Mary J. - Their Secret Child

“It’s been a long while,” he said when she continued to stare.

She gathered her scrambled thoughts. “What do you want, Skip?”

Imperceptibly, his shoulder lifted. “Just to say hi.”

“And now you have.”

“I’m…um…” He looked around her front yard. His eyes were still that rich honey color, she noticed. Full of deep, dark mystery.

On a gesture to the big house she watched rise from the earth over the past three months, he said, “My daughter and I moved in across the road today.”

Disregarding her pattering heart, she picked up two supers—square boxes housing the honeycomb frames—and carefully set them inside the truck.

“Yes,” she said. “I noticed the moving trucks earlier, and…Becky met my daughter.” She couldn’t help emphasizing my. His daughter looked like him, the way Michaela looked like Dempsey. But, dammit, no matter how the cards fell, Michaela was her daughter.

My daughter. Mine.

Leaning down, he grabbed the second stack of honey frames. “I know. That’s why I came over. I wanted to make sure she didn’t cause trouble.”

So. This visit wasn’t to reacquaint them or introduce his family to hers. He was here to make sure he wouldn’t be considered a lousy parent for having an intrusive daughter.

How like Skip. His name suited him after all. Skipping town thirteen years ago and now skipping back without a qualm, without a single concern that he’d nearly killed her with his brush-off.

Did he even care that she’d suffered twenty-three hours of labor, that she’d died a million deaths when they whisked her baby away in the time it took her to inhale a single breath?

Do you know I still wonder where she is?

“I have work to do,” she said, seizing the frames from his hands. “And you have your family to go back to.”

His wife, no doubt, would be wondering what he was doing across the road at the neighbor’s house. The neighbor dressed in thready jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and old leather boots. On a blistering hot day.

“It’s just Becky and me,” he said. “And she’s fixing her room. You know how girls are. They…They fuss over…” He stepped back when he saw her eyes narrow. “Stuff.” His hands found his hip pockets. “Addie, I…”

She shook her head. “No. This is not old home week. I do not want you coming around here, Skip.” Telling me about your child, your life. His mouth opened and she held up a hand. “It’s not up for discussion. You made your choice long ago. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I’m sorry.”

She released a sharp laugh. “For what? For coming back to the island? For walking up my drive? For your daughter showing up on my doorstep?”

He blinked. “For everything.” His throat worked a swallow. “From the beginning.”

If he didn’t leave soon, she’d throw a loaded box of honey frames at his head. “Please, go home. Go back to your…mansion, to your…whatever it is you do.” On a mission, she marched to the honey shed for another load before she realized she’d finished and had locked the door.

Never mind, she’d find something else inside.

Shortening his stride, he kept an easy pace beside her. She had read about his shattered shoulder, the one ending his star-hung career despite five operations.

She damn well wouldn’t feel sorry for him.

“Addie, we’re going to be neighbors. For a long time. I’m not moving. Can’t we put the past behind us?”

Whirling around, she looked up into those mellow eyes with their silly stretchy lashes. “Now, there’s an idea. Can you tell me how it’s done? How do you forget the past, Skip? You’re a whiz at it, aren’t you? Is it one of those twelve baby-step procedures?” She hated being catty, but the last thing on her radar was this man’s feelings.

Again, the long-lashed blink. “You’ve changed.”

“Damn right I have. It’s called growing up.” She rammed the key into the shed’s lock, flung open the door. “You should try it.”

“You think my life’s been a barrel of laughs?”

She heard the pinch of anger. “I don’t give a flying rat’s rump about your life. As long as it doesn’t interfere with mine, we’re good to go.”

He stopped in the doorway, succinctly blocking a portion of natural light. Reluctantly, she noticed his nut-brown hair needed a good trimming.

He said, “I understand you teach at Fire High.” The anger was gone, replaced with a softness she did not want to examine.

From a shelf, Addie selected four more supers with honey frames. Red clover meant a high volume of blooms and extra work for her miniature buzzing charges. Maybe she would need additional frames after all. About to march back out the door, she paused. “Why did you build across the road?”

“The land was for sale.”

“There were at least three properties along the shoreline you could’ve bought. People with your money buy water views. They don’t do Little House in the Big Woods.”

“I like the woods.”

“Not good enough.” She pushed past him, into the sunshine.

“What do you want from me, Addie? Blood?” Though his shoulder sagged imperceptibly, he took the supers out of her arms. Her heart twisted. He had no business helping her, and certainly not with a permanent injury. He went on, “I’ll gladly give it to you if it makes you feel better. But it won’t change things for us. It won’t—”

She stopped. “Us? There is no us, Skip. There was never an us, not even when we were dating. You made that perfectly clear when you left.” When he’d told her, I need to try, Addie. I need to try and make the big leagues. Don’t hold it against me. And she hadn’t. What she couldn’t understand was the way he disregarded their baby. He hadn’t wanted to accept the responsibility for a child he’d helped create. Even as he told her, I’ll be back for you. We’ll do this together. That’s what hurt. He hadn’t returned. And for that she would never forgive him.

Of course, now it was all clear.

He’d had another woman in the wings. Same old Skip.

Biting back the ache in her throat, she walked to the truck. Michaela sat on the front stoop with Felicity, the American Girl doll, against her chest.

“Want to get in the truck, puddin’?” Addie said. “We’re leaving now.”

Lips working to release words, the child looked to Skip.

Addie set the supers on the ground and hurried to her daughter. “What is it, button?” Had Michaela heard them arguing in the shed?

She glanced over her shoulder at the man loading the pickup’s bed, his arm muscles delineated and tanned in the sunlight. Once those arms had held her. Once they had kept her safe, made her feel wanted.

God, what was she doing, mooning over Skip Dalton’s muscles?

She turned to her child. “Slow and easy, angel,” she whispered. “Slow…That’s my girl. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

Addie watched her daughter’s gaze dart to the side, before she felt Skip crouch beside her. His knee brushed her calf muscle and shot heat into her blood. Keeping her smile in place, she prayed her eyes were calm. She did not want Michaela recalling any unpleasant Dempsey memories.

“Hi, Michaela,” Skip said softly. “I’m Becky’s daddy. Remember Becky who came over today from the house across the road?”

The child’s eyes were anxious as she looked at Addie.

“Slowly, baby,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Skip’s our new neighbor. He’s…He’s not here to hurt me. He came to meet us.”

Beside her, Skip shifted so his position left a small gap between them. “That’s right, Michaela. And when Becky gets her room all fixed up, she’ll show it to you. With your mommy’s permission, of course.”