Angel Mine

Ordinarily the sameness soothed him, but tonight he felt restless, the way he often did when the air crackled with electricity just before a thunderstorm. The sensation was so intense, he looked at the horizon, but there was no evidence of a storm building. That must mean the restlessness was purely internal.

He hesitated outside the diner and considered changing his routine by going for pizza down the block, then shook his head. Who was he kidding? He enjoyed having Henrietta fuss over him, and the new cook occasionally tried out recipes for something besides chicken fried steak or meat loaf. Of course, the cook did it at his peril, since most of the customers hated the experiments and Henrietta only tolerated them because he was the best cook she’d had in years.

When Todd finally walked in, he was startled to find Henrietta with a bright-eyed toddler trailing in her wake and chattering a mile a minute.

“I know you’re desperate, but isn’t she a little young to be your new waitress?” he asked, after giving Henrietta a dutiful peck on the cheek.

The girl was dressed in denim overalls and a bright green T-shirt. Her little feet were clad in colorful sneakers adorned with daisies. The cheerful appearance was at odds with her solemn expression as she stared at him silently. She gave the disconcerting impression that she was assessing him. Apparently he passed muster, because before he could guess what she had in mind, she’d lifted her arms.

“Up,” she demanded imperiously.

“You’d better do as she says,” Henrietta advised, laughing. “She’s only been here a couple of hours, but she already tends to think she’s in charge. My kids actually volunteered to go off and do their homework, because they couldn’t keep up with her. Her name’s Angel.”

Todd backed up a step. Why was it everyone was trying to foist kids on him lately? Granted, this one wasn’t an infant, but he wanted no part of her. Just thinking about doing as she asked caused a cold sweat to break out on his forehead. She was still too little, too fragile to be trusted to someone like him. He never saw any child under four without thinking there was tragedy and heartache just waiting to happen.

“Sorry, I think maybe I’m coming down with the flu or something. I probably shouldn’t get too close. In fact, I think I’ll go on home. I’m not feeling much like food tonight.”

Surely he could find something edible in his refrigerator. Hadn’t he bought a half-dozen frozen meals the last time he’d gone to the store, just for emergencies like this? Of course, he usually relied on those when the special here was liver and onions, but tonight’s turn of events was equally distasteful.

Henrietta regarded him with her typical motherly concern. If she was skeptical about his sudden illness, she didn’t let on.

“Any fever?” she asked, touching his forehead with cool fingers before he could retreat. “Nope. I doubt you’re contagious. Sit down and I’ll get you some chicken soup. If there’s anything wrong with you, that’ll cure it.”

“No, really. I’d better go.”

“Sit,” she insisted.

Filled with trepidation, Todd sat, keeping his wary gaze on the little girl who continued to stare at him with evident fascination even after Henrietta had disappeared into the kitchen. She inched closer.

“You sick?” she asked, head tilted, her expression sympathetic.

He nodded.

“Want Mama to give you a hug?”

“No, thanks,” he said, though he had to wonder about “Mama.” Who was she? Where was she? Surely Henrietta hadn’t taken in another stray. Folks in town were still talking about the way she’d adopted a pair of children whose parents had been killed. Henrietta hadn’t hesitated, partly because she felt some misplaced sense of responsibility for the tragedy, partly because those kids deserved a better fate than living with their embittered paternal grandmother, but mostly because that was just the way she was: kindhearted and generous. All things considered, the children were doing well under her care.

Todd glanced at this child. The intensity of her gaze was disconcerting. Something about her eyes, probably. An unusual shade of green, they looked oddly familiar.

He was still trying to puzzle out the reason for that when the door opened and a woman breezed in, her gaze swinging at once on the little girl. She seemed to freeze in place when she realized that the child was with him.

In that single instant, a lot of things registered at once. The woman had a mane of artfully streaked hair that had been tousled by the wind. He’d known someone once with thick, lustrous hair that exact color. She, too, had dressed unconventionally in long, flowing skirts, tunic-length tops and clinking bracelets. His gaze shot to this woman’s face. Even with the oversize sunglasses in place, there was no mistaking her identity. He went into a form of shock, followed by an inexplicable lurch of his heart.

He’d been over Heather Reed for some time now, or so he’d thought until just this second. He’d dismissed the fact that she popped into his head with disturbing frequency. After all, she had started as an enchanting fling, a walk on the wild side when he’d first arrived in New York, fresh out of college and ready to take Broadway by storm. She’d touched the carefree part of his soul that he kept mostly hidden. He’d been drawn to her impulsiveness, her unpredictability, even as they had terrified him. She was so unlike any other woman he’d ever known, it was no wonder he couldn’t quite forget about her. They’d stayed together for six years, long enough for her to become a part of him. Long enough to show just how ill-suited they were.

He was still reeling from the impossibility of her turning up in Whispering Wind when the toddler beside him raced across the restaurant and threw herself straight at the woman.

“Mama!” she shouted gleefully as if they’d been separated for days.

Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion. Heather scooped the child into her arms, then turned fully in his direction. She seemed a whole lot less surprised to see him than he was to see her.

“Hello, Todd.”

She spoke in that low, sultry voice that once had sent goose bumps down his spine. The effect hadn’t been dulled by time, he noticed with regret.

He slid from the booth and stood, hating the way his blood had started pumping fast and furiously at the sight of her. “Heather,” he said politely. “This is a surprise. What are you doing here?”

Henrietta picked that moment to return with his soup. “Ah,” she said, beaming at them. “Todd, I see you’ve already met my new waitress. Just hired her today. Believe it or not, she actually has experience.”

His gaze shot to Heather’s face. He kept waiting for her to deny it, to say that she was only passing through, but she stared right back at him with her chin lifted defiantly.

Something was going on here he didn’t understand, something that he had a hunch he’d better figure out in less than a New York minute. He latched on to Heather’s arm.

“Can we talk?” he asked, already tugging her toward the door. “Henrietta, keep an eye on her daughter for a few more minutes, will you?”

“Of course, but…”

Whatever Henrietta had intended to say died on her lips, as Todd unceremoniously escorted Heather from the restaurant.

“You don’t need to manhandle me,” Heather grumbled when they were on the sidewalk, safely out of earshot of Henrietta’s keen hearing and well-honed curiosity.

“Why are you here?” he repeated, not at all pleased by the fact that on some level he was actually glad to see her. That was a knee-jerk, hormonal reaction, nothing more. Nobody on earth had ever kicked his libido into gear faster than Heather had. Apparently she could still do it. Reason, good sense, past history, none of it seemed to matter.

Of course, she was equally adept at annoying him with the unpredictability he had once found so charming, and right now he intended to concentrate on that.

“Well?” he prodded when she didn’t answer right away.

Eyes flashing a challenge, she smiled at him. “You don’t think it’s pure coincidence that I showed up in Whispering Wind, where you happen to live?”

“Not in ten million lifetimes. I saw the look on your face in there. You weren’t the least bit surprised to see me. You knew I was here.”

“You always were brilliant. Good instincts, isn’t that what the directors used to say? A real grasp of motivations.”

He ignored the sarcasm in her voice. He knew how she felt about his decision to abandon his acting career. She’d made that very clear when she’d accused him of selling out, then flounced out of his life as if he’d failed her, instead of simply trying to keep their financial heads above water.

“Get to the point,” he said now.

Though he wanted badly to deny it, he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he already knew the reason for her arrival. He also thought he knew now why that child’s eyes had looked so disconcertingly familiar. He prayed he was wrong, but what if he wasn’t?

If he was a father and Megan found out about it, Heather and Henrietta wouldn’t be the only ones pestering him to do right by her. Megan would make it another one of her missions. She wouldn’t let up until there had been a full-scale wedding complete with white doves and a seven-tier cake. She’d have him out of his cozy little bachelor apartment here in town and into a house with a white picket fence and a swing set in the backyard before he could blink. She would consider it just retribution for his role in forcing her to face her responsibility with Tess.

For some reason Heather’s gaze strayed across the street to Jake’s office, before turning back and locking defiantly with his.

“Okay,” she said at last. “You want the truth, here it is.”

Suddenly Todd didn’t want to hear the truth, after all. He wanted to finish out this day in blissful ignorance. It was too late, though. Heather clearly had no intention of remaining silent now that he’d badgered her for the truth.

Her expression softened ever so slightly and her voice dropped to little more than a whisper, as if by speaking softly she could make the words more palatable. “I figured it was time you met your daughter.”

Heather wished she’d been able to deliver her news in a less-public setting, wished she’d been able to wait as Jake had instructed her to do, but sometimes fate made its own timing. She’d pictured a dozen different scenarios for making the big announcement, but in none had she imagined blurting it out in the middle of a sidewalk while Todd stared at her as if she’d been speaking gibberish.

In fact, if Todd wasn’t the strongest, most emotionally controlled man in captivity, she had a feeling he would have fainted right there on Main Street. He certainly looked as if he would rather be anyplace else on earth. Fortunately she hadn’t counted on seeing a joyous outburst, so his stunned, silent reaction didn’t cut straight through her the way it might have.

“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?” she prodded.

“Why should I believe you?”

Those weren’t exactly the words every woman dreamed of hearing after she’d just told a man he was a daddy, but she’d anticipated little else. Todd was the kind of man who expected life to occur in a nice, orderly procession of events. He worked to see that it did just that. She’d skipped straight past any announcement of a pregnancy and delivered a three-year-old into his life. She held on to her temper, because she could understand the shock he must be feeling and knew she was to blame for that much, anyway.

“Because I don’t lie?” she suggested mildly, refusing to be insulted by the question.

If she thought about it, she supposed it was natural enough for him to doubt her. After all, she hadn’t told him the truth four years ago. In fact, she had deliberately avoided his calls—from the moment she’d learned she was pregnant, turning her back on their promise to remain friends after the breakup. She could have handled friendship with an ex-lover, but not under those circumstances. The baby had changed everything. Pride and a fierce streak of independence had made her determined to keep the secret.

She met his gaze evenly. “If you need one, have a paternity test done. Seems to me that a glance in the mirror would be enough proof, but do whatever it takes to make a believer of you,” she told him with a shrug of feigned indifference.

He looked as if the suggestion made him vaguely uncomfortable, probably because he had been thinking about demanding that very thing and knew how small-minded it made him look.

“You want money, I suppose,” he said, his voice flat.

Heather wished she could say no, wished she could throw the question back in his face and walk away, but money was part of what she needed, what Jake had just told her she deserved. Not for herself, but for Angel.

“That’s only part of it,” she said.

“And the rest?”

“I want you,” she said. What had ever made her think she would savor this moment? Instead, she found she was getting precious-little enjoyment out of the stunned disbelief on his face.

“Just like that?” he asked incredulously. “After four years apart, after refusing to return any of my calls, you show up and claim you want me? Sorry, babe, but it just doesn’t ring true. You’ll have to work on your delivery if you expect me to buy that.”

“It’s true,” she insisted.

He returned her steady gaze with blatant skepticism. “What’s the matter, Heather? Can’t you cope with being a single mom, after all? Obviously you thought you could or you would have done the honorable, sensible thing and told me about our daughter a long time ago. Instead, you chose to cut me out of her life. Obviously you thought you’d both be better off without me.”

The fact that he’d hit the nail on the head grated. He shouldn’t be able to read her so well, especially not after all this time. She was supposed to be the unpredictable one, the one who kept everyone guessing.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, not for me,” she snapped. “For Angel. She needs her daddy.”

His gaze narrowed. “What do you mean, she needs her daddy?”

“She’s a little girl. She needs you to be in her life, to know that there’s somebody besides me she can count on. Over the last three years, I’ve realized how important that kind of stability is for a child.”

Todd’s complexion paled. “No,” he said with a ferocity that stunned her. “Never. Get that idea right out of your head, Heather. You want money, okay. If Angel’s mine, we’ll work something out. As for the rest, forget it. It will never, never happen.”

And before she could react, before she could challenge him, he simply turned and walked away. Fled, really, without once looking back.

“Well, that was interesting,” she murmured as he disappeared from view.

It looked as if she’d finally found the one thing that could rattle Todd’s almost scary composure. Obviously this was precisely the reaction that Jake had anticipated. The only question was why the most self-possessed man she’d ever known would be so terrified of one little three-year-old who was his spitting image.

4

Todd headed home in a complete daze. Heather’s words echoed in his head, over and over in a deafening refrain.

I thought it was time you met your daughter.

Your daughter.

Your daughter…

At home, he tried to shut off the sound, but it was in vain. The words could even be heard over the music blasting through his small apartment. Not even work, which he’d become amazingly adept at using to block out emotional turmoil, helped this time the way it had when Heather had walked out on him in New York. The words on the papers he’d brought home blurred. The computer screen seemed far too bright, the blinking cursor an irritant, as if he was trying to view it with a blinding migraine.

She needs her daddy…she needs to know there’s somebody in her life besides me she can count on.

Count on.

Count on…

How could Heather not know that he was the last person in the world that little girl could count on? True, he had never told her about the tragedy in his past, couldn’t talk about it, in fact, but surely she should have seen how uneasy he was around the kids in the casts of the shows they’d done together. She should have known that he and any kid were a bad mix. But she’d either missed the signs or chosen to ignore them. The fact was, she was here and she had expectations.

For the first time in the four years he’d worked for Megan, Todd didn’t show up for work the morning after Heather had stunned him with her news. He couldn’t seem to make it out of bed. Not that he slept. Sleep eluded him like an artful puppy dodging its owner’s reach.

He was tormented by images of the woman he’d never expected to see again. Worse, he was plagued by images of a bright-eyed toddler reaching out her arms, expecting him to pick her up. He’d rejected her, turned away. He’d refused her simple request, his own daughter. Would it have been any different if he’d known? Probably not.

Even so, she’d accepted him as generously and unconditionally as her mother once had. A three-year-old with more kindness in her than he’d demonstrated.

Want Mama to give you a hug?

Her sympathetic words came back to haunt him. If only he’d known at the time who Mama was.

There had been a time not all that long ago when he’d craved hugs from Heather, when he’d responded to her free-spirited warmth and exuberance like a desert blossom suddenly exposed to a gentle shower. Now the arms that had once embraced him in passion seemed a lot more like a trap.

He should have known about the baby four years ago, when there were still options, he thought angrily. What would he have done if Heather had come to him then and told him she was carrying his child? He would have married her without hesitation, would have insisted on it, in fact. That was what a responsible man did under such circumstances, and he had spent most of the past thirteen years trying to prove how responsible he had become.

But he wouldn’t have been one bit happier about the prospect of fatherhood than he was now, he conceded with brutal honesty. Indeed, he would have been terrified. But obligations were more important than terror.

Of course, the marriage would have been a disaster, just as the relationship had been. Maybe Heather had been wise enough to see that. Maybe she’d sensed what he hadn’t been willing to admit, that he was lousy husband material and an even lousier candidate for fatherhood. Maybe it had all turned out for the best.

That was then, though. Now Heather was here, needing something from him that he was no more prepared to give than he would have been if he’d had the usual nine months to prepare for it. What the hell was he going to do? The right thing? He didn’t even know what that was. Based on his history rather than conventional wisdom, the right thing would be to steer clear of that little girl, protect her from the dangers of having him in her life.

Damn, this wasn’t getting him anywhere. Anger wasn’t solving anything. Recriminations were useless. He needed to sit down with a sheet of paper and methodically list all the options, then all the pros and cons for each. That was the way to tackle anything this complex—with cold logic and sound reasoning. He was a master of that. The prospect of breaking this down in such a familiar, practiced way reassured him, calmed him.

He showered, tugged on briefs and jeans, then headed for the kitchen and made a pot of very strong coffee to cut through the fog in his brain. He was seated at the kitchen table with a stack of paper, a neat row of sharp pencils and his coffee when the phone rang.

Grateful for the interruption, he grabbed it. “Yes?”

“Todd, are you okay?” Megan asked with the concern of a friend, rather than the anger of a boss whose employee had bailed out.

“I’m fine.”

“Then why aren’t you at work?”

Good question. An even better question was why he hadn’t bothered to call to let anyone know he wasn’t coming in. He didn’t do things like this. He was always focused, always on task. Responsible. Today that word grated in ways it never had before.

“Something came up,” he said finally.

“You’re working at home?”

“Not exactly.”

“Is everything all right?”

No! he wanted to shout. Nothing is all right. Nothing will be all right until there are hundreds of miles between me and this child who’s apparently mine.

Instead, he said, “I needed a day off. If you have a problem with that, dock my pay.”

Silence greeted his curt words, then Megan said quietly, “I’m coming over.”

“Don’t,” he said, but he was talking to a dead phone line.

Terrific. Now he’d stirred up Megan’s protective instincts. She would be all over him until she found out what had happened to turn the world’s most reliable executive into an irresponsible, grouchy nutcase.

He should have hauled his sorry butt out of bed and gone to work as he had every other day. Even if it hadn’t been the answer last night, maybe work was exactly what he needed today. Maybe if he simply ignored this whole blasted mess, it would go away. Heather would tire of Whispering Wind and go back East. She would take her daughter with her. And he could go right on living his life the way he liked it, alone and unencumbered.

Fat chance, he thought with a resigned sigh. Heather had never backed down from a challenge. Hell, the woman wanted to be a Broadway actress. She was steadfast and blithely determined to fight the odds against success. After all these years, she hadn’t given up, even when he knew for a fact that she hadn’t had anything closely resembling a big break. If she wanted him in her daughter’s life, then she was going to make it happen or die trying. It was not a comforting thought.

Nor was it especially comforting that his front doorbell was ringing, suggesting that Megan had made it into town in record time. Before he could so much as budge, he heard her key turning in the lock. Giving her that key had obviously been a big mistake. It had been meant for emergencies, but it was apparent now that their definitions of that were at odds.

“Todd?” she shouted as if he might be either comatose or farther away than the next county, much less the next room.

“In here,” he replied with a resigned sigh.

She appeared in the kitchen doorway with a frantic expression. She surveyed him from head to toe—probably looking for cuts and bruises from some accident he’d failed to mention—then finally sank onto a chair opposite him.

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” she pleaded. “My heart’s still pounding.”

“What did I do?”

“You stayed home. You didn’t call in. And then,” she said as if this last was the worst, “you snapped at me.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t want your apology. You were past due. What I want to know is what has you in such a tizzy that you are behaving in such a totally uncharacteristic way?”

“Why do I have to be in a tizzy, as you put it? Why can’t I just be having a bad day? People have bad days all the time.”

“Because you don’t have bad days,” she retorted. “You see to it that every day runs smoothly.”

“Maybe I just see that your days run smoothly. Maybe mine are total chaos.”

“No way. You’d never allow it.”

He frowned at the suggestion that he was able to exert that much control over events, even though up until yesterday he had prided himself on doing just that. “In other words, I am totally predictable and boring.”

“No, you are a treasure,” she corrected him. “Twenty-four-carat gold. Solid as a rock. Dependable. That’s why not finding you at your desk today was such a shock.”

He wasn’t especially reassured by the praise. It merely served as a reminder that he was going to have to do the right thing in a situation that he wasn’t the least bit prepared to handle.

“Maybe I’m tired of being dependable,” he said. “Maybe I want to be the guy dressed in black, the dangerous man no woman would dare trust.”