The Daddy's Promise

“Dad, I need to go to the library. I have a report due on Friday.” Emily was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, toe tapping against the vinyl.

Now she was interested in schoolwork. Luke figured it was more a means of escape than scholarly intent. “No.”

She dropped into a chair and dumped her book bag on the floor. “Fine. I’ll just fail history then.”

Luke sighed. So much for the light mood he’d slipped into when Anita had arrived. “You can look up the information you need in the encyclopedias Grandma has in the den.”

She rolled her eyes. “I need current stuff. Like from this year, not the Stone Age.”

“You have to stay here, Emily. You broke the rules and being grounded is part of your punishment.”

She kicked at her bag. “So when I fail, can I blame you?”

“Blame yourself. If you hadn’t—”

“I have my laptop with me,” Anita interrupted, patting the black bag on her shoulder. “I was on my way to the library to do some work because my phone line hasn’t been connected yet. I could help Emily look up some information from here.”

Emily stuck out her chin, pouting. She huffed, then sighed. “That sounds okay,” she conceded.

Luke threw up his hands. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I’m a software developer, for Pete’s sake. You’d think I’d make the computer connection.”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind lately.” Anita’s voice was soft, understanding. She stepped closer to him, lowering her tone. “Let me help her. Maybe someone other than Dad can get through easier.” She cast a smile at him, one that seemed to say she understood preteens. A small measure of calm rippled through him.

“Okay.” He smiled. “When we worked together on that launch project two summers ago, you weren’t such a bad taskmaster.”

“Gee, flatter a girl.” She laughed.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” She smiled again, then brushed past him on her way to the kitchen table, leaving the faint scent of jasmine in her wake. The lusty fragrance jetted Luke’s mind back to that night eighteen months ago, to the memory of her in his arms, her body entwined with his, her lips—

What the hell was he doing? The last thing he needed to do was take a trip down Memory Lane right now.

Luke let out a deep breath, regaining control of his senses and his racing pulse. Emily was his priority. His life could be put on hold. Hers was just beginning and she didn’t need a father who was distracted by a new relationship. Besides Anita clearly had other priorities.

That thought set off a strange plummeting feeling in his gut. Anita was entitled to a life, a man. He shouldn’t be bothered one iota about her personal life.

But he was. More than he wanted to admit.

Anita sat at the table, then opened a black case that held a slightly outdated laptop. Luke could see from the brand name and model that she’d selected the best. She had good taste in technology, something he respected.

“I’m Anita,” she said, turning to Emily and sticking out her hand. “I don’t think you remember me, and we didn’t exactly have a proper introduction last night. The last time I saw you, you were ten and visiting your dad’s office after school.”

Emily hesitated. “Nice to meet you again.” As if the politeness had cost her, she quickly scrambled to get her books out of the backpack.

Anita unraveled a telephone line that was tucked inside her bag and inserted one end into the computer. “Do you mind if we tie up the phone lines for a minute?”

Luke barely heard the question. He was too busy watching her deftly connect the power cord, flip up the top and start the laptop.

Anita had long, delicate fingers, more fitting for a concert pianist than a marketing consultant. She had a graceful ease about her appearance, as if she felt comfortable anywhere. And when she was happy, her lips curved into a welcoming smile that slid through Luke like silk.

She shifted in her chair and her skirt crept up, exposing another three inches of leg. Who’d have thought that such a tiny measurement could get his heart sprinting like a runner at the start of a race?

“Luke? Can I use the phone line?” Anita’s question brought him back to reality.

“Oh. Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Sure.” He took the cord and plugged it into the phone jack.

“Thanks.” Anita turned back to her computer, clicking with the mouse until the browser program was open and dialing up to the Internet.

Emily scowled and dropped her chin into her hands. “I hate history.”

“Those who don’t study it are doomed to repeat it, you know,” Anita said.

“The chances of me starting the next world war are about the same as me ending up on tour with Mandy Moore.”

Anita laughed. “You and me both. I can’t sing at all. But I love to pretend I can, with a hairbrush, a mirror and a cranked stereo.”

Emily face turned a slight shade of pink. “Me, too,” she said quietly. “I thought only kids did that kind of thing.”

Anita leaned close and lowered her voice. “Just between you and me, I’ve had a hard time giving up the dream of being the next Shania Twain.”

Emily smiled. Almost laughed.

“I remember seeing you get pretty cozy with a karaoke machine once,” Luke said. Anita’s voice, clear and strong. Her face, lively, animated, laughing. It had been some client’s party Mark and Anita had insisted he go to, two months after Mary’s death, and Luke had dreaded going. Then Anita had taken the stage and everything in the room had seemed to transform. “You weren’t Cher, but you weren’t bad, you know.”

“That was only because I fortified myself with several marga—” She cut off the words, realizing there was an impressionable teen in the room. “Well, that’s a story for another day. My point was that there are an awful lot of things you can learn from the accounts of history. These people all had lives like you do, lives that were turned upside down and inside out by the choices they made or circumstances they didn’t ask for.” Anita leaned past Emily, typed in a few words, clicked the mouse and whizzed through cyberspace. “It might be easier to look at your history lessons as enormous works of fiction. If you see people like Winston Churchill as characters, it becomes fun to find out the ending to his story.”

Emily leaned back in her chair. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Here, try this site. There’s a lot of great information about World War II there. I wrote an article on a group of veterans before I left L.A. and did some of my research here.” She slid the computer over to Emily, relating a few other Web addresses for research and then put the girl in control.

“Cool!” Emily leaned forward, using the computer with one hand and scribbling notes with the other.

Anita pivoted again in her chair and her skirt hiked up another couple of inches.

Luke jerked his gaze away and concentrated on the least-sexy thing in the room. A squat cookie jar shaped like a pug, complete with a ceramic chefs’ hat and smirky dog grin. Think cookies, he told himself. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, macadamia nut…

Before he could get to thumbprints cookies, his gaze was back on Anita’s fabulous legs. His concentration was shot, at least as long as Anita was here. And that was dangerous. Very dangerous.

She was pregnant, he reminded himself. By another man. Luke had his own problems to worry about. Thinking about Anita in any way other than as a friend he used to know was bad. And even though his curiosity about why she was here and why she was having a baby by herself was damn near eating him up, he didn’t ask, at least not while his daughter was in the room.

Anita rose and crossed to him. “She’s doing great with the computer.” Anita leaned close, her voice a whisper. “But maybe we should leave her alone so she doesn’t feel like we’re watching over her shoulder.” Anita smiled. “And then she’d stop working, just to spite you.”

He smiled back. “You know her too well.”

She shrugged. “Hey, I was twelve once, too.”

Luke motioned to Anita to follow him across the hall and into the den. When she sat in one of the armchairs, her skirt hiked up again.

Luke took the chair opposite and tried like hell to keep his gaze on her face.

“We really shouldn’t tie up your laptop or your time,” he said, in a lame attempt at a coherent conversation. “Emily can use my computer.”

“It’s no big deal,” Anita said. “Besides, it’s still pouring out. I’ll go to the library when it stops raining.”

In that case, Luke hoped Mercy was in for a flood.

“And I know you, Luke. You don’t like anyone messing with your computer.” Anita grinned. “You treat that thing like some people treat their Pomeranians.”

The laughter that rose in his throat and then escaped him had such a foreign sound that for a brief second, Luke almost didn’t recognize it. “I guess I do. Never get between a man and his computer,” he quipped.

“I’ll remember that.” Her voice had taken on a deeper tone, as if she was remembering the same moment he was. A late night in his office, both of them tired from working on a project all day, sharing a few cartons of delivered Chinese, laughing, joking, then not joking at all, Anita’s body pressed against his desk, her mouth hungrily tasting his, equipment falling to the floor as Luke tried to get closer, touch more of her, the blinding passion driving him like the engine of a two-ton truck.

Luke cleared his throat and got to his feet, putting some distance between himself and the jasmine perfume triggering memories in his mind like a starting pistol. He fiddled with the line of framed photos on the mantel.

“So, what do you think of Mercy so far?”

She laughed. “It’s not exactly L.A.”

“Hey, we have a strip mall. And two stoplights. We’re civilized.”

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