Daddy To Be Determined

He went downstairs feeling as though the day had been thirty hours long. He mixed a gin and tonic, sat down on a bright red sofa he’d bought because the girls loved it, and propped his feet up on an old wooden garden bench he’d cleaned up and brought inside.

He turned on the Home and Garden Channel, hoping Norm Abrams was sharing an interesting building project. Ben leaned his head against the high cushions and let his eyes drift closed during a commercial about waterproof stain.

He was asleep before the commercial was over.

NATALIE AWOKE TO a headache so brutal she dared not open her eyes.

I’m having a stroke! she thought in panic. Or I’ve been struck on the head with something heavy! I’ve been mugged!

Mugged. No. The warm cocoon in which she was wrapped didn’t feel very post-mugging.

And she probably wasn’t having a stroke. She could move her arm, flex her fingers, put them to her head, where there was no evidence of a bump or a cut. So she hadn’t been struck, either.

She tried hard to think, but her aching head made it almost impossible.

Then she realized she could hardly breathe and her throat was scratchy. The cold. She had an awful cold. She’d taken two cold tablets, then two more, then someone had given her a powerful brandy drink….

Suddenly it all came back. The sperm bank, her investigation and KXAV’s humiliating report, followed by her starring role in Jolie Ramirez’s “Celebrity Dish.” There’d been the trip to Dancer’s Beach and Dori’s absence, the lowest moment of Natalie’s life.

Her head thudded viciously in response to her brain activity, and she was forced to give it a rest.

I’m hungover, she thought defeatedly. She wasn’t hurt or ill; she was hungover on cold medication and brandy. She vaguely remembered still feeling poorly after the drink and taking two more pills. Loggers in spiked boots danced in her head, and she lay quietly for a moment, trying to let her mind rest.

But she had to know things. She had to remember where she was. Her head hurt too much, though, to risk opening her eyes.

She remembered a man and a dog in front of Dori’s house, directing her to…the bed-and-breakfast! Yes! She breathed a sigh of relief. Yes. She was on the third floor of a bed-and-breakfast in a pretty brass bed. It was called the Woodsy Cabin Room because there were pine trees and bears and moose on the wallpaper!

She breathed another sigh of relief. There! Her brain was working. She knew where she was. Feeling just a little better about everything, she risked opening her eyes to slits. They encountered bright sunlight and…no pine trees, no bears, no moose.

She sat up, forgetting the state of her head in her sudden panic at the unfamiliar sight of deep, rose-colored walls covered with framed maps and charts and photos of lighthouses.

She was rewarded with a pounding in her head so severe that she put both hands to her ears, certain they were going to fly off from the pressure.

When her head finally quieted, she took another careful look around. Her bed had short, off-center head and footboards in dark wood that suggested she was sleeping on a futon. The dresser was dark wood, and there was a large model of a sailing yacht on the dresser. The yacht was reflected in the mirror behind it so that it looked as though the model and its reflection were in a neck-and-neck race.

In one corner was an upholstered rocking chair in blue and cream; against another wall stood a tall accountant’s desk from another century. Her eyes went back to the chair. Her suitcase lay on it.

She sat very still and tried to remember where she was, and how she’d gotten here. But all she could recall was a very fuzzy memory of a man, someone she’d thought had been sent to…impregnate her.

Oh, God! Oh, God! She turned to the pillow beside her, wondering if she was sharing the bed with someone she hadn’t even noticed in her panic over her strange surroundings.

She emitted a little sound that was half alarm, half amusement at the sight of the two-foot-tall plush bear. One eye had been replaced with a star-shaped piece of felt, and it seemed to wink at her stupidity.

She wished desperately that she could remember what had happened, hoped against hope that she hadn’t done anything truly stupid. But she was here, wasn’t she? she thought grimly. In a bed she didn’t know, in a room that was unfamiliar. Stupid was written all over it.

Well. She tossed the blankets back and carefully put her legs over the side. Her head thumped in response but she ignored it. Her principal priority was to get away before anyone noticed she was awake. If anyone was here.

The clock on the bedside table read just after eight. If she was lucky, whoever owned this home was on the way to work. She studied the bear worriedly for a moment and wondered if it meant there was a child in residence.

She prayed not. She hated to think she’d been out cold in front of a child.

Natalie got as far as the bathroom off the bedroom before she realized what she was wearing. The red-and-black flannel shirt she remembered. But the baggy, waffle-patterned black thermal underwear did not belong to her. Did it?

And if it didn’t, who had put it on her? The man she’d thought had come to impregnate her?

With a groan of agony, she fell forward against the door molding and closed her eyes. For a woman who’d once had charge of her destiny, she was making one self-destructive move after another.

After a moment of self-pity, she pushed herself upright again, went into the bathroom, filled the sink with water, found a facecloth and did her best to cat-wash quietly so that if anyone was still around, she could make her escape without disturbing them.

She dug through her bag, found a pair of brown cords and a brown turtleneck sweater, and ran a comb cautiously through her painful hair. She folded the black underwear neatly and left it on the foot of the bed.

Then she opened the door silently and, with suitcase in hand and a blue jeans jacket slung over her arm, tiptoed to the head of a wide stairway. On second thought, she reversed direction and went down a smaller back stairway she hoped would lead to a rear hallway and a back door.

She discovered a moment later that she’d been mistaken. The stairway ended in a bright red-and-white kitchen into which small-paned windows all along one side spilled sunlight.

At a farmer’s table in the middle of the room, a man sat reading the paper, while two little girls finished bowls of cereal, their moods apparently morose.

Natalie drew in a breath, distressed at having stumbled into the very confrontation she’d hoped to avoid—and with two beautiful children!

For one instant that would stay with her for a long, long time, she let herself believe that she belonged here, that she’d just showered and dressed and was joining her family for breakfast. The girls were as beautiful as any she’d dreamed of having.

And they looked delighted at the sight of her, grim moods falling away and broad smiles curving their mouths.

“Daddy!” the older of the two girls exclaimed, dark eyes brightening. Natalie guessed her to be seven or eight. “She’s awake!”

“Hi!” The second child, probably a couple of years younger, knelt up on her chair in excitement. “My name’s Roxie!”

The man looked up from his paper and turned his head in her direction. He had close-cropped, dark brown hair, a strong nose, a square chin with the slightest cleft in it, and a mouth that might have lent that tough face a little softness if it had been smiling.

But it wasn’t. And a pair of mahogany-brown eyes said clearly that he disapproved of her.

Time began again and reality descended upon her with a crash.

He was the man in her blurred images of last night. And she’d mentioned impregnation to him; she knew she had. He must think her either a slut or a complete idiot. She didn’t really care to know which.

To her utter and complete surprise, he pushed back from the table and stood. “Good morning,” he said politely, if a little stiffly.

“Good morning,” she replied in a raspy voice. She cleared her throat and smiled at the girls. “Hi. I’m Natalie.”

The older girl tried to get up, but the man stopped her with a look. Then he transferred The Look to Natalie. It made her, too, stay in her place.

“I’m Ben Griffin,” he said. “My mother owns the bed-and-breakfast where you were staying. These are my daughters, Vanessa and Roxanne.”

She smiled at each in turn. Bright smiles that could not be squelched by The Look were offered to her.

“I’m pleased to meet all of you,” she said, transferring her suitcase to her other hand. “And I want you to know how grateful I am for your hospitality.”

She had a million questions. Had she been rowdy last night and had his mother asked him to get rid of her? Had Natalie invited herself over? Had he invited her after her impregnation remarks?

On second thought, maybe she didn’t want her questions answered.

Vanessa turned to her father. “I knew she’d have a nice voice. Does she have to go?”

“Yes, I do,” Natalie replied quickly, unwilling to let Ben Griffin be put on the spot after whatever it was she’d done last night. “I have to…go to work.”

“Isn’t that in Philadelphia?” he asked.

She wondered how he knew that, then realized that if she’d asked him to impregnate her, chances are she’d told him where she lived. She swallowed a groan.

“Yes. I have to get to the airport.”

“I’m afraid we left your car at my mother’s,” he said. “I’ll drive you when I get back from taking the girls to school and day care.” He pointed to the bowl at the fourth place set at the table. “Why don’t you have some cereal and a cup of coffee, and I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

“I could take a cab there,” she demurred, sure all he needed was to be put to more trouble on her account.

He shook his head. “Cab service died last year.”

Roxie, still kneeling on her chair, leaned across the table to shake cereal into the empty bowl. “We really like Frosted Pups. It has colored candies in it, but Daddy says we can’t have that except sometimes on Saturdays. It doesn’t have enough…” She turned to her sister for help.

“Nutrition,” Vanessa enunciated carefully. She pushed the milk in the direction of the empty chair. “Daddy said you could stay for dinner,” she added in a rush.

Natalie guessed by the way Ben Griffin stopped in the act of removing a battered suede jacket from the back of his chair that the child had lied.

But he shrugged on the jacket without correcting her.

“That’s very generous,” Natalie said, beginning to feel his disapproval like a weight and hating that she couldn’t respond to the children’s warmth. She knew he wouldn’t like it. “But I really have to go today.”

Both girls looked crestfallen, and she was at a loss to understand their interest in her when she’d hardly spoken to them.

“But I can have breakfast first,” she said, hoping to draw back the smiles. She put her suitcase down by the door and went to the table.

Ben poured coffee into her cup, then excused himself to find his car keys.

Vanessa took a napkin from the holder in the middle of the table and walked around to hand it to her. “Would you like a banana for your cereal?” she asked.

Natalie opened the napkin onto her lap. “No, this is fine, thank you. What grade are you in, Vanessa?”

“I’m in second. Roxie’s in preschool.”

“But I’m gonna get my ears pierced,” Roxie said, coming around the table to press in on the other side of Natalie. She put a fingertip to the jade stud in Natalie’s closest earlobe. “And I’m gonna get earrings just like yours!”

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “She’s not getting her ears pieced until she grows up. Daddy says we’re too young. Do you think we’re too young?”

“Definitely,” she said. “You have to take care of your ears very carefully when you have them pierced or you get an infection. And it’s easier to remember all the things you have to do if you’re older.”

“How old were you?” Vanessa asked.

“I was in high school,” Natalie replied. “My friend gave it to me as a present for my birthday.”

“You were sleeping last night,” Roxie said, leaning her elbow companionably on the table beside Natalie’s bowl and smiling up into her face. “I thought you were Sleeping Beauty! I wanted Daddy to kiss you, but he didn’t want to.”

Natalie bet he didn’t. “I wasn’t feeling very well.”

Vanessa confirmed that with a nod. “Grandma said you had a cold, then you had some brandy, and you didn’t answer the phone.”

Natalie propped her elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. It ached abominably.

“Dillydally if you’re able,” Roxie sang to her, quoting the old aphorism, “but keep your elbows off the table.”

Natalie dutifully lowered her elbow.

“That wasn’t polite!” Vanessa scolded Roxie. “She’s company.”

“Daddy says we have to have good table manners all the time!”

“Us, but not her! She’s a grown-up!”

“No, no, that’s all right.” Natalie put an arm around each girl to defuse the argument. “Thank you, Vanessa, but Roxanne is right. Good manners are always important.”

Their father returned with a key ring hooked over his index finger. He took in the scene of the three of them and his brow darkened.

Natalie dropped her arms from them and swallowed a lump in her throat as she smiled. “You girls have a good day at school,” she said. “And thank you for getting my breakfast together. I’m very glad that I got to meet you.”

“You ready, girls?” their father asked.

Vanessa sighed. “Yes. Come on, Roxie.”

Vanessa picked up her lunch box from the counter, and Roxie took a well-loved doll from beside her bowl. They stopped to wave as their father held the back door open.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Natalie.

The heroic thing to do, she thought, as he closed the door behind him, was to quickly finish her cereal and start walking to the B-and-B. Her suitcase had wheels, and Dancer’s Beach was small enough that it would take her only a moment to figure out how to get to the B-and-B from here.

She congratulated herself on the first reasonable plan she’d made since her unfortunate decision to use a sperm bank to get a baby in her life.

She finished her cereal hurriedly, had several sips of hot coffee, then rinsed out her dishes and put them in the sink.

Nothing about the view from the window above the sink looked familiar. She walked into the living room and looked out the large window. She saw that the house was on a hill just above town, and that it was probably six or seven blocks downhill, then just about half a mile to the B-and-B and her car. A cinch. At home she ran three miles every other day.

Unfortunately, she discovered a moment later, she ran far better than she walked. When she turned to head back to the kitchen to retrieve her suitcase and leave quickly, she caught her foot on a two-by-four in the hallway that she hadn’t noticed on her way in. She fell flat on her face, a burning pain ripping through her right ankle.

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