out of her driveway. The elderly woman wasn’t exactly a speed demon behind the wheel.
As soon as he was out of the kid’s line of sight, the wailing began again. Apparently, someone didn’t take direction well. Dalton opened the door anyway, stuck his head out, and saw—
No one. Not a soul. Mrs. Winterberry’s driveway, two doors away, was empty and silent, her familiar gray car gone.
Leaving him stuck.
He spun back toward the baby. “Stop. I mean it.” He wagged a finger at the kid. A gurgle, a blink, and then a few sputters before she stopped.
He stared at her. She stared at him. Trusting. Almost… happy.
Damn. No way. He couldn’t do this. He hadn’t been around a baby since—
Well, he simply wasn’t going to watch her. That’s all there was to it.
The problem? He didn’t see another available adult human option. He was “it” and he hadn’t even asked to play tag.
Dalton crossed his arms over his chest. “So whose kid are you? Mrs. Winterberry said you belong to someone named…” He thought a second. What had she said? “Elsie? Emmie.”
The kid was no help. There was no answer. Just some blinking. A blubbering lip.
“Don’t start.”
She whimpered, and threatened to let loose one more time. He shifted his weight and then did what he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to do—
He bent down and got close to the kid. There had to be a name tag or something on her. First, he inspected the car seat, bringing it forward and back, turning it right, left, sending the toys on the handle jingling and jangling. Hoping for an “If Lost, Return To” sticker.
Nothing.
He lifted the blankets, peeking underneath an inch at a time, wishing kids came equipped with a Paddington Bear tag. What was wrong with America? Really, all kids needed a stamp or GPS tracking or something so they could be sent back to whence they came.
But this one had nothing. And that meant Dalton was stuck with his worst nightmare and the one thing he, of all people, shouldn’t be left in charge of.
A small child.
Ellie Miller’s day had done nothing but get busier. Her best intentions had been derailed before she’d even arrived at work, given the number of e-mails and messages that had greeted her. Not to mention the meetings that had followed, one after another like dominoes. She let out a sigh and sank into the leather chair behind her desk, facing the inch-thick stack of pink message slips, accompanied by a furiously blinking phone. One two-hour meeting, and her afternoon had exploded in her absence.
If she wasn’t stuck in meetings half the day— most of which were about as productive as trying to fill a hole-riddled bucket—she’d get much more done in a quarter of the time.
So much for her plan to leave early and spend the afternoon with Sabrina.
The tear in her heart widened. Every day, the ache between wishing she was home, and the need to be here at work, at a job she once thought she loved—but more, needed to keep to pay the bills, to keep her and Sabrina afloat, carved a deeper hole in her gut. How did other women do it? How did they balance the family and work worlds?
“One pink message slip at a time,” Ellie muttered to herself and started flipping through the papers. As a producer for a newly launched celebrity interview TV show in the hot Boston market, downtime wasn’t a word in her vocabulary. It wasn’t a word she could afford, much less worry about.
Besides, she’d worked for years to reach this rung on the career ladder, to finally have a chance to prove herself capable. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly what she’d gone to college for. This job was a bit of a detour from what she’d dreamed of while attending Suffolk University. Still, the television work would serve well on her résumé and could lead to what she really wanted down the road— or at least she kept telling herself that as she sat through another of Lincoln’s pointless meetings. Either way, she’d probably be destroying her career if she walked away now.
Ellie sighed. Not that her bank account could even entertain that option.
The pressure of being everything—mother, father, provider—weighed on her, more and more every day. Ellie tried to ignore it. She was a single mother. No amount of worry was going to change that situation. Even if sometimes she wondered whether she was handling the job very well.
Ellie glanced at Sabrina’s picture, her heart clenching at the sight of her sweet eight-month-old, then she glanced back at the pile of missed messages. Work. A means to a better end.
Connie had marked the same checkbox on every one of the message slips: URGENT. Everything about this new job fit into that category, considering they’d hit the air a week ago. Finding guests, slotting stories—it all slammed into Ellie’s days like a five-day-a-week hurricane.
At least a third of the messages had Mrs. Winterberry’s name at the top. Ellie smiled and passed by those without reading them. She usually saved those for lunch, like a personal dessert, for when she had time to marvel over the details of Sabrina’s day and call Mrs. Winterberry back. Mrs. Winterberry was a great babysitter—but one who thought she should call and report on every bottle feeding, every diaper change, every coo and gurgle.
Details that Ellie loved to hear—but that also made her miss her daughter more. If only she could be the one hearing those coos. Or be the one on the other end of those bottles. Every morning Ellie dropped off Bri—
And seemed to leave a part of her heart behind.
Regardless, Mrs. Winterberry had been a godsend. She watched Sabrina for a very reasonable fee—one much cheaper than any daycare in Boston would have charged. She’d seen the dire straits Ellie had been in, taken pity on her—and probably fallen in love with Sabrina’s big blue eyes.
Who wouldn’t? Sabrina, in Ellie’s personal opinion, was the cutest baby in the entire world.
Ellie picked up the picture of her daughter and traced Bri’s face. “I miss you, baby,” she whispered. “I’m doing the best job I can.”
Then she replaced the image on her desk, and got back to work. For now, Mrs. Winterberry’s messages would have to wait. If Ellie got too distracted by thoughts of Sabrina, she’d never get anything done.
Instead, she returned the call of a celebrity guest who was having second thoughts about her appearance on the show. Something about “thigh confidence,” Connie had noted.
A knock sounded on Ellie’s door and Connie poked her head inside. “I see you got your messages. Surprised you’re still here.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ellie paused, waiting for the ring on the other end. “With this stack to return, I’ll be lucky to leave before next year.”
From out in the hall, she heard Lincoln calling her name. “Ellie! Meeting in fifteen! Be ready!”
Damn. She’d forgotten to prepare that list of potential closed captioning sponsors for Lincoln. Yet another thing to add to a day that already seemed impossible.
