Angel of the Morning

by Judith Arnold

  “Right. Of course,” she said, her voice brittle.

  “Can you still take me to swimming?” Annie asked, gazing up at him.

  He crossed to the sofa and knelt down in front of her. “I’m sorry, Annie. I wish I could. But I’ve got to go to Los Angeles.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “It’s far away. About three thousand miles.”

  Her eyes—those big brown eyes, so much like Dylan’s—filled with tears.

  “I’m really sorry, Annie.”

  Sure you are, Gwen thought, anger building inside her. She could take the disappointment. She could take the abandonment. His manager—Brian, the bearer of good news and bad news—had locked her out of Dylan’s life years ago, and she’d survived. She’d learned how to be a single mother, how to make ends meet on her own, how to juggle her schedule so she could take her daughter to swim class.

  But Annie wasn’t so tough. Dylan had wooed her, he’d won her, and now he was leaving her. He’d broken her heart, and Gwen’s heart broke for her daughter.

  “I guess you’d better go, then,” she snapped, her protective-mother instincts rising like a wall between her and the man hunkering down in front of her and her daughter. “Luckily, you don’t have much to pack.”

  Annie turned to Gwen, a few fat tears leaking down her cheeks. “Is he leaving?”

  “I’m sorry, Annie,” Dylan said for the third time, addressing Annie’s hair because she was no longer looking at him. “Remember how you said I wasn’t working? Well, it turns out I am working.”

  “Just go,” Gwen ordered him, her voice chilly. She wrapped an arm around Annie and let her daughter nestle into her shoulder, her tears leaving damp spots on her sweater.

  Dylan held her gaze for a long moment, then stood and strode towards the stairs. She watched him vanish up them, and the rage that had simmered inside her on Annie’s behalf swelled, spreading through her like a wildfire.

  At that moment, she hated him. She admitted that her own heartbreak wasn’t just for Annie. It was for herself. By wooing Annie, he’d also wooed Gwen. By being attentive, by being affectionate, by letting her believe she finally had a partner with whom to share the joys and challenges of parenthood, by making glorious love to her...

  She’d fallen in love with him. And he’d turned and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Landing the starring role in The Angel was Dylan’s dream-come-true. So why didn’t he feel elated?

  He sat in the plush leather seat of a Gulfstream that had taken off from a small airport just west of Boston. Brian had scored him a seat and emailed him the Angel script, now filling the monitor of his laptop. Dylan tried to focus on the words spread across the glowing screen. He’d memorized the script before he’d auditioned, but now he felt as if he was reading it for the first time. The words seemed alien to him. This role, this character—could he speak these lines? Could he become this person?

  Outside the porthole window, the night sky was an inky void. Inside, an attendant wandered among Dylan and the three other businessmen sharing the flight with him, keeping their glasses filled with their drinks of choice—in Dylan’s case, a smooth twelve-year-old Glenlivet. He could barely taste it.

  Annie’s tear-filled eyes were seared into his memory.

  So were Gwen’s resolutely dry eyes. No tears had filled them. Just a disappointment so deep it seemed bottomless. Disappointment and anger, and bitter resignation.

  He wanted this job. It would elevate his career to a new level. It would nourish his creativity. It would stretch him, challenge him, make him sweat in a good, healthy way. Maybe Annie was too young to understand such things, but Gwen wasn’t.

  This was a major high point in his career—and he felt like shit.

  He pulled out his phone, thinking to call her. But it was nearly ten o’clock. The ringing phone might wake up Annie, and possibly Gwen as well. He’d call her tomorrow. He’d call her and swear to her that he did intend to marry her, that he was a man of his word, that he wanted to be a father to Annie.

  That Gwen was the love of his life.

  How had that happened? How had he fallen in love with her? He wasn’t so shallow as to believe he loved her just because they had amazing chemistry in bed. More than chemistry—it was alchemy. Something magical.

  That wasn’t love, though. That was just fun. Extremely good fun.

  Yet when he thought about it, he realized that his decision to marry her was more about what happened out of bed than in it. When he thought about the house he was buying in Brogan’s Point, he thought about her in it. He imagined her fussing in the kitchen, leaving her comb and brush and skin lotion in the master bathroom, lounging on the patio—because, damn it, the woman deserved to lounge sometimes. She deserved some time off—from work, from motherhood, from cooking and tidying up and driving Annie to her swimming class. Dylan could picture Gwen on a comfortable, cushioned chair on that lovely patio behind the house, a book in her lap, a glass of wine on a table beside her, and a salty breeze rising from the beach to wreak havoc with her hair.

  He thought about her confiding in him—and about him confiding in her. He thought about how easy she was to talk to, how he didn’t have to act when he was with her. He didn’t have to pretend he cared that some other actor had leapfrogged over him in the Hollywood hierarchy, that some other actor was dating a female star he used to date, and they’d appeared on the cover of People, and they were now the “It” couple, the flavor of the week. Brian was always nagging him that these things mattered, and in the world of show-biz, they did. But he’d never been good at pretending he cared, and with Gwen, he didn’t have to.

  She didn’t soar through the galaxy like Captain Steele. She was down-to-earth. He loved that about her.

  And she worked so hard, and never complained. After Brian had shut her down and locked her out, she’d soldiered on by herself, doing what needed to be done. No whining. No diva behavior. Just a hard-working, fiercely protective, profoundly loving mother.

  Damn. He really, truly loved her.

  Finally, he’d achieved an astonishing professional milestone, and he wanted to share it with her. He wanted her on this private jet with him—her and Annie.

  Instead, he’d be lucky if she even spoke to him again. He’d promised to marry her, stay with her, live in her sleepy little town and be a father to Annie, and here he was, abandoning her, leaving her as alone as she’d been the day she’d found out she was pregnant. She was probably thinking she’d gotten along without him well enough before, and she could get along without him today.

  Just like the song said, he’d turned and walked away. And she hadn’t begged him to stay.

  Only a fool would want anything to do with him—and Gwen wasn’t a fool.

  *

  He phoned several times over the next few days. Gwen answered the first couple of calls. She talked to him coolly, civilly. He told her about the role in which he’d been cast, explained to her how much this film could mean for his career, reminded her that one reason he’d decided to move to Brogan’s Point was because filmmakers were so determined to type-cast him as an action-adventure comic-book hero, and he’d wanted to escape from all that. But now, at last, a filmmaker decided he was capable of more.

  So you don’t need to live in Brogan’s Point, she’d thought.

  “It’s an amazing opportunity,” Dylan had insisted. “At this point, I can’t afford to turn down something that could open so many more doors for me.”

  “I’m not judging you,” Gwen had assured him. “This is your choice. It’s a good choice for you.”

  “But not for you,” he’d said.

  She’d been touched that he cared enough to consider the situation from her perspective. Most men weren’t that sensitive. “I’m no worse off than I was before you showed up, Dylan,” she’d said, even though that wasn’t entirely true. Before he’d showed up, she hadn’t been in love with him. She’d been contemplating marry
ing Steve in order to provide her daughter with a two-parent home.

  She wouldn’t go back to Steve now. One thing Dylan had done for her, besides making her fall in love with him, was to force her to recognize that marrying someone just to provide her daughter with a father wasn’t right.

  Annie had a father. He was currently three thousand miles away. If Gwen needed child support, she knew he’d provide it. In another twelve years, if Annie wanted to go to college, Gwen would send Dylan the tuition bills. Who knew? Maybe by then, the Attic would be a national chain, like Target or Wal-Mart, and she’d be Annie’s wealthy parent. Anything was possible.

  Annie wanted to know where her father was. “He had to leave,” Gwen told her. “He had to go back to California for his job.”

  “Why can’t he have a job here?” Annie asked.

  “Things don’t always work out the way we want them to,” Gwen said, which seemed like a pretty painful lesson for Annie to have to learn at such a tender age. She thought about letting Annie speak to Dylan when he phoned, but opted not to. For one thing, he might think Gwen was trying to guilt-trip him by forcing him to listen to Annie’s painful questions. For another, Gwen didn’t want to give Annie any reason to think Dylan might return. He’d had his chance to plant his roots in Brogan’s Point. He’d probably believed he would actually do that. It must have seemed like a great idea—until Hollywood had crooked her tempting finger at him, and he’d gone running back to her.

  At least Gwen hadn’t confided to Diana or her other friends about his proposal. They would have hated him for ditching her so soon after he’d asked her to marry him.

  Gwen didn’t want to hate him. How could she hate the man who’d given her Annie?

  She hoped that in time, she could stop loving him. She hoped she could forgive him for walking out of her life not once but twice. She was a big girl, strong and independent. Old enough to face the dawn. Wasn’t that what the song had said?

  He wanted to be the angel. And here she was, an angel of the morning. Walking away. In time, she promised herself—in time it wouldn’t hurt so much.

  *

  On Friday, she left the store at three-thirty to pick up Annie at her after-school program and get her to the community center for her four o’clock swim class. The air was cold and crisp, pumpkins and gourds displayed on porches and in windows, ghosts constructed of old sheets dangling from trees. She and her staff had adorned the front window of the Attic with fake cobwebs, plastic skeletons, and ceramic jack-o-lanterns. Annie’s dinnertime conversation had gradually evolved from “Where’s my daddy?” to “Can I be a magic kite for Halloween?”

  “I thought you wanted to be a princess,” Gwen reminded her last night.

  “Lucy and Cara are going to be princesses. I want to be something different. I could be a kite, and Mr. Snuffy can be Maggie, the girl who rides on the kite. Can we do that?”

  It sounded awfully creative to Gwen, and a lot more original than the princess costume they’d discussed earlier that month. “I think we can rig something up,” she said. A couple of lightweight slats glued into a cross, with fabric stretched over them and a little tail of knotted rags attached... Annie would look adorable as she trick-or-treated.

  Gwen arrived at Annie’s elementary school and entered the art room, where the after-school program for the younger children was located. A dozen other children were busy painting with watercolors, instructed by that red-haired art teacher—Monica’s friend Emma. Gwen recalled Annie mentioning that Emma came now and then to lead art classes in the program.

  She scanned the room but didn’t see Annie.

  Anxious, she approached Emma. “I’m supposed to pick up my daughter, Annie Parker. Is she in one of the other rooms?”

  Wiping her hands on a towel, Emma frowned. “She left ten minutes ago.”

  “She did?” Gwen’s heart beat harder. “How? Who was she with?”

  “Her father.”

  That couldn’t be. Annie’s father was in California, or maybe Toronto, or wherever he was, starring in this wonderful dream-come-true movie. “She left with a man? What man? He wasn’t her father!”

  “She said he was. She raced to him and screamed, ‘Daddy!’ and he gave her a big hug. I was a little startled, because he looked a lot like that actor in the Galaxy Force movies—except his hair was a lot longer and he had a stubble of beard. He was wearing a shabby leather jacket and jeans. But cut his hair and put him in Spandex, and I swear he could pass for that actor...what’s his name? Dylan Scott, right?”

  Gwen’s pulse slowed, but only slightly. If Annie was with Dylan, she was probably safe. But where would he take her? When Gwen had seen Dylan at the Faulk Street Tavern a few weeks ago, her first fear was that he’d discover Annie’s existence and try to take her away from Gwen. Now that fear reared up inside her. Had he spirited Annie off to Los Angeles in a fancy private jet? Or to the movie set? Or...

  “He said he was going to take her to the community center, and Annie said that was what he’d promised.”

  “Okay.” Gwen took a few deep breaths and ordered herself to remain calm. She thanked Emma, and resolved to discuss lax security with the program director once she’d found Annie and made sure she was okay. She supposed Emma couldn’t really be blamed for allowing Annie to leave with Dylan. Annie had identified him as her father—which he was. Emma didn’t know better.

  Gwen left the building, tightening her scarf around her throat to ward off the chilly autumn breeze, and drove to the community center. Had Dylan strapped Annie into a proper car seat? Did he even know what a proper car seat for a five-year-old girl was?

  At the community center, Gwen raced down the hall, following the scent of chlorine to the pool. She swept inside and the warm, humid air wrapped around her, nearly suffocating her. Scanning the room, she spotted several parents seated on the bleachers flanking the pool.

  When Gwen took Annie to this class, she couldn’t stay and watch her daughter. She always had to race back to the store, and then come back an hour later to pick Annie up and help her out of her wet swimsuit.

  Some of the other mothers did stay to watch the class, though. And today, one father was also watching.

  Gwen unwrapped her scarf, unbuttoned her jacket and picked her way carefully over the damp tiles to the bleachers. She cast a glance at the students, who were making their way across the width of the pool, clinging to kickboards and turning the water foamy white with their vigorous kicking. Despite the splashing and shrieking, Gwen had no trouble picking Annie out of the crowd, creating a wild wake of splashing bubbles with her feet.

  Gwen reached the bleachers and climbed to Dylan’s bench. He saw her and rose, a tentative smile curving his beautiful mouth. He had removed his jacket, and she tried not to admire the snug fit of his sweater, tried not to remember the hunky male chest beneath it. “Hey,” he said when she reached him. He lifted his arms as if to hug her, then let them fall back to his sides, apparently unsure whether she’d welcome a hug.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I told Annie I’d take her to her swimming class. And here I am.”

  “But...” Gwen scowled and shook her head. Dylan gestured toward the bench. Given how dazed she felt, she decided she’d better sit. “You’re making your movie.”

  “I’m trying to do both. We filmed until ten this morning, and then I hopped on a plane and got here just in time.”

  “From California?”

  “Toronto. It’s a quick flight. Under two hours.”

  “By private jet,” she guessed.

  He shrugged. “This was important.”

  It was important—not the swimming class as much as Dylan’s promise to bring Annie to it. But his movie was important, too. He’d said it was an amazing opportunity.

  “I asked the director to work with me. It turns out he’d always wanted me for the part, and the money guys were the ones who’d vetoed me. He’s willing to be flexible. I told him I had a daughter i
n Massachusetts, and I wanted to spend as much time here as I could. So he’s scheduled my scenes so that I can leave the set Friday afternoons. I’ll have to be back Sunday night, though.”

  Gwen’s mind snagged on the word daughter. “You told him about Annie?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry. I hope it doesn’t backfire. But...yeah.”

  “Why would it backfire?”

  “Well, the tabloids, the gossip. I don’t know. We’ll have to figure out a way to protect her from their prying eyes.” He inched slightly closer to Gwen on the bench, his thigh barely touching hers. “Annie’s not the only reason I came back,” he said, his dark gaze locking with hers, his eyes like hot chocolate, dark and steamy.

  “Your house,” she said, afraid to read too much into his intense stare.

  He chuckled. “That, too.” He sighed, bowed his head, and touched his lips lightly to hers. “You, Gwen. I came back for you.”

  They were the words she’d longed to hear. The words she’d refused to admit she longed to hear.

  “We’ll figure this out,” he said, his voice low, a hushed contrast to the shrieks and giggles of the children, echoing off the hard tile surfaces of the room. “I said we would, and I meant it. I’ll have to travel sometimes. I can’t help that. If possible, I’ll bring you and Annie with me. If you can’t leave the store, I’ll understand. But...we’re family, Gwen. I’ve missed out on the first five years of this family, and I don’t want to miss out anymore.”

  So it was about Annie. That was okay. Gwen would accept that.

  “As soon as I got on that plane to California, I realized I didn’t want to go. I wanted the part—God, you can’t imagine how much I wanted it. But I want you, too.”

  “Annie, you mean.”

  “No. I mean you. I love you, Gwen.” He reached behind him for his jacket, dug his hand into a pocket, and pulled out a small velvet box. “Let’s do this right. Marry me, Gwen.”