Daddy on Her Doorstep

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They kissed long and deep and lazily. Her lips were like sun-ripened plums against his mouth. Sweet. Juicy. Warm. She burrowed against him like an animal needing warmth and contact, and she was so soft and relaxed.

Mmm, those breasts! Their fullness squished against his chest. The round bump below the breasts almost went unnoticed, the way she lay. Her robe had come apart and he could feel the graze of her big, hardened nipples. He wanted to touch them, cover them with his mouth.

But first the hair. Must do something about the hair. He found the cool metal bend of a pin and pulled, and the whole thing came apart and fell around his hand in a scented caress.

And then he thought, no, stop.

Because of the hair.

Because it felt so good like this, and yet this wasn’t the way she chose to wear it. She kept it scraped back to signal her efficiency, or to convince herself that she was in control. She was his pregnant tenant, choosing single parenthood for he could only guess what reason. Something had turned her off men. Or she’d been cruelly hurt. Or she was too rigid and controlling and competent for any man to stand.

None of those were good reasons for him to get involved like this, not a short-term fling, definitely not a one-night stand, when a month from now there’d be a baby in the picture.

“Claudia …”

She picked up on his changed intent just from the way he said her name. Too fat and too clumsy, she scrambled off the couch and made a pained sound as if she’d hurt her back with the twisting movement.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. Shoot, his vision still felt heavy and fuzzy from sleep, and so did his brain. She’d dimmed the lighting, and the fire was almost out. How long had he been here? “I didn’t mean for you to—”

“No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” She had hurt her back. She was moving like an old woman, straightening with extreme care and moving to grip the back of the adjacent armchair. “It does this. It’s the ligaments loosening, the doctor said.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m not apologizing for the back.” He swore. “That came out wrong. I am apologizing for the back, and for—”

“No, it’s fine,” she said again. “I know what you’re saying. What you’re apologizing for.” He blinked and focused and saw her flushed cheeks. “But it wasn’t your fault. I—I didn’t wake you up when I could have. We were both— This was a moment. Tired. Not thinking.”

“Yes.” He should have stopped there, but instead said, “It was nice.”

Shoot!

“It was,” she agreed, sounding thin. “But it’s not what I’m looking for right now.”

“No. Me, either …” Stop, Andy! “But it was really, really nice.”

How many ways were there to not cross paths with the person who lived under your own roof?

Going out the side door in the mornings. Taking a peek from the window to make sure there were no stretchy, sexy, pregnancy yoga exercises taking place in the backyard. Listening for the sound of her car backing out of the driveway and checking which way it turned into the street—toward the store or away?

Claudia was as adept at the avoidance strategies as he was. Andy would see her climb off the porch swing as he arrived home after office hours or a stint at the hospital. One day, there was a note from her in his mailbox, saying that the bathroom faucet had begun to leak, and if he wanted to come change the washer, “any time Wednesday evening would be convenient,” and she would leave her key under the mat, because she “wouldn’t be at home.”

He guessed she’d made deliberate plans to go out. Where? Dinner on her own? A movie, eating a carton of popcorn by herself in the cinema in the dark? It sounded lonely.

It wasn’t his concern.

They were avoiding each other, and that was just what he wanted. Neither of them could afford to think about that long, breathtaking kiss during Monday’s early hours, and neither wanted any risk whatsoever that it might be repeated.

They’d said to each other very clearly that it wouldn’t be repeated, that it wasn’t what either of them wanted, and, with his head, Andy knew this was true. They’d be crazy. It would be a disaster. And there was an unborn child involved.

But every now and then …

Man, it had been so good! It haunted his dreams.

His next serious sight of her came on a Thursday night just before bedtime ten days after her arrival, when the light from his bedroom window spilled out onto the wooden deck at the back of the house and showed her walking to and fro there dressed in a pair of loose cotton-knit chocolate-and-pink pajamas and what looked like a vintage pink silk robe.

He’d been just about to close the blinds when he’d caught movement from the corner of his eye and there she was.

Pacing.

Back and forth.

Lifting her face and pressing her lips together and whooshing out a breath.

Not happy.

Even from here, he could see her grimace and push down a sob.

Shoot! That wasn’t just a twinge in her back, this time. She was in labor, and he could read her reaction from here. It wasn’t in the plan, it shouldn’t be happening yet. She wasn’t due for another month. Things clearly always went to plan in Claudia Nelson World, and she was scared.

She was scared, she was on her own and he had no choice.

He left the blinds open, pulled on the casual athletic shoes he’d just kicked under the bed. Down on the deck, he found her still pacing. She’d gone farther, down the steps and into the yard. She had her back to him and he heard her whimper and groan as another contraction hit. It ebbed and she turned and saw him, and from her expression he felt as if he’d caught her out in something private.

Weakness, he realized. She didn’t want to seem weak. She didn’t want to give the naysayers—whomever they were—the slightest ammunition.

It was impressive and oddly troubling to see how quickly she composed herself. “I think I’m in labor.”

“I know you are, Claud,” he said quite tenderly, shortening her name as if he’d known her for years, instead of a tiny handful of meetings, a hot kiss in a waking dream, and a couple of waves and smiles. “Is it helping you to be outside? It’s cold and you don’t look that warmly dressed.”

“I just needed some air. I thought if I walked around, the pains might stop, but they haven’t.” She smiled tightly. “You’re right, it is cold.” She gave a shiver and hugged herself. Her hair was down tonight, but drawn back with some kind of clip at the back of her head. She must have fastened the clip in a hurry because it wasn’t straight, and it was slipping lower and lower through all that gleaming dark silk.

“Come in.”

“I’ll take another minute or two. The books say you should walk around.”

“Let me get you a coat. The books don’t say you should catch cold.”

“I didn’t bring a coat. Just a couple of jackets. It’s April. Spring. I thought I’d just stay inside when it was cold out and the weather would be warm in a few weeks, by the time the baby was born. I didn’t think I’d be outside at night.”

“I can lend you something.”

She nodded. “That would be great.” She began to pace again, and he went inside and found a trench coat that his sister-in-law Alicia had left up here during the winter. Claudia would appreciate Alicia’s expensive fashion tastes. The coat was by some designer. Alicia’s clothes were always by someone, Andy had noted. He wasn’t convinced that this was making model-gorgeous Alicia or his very driven orthopedic surgeon brother MJ happy, seven years into their marriage.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you like this,” Claudia began, when he came back out, as if she’d appeared at his front door to borrow a cup of sugar.

“No problem,” he answered, as if he had bags full of the sweet stuff.

She let him help her into the coat and he caught a tiny waft of her scent, like a tendril of flower-scented mist as she hugged it around herself. It reminded him far too vividly of the other night on her couch, his dream, the way he’d awoken and the way those moments lingered in his head.

She snuggled into the soft lining of the coat and instinctively adjusted the collar and pulled at the sides so that it sat the way it was meant to. Her hair bunched up, and the clip was caught somewhere beneath the coat fabric. She didn’t even notice. If he’d been the father of her baby instead of her landlord who didn’t want to get involved, he would have reached out and tucked the loose strands behind her ears, searched for the slipping clip.

“No problem,” he repeated half under his breath, while he fought and swiftly beat the resurging moment of male awareness.

What the hell was such a thing doing showing up now? Bad enough the other night. She was in labor, for crying out loud, so this was worse. They’d been right to keep their distance from each other, keep to the businesslike footing of tenant and landlord. But how could you do that when the landlord was a doctor and the tenant was ready to give birth?

“You must be about to go to bed and I’m sure you need your sleep,” Claudia went on. The note of apology would have been more suited to an announcement that, most unfortunately, she was going to be a day or two late with the rent. “But if you could just give me some indication …” But then the politeness and frail pretense of efficiency fell away. “Help me! Could you? Dr. McKinley?”

“Call me Andy, for heck’s sake,” he growled, almost as helpless as she was.

She needed someone’s touch. Warm loving arms, kisses of reassurance and murmured words about how great she was doing, but he had no right. And he didn’t have rocks in his head. He’d got a grip about those.

“I don’t know what to do. I just don’t. This isn’t supposed to be happening.”

Okay, Andy, you’re a doctor, you’ve been here hundreds of times before, and if this is a little different, just ignore it and go with what you know …

“Not very much to do at this stage.” He kept his voice neutral and professional. “Everything’s fine and under control, I promise. Keep walking around if it helps. We can go up and down the sidewalk, if you want.” He took her arm and kept her pacing slowly, back and forth on the deck, while she took in his words.