Doorstep Daddy

Nothing.

He lifted the blankets, peeking underneath an inch at a time, wishing kids came equipped with a Paddington Bear tag. What was wrong with America? Really, all kids needed a stamp or GPS tracking or something so they could be sent back to whence they came.

But this one had nothing. And that meant Dalton was stuck with his worst nightmare and the one thing he, of all people, shouldn’t be left in charge of.

A small child.

Ellie Miller’s day had done nothing but get busier. Her best intentions had been derailed before she’d even arrived at work, given the number of e-mails and messages that had greeted her. Not to mention the meetings that had followed, one after another like dominoes. She let out a sigh and sank into the leather chair behind her desk, facing the inch-thick stack of pink message slips, accompanied by a furiously blinking phone. One two-hour meeting, and her afternoon had exploded in her absence.

If she wasn’t stuck in meetings half the day— most of which were about as productive as trying to fill a hole-riddled bucket—she’d get much more done in a quarter of the time.

So much for her plan to leave early and spend the afternoon with Sabrina.

The tear in her heart widened. Every day, the ache between wishing she was home, and the need to be here at work, at a job she once thought she loved—but more, needed to keep to pay the bills, to keep her and Sabrina afloat, carved a deeper hole in her gut. How did other women do it? How did they balance the family and work worlds?

“One pink message slip at a time,” Ellie muttered to herself and started flipping through the papers. As a producer for a newly launched celebrity interview TV show in the hot Boston market, downtime wasn’t a word in her vocabulary. It wasn’t a word she could afford, much less worry about.

Besides, she’d worked for years to reach this rung on the career ladder, to finally have a chance to prove herself capable. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly what she’d gone to college for. This job was a bit of a detour from what she’d dreamed of while attending Suffolk University. Still, the television work would serve well on her résumé and could lead to what she really wanted down the road— or at least she kept telling herself that as she sat through another of Lincoln’s pointless meetings. Either way, she’d probably be destroying her career if she walked away now.

Ellie sighed. Not that her bank account could even entertain that option.

The pressure of being everything—mother, father, provider—weighed on her, more and more every day. Ellie tried to ignore it. She was a single mother. No amount of worry was going to change that situation. Even if sometimes she wondered whether she was handling the job very well.

Ellie glanced at Sabrina’s picture, her heart clenching at the sight of her sweet eight-month-old, then she glanced back at the pile of missed messages. Work. A means to a better end.

Connie had marked the same checkbox on every one of the message slips: URGENT. Everything about this new job fit into that category, considering they’d hit the air a week ago. Finding guests, slotting stories—it all slammed into Ellie’s days like a five-day-a-week hurricane.

At least a third of the messages had Mrs. Winterberry’s name at the top. Ellie smiled and passed by those without reading them. She usually saved those for lunch, like a personal dessert, for when she had time to marvel over the details of Sabrina’s day and call Mrs. Winterberry back. Mrs. Winterberry was a great babysitter—but one who thought she should call and report on every bottle feeding, every diaper change, every coo and gurgle.

Details that Ellie loved to hear—but that also made her miss her daughter more. If only she could be the one hearing those coos. Or be the one on the other end of those bottles. Every morning Ellie dropped off Bri—

And seemed to leave a part of her heart behind.

Regardless, Mrs. Winterberry had been a godsend. She watched Sabrina for a very reasonable fee—one much cheaper than any daycare in Boston would have charged. She’d seen the dire straits Ellie had been in, taken pity on her—and probably fallen in love with Sabrina’s big blue eyes.

Who wouldn’t? Sabrina, in Ellie’s personal opinion, was the cutest baby in the entire world.

Ellie picked up the picture of her daughter and traced Bri’s face. “I miss you, baby,” she whispered. “I’m doing the best job I can.”

Then she replaced the image on her desk, and got back to work. For now, Mrs. Winterberry’s messages would have to wait. If Ellie got too distracted by thoughts of Sabrina, she’d never get anything done.

Instead, she returned the call of a celebrity guest who was having second thoughts about her appearance on the show. Something about “thigh confidence,” Connie had noted.

A knock sounded on Ellie’s door and Connie poked her head inside. “I see you got your messages. Surprised you’re still here.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ellie paused, waiting for the ring on the other end. “With this stack to return, I’ll be lucky to leave before next year.”

From out in the hall, she heard Lincoln calling her name. “Ellie! Meeting in fifteen! Be ready!”

Damn. She’d forgotten to prepare that list of potential closed captioning sponsors for Lincoln. Yet another thing to add to a day that already seemed impossible. She ran a hand through her hair and told herself she could do this.

Connie’s brows knitted in confusion. “So, you’re okay with what Mrs. Winterberry did?”

At the celebrity’s office, a bored receptionist picked up. “Hi,” Ellie said, “this is Ellie Miller, returning Julie Weston’s call. Is she in?” The receptionist muttered something that could have been assent, then classical hold music filled the line. Ellie glanced back at Connie. “What did Mrs. Winterberry do now? Let me guess. Take Sabrina to the mall and spoil her mercilessly? I swear, that woman is a saint. She’s bought more clothes for my daughter than I have.”

“Yeah, well, read your message,” Connie said, wagging a pen in the direction of Ellie’s desk. “Babysitter-of-the-Month had to dump your kid and run. Her sister was sick or something. I couldn’t really hear her. Lincoln was in the middle of a rant.”

Just as Julie said hello, Ellie hung up on her and started rifling through the stack of messages again. Connie had organized them chronologically, and as Ellie flipped wildly, she saw the story take shape. “Mrs. Winterberry called. Needs you to call back. May need to leave early.” “Mrs. Winterberry again. Sister is sick. Needs you to come home.” “Mrs. Winterberry can’t reach you. Leaving Sabrina with a neighbor.”

A rising tide of worry flooded Ellie’s chest. She ripped her cell phone out of her purse—still off from earlier, from the meeting, a Lincoln rule— never, ever interrupt a meeting with a phone call. Damn. At the same time she pressed the power button, Ellie pointed at the name below the word “neighbor” and glanced at Connie. “Neighbor? What neighbor?”

Ellie barely knew anyone in her neighborhood. She’d lived there just over a year and a half, and hadn’t been outside to do much more than mow the lawn—and even that was sporadic. Her entire life was wrapped up in work, and Sabrina.

“Some guy named…uh, Dave or Dalton or something, I think. Again, Lincoln, screaming. Sorry. Lives uh…” Connie leaned forward, peering at her illegible words. “Across the street? At…529? Maybe 527? Sorry, El. The phone was ringing off the hook and that new voice mail is so spotty, people kept getting bounced back to me. Between that and Lincoln, I was having a heck of a time keeping up.”

Ellie wanted to scream at Connie, to tell her that was no excuse for missing the details, but she had pitched in a time or two herself to work the front desk and knew how insane it could get. Plus, she didn’t have time. Sabrina was with a stranger— and that had Ellie’s heart racing. Her little girl was probably completely upset by the change in her environment, schedule, caretaker. Ellie could swear she heard Sabrina’s cries from here. She shouldn’t have gone to work today. She should have stayed home, stayed with Bri.

But that was an impossible dream. The job situation that Ellie had always wanted—but couldn’t have.

She swung her purse over her shoulder and shoved away from her desk, clasping the last message in her hand. “I’ve got to go. Will you tell—”

“Lincoln,” Connie finished, with a nod and a comforting touch on Ellie’s arm. “I’ll face the firing squad for you.” She grinned. “Now, go.”

“Thanks.” Ellie was already out of her chair and out the door, hurrying past Connie and down the stairs, bypassing the elevator to hustle down the three flights of stairs to the parking garage. Within minutes, she was in her car and on her way to her house, trying hard to concentrate on the road, not the fact that she didn’t know this Dave/Dalton/whoever he was from a hole in the wall, and an hour had already passed since Mrs. Winterberry left the message. A thousand things could have gone wrong in that period of time.

But Mrs. Winterberry was responsible. Surely, she had left the neighbor babysitter with the list of numbers to reach Ellie. Mrs. Winterberry wouldn’t have dumped her baby with just anyone.

Would she?

For the hundredth time since the death of her husband, Ellie wished she had a spouse to share this burden with, another parent to take on the emergencies. The late nights. The fretting over every detail.

At a stoplight, she dialed Mrs. Winterberry’s cell phone number. “Mrs. Winterberry, thank God I reached you.”

“Ellie! I’m so sorry I had to run out today. Don’t you worry, Dalton Scott is a great babysitter. He comes from a family of twelve, you know. He’s got lots of baby experience.”

A whoosh of relief escaped Ellie. “Good.”

“You didn’t think I’d leave your baby with just anyone, did you?”

“Of course not.”

Mrs. Winterberry laughed. “He’s a very nice man, you know. A very nice man.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“He’d be nice for you. It’s time you moved on, dear. Dealt with…well, dealt with losing your husband. I know, because I lost my Walter and it was the hardest thing I ever went through. You have a little one to think of. You need a man in your life, not just for you, but for that precious baby.”

It was a familiar discussion. One Ellie had had a hundred times with her neighbor. But what Viola didn’t understand was that moving on after Cameron’s death involved a lot more than just dating a new guy. “Mrs. Winterberry, I don’t have time—”