cleared his throat, unaware that conversation had ever happened. “If you think you’d like to sleep with one of your stuffed friends, we can make an exception tonight. Sometime soon maybe we can give them all a bath, then you’ll be able to choose any one you want.”
Abby removed her little arms from around her dad, swiped her wrist across her nose and studied Celeste for what seemed like an eternity. Then she squiggled to the edge of her pretty pink sheets and asked, “Will you come back and help me give them a baf?”
Clay could see that Celeste felt caught between what she wanted to do and what he might allow her to do. She answered, “I’ll talk to your dad about that.”
Abby just kept gazing into Celeste’s face as if she were trying to figure something out. Clay knew what. This woman wasn’t Zoie … but she was close.
Suddenly Abby held her arms out to Celeste, and without hesitation, Celeste took his little girl into her embrace. She sat on the edge of the bed, not far from Clay, and held Abby, her eyes shining with emotion, reverently brushing her long brown hair from her brow and cuddling her close.
The silence in the room seemed awkward to Clay, but Celeste and Abby didn’t appear to notice. They were looking at each other again.
Suddenly Abby asked her, “Can you sing a song?”
When Celeste’s gaze met Clay’s, he gave a resigned shrug.
Tentatively at first, Celeste began singing a song about favorite things—roses and kittens—and Clay’s stomach clenched. As Celeste’s voice grew stronger, he realized it was the song Zoie had hummed to Abby after she was born. She hadn’t sung it often, only on those rare times when she’d seemed to want to form a bond with her daughter. Did Abby remember? She wasn’t saying whether she did or didn’t. She was just cuddling into Celeste’s body, letting herself be soothed and rocked, letting her eyes close.
After a short while, Celeste bent her head to Abby’s and asked, “Do you think you’re ready to go back to bed now, little one?”
His daughter nodded.
Sliding closer to Celeste, Clay was ready to take his daughter. But Abby shook her head and held on to Celeste tighter. Celeste looked puzzled as to what to do.
“Does she have a favorite toy?” Celeste asked him.
Abby’s favorite toy. Did he even know which one that was? He’d been working so many hours lately, and she changed her mind every couple of months.
His mother’s voice came from the rocker across the room. “Try that bear with the blue bow on the shelves. That seems to be her favorite lately.”
Clay took it from the shelf and handed it to Abby. She tucked it under her arm.
Celeste asked, “Do you think you and your bear can go to sleep now?”
Abby’s little hand settled on Celeste’s cheek. Then she nodded and curled into a ball on the bed.
Oh, so gently, Celeste covered her with the sheet as Abby smiled sleepily, tucking the bear tighter into her side, then closed her eyes, gave a soft sigh and seemed to drift into sleep.
Celeste looked as if she never wanted to move.
Clay went to her and touched her elbow. She reluctantly stood and accompanied him out of the room, but not until she glanced over her shoulder for a long last look at the sleeping child. His mother followed them into the great room, and once there the three adults seemed stymied as to where to begin. Clay could decipher the look in his mother’s eyes that said she still didn’t approve of the Wells twins, and she certainly didn’t approve of Celeste coming here like this.
“It has been a long time, Celeste.” Violet Sullivan patted her sedately coiffed ash-blond hair as if she needed something to do.
“Yes, it has,” Celeste responded, still glancing down the hall to Abby’s room. Then her full attention focused on his mother. “I haven’t seen you since the Christmas before Abby was born. That was a wonderful holiday.”
“Yes, it seemed to be.”
Clay didn’t like the censure in his mother’s voice, didn’t like the way it had been there all through his marriage to Zoie. Celeste, moreover, didn’t deserve it. Just because his family had descended from the founding fathers of Miners Bluff, just because his family had always been well-off, was no reason for his mother to look down on Celeste—especially after what she’d done for him.
“Mom, could you sit with Abby while Celeste and I talk? She might wake up again.”
After a long worried look, his mother returned to his daughter.
“Let’s go outside,” he said gruffly to Celeste, and headed for the front door. He knew what had just happened between Abby and Celeste had to be addressed and addressed now.
Because Celeste Wells was more than a concerned aunt.
She was Abby’s surrogate mother.
Chapter Two
Outside on Clay’s front porch, a motherly fervor rose up in Celeste she’d never experienced before. If Clay thought she was going to walk away from her daughter this time, he was wrong. Even though his sperm and Zoie’s egg had made Abby, Celeste had felt a motherly bond from the moment of conception, though she’d denied it for years.
She squared her shoulders and met Clay’s turmoiled gaze head-on. “After Abby was born, it practically broke my heart to give her to you and Zoie. But that’s what I’d promised to do. I know I signed release forms and still don’t have any rights. But having rights and doing what’s right are two different things. You’re her father and you have sole custody. I understand that. But I carried her for thirty-eight and a half weeks. I felt her move inside me. I looked into her little face after she was born and felt … connected. I came back here to get to know her, to spend some time with her, and I hope you’re compassionate enough to understand why I have to do that.”
Clay didn’t look moved and his silence troubled her. So she asked, “How often does Abby have bad dreams?” Celeste remembered the feel of her daughter in her arms. Abby had looked up at her as if she’d known her!
Finally Clay reluctantly admitted, “Every few weeks. She hasn’t had one for a while.” He ran his hand through his shaggy dark hair. “I talked to her pediatrician about them but he believes they’ll pass.”
Clay’s eminent virility was difficult to ignore. And the regret in his voice tugged at her heart. Still, she probed for more information. “The dreams will pass when Abby feels secure again?”
“She is secure,” Clay assured her firmly. “She’s a happy little girl.”
“Until she goes to sleep at night … until she plays with other children and realizes she doesn’t have a mommy,” Celeste pointed out, unwilling to let this go.
“She was too young to remember Zoie. She was only eighteen months when Zoie and I separated.”
“Zoie came back to get the divorce a year later,” Celeste reminded
