LITMIR.BIZ

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hadn’t wanted to accept the responsibility for a child he’d helped create. Even as he told her, I’ll be back for you. We’ll do this together. That’s what hurt. He hadn’t returned. And for that she would never forgive him.

      Of course, now it was all clear.

      He’d had another woman in the wings. Same old Skip.

      Biting back the ache in her throat, she walked to the truck. Michaela sat on the front stoop with Felicity, the American Girl doll, against her chest.

      “Want to get in the truck, puddin’?” Addie said. “We’re leaving now.”

      Lips working to release words, the child looked to Skip.

      Addie set the supers on the ground and hurried to her daughter. “What is it, button?” Had Michaela heard them arguing in the shed?

      She glanced over her shoulder at the man loading the pickup’s bed, his arm muscles delineated and tanned in the sunlight. Once those arms had held her. Once they had kept her safe, made her feel wanted.

      God, what was she doing, mooning over Skip Dalton’s muscles?

      She turned to her child. “Slow and easy, angel,” she whispered. “Slow…That’s my girl. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

      Addie watched her daughter’s gaze dart to the side, before she felt Skip crouch beside her. His knee brushed her calf muscle and shot heat into her blood. Keeping her smile in place, she prayed her eyes were calm. She did not want Michaela recalling any unpleasant Dempsey memories.

      “Hi, Michaela,” Skip said softly. “I’m Becky’s daddy. Remember Becky who came over today from the house across the road?”

      The child’s eyes were anxious as she looked at Addie.

      “Slowly, baby,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Skip’s our new neighbor. He’s…He’s not here to hurt me. He came to meet us.”

      Beside her, Skip shifted so his position left a small gap between them. “That’s right, Michaela. And when Becky gets her room all fixed up, she’ll show it to you. With your mommy’s permission, of course.”

      “I l-l-like B-B-B-Becky,” came her tiny voice.

      Addie swallowed hard. “I know you do, button.”

      “C-c-c-can s-s-s-she come over t-t-to play?”

      “Maybe one day.” She brushed aside her daughter’s wispy bangs. “Ready to go to our bees?”

      A quick head bob.

      “Come on, then.” Taking Michaela’s hand and ensuring she stood as a buffer to Skip, Addie walked to the truck’s passenger door.

      When she’d buckled her daughter in place, she went around back to retrieve the remaining supers, but Skip had completed the job and was slamming up the tailgate.

      “How long has she been stuttering?” he asked, and instead of curiosity or repugnance, she heard a parent’s gentle concern.

      Her heart battled. She did not want him concerned. She did not want him to be gentle or genuine or kind. She wanted him to be the Skip Dalton she remembered. The one who chose footballs and adulation over diapers and 2:00 a.m. feedings.

      Still, she considered. She could make up a story, or tell him to mind his own affairs. After all, she owed Skip Dalton zip.

      On a long sigh, she decided to go with the truth. Best from her than the grapevine. “It started when she was learning to speak, but it worsened when her father walked out on us last year.”

      She held his gaze. The way you did.

      One large hand rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”

      Sure. She shook out her keys. “Goodbye, Skip.”

      He simply looked at her. Then, nodding, he said, “See you around,” and headed back the way he’d come, down her narrow dirt lane to his big house winking its white walls through a lace of green wilderness.

      Chapter Three

      The village of Burnt Bend hadn’t changed much since Skip was a kid. It was still half the size of a football field with one main drag offering island residents Dalton Foods—his family’s store—a barber shop, a post office, a gas pump, a coffee shop, three restaurants, Saturday flea markets, a movie theater and Burnt Realty. If he walked a hundred feet, he’d be at the water’s end of Main, and the marina where the ferry docked.

      Parking his pickup in a slot near the dinky little hardware store where he’d worked when he was sixteen, Skip cut the engine. He wondered what his mother was up to in her store down on the corner. What she’d do if he walked Becky into that office above the food aisles.

      He looked across the cab at his daughter in her tattered jean shorts and pink hoodie, and smiled. Not today, he thought. But soon. First, she needed to get acquainted with Addie. His mother would have to wait. The last thing he wanted was family overload.

      “Ready to check out the mailboxes?” he asked. For Becky’s sake, he wanted the Island Weekly delivered to his rural route address. It still surprised him that a child her age enjoyed reading the paper.

      “And a birdhouse?” Her blue eyes glinted.

      “And a birdhouse,” he agreed as they climbed out of the truck. Truth was, there wasn’t much he could refuse when it came to those Addie-eyes.

      “Hey,” she said. “There’s Ms. Malloy and Michaela.”

      Skip looked across the street. Sure enough, Addie and her daughter stood on the sidewalk in front of the library, watching them.

      He lifted a hand.

      Towing Michaela behind her, Addie turned toward the building.

      Skip pocketed his keys. Did she remember their rides around the island in his old Chevy pickup? The way she’d snuggled against his side, laughed in his ear?

      “Michaela,” Becky called.

      The little girl waved before going inside.

      “I’m going over to say hi.”

      Before Skip could stop her, Becky dashed across the pavement. “Be right back,” she hollered, jogging to the library door.

      Heaving a sigh, Skip jaywalked after her and told himself those four years in foster homes had initiated a fierce independence in his little girl, an independence to which he had yet to adapt.

      The library had once been a military store. Low ceilings, wooden walls and floors, small windows that allowed a minimal allotment of natural light. The familiar scent of Murphy’s soap, wax and books hit his nose the instant he stepped inside. The rooms hadn’t changed. It was as if he’d checked out a novel yesterday, when he was eighteen and was still favored in the circle of football, Friday-night games and girls.

      Except, he wasn’t eighteen, he was thirty-three. And a father to an almost thirteen-year-old. A man with a shoulder that one day would likely attract arthritis.

      In the children’s corner he spotted Addie kneeling on the floor with Becky and Michaela. Heads bent together, both girls had several books scattered between them.

      Addie’s eyes lifted at his approach. “Skip.”

      Naturally she wouldn’t make a scene with her child and Becky this close, but just the same he caught the edge she spun on his name.

      “Addie.” For the first time, he noticed she wore running gear: black shorts, yellow breathable shirt, yellow visor cap and a pair of gel-cushioned ASICS jogging shoes. His eyes went to the curve of her tawny ponytail; she looked Becky’s age.

      “Hey, Dad.” Grinning, his daughter held up two small novels.

      “Michaela can read chapter books already. Isn’t that great?”

      “That’s

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