Their Secret Child

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.”

“I l-l-like B-B-B-Becky,” came her tiny voice.

Addie swallowed hard. “I know you do, button.”

“C-c-c-can s-s-s-she come over t-t-to play?”

“Maybe one day.” She brushed aside her daughter’s wispy bangs. “Ready to go to our bees?”

A quick head bob.

“Come on, then.” Taking Michaela’s hand and ensuring she stood as a buffer to Skip, Addie walked to the truck’s passenger door.

When she’d buckled her daughter in place, she went around back to retrieve the remaining supers, but Skip had completed the job and was slamming up the tailgate.

“How long has she been stuttering?” he asked, and instead of curiosity or repugnance, she heard a parent’s gentle concern.

Her heart battled. She did not want him concerned. She did not want him to be gentle or genuine or kind. She wanted him to be the Skip Dalton she remembered. The one who chose footballs and adulation over diapers and 2:00 a.m. feedings.

Still, she considered. She could make up a story, or tell him to mind his own affairs. After all, she owed Skip Dalton zip.

On a long sigh, she decided to go with the truth. Best from her than the grapevine. “It started when she was learning to speak, but it worsened when her father walked out on us last year.”

She held his gaze. The way you did.

One large hand rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”

Sure. She shook out her keys. “Goodbye, Skip.”

He simply looked at her. Then, nodding, he said, “See you around,” and headed back the way he’d come, down her narrow dirt lane to his big house winking its white walls through a lace of green wilderness.

Chapter Three

The village of Burnt Bend hadn’t changed much since Skip was a kid. It was still half the size of a football field with one main drag offering island residents Dalton Foods—his family’s store—a barber shop, a post office, a gas pump, a coffee shop, three restaurants, Saturday flea markets, a movie theater and Burnt Realty. If he walked a hundred feet, he’d be at the water’s end of Main, and the marina where the ferry docked.

Parking his pickup in a slot near the dinky little hardware store where he’d worked when he was sixteen, Skip cut the engine. He wondered what his mother was up to in her store down on the corner. What she’d do if he walked Becky into that office above the food aisles.

He looked across the cab at his daughter in her tattered jean shorts and pink hoodie, and smiled. Not today, he thought. But soon. First, she needed to get acquainted with Addie. His mother would have to wait. The last thing he wanted was family overload.

“Ready to check out the mailboxes?” he asked. For Becky’s sake, he wanted the Island Weekly delivered to his rural route address. It still surprised him that a child her age enjoyed reading the paper.

“And a birdhouse?” Her blue eyes glinted.

“And a birdhouse,” he agreed as they climbed out of the truck. Truth was, there wasn’t much he could refuse when it came to those Addie-eyes.

“Hey,” she said. “There’s Ms. Malloy and Michaela.”

Skip looked across the street. Sure enough, Addie and her daughter stood on the sidewalk in front of the library, watching them.

He lifted a hand.

Towing Michaela behind her, Addie turned toward the building.

Skip pocketed his keys. Did she remember their rides around the island in his old Chevy pickup? The way she’d snuggled against his side, laughed in his ear?

“Michaela,” Becky called.

The little girl waved before going inside.

“I’m going over to say hi.”

Before Skip could stop her, Becky dashed across the pavement. “Be right back,” she hollered, jogging to the library door.

Heaving a sigh, Skip jaywalked after her and told himself those four years in foster homes had initiated a fierce independence in his little girl, an independence to which he had yet to adapt.

The library had once been a military store. Low ceilings, wooden walls and floors, small windows that allowed a minimal allotment of natural light. The familiar scent of Murphy’s soap, wax and books hit his nose the instant he stepped inside. The rooms hadn’t changed. It was as if he’d checked out a novel yesterday, when he was eighteen and was still favored in the circle of football, Friday-night games and girls.

Except, he wasn’t eighteen, he was thirty-three. And a father to an almost thirteen-year-old. A man with a shoulder that one day would likely attract arthritis.

In the children’s corner he spotted Addie kneeling on the floor with Becky and Michaela. Heads bent together, both girls had several books scattered between them.

Addie’s eyes lifted at his approach. “Skip.”

Naturally she wouldn’t make a scene with her child and Becky this close, but just the same he caught the edge she spun on his name.

“Addie.” For the first time, he noticed she wore running gear: black shorts, yellow breathable shirt, yellow visor cap and a pair of gel-cushioned ASICS jogging shoes. His eyes went to the curve of her tawny ponytail; she looked Becky’s age.

“Hey, Dad.” Grinning, his daughter held up two small novels.

“Michaela can read chapter books already. Isn’t that great?”

“That’s terrific, honey.”

Murmuring to Michaela, Addie rose to her feet.

“We’ll be fine, Ms. Malloy,” Skip heard Becky respond.

Addie touched the smaller child’s hair before stepping around the pair and walking to where he stood.

Her eyes—storm-blue eyes—beckoned him across the room to the fiction section. There, well out of earshot of the kids, she faced him. “Are you here to check out some books?” Why did you follow me into the library? her eyes asked.

“My daughter wanted to say hello to your girl,” he said.

“Oh.” She blinked.

“Look, Addie—”

“No, you look, Skip. I know we’ll be seeing each other in town. Except for the very rich living on the water, the island hasn’t changed much over the years. You probably read the stats on Burnt Bend’s welcome sign.”

“Population one-thousand and eight-nine?” he asked, and felt a corner of his mouth lift. “By my calculations, it’s shot up a count of eighty-four since I left.”

“Laugh all you want. The point is it’s a small place, a small island. People know each other. They talk. Get my meaning?”

He sobered. “And you don’t want them talking about us.”

“As I said—”

“Yeah. I know. There is no us.”

“No.”

Her eyes captivated him. Once, long, long ago, he’d whispered that he could have drowned in her eyes. Clichéd, he knew. Truth was he had drowned in her soul. Until his father had yanked him out and kicked him to shore.

Skip took a deep breath. “Addie, can we call a truce? What happened thirteen years ago…We can’t bring that time back, can’t revert to the past.” Her eyes hardened. Dammit, he was saying it all wrong. “Look, what I mean is, if I could, I’d go back. I’d change it all. You were every—”

“Excuse me. My daughter’s made her choice.” She stepped around him and joined Michaela and Becky at the front counter. Several minutes later, the girls said goodbye and the Malloys left.

“Dad?” Becky whispered. “What’s going on?”

He pretended to study titles on the shelves. “Nothing.”

“Yes, there is. Something’s up between you and Ms. Malloy. I can tell.” His daughter’s eyes narrowed. “You know her, don’t you? From when you lived here. Did you go to school together or something?”

Or something. He wouldn’t lie. “I’ve known her since we were kids. But, I’d rather not talk about it right now, okay?”

“Sure. Whatever.”

He exhaled a lungful of air. “It’s…um, complicated, Bean.”

“No worries,” she said, and shrugged. “No sense crying over spilled milk. That’s what Jesse always said.”

Skip didn’t want to discuss her adopted father. However, he admitted, “He was right. Did you choose a novel?”

She held up a copy of Forever In Blue and he chuckled. She loved the “traveling pants” series. Last month she’d devoured Girls in Pants. “Which one is that?”

“The fourth. And I’m getting this one, too.” She held up a copy of Birdhouses You Can Build In A Day. “Then we can have baby birds every year.” Her smile dazzled him.

“Fine.” He selected a novel without reading the title or the author before heading for the checkout counter. “We need a couple of library cards,” he told the librarian, the same woman who had ruled the books in the building during his high school days. She’d been ancient back then, too.

“Well, now,” she said, her eyes sharp and keen. “Skip Dalton. Heard you were back in town.”

“Yes, ma’am, Ms. Brookley.” And before she could allude to something unsavory, he added, “This is my daughter, Becky.”

The old woman’s eyes widened. “You don’t say. What grade will you start in September, Becky?”

“Seventh.”

“You good in math?” The old lady typed their names onto the cards.

“Yeah. I mean, yes.”

“Then you’ll have no trouble with Ms. Malloy. She’ll be your teacher.” The librarian cast Skip a censured glance, one he read clearly: You’ve got nerve coming back here with your kid after leaving Addie to give up hers.

Three minutes later he filled his lungs with tangy ocean air as they walked from the musty room and the old lady’s scorn into sunshine.

“Let’s see what kind of mailboxes they have at the hardware store,” he said, and started for the store across the street.

“Dad,” Becky began, “I want to know what’s up with you and Ms. Malloy. And don’t say nothing. I saw the way she was looking at you.”

“And how was that?”

“Like she wanted to bite your head off.”

And then some. “It’s a long story, Bean. One day I’ll tell you, I promise.”

“Why not today?”

“There are some things she and I need to work out first, okay?”

They crossed the street and walked down the sidewalk.

“Was she like your girlfriend in high school?”

Grinning, he tugged gently on her ponytail. “Persistent, aren’t you? I’ll tell you all in good time.”

“She’s a runner, you know.”

“I saw that.”

“She runs three times a week with her sisters. Did you know she has two sisters living here? Michaela’s so lucky to have aunts.”

“Michaela tell you all this?”

“Yep. And other stuff.”

“Such as?”

His daughter laughed. “No way. I’ll tell when you tell.”

“Like I said—”

“You’ll tell me when the time’s right.”

“Smart girl. Now, let’s find us a mailbox.”

“And a birdhouse?” Becky tossed a saucy look as she pushed open the door of the store, tinkling its bells.

“One birdhouse coming up.”

Anything to keep questions about Addie out of his daughter’s radar range. The girl was far too perceptive. Ah, just own up, Skip. You aren’t ready to disclose that part of your past yet.

Nor would he contemplate the possibility that, since he’d moved within a short jog of Addie’s door, his feet might be getting a tad cold.

Sweat ran down Addie’s ribs and spine and between her breasts. Today she led her sisters. Usually it was Kat, then Lee, then Addie. But after seeing Skip at the library, she needed to push harder than ever. She needed to outrun the memories.

Right, and when has that ever happened? You even married a man who resembled Skip. Dark hair, honey eyes.

God, she’d made so many foolish, foolish decisions.

In a groove now, she paced herself, breathing through her mouth and lengthening her stride, yet maintaining a slower pace. Wednesday was always their long run, nine miles around Silver Lake in the middle of the island, while on Monday and Saturday they ran the ocean shoreline.

Initially, it had been Addie and her middle sister, Kat, outrunning stress and grief. Lovely, dark-haired Kat, who’d lost her husband in a boating accident while Addie still had nightmares over her lost baby, never mind her problems with Dempsey.

Then their eldest sister Lee returned, lugging a heart full of baggage to the island, and running had become as necessary as water to the trio.

“So,” Lee said, coming abreast with Addie. “Where’s the fire?”

“No fire.” She kept her eyes on the forested trail ahead.

“Yeah? At this pace we’ll be finishing the lake run in twenty minutes, not our normal ninety.”

Addie checked her watch as they passed the ancient sequoia. Seven minutes too fast; she slowed her pace.

Behind them, Kat asked, “This about Skip Dalton?”

“What about him?” Lee asked.

Addie said, “Kat thinks because he’s moved in across the road from me I’m running to escape.”

“Are you?” they asked in unison.

“No. Where he lives is not my concern. What he does is not my concern. Who he does it with is not my concern.”

“Really?” Kat’s chuckle drifted between Addie and Lee.

“You seem to be mighty vocal about the whole thing for him not to be your concern, honey.”

“Did you see him today?” Lee asked as they emerged from the woods and started down the path along the lakeshore. “Is that why you’re upset?”

“I’m not upset.”

At least not anymore.

Not since they’d begun their run. In the library she believed Skip had deliberately tracked her down, but then Michaela told Addie on the way to Charmaine’s house that Becky had wanted to say hi and get a library card.

Addie couldn’t fault the girl. She was polite and kind, and Michaela liked her. A lot. Which scared Addie. Her daughter hooking up with Becky meant Skip and Addie were doomed to each other’s company.

Beneath her feet the ground was spongy, the track easy; in her lungs the air was fragrant with pine and moss and lake water. She had trekked this trail with Skip when she was fifteen. He had kissed her here when she was sixteen, and around the next bend seven months later he had made love to her for the first time under a soft August moon, in the back of his pickup.

“I wish it was a bed,” he’d whispered. And she’d whispered in return, “I’m glad it’s just you and me and the moon.”

Silly romantic fool, that’s what she’d been.

“Addie?” Lee’s voice plunged her back to the present. “’Fess up. What gives? You’ve been a bear with a sore paw for more than a week.”

“Fine.” Before they made the bend and The Spot, she slammed to a halt. “Here’s the deal. I’m scared.”

Lee yanked the bandana from her thick, curly red ponytail, and wiped her neck. “Of Skip?”

“Yes, of Skip.”

Kat, always the hugger, put her arms around Addie. “Honey, why on earth would you be scared of him?”

Lee rolled her eyes. “Not of him, of herself.”

“Is that it?” her middle sister asked.

Addie nodded. “He’s right across the road. I’ll not only see him at school, but I’ll see him when I’m home. I’ll see his car in his driveway…or him doing something in his yard—building mailboxes and birdhouses—”

“Birdhouses?” her sisters parroted.

“Becky told Michaela they were getting a birdhouse today.”

“Why is that scary?” Kat wanted to know.

“I don’t know.” Hands on her hips, Addie hung her head and blew out a breath. “Because it’s homey. It means they’re staying.”

“But you already knew that, Addie.” As eldest, Lee had learned early to be the logical one. “You knew when he took on Coach’s job.”

Both sisters studied her.

“You still have feelings for him,” Lee observed.

“Not at all.”

“Oh, Addie.” Kat, the peacekeeper, the nurturer.

Backing away, Addie held up her palms. “Don’t start with the ‘Oh, Addie.’ I’m over him, all right? I haven’t thought of Skip Dalton in years.” She turned to run the trail again.

“Sheesh, you’re just like Mom,” Kat called after her.

“Mom’s got nothing to do with this,” Addie retorted.

“Yes, she does.” Lee was on her heels. “You won’t own up.”

Own up. The way Charmaine wouldn’t own up about Kat’s father. “This is hardly the same,” Addie said. “I know who Skip Dalton is.”

“But,” Lee said, “you’ve never accepted your feelings where he’s concerned. You’ve shoved them into the back closet. Just like Mom.”

Just like Mom. No way. Addie ran toward the trail’s bend, the bend where he’d told her he loved her, that he would never leave her, that one day they’d be two old people rocking on the porch, watching sunsets. And when she reached the curve, when she might have stumbled, she ran harder, faster, escaping what she believed buried for thirteen years….

That Lee was right.

Standing on her back stoop, Addie called for Michaela. No response. She hurried to the honey house in case her daughter had gone there. The child liked sitting on the wooden floor in a sunny spot playing with her dolls, and Addie suspected it had to do with the waxy-honey scent and quiet warmth. “Michaela!”

The door was closed.

Worry spiking, she rushed inside the building. Empty.

Where was she?

Running to the front yard, she called again. Then stopped when the sound of hammering echoed through the late-morning air.

Hadn’t he finished building over there yet?

And suddenly she knew where her daughter had gone. The birdhouse.

The one Becky described to Michaela last night on the phone—already they’d exchanged numbers. The one the girl had convinced Skip to buy following the library trip two days ago and their discussion about tree swallows nesting in Addie’s backyard.

Quickly, she walked down the path shaded by evergreens and birch, and across the road. At the end of his driveway, a spanking white mailbox stood on a clean-cut wooden post. The mailbox he’d purchased while she jogged with Lee and Kat.