled around. “You are the most un
sympathetic man—”

  “I’m not unsympathetic. I’m matter-of-fact. The way I see it, you have two choices. Quit, or buck up.” Half of him said he should reach out, swipe away the tears on her face, and a small part of him ached to do just that. But he didn’t know her and she’d probably deck him if he touched her. “Moaning about it isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

  “I just had a baby. I’m…hormonal. You could be a little understanding.”

  “I’m being logical.”

  “You probably think I’m a basket case. All I’ve done is cry today. It’s just…” She drew in a breath, let it out again. “I’ve got a lot going on personally and I’ve had a really bad day at work, and then, with this whole Mrs. Winterberry thing and seeing you with her, it brought up every emotion I try to keep bottled up.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. So he didn’t say anything.

  “Every time I’m at work, I miss Sabrina like crazy. I’m like any new mom, I guess. You practically have to pry her out of my arms.” Her face softened, nearly melting with love and the kind of heartbreak that told him a part of her gut wrenched in half when she left her kid behind every morning.

  Dalton might not be the nicest guy in Boston, but even he could see this was hard on her. Where was her husband? And why wasn’t he stepping up to share the burden? Either way, it wasn’t Dalton’s place to get involved, at least not beyond this temporary babysitting thing.

  “I do have a crowbar in the garage, and I’m not afraid to use it,” he teased, tossing Ellie a grin, waiting until she echoed the smile, and when she did, it was as if a ray of sunshine had burst right there in his living room.

  It hit him in the gut. Hard. Before he could think about how that felt, he stepped forward, figuring he better take the lead or she’d be working her way through another box of tissues on him. He took the kid out of her arms, holding the baby gingerly, like she was a sack of C-4 explosives, keeping her from too much direct contact.

  “Now get to work,” he said to Ellie, his tone gentler than he’d ever heard it, surprising even him. “And hurry back.” He gestured toward the door. “Because I don’t do overtime.”