LITMIR.BIZ

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Together, they looked like bedraggled street orphans. Dalton almost—almost—felt his heart going out to them.

      Well, just for that he wouldn’t make any coffee. He dropped into the opposite armchair, watching the tears continue to stream down her face, still feeling about as comfortable as a porcupine in a roomful of balloons. He handed her a box of tissues from the endtable. “Here.”

      “Thanks.”

      “You’re welcome.”

      She paused, and then her big green eyes met his, watery lakes filled with an ocean of thoughts.

      “Are you better now?”

      “Yeah.”

      “You don’t seem it.” Man, he could have just let it go at her “yes,” but he seemed to have this overwhelming compunction to get involved today.

      She glanced down at the tissue, clasped in front of her. “I can’t go back to work, not with Sabrina. And I can’t go home, because I can’t afford to call in sick until Mrs. Winterberry comes back. I’m barely paying my bills as it is. Without Mrs. Winterberry, I’m stuck and I don’t know what I’m going to do…” She started crying again, the tears falling in a slow stream, disappearing into the fuzz on her daughter’s head.

      Did he have a “please pull at my heartstrings, I’ll help anyone today” sign in his front yard or something?

      As much as Dalton wanted to tell her “too bad, lady, you’re on your own,” he couldn’t get the words out, not when he saw those tears, the slump in her shoulders, the despair on her face. He cleared his throat. “What you need is…”

      Ellie looked up.

      “Someone to watch the kid.”

      “You would do that?” The hope that filled her face blossomed like a sunflower.

      “I never said…”

      “It would only be for a day or two.”

      He put his hands up. “Lady, I have a job here. And it’s not going so well lately. Kids are an interruption—”

      “I know, I know. I’ve tried working at home with her and it was so hard.”

      Aw, that hope in her voice. He wanted to counteract it. Yell at her. Tell her he had his life just the way he liked it, thank you very much and get out of my house, but she was looking at him like he was her savior, and when he opened his mouth to say go home, find another option—

      He couldn’t do it.

      “Really, you’d be helping me so much. I can’t even begin to—”

      “Then don’t,” he interrupted. If she started to thank him one more time, he’d tell her no. He hadn’t even agreed to watching her kid, had he? No. He was going to tell her to find someone else. Yes. That’s what he’d do. He had a book to finish. A career to salvage. He didn’t need a baby underfoot, and he’d tell her so. Right now. “If I watched your kid for a couple days it would be a complete in—”

      She sprang out of the chair and crossed to him, as if she might hug him. “Oh, thank you! You saved—”

      “Will you stop thanking me?”

      What the hell did he just do? And worse, what did he just say?

      Oh, he was stuck now. She already assumed he was going to watch the kid. What was he going to do? Tell her no? And start the waterworks up again?

      Quickly, he turned and headed toward his kitchen, away from this new burst of emotion, and most of all, the potential for a hug from her and the kid. She’d taken his words and assumed he said yes and now he was in a mess. A mess of his own making.

      From his own stupid words. Apparently, his lack of writing ability extended to his verbal ability, too.

      “I’m going to make some lunch,” he called over his shoulder. “You, ah, want some?”

      It was a lame change of subject. An escape, really. But suddenly he’d had to get away from those eyes, from that burst of joy on her face. It had been so powerful, so…

      Trusting.

      As if she’d just put her whole world in his palms.

      She had no idea what she was doing. And he should have thought before he’d opened his big, idiot mouth.

      He didn’t want a kid in his house. Definitely didn’t need a kid in his house. He’d almost had this one out the door and here he’d accidentally invited it to stay for a couple of days by not saying what he’d meant to say fast enough. And all because she’d started crying. He was definitely getting soft. Maybe if he got in the kitchen, he could make her a ham sandwich and in the meantime, come up with a way to get out of this deal. A way to soften the blow of saying, hey, I changed my mind. Find another neighbor.

      Clearly not reading his mind—or his need for space—Ellie trotted right along behind him and into the kitchen, the kid in her arms. “I’m so glad you offered to watch her. I really am desperate. My job is—”

      “I don’t need to hear the details.” He opened the fridge, ducked his head inside, trying to head off further personal information.

      She was a hard woman to ignore, and not just because she kept on following him. Dalton had no idea how he had missed this particular neighbor. Well, being a hermit for the last three months didn’t help, but still, he had to have been blind not to notice this curvy brunette, with her vivid green eyes and full crimson mouth.

      A mouth that wouldn’t quit bugging him.

      “I’m a producer for a new TV show for Channel 77, and the demands on my time right now are incredible. Missing a day of work is out of the question. In fact—” she flung out her wrist and looked at her watch “—I need to get out of here before my boss has a coronary. But before I go, I really want to ask a few more questions. An interview, of sorts.”

      “Now you want to interview me? I already watched your kid. She came back to you intact, fed, and clean, didn’t she?”

      Ellie ignored that credential. “What do you do for a living? Are you available from eight to six every day? If this is going to interfere with your job, I’ll need to make some arrangements.”

      He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m a writer. I work here. It’s a pretty flexible job.”

      The kid perked up in the woman’s arms. Apparently, the job impressed the under-one-year-old set.

      “You must be doing pretty well. I mean, you have a really nice house.”

      He scowled. “Maybe I have a wealthy patron to support me.” She didn’t need to know how he’d started out as a successful writer, hitting the top of the charts, then slammed into a major block and plummeted to the bottom. Or how he’d spent the last year struggling to whip this latest opus into an acceptable form. How he’d sweated over every word, every page, and still ended up ripping out seventy percent of what he’d written. Because this book, just like the last few, was lacking the one element his editor had been on his back to add—

      Emotion.

      She smiled. “Will you still be able to balance your writing with watching my daughter? I don’t want to take away from your work.” She shifted the baby, who was watching him as intently as a puppy hoping to get lucky with a crumb. What was it with this kid? He seemed to have some kind of mesmerizing effect on it.

      Must be the stranger thing. She didn’t know him, ergo, she just stared. Like he was a shiny new toy.

      “I’m…stuck right now. I have time to watch a kid.” No, he wanted to scream at himself. He did not have time to watch a kid. But then again, this woman did need help. And it hadn’t been so awful this morning. Maybe he could suck it up for a few more hours, until she found some other

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