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Detective Daddy
Detective Daddy
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Detective Daddy

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“Sooner or later, I have to—”

“Later.” His tone offered no room for argument. Plucking Marie from her lap, he carried the baby to her bed.

Fay was too tired to bristle. Sighing, she eased herself down and closed her eyes.

As Dan looked over the dwindling food supply, he told himself it was a damn good thing they would be leaving the cabin in the morning. He had enough spaghetti for supper, but nothing to make a tomato-based sauce with. He located some fairly ancient cheese and decided with flour, skim milk and the last dab of butter, maybe he could conjure up an edible white sauce. There would be nothing but beans for a side dish. When he’d stocked up, he hadn’t counted on either the storm or the pregnant woman lost in it.

In another way, though, he hated to leave the cabin. In ordinary circumstances he tended to be close-mouthed. The circumstances of Fay’s arrival and their enforced intimacy had certainly loosened his tongue. He’d never before explained to anyone why he and Jean had split. Rather than being sorry he’d told her as much as he had, he felt they’d exchanged confidences. He’d shared some of his past with her in the same way she had with him. He was going to miss her. And the little peanut as well. He’d had no conception of how quickly a baby could carve a niche in the hardest heart.

He tried not to worry that Bruce might find something seriously wrong with Fay, but her pallor made him doubt that her lingering fatigue was normal.

Supper, while not an outstanding success, was edible. There was nothing wrong with Fay’s appetite anyway. While he cleaned up the kitchen, he glanced now and then at her as she nursed the baby, enjoying the warm feeling it gave him.

After returning Marie to her bed, Fay sat at the table. “Look what I found in one of the cabinets,” she said, tapping a finger on what he saw was a Scrabble board. “Prepare for an ignominious defeat.”

He laughed. “Only in your dreams, gal.”

He hadn’t played Scrabble since he’d been a kid, and even then it hadn’t been his favorite pastime. But, hell, there wasn’t all that much to the game.

When he drew the X, worth eight points, right off, he smiled. Since he had an S and an E he spelled out sex on the board.

His smiled faded as she added a Y to the word and spelled yazoo down the other way. “Is that a word?”

“Certainly. It’s a person who lives by the Yazoo River in Mississippi.”

“Then it’d be capitalized.”

“Actually, no, it isn’t,” she said smugly.

He eyed her assessingly. Was Fay a cheat? Shaking his head, he muttered, “Have to admit I never saw a sexy yazoo. But then I’ve never been to Mississippi.”

The next word he spelt out was breast. As he looked up from the word, his gaze traveled over Fay’s T-shirt and, noticing the sensual curve of her breasts underneath, he felt a sudden stir of desire. He wondered why watching her nurse Marie didn’t turn him on, yet the sight of her covered breasts had done just that.

You’re losing it, Sorenson, he told himself. Cabin fever.

In the end, Fay beat him by a narrow margin.

“Close, but no cigar, as my dad used to say,” she remarked as she tallied up the game.

“Mine, too,” Dan told her. “He said it came from carnivals where you got a cigar if they couldn’t guess your weight within a pound either way.”

“Do you think we’re doomed to become our parents?”

“I sure hope not.”

“My mother was okay,” she said, “but my dad…” She broke off.

“The other way around in my family.” He hadn’t known he was going to blurt that out until he heard himself say it. He saw her interest and groaned inwardly. What was there about Fay that made him reveal more of himself than he ever had to anyone else?

“Can I ask, or are you sorry you said anything and don’t want to talk about it?” she said.

“Not much to tell,” he said gruffly. “She ran off with another man when I was in college and Dad divorced her. He’d never talk about it, but he was devastated.”

“Are both your parents still living?”

“Dad is. Bought a place in Florida. Said he had enough of cold winters. I—we don’t know where my mother is.”

“How sad.”

Dan shrugged. His sympathy had always been with his father. He couldn’t imagine living all those years with a woman and then, without warning, having her leave him flat for some other guy. Marriage was vastly overrated.

“Is that why Bruce and Megan have never married?” Fay asked.

“Part of it. Will—that’s my older brother—had a failed marriage and so did I. That contributed to our belief that Sorensons are better off single.”

“I see. But it’d be interesting to talk to your mother.”

He stared at her, frowning. Why in hell would she want to talk to his mother?

“There’s always more than one side,” she informed him. “Didn’t you ever search for her?”

“No!” The word burst from him.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to press on a sore point. Or interfere in what’s your business and not mine.” She rose from her chair.

When he noticed her clutch at the chair back to keep her balance, he jumped to his feet and put an arm around her to help her back to the couch. His anger was no reason to forget how fragile she still was. Wouldn’t happen again. Above all, he meant to keep Fay safe.

He just had no intention of marrying her or any other woman. Even if she’d have him. Which he doubted. Fay had made it pretty clear if she ever chose a husband, he’d be the high-powered, ambitious type. Which didn’t even remotely describe Dan Sorenson. Not that he cared.

When he’d eased her onto the couch, she looked up at him and said, “When we get the camera, I’ll make sure you get a picture of Marie to keep.”

He’d forgotten all about the camera. “I’d like that.”

“But not necessarily one of me. Really, I usually look a lot better than this.”

He figured he’d give her another try at understanding how he saw her. “You look fine. Too pale, but otherwise—”

“You’re a sweetheart to say so.”

Which he deciphered to mean she didn’t believe a word of it, so he decided she wouldn’t believe anything else he might have to say about her appearance. If he admitted that he found her beautiful, she would attribute it to kindness on his part. Gallantry, even.

“There’s more than one who’d tell you I don’t have a kind bone in my body,” he told her. “Or a sweet heart.”

He could see his words had confused her.

“You’re wrong about what I want,” he added. “I’d like a photo of you as well as one of Peanut.”

“Peanut? Is that how you think of her?” She smiled. “I guess she is sort of tiny, at that. Maybe your brother or sister will take one of the three of us. A memento of the April storm.”

Megan would, he was sure. A memento. But that was what their time together would become, after all.

Dan reached a gentle finger to brush a strand of hair from her cheek, his touch lingering on the smoothness of her skin for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “Something to remember.”

He already suspected the hard part would be forgetting.

Chapter Four

By noon the next day, the bridge had been shored up enough for Dan’s pickup to cross over safely. With the baby in the car bed fastened into the back of the extended cab, he and Fay set off for Evergreen Bluffs.

He’d helped her pack all her belongings and, along with the baby’s, they were stored inside the truck’s cabin. As he drove toward town, Dan pushed away the thought of having to say goodbye.

“I can’t believe I got off on the wrong highway in the storm,” Fay said. “And to make it worse, wandered so far off the highway onto a private road.”

“Easy to get disoriented when there’s a whiteout,” he told her.

“Believe me, I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“I sure hope so.”

“I will. Your attitude changes when you have someone as helpless as Marie depending on you. I can’t afford to be as much of a risk-taker.”

“Tell me.”

“I know we’re going to see Dr. Bruce. Will I be meeting Megan as well?”

“She’d kill me if I didn’t bring you over to the house. She’s a high school teacher, so she’ll be home later in the afternoon.”

“You mentioned another brother—Will? Where does he live?”

“In town, but he’s in Lansing at the moment at some kind of legal conference.”

“Will’s a lawyer?”

“Yeah.” After that he couldn’t find anything more to say. They were nearing town before he asked, “You doing okay?”

“If you mean am I going to collapse when I get out of the truck, no. But I may have to lean on you, as usual.”

“Be my guest.”

She glanced at him. “I’ve already been your guest for the better part of a week. I imagine you’ll breathe a long sigh of relief when we’re gone.”

The words were there, waiting to be said. I’ll miss you. He held them back. Not because they weren’t true, but because he didn’t want to admit it. To her. Or to himself.

He had to say something. “You’ve been good company.” Also true.

“But certainly troublesome company.”

What was he supposed to say to that? Her arrival sure as hell had been a far-from-welcome complication in his life, but he didn’t regret anything that had happened once he’d rescued her. And he certainly didn’t regret the rescue. He couldn’t bear the thought that Fay and her still unborn baby might have frozen to death in the storm.

When they reached his brother’s home/office, Dan retrieved Marie from the back seat, cradling her against him as he helped Fay down from the truck’s high seat. She held his arm as they made their way into the building.

Bruce’s receptionist, red-haired Wendy, made a big fuss over the baby. “What a little darling,” she cooed. Giving Dan a sideways look, she added, “Never thought I’d see the day you’d be carrying a little one around.” Shifting her attention to Fay, she said, “Come right in through that door. Doctor’s with a patient, but we’ll get you nice and comfortable in an examining room while you wait.”

Dan followed Fay to the room Wendy indicated. “Want me to stay with you ’til Bruce comes in?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You can bring the baby into the back office,” Wendy told Dan. “Doctor’ll want to examine Ms. Merriweather before he looks at her daughter.” Turning again to Fay, she said, “I’m going to bring you some forms to fill out while you wait.” Shooing Dan ahead of her, Wendy bustled out.

One of the forms, Fay discovered after Wendy returned with them, was the information needed for the baby’s birth certificate. She smiled as she wrote down the name she’d chosen: Danielle Marie Merriweather. Perhaps Dan wouldn’t mind that she’d named her daughter after him, but she’d decided not to take the chance, so hadn’t told him. And wouldn’t.

By the time all the forms were filled in, a fortyish woman entered and set a small tray down on the top of a cabinet. “I’m Ellen, the office nurse,” she said. “I’m here to weigh you and take your blood pressure.” When she finished, she added, “Doctor Sorenson wants me to get a blood sample, too.”

With practiced efficiency, she drew the blood. Eyeing Fay assessingly, she said, “Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

“Just tired,” Fay said.

“You’ll have to do it sooner or later anyway, so why don’t you undress, slip into a gown and get up on the table where you can stretch out?” Ellen indicated a corner with a curtain pull. “The gowns and a sheet to cover yourself are in there.” She gathered up the tray and the filled-out papers before leaving the room.

Fay did as the nurse suggested, breathing a sigh of relief when she was flat on the table. Damn this lethargy. She fought to stay awake, but her eyelids were drooping shut when she heard the knock at the door before it opened. The doctor. He looked enough like Dan so she thought she could have picked him in a crowd as Dan’s brother, even though he had a slimmer build and his eyes were a lighter shade of blue.

“Hello, Fay,” he said. “I’m Bruce Sorenson, Dan’s brother.” He held out a hand to her and she shook it.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” she said.

He didn’t release her hand, but turned it over, peering down at her fingers as he said, “No problem. Dan filled me in a little about what happened after you got lost in that storm and found your way to the lodge. I’ll examine your daughter later. First we’ll see about you.”

Letting go of her hand, he leaned toward her, saying, “I’m just going to pull your lower lid down for a moment.” He checked one eye, then the other.

“Dan mentioned that you bled quite a bit before delivering the placenta. Any marked bleeding since then?”

“No, not really.”

“From the looks of things, you may have anemia. I can’t tell for sure until I take a look at your blood under the microscope, but I strongly suspect that’s the reason for the persistent fatigue Dan mentioned to me.”

Fay swallowed. “You did say anemia, not leukemia?”

“I did. It’s not uncommon and is easily treated with medication and diet. Anemia is an entirely different condition than leukemia. There’s no connection. You should be feeling your old self in a few weeks, give or take a day here and there.”

“That long?”

“Don’t look so alarmed. You need rest, a good diet and medication to bring your count back up and that takes time. I strongly suggest you stay at a place where someone can help you with the baby.”

“My aunt lives in Duluth. I can call her.” But how was she going to get there alone? Just being a passenger on the short drive here had worn her out.

Someone tapped on the door and Ellen stuck her head in.

“I’m ready to do the exam,” Bruce said to the nurse, who then entered the room.