His Daughter...Their Child

He realized little had changed from the way the house had looked a few years ago. He had exchanged the outlandishly colored sofa Zoie had wanted for a more muted blue plaid one. The gleaming hardwood floors, the dark rafters across the ceiling, the stone fireplace with its mantel, had remained the same.

“Great TV,” Celeste joked with a smile.

He had to admit, yes, that was new, too. “Multipurpose. Not only does it allow Abby to watch her movies in almost life-size proportions, but I can run my footage of trips and wilderness treks, really seeing what I’ve got.” He gave her a wink. “I could do my email on here, too, if I really wanted to.”

She just shook her head. “I’m having trouble keeping up with technology and it’s part of my business. Sometimes I wonder—”

A child’s cry sounded down the left hall off the great room.

“Abby!” Clay called and hurried down the hall to the wing of bedrooms. In that moment, when his daughter needed him, he forgot about Celeste and why she’d come.

Clay’s mom, who must have been sitting in the rocker reading—her book lay open on the chair—sat on Abby’s canopy bed, holding her arms out to her granddaughter. But Abby huddled near the pale pink wall, crying as if her heart were breaking.

“She had another bad dream,” his mother said.

Abby had been having bad dreams on and off ever since Zoie had left two years ago. She couldn’t possibly remember her mother, but he understood when a child’s world changed, everything went topsy-turvy no matter how resilient they were supposed to be.

Clay crossed the room quickly, sat on the bed and gathered Abby into his arms. “Hey, ladybug. What’s wrong?”

Abby shook her head and hiccupped, tears running down her chubby cheeks.

Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of Celeste in the doorway. He saw his mother’s frown and knew she was aware of her, too. He couldn’t deal with Celeste now. In fact, he wished she’d leave.

But Celeste didn’t leave. She looked uncertain—as if she might get thrown out—but she crossed the room slowly … as if she couldn’t stay away. She knelt down before Abby and said in a soft voice, “That must have been a very bad dream. But your daddy’s here now. He can protect you.”

Abby glanced up to look at Clay, but then ducked her head down again, almost as if she were trying to crawl into herself. “Daddy’s not always here.”

“I’m here, honey, when your daddy’s not.” Violet Sullivan’s voice sounded disappointed that her granddaughter didn’t know that.

As if Celeste recognized that children didn’t employ reason to come to a conclusion, she delved into Abby’s world. “I’ll bet your very favorite stuffed animal could protect you. I bet he could hold your hand all night if you wanted.”

Sniffling, Abby peered up at Celeste. “Granny says I shouldn’t sleep with my bears.”

Clay glanced at his mother, then asked Abby, “Why is that?”

Abby explained, “She says they get dusty on the shelf.”

Clay cleared his throat, unaware that conversation had ever happened. “If you think you’d like to sleep with one of your stuffed friends, we can make an exception tonight. Sometime soon maybe we can give them all a bath, then you’ll be able to choose any one you want.”

Abby removed her little arms from around her dad, swiped her wrist across her nose and studied Celeste for what seemed like an eternity. Then she squiggled to the edge of her pretty pink sheets and asked, “Will you come back and help me give them a baf?”

Clay could see that Celeste felt caught between what she wanted to do and what he might allow her to do. She answered, “I’ll talk to your dad about that.”

Abby just kept gazing into Celeste’s face as if she were trying to figure something out. Clay knew what. This woman wasn’t Zoie … but she was close.

Suddenly Abby held her arms out to Celeste, and without hesitation, Celeste took his little girl into her embrace. She sat on the edge of the bed, not far from Clay, and held Abby, her eyes shining with emotion, reverently brushing her long brown hair from her brow and cuddling her close.

The silence in the room seemed awkward to Clay, but Celeste and Abby didn’t appear to notice. They were looking at each other again.

Suddenly Abby asked her, “Can you sing a song?”

When Celeste’s gaze met Clay’s, he gave a resigned shrug.

Tentatively at first, Celeste began singing a song about favorite things—roses and kittens—and Clay’s stomach clenched. As Celeste’s voice grew stronger, he realized it was the song Zoie had hummed to Abby after she was born. She hadn’t sung it often, only on those rare times when she’d seemed to want to form a bond with her daughter. Did Abby remember? She wasn’t saying whether she did or didn’t. She was just cuddling into Celeste’s body, letting herself be soothed and rocked, letting her eyes close.

After a short while, Celeste bent her head to Abby’s and asked, “Do you think you’re ready to go back to bed now, little one?”

His daughter nodded.

Sliding closer to Celeste, Clay was ready to take his daughter. But Abby shook her head and held on to Celeste tighter. Celeste looked puzzled as to what to do.

“Does she have a favorite toy?” Celeste asked him.

Abby’s favorite toy. Did he even know which one that was? He’d been working so many hours lately, and she changed her mind every couple of months.

His mother’s voice came from the rocker across the room. “Try that bear with the blue bow on the shelves. That seems to be her favorite lately.”

Clay took it from the shelf and handed it to Abby. She tucked it under her arm.

Celeste asked, “Do you think you and your bear can go to sleep now?”

Abby’s little hand settled on Celeste’s cheek. Then she nodded and curled into a ball on the bed.

Oh, so gently, Celeste covered her with the sheet as Abby smiled sleepily, tucking the bear tighter into her side, then closed her eyes, gave a soft sigh and seemed to drift into sleep.

Celeste looked as if she never wanted to move.

Clay went to her and touched her elbow. She reluctantly stood and accompanied him out of the room, but not until she glanced over her shoulder for a long last look at the sleeping child. His mother followed them into the great room, and once there the three adults seemed stymied as to where to begin. Clay could decipher the look in his mother’s eyes that said she still didn’t approve of the Wells twins, and she certainly didn’t approve of Celeste coming here like this.

“It has been a long time, Celeste.” Violet Sullivan patted her sedately coiffed ash-blond hair as if she needed something to do.

“Yes, it has,” Celeste responded, still glancing down the hall to Abby’s room. Then her full attention focused on his mother. “I haven’t seen you since the Christmas before Abby was born. That was a wonderful holiday.”

“Yes, it seemed to be.”

Clay didn’t like the censure in his mother’s voice, didn’t like the way it had been there all through his marriage to Zoie. Celeste, moreover, didn’t deserve it. Just because his family had descended from the founding fathers of Miners Bluff, just because his family had always been well-off, was no reason for his mother to look down on Celeste—especially after what she’d done for him.

“Mom, could you sit with Abby while Celeste and I talk? She might wake up again.”

After a long worried look, his mother returned to his daughter.

“Let’s go outside,” he said gruffly to Celeste, and headed for the front door. He knew what had just happened between Abby and Celeste had to be addressed and addressed now.

Because Celeste Wells was more than a concerned aunt.

She was Abby’s surrogate mother.

Chapter Two