Daniel's Daddy - Stella Bagwell

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the time he and Daniel had stepped inside the house, she was scurrying quickly down the hallway, the white robe flapping against her long, slender legs.

      Daniel moved away from his father and looked curiously around the room.

      “Don’t touch anything,” Jess instructed as he, too, glanced around the living room, which was filled with antique furniture dating back to the forties. It was all very womanly, he decided as he took in books, flowers and candles scattered randomly around the room, but it wasn’t fussy. In fact, it was much homier than his living room back home in Douglas.

      “Wow! There’s a bird!”

      Jess turned around to see Daniel racing over to a bird cage by the picture window.

      “He’s pretty! Look how pretty he is, Daddy,” Daniel exclaimed as he stood admiring a white cockatoo.

      “Don’t get too close,” Jess warned. “He might want your nose for breakfast.”

      Giggling loudly, Daniel covered his nose with both hands. “He won’t get my nose. I’ll keep it covered.”

      Back in the bedroom, Hannah’s hands shook as she fastened the buttons on her dress. It was a pink shirtwaist with elbow-length sleeves. Nothing special. But Hannah didn’t own anything special, and as for him telling her to throw on jeans, she’d almost laughed. She didn’t own a pair of jeans! Those things were for chic young girls who wanted to show off their sexy bodies. Did he really think she could wear them?

      “I was wondering,” his voice came to her from the living room, “if you knew some church or charity that I could give my father’s things to. I stayed up last night packing them. Now all I need to do is load them into the truck.”

      “Uh…yes,” she called loudly back to him. “I do know a place. The church I attend would welcome anything you have to give. I’ll show you where it is after we eat.”

      She pushed her feet into a pair of white flats, then quickly knotted her hair at the back of her head and secured it with bobby pins. She looked dowdy. But that was nothing new. She’d always been less than pretty and felt it would be foolish of her to ever think she could be. She wasn’t like her mother, who’d been young-looking and glamorous right up until the day she’d had the car accident.

      Jess, who’d been watching the cockatoo with Daniel, turned when he heard Hannah’s footsteps.

      She smiled tentatively at him. “I’m ready,” she said, hoping he’d put her breathlessness down to hurrying.

      She had looked far better in the robe with her hair flying around her shoulders, but Jess could hardly tell her something like that. Especially when Daniel was staring at her as though she were a gift from heaven.

      “Good, I hope you’re as hungry as we are,” he said.

      “I’m gonna eat pancakes,” Daniel said to Hannah as the three of them traveled the short distance to the café.

      She smiled at the boy, finding his dimpled grin as charming as his daddy’s. “Oh, that sounds good,” she told him. “Are you going to eat yours with blueberries or without?”

      Daniel made a face and stuck out his tongue. “Yuk! Not blueberries.”

      Jess glanced over at Hannah, who was sitting as close as she could possibly get to the passenger door. “I think my cooking has ruined Daniel on blueberry pancakes. They didn’t turn out too good.”

      “They were lumpy and burnt,” Daniel reminded him.

      Hannah laughed and the warm, tinkling sound washed over Jess and lifted his heavy spirits.

      “You don’t remember that!” Jess joshed his son.

      “Yes, I do,” Daniel insisted.

      Jess chuckled. “Okay, so you do. Just don’t go telling Hannah anything else about my cooking. Okay?”

      Daniel giggled and Hannah glanced over at father and son. If Jess did the cooking, maybe there wasn’t a woman in their lives, Hannah pondered.

      Quit your wondering, Hannah quickly scolded herself. It was none of her business whether Jess had a wife or Daniel had a mother. She was merely an old acquaintance, someone who’d just happened to live across the street from Jess while they were growing up. Just because she was having breakfast with the man didn’t mean she was anything special to him.

      But it did mean something special to Hannah. It had been so long since anyone, other than the women in her church group, had shown her friendship or invited her places.

      Looking out the window beside her, she thought back to how many times as a young teenager, she’d imagined herself riding down the street with Jess Malone. The tough, devilishly handsome bad boy that every girl wanted—even the good girls.

      Now, here Hannah was, fifteen years later, doing just what she’d once imagined. But why? And where were all those other willing girls? Why was she here in this truck with him and Daniel, instead?

      The café was very full, but Jess managed to find an empty booth in the back. After they ordered, the waitress brought coffee, ice water and orange juice to the table. Jess pulled a drinking straw out of one of the glasses of water and stuck it in a glass of juice before handing it to Daniel.

      “Do you like living here, Hannah?” Jess asked as he reached for his coffee.

      Hannah, who was stirring cream into her coffee, glanced up at him. “Do I like it?” she repeated blankly, not sure what his question was about. “I suppose—I’ve never lived anywhere else.”

      “Did you ever think about leaving?”

      As her eyes glided over his handsome face, she decided she’d better not take in too much caffeine until their food arrived. She was as shaky as a leaf in a windstorm and looking at him only made it worse. “Not really. It wasn’t possible to leave while mother was alive and needed me.”

      “But she doesn’t figure into the picture anymore.”

      Shaking her head, she curled her hands around the coffee cup. “No. Mother no longer needs me to care for her. But I like my job here and the woman I work for.” Briefly, her eyes met his. “Why do you ask?”

      Jess shrugged. Why was he asking? Just because he’d had that one wild notion about her and Daniel didn’t mean she’d ever consider such an idea. Or would she?

      “Just curious. I live in Douglas, Arizona, now.”

      “I heard someone say a long time ago that you lived in El Paso,” she said.

      “I did. But I was transferred a few years ago.”

      She didn’t ask him anything, but Jess could see that she wanted to.

      “I work for the U.S. Border Patrol,” he said, volunteering the information.

      “My daddy wears a gun and badge,” Daniel told her proudly. “But he won’t let me touch the gun ‘cause guns are too dangerous.”

      That jolted Hannah. The last thing she’d expected Jess Malone to be was a lawman. Although Hannah should have known he wasn’t the type to sit behind a desk. No doubt a gun and uniform looked perfect on him. And the adventure of it all surely suited him. He seemed like a man who would always need excitement in his life.

      “I didn’t know,” Hannah said to Jess. “Do you like it?”

      He nodded, then frowned. “I’d like it if I didn’t have to worry about—” He stopped, then glanced at Daniel. Since the boy seemed to have his attention on another table where a couple of young children were breakfasting with their parents, Jess went on. “Leaving Daniel alone.”

      Something clutched Hannah’s heart. “You…mean…like if you had a bad accident?”

      Jess grimaced. “I guess that’s a nice way of putting it.”

      “Your

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