Tina Leonard - Daddy's Little Darlings

“She is the ugliest baby on earth, isn’t she?” Alex’s shoulders drooped. “A runt. That’s what she reminds me of. How could I father a runt?”

Sinclair started laughing. He dropped his chamois onto the gleaming car and turned to lean against it, holding his stomach with laughter.

“What? What’s so funny?” Alex demanded.

His usually reserved butler shook his head, wiping tears from his eyes. Alex stared, astonished. “I’ve never seen you act this way.”

Sinclair bent over double, guffawing in a most un-austere manner.

“Will you please tell me what you’re laughing about?”

Sinclair took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “That’s just what your father said when you were born.”

Alex froze. “I see nothing funny about that.” His father had taunted him most of his life about numerous things. He couldn’t remember ever really pleasing him. To be reminded of his short comings right now, when he’d fathered three girls, wasn’t some thing he wanted to hear.

“No, probably not.” Sinclair gave him an ironic look and pulled his wallet from his suit pocket. He unfolded it, then handed it to him. “That’s really what I’m laughing about.”

He stared at the picture underneath the worn plastic. A baby face peered out at him. “You have an ugly baby, too?” It was some thing he didn’t know about Sinclair. He thought the man’s whole life had revolved around Alex since the day he’d been born. But maybe there was a happy ending to the story. Maybe Sinclair’s ugly off spring had grown up to be someone wonderful, a man with intelligence and great abilities—

“That’s you,” Sinclair said with a grin. “Look closer. That little runt is you.” He reached to pull the picture from under the plastic so Alex could see better. “Bald as a baseball bat, despite Nelly rubbing your head with baby oil constantly. Just like rubbing a baking potato with butter,” he said cheerfully.

The baby in the picture seemed happy in his ugliness, sporting a satisfied expression as he lay snuggled into his covers. Alex felt a momentary sting for the baby’s un spoiled happiness. He’d had no idea what he was up against.

“No hair, didn’t open your eyes for days,” Sinclair went on. “Just a happy runt, content to be fed every couple of hours, then you went right back to sleep. Nelly said she’d never seen such a good baby.” He folded the picture away. “Your mother thought you were the most beautiful thing she’d ever laid eyes on,” he said with a meaningful glance at Alex.

“She did?”

“She did, right until the day she died.” Sinclair gave him a swift pat on the back. “Your mother didn’t care two hoots what the old man thought about her baby. She said runts were blessings, too, and if you were a bit small and a lot ugly, that just made you all the more special in her eyes.”

“I’m sure Father had plenty to say about that,” Alex muttered.

“Nothing your mother ever listened to. When he complained because you had a lazy eye that needed surgery, she told him to take a flying leap. She phrased it more ladylike, but that was the gist. And when you needed special shoes because your feet turned different ways, your mother told your father it meant you would always walk a more gifted path.” Sinclair began putting away the can of wax and the rags. “Guess she was right.”

“She sounds like Daphne,” Alex said with sudden realization.

“She does, doesn’t she?”

He sounded surprised, but Alex had the idea that Sinclair had been leading up to his point.

“And your father loved your mother to distraction.”

“He did?” Alex couldn’t imagine his father loving anyone enough to be distracted.

“Yes. ‘Course, he couldn’t show it much. Your father hadn’t experienced enough love in his life to be able to show it to anyone else.” Sinclair finished packing the tools. “It’s a sin of the father I might recommend you not visit on your own marriage,” he said cryptically.

Alex stared at him.

“And as you may have realized from seeing the very picture made the day you were born in the hospital, runts grow up with feelings and needs of their own. Alex Junior will need you to treat her as if she were the most beautiful child in the world, just as your mother did you. Though I daresay Miss Daphne is going to have to come up with better names for those children soon before I lose my wits,” he muttered before nodding briskly and leaving, the only lecture he’d ever given Alex apparently over.

It was a lot to think about. Alex squinted at the dormered window again, his father’s shadow more evident than before. That was how he always saw his father, as an over whelming, disapproving, dark presence that affected his life. He loved his father, knew how to deal with him on most matters. But the old man was an enigma. He had never really expended sentiment on Alex, not with the fond affection Sinclair and Nelly had shown him. They had raised him, of course.

It struck him that he had suggested to Daphne that she do the same by telling her the babies should go to the nursery. That had been an error on his part, one he resolved not to repeat. If his mother hadn’t died when he was so young, he doubted very seriously that Sinclair and Nelly would have had such a great hand in his up bringing, as wonderful as they’d been to him.

But family retainers, close and part of the family as they were, couldn’t replace a father’s and mother’s love to their children. He stared at the shining, polished surface of his sports car and made a sudden decision.

DAPHNE SHOWERED and took a nap, so she was ready when her mother brought the young troop of hungry mouths in to be fed. Eagerly, she reached for Yoda, who was crying the most urgently.

“Oh, sweet thing,” she murmured, taking the baby in her arms. “Are you hungry?”

“They’re all hungry,” Danita said. She sat in a rocker with the other two and held them to her ample bosom. “Flowers look nice,” she said over the wails.

“Yes.” Daphne barely glanced at the vase of sunshine-yellow roses Alex had brought into her room. It was too painful. To continue her stern facade, she couldn’t allow herself to be softened by his attempts to woo her. She wished he would stop so she could continue feeling hurt and angry, the way she’d been when she’d left this house before. Lying back against the pillow, she forced herself to think of anything besides Alex so she could relax enough to feed her baby.

Ten minutes later, Danita gave Miss Magoo to her. “Will you ever grow eye lashes?” she cooed to Miss Magoo as the baby latched on.

Danita glanced up from changing Yoda into a fresh gown and diaper. “Sure, she will. You didn’t have any lashes when you were born.”

“I didn’t?” She hardly needed to use mascara now.

“Nope, you didn’t. In fact, I think that ‘un looks most like you.”

“Do you think so?” She gazed at the contentedly feeding baby. “Her hair does seem to have a little red in it.”

“Yep. Gonna have your green eyes, too.”

“How can you tell?” Right now, all the babies’ eyes seemed about the same color to her, not that she’d really gotten a good look at them.

Danita shrugged, picked Yoda up then set her down cozily in her crib. She returned to grab Alex Junior up and seat herself in the rocker. “I don’t know. She just looks like you when you were born.”

“Well, I’m glad for that.” She held her baby tightly.

“This ‘un looks like Alex.” Danita looked at the baby she held.

“I don’t know,” she replied doubt fully, “I don’t see much of Alex’s, um, good looks in her.” She wasn’t about to mention to her mother that she found her husband very handsome!