When she heard the doorbell ring, she assumed it was Carrie, needing help with the stroller.
“I’m coming,” she called as she ran down the stairs, so anxious to get to her baby that milk began to leak from her breasts. The blanket fell from her shoulder and she tossed it onto a chair in the living room. When she got to the front door, she threw the deadbolt and opened it without checking through the peephole first, something she’d made Carrie swear never to do.
“Oh!” Standing in front of her was Jake Macintyre. Their encounter twelve months earlier had been so brief, she’d often wondered if she’d even recognize him again. She did, in an instant, although he wasn’t exactly as she remembered him. He was leaner, paler, and his smile didn’t light up his face like it had the night they met. His eyes raked her from top to bottom, and she found herself gripping the top of her short cotton robe, pulling it tighter. One hand went to the stub of her ponytail and she felt her face heat up as she imagined how she must appear to him.
He finally smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his steely eyes. “Remember me? Jake Macintyre — you said I could look you up when I got back to Boston.”
“Of course! It’s just that it was … such a long time ago.” Not knowing what else to do with her hands, she clutched the sash of her white robe. It hid the last few pounds of baby weight, or at least she hoped it did. She was glad now that Carrie had taken Daisy out and the stroller wasn’t in its usual place in the hall, but she needed to get rid of Jake before they returned.
“A year.” He removed his hand from the doorframe, moving forward slightly as he readjusted his weight.
Violet, startled, pulled back.
“I’m sorry, am I making you nervous?”
She laughed, and it sounded fake even to her. “Nervous? No, of course not! But I’m not dressed, and I have an appointment … ”
“What happened to the silk robe you were wearing the last time I saw you? It was pale pink, with a design of water lilies.”
The white cotton robe she was wearing had damp spots of leaking milk over her breasts, and she tried to cross her arms over them. “It wasn’t … practical.”
“Probably not. Not for a new mother.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but knew it was useless. She was a public figure, and everyone who watched her newscast knew she’d had a baby in March. Anyone could have told Jake. “My baby isn’t … any of your concern.” She’d been planning to say
isn’t yours
, but the lie wouldn’t pass her lips.
He pushed past her into the hall. “I’d rather not have this conversation on your front step.”
She shut the door, first scanning the street for Carrie and Daisy. Maybe she would have to share her daughter with this stranger, this
angry
stranger, but she was hoping desperately for time to think and consider her options first. Seth would help her figure out what to do, if she could just calm Jake down and get him out of there.
“I suppose I should be flattered you picked me,” he said when she turned to face him, “but I don’t appreciate being used as a sperm donor without my permission. If it isn’t illegal, it ought to be.”
“
Sperm donor?
” Although it was the story she herself had spread, she was appalled at the man’s ego. He thought she’d selected him to be the father of her child. Based on what, his stunning good looks? How shallow did he think she was? “You think I planned my pregnancy.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and an image popped into Violet’s memory of his naked body, with its fine blonde hairs scattered over hard, thick muscles. Then she was distracted by the vein jumping at his temple and the fury in his amber eyes.
“Didn’t you?” In the face of her anger, he didn’t seem quite so sure of his claim.
“Of course not. We used condoms, remember? A bit past their ‘use by’ date, as I figured out later.” She gestured toward the sofa in the living room. “Please, sit down.” Although she was still hoping to hurry him out, her legs were shaking and she felt weak.
After a moment’s hesitation he sat, rubbing his hands over his eyes and forehead as though he had a headache. She spotted the baby’s blanket on the chair across from him and sat on top of it, trying to push it beneath her so he wouldn’t see it. It was irrational, she knew, but she was still hoping they could keep the discussion impersonal. Hoping he would give up any claim to Daisy and disappear again, into some jungle on the other side of the world.
“I probably should have told you, but I didn’t see any point in disrupting your life, too. We’re strangers. Believe me, this was a huge shock to me. But I wanted the baby, and I didn’t want — or need — anything from you. That’s still the case.”
He leaned forward. “At least you had nine months to get used to the idea of being a mother.” His gaze went to the seat of her chair, and a corner of the pink blanket that was sticking out behind her. “It’s a girl?”
She remembered her doctor saying those same words all those months ago when Daisy was a hazy rolling image on the ultrasound screen. Violet had cried. Not the typical tears of joy, as the doctor and her nurse assumed, although joy was one of the emotions she was feeling. She had cried because she was hearing those words alone.
“Yes. A girl.” She pulled the blanket out from beneath her and cradled it protectively in her arms as though it were Daisy herself.
Jake appeared shaken, although she had no idea what the news meant to him. “Where is she?” He scanned the room as though she might be hidden somewhere nearby. “What’s her name?”
“She’s out with the nanny, and her name is Daisy.”
“Daisy?” His eyebrows lifted and his lip curled with the hint of a smile.
“It was my mother’s idea, and I told her absolutely not, enough with the flowers. But she looks … like a Daisy. It’s hard to explain.”
He laughed, and with the tension gone from his face, he was once again the charming, handsome man who’d enticed her to break all her rules on a balmy night last June. Dangerously charming — like Monty McCall, who had abandoned her mother and made her childhood miserable.
“I guess I’ll have to see for myself.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I have a daughter.”
Violet needed to do something desperate before he became totally comfortable with the idea of fatherhood. She figuratively crossed her fingers behind her back. “Jake, there’s a man in my life. He wants to marry me and adopt Daisy. You’d be doing us all a big favor by walking away. It can be just like it never happened.”
What she described was her vision of an ideal future. A few years after her mother and Monty officially divorced, she’d married her widowed boss. David Gallagher was a wonderful man who’d adopted her and Seth, bringing stability to their lives for the first time. Someday, she hoped, she’d walk down a church aisle in a white wedding gown with David at her side to give her away. As for the man waiting at the altar, there were currently no prospects.
Jake jumped up, once again making her shrink back in fear. But he only began to pace. “I don’t like this, any of it. A nanny. Some guy adopting my child. It’s not right that I have nothing to say about it.” He stopped in front of Violet and stared down at her. “I want to see her, at least. I’ll get a lawyer if I have to.”
If she didn’t get him out of the house, immediately, he’d see Daisy whether she agreed to it or not. She stood and walked toward the door, hoping he’d follow. “We’ll work something out, Jake. You’re right, you should be able to see her if that’s what you want. Where can I reach you later tonight?”
While he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and extracted a business card, she opened the front door, desperately hoping Carrie and Daisy wouldn’t be on the other side of it. To her relief, they were nowhere in sight, and Seth was emerging from a cab in front of the townhouse.
“You have twenty-four hours to contact me.” Jake handed her the card. “After that, I’m getting a lawyer and taking you to court.”
He turned away from her and nearly collided with her brother as he stepped onto the stoop. “Is this the guy?” He turned back to glare at her, rage clouding his eyes.
Before she could answer, he took a step toward Seth and grabbed him by the front of his jacket. “You can’t have my daughter.”
“Jake, stop! This is my brother.”
He relaxed his hold on Seth’s jacket, and then looked from his face to Violet’s. The twins shared the same striking combination of blue eyes and black hair; no one could doubt their relationship. He let the other man go. “Sorry. I didn’t know you had a brother.”
Seth clutched his briefcase to his chest. He was speechless and appeared stunned.
“You don’t know
anything
about me.” Violet was breathing hard, as though she was the one Jake had manhandled. “Please just go.”
He glared at her but said nothing, then turned and fled to his car. Just as he peeled away from the curb, she turned in the opposite direction and saw Carrie round the corner with the baby stroller. Bursting into tears, she fell into her brother’s arms.
• • •
“I guess we should have expected this.” Seth reached for Daisy, and Violet, who’d been trying to console her for the last fifteen minutes, let him take over. The baby, calm and quiet after her walk, had begun to howl as soon as her tense and sobbing mother snatched her away from the confused nanny.
“Does he have any legal rights?”
Seth began to walk, jiggling Daisy against his shoulder, until the piercing cries stopped. “I’m not an expert on family law, but I know he can try to prove paternity, which would give him rights. From there he could even petition for custody.”
“Custody!” Her outburst made the baby wail again.
“Shh, it’s okay.”
Violet wasn’t sure which of them he was speaking to. “It’s not okay!”
“It won’t come to that,” he said in a sing-song voice meant to soothe the baby. “From what you’ve told me, no judge is going to give him custody of a child, certainly not an infant. I think he just wants to see her.”
“And I have to let him.” It wasn’t a question.
“Let her spit up on him a few times, and he’ll run for the hills.”
“Like Monty,” she said, and he nodded.
“She must be hungry, she’s sucking on my shirt.” Seth offered the baby back to Violet, who was sitting in the rocking chair he’d given her when Daisy was born.
She tucked the baby inside her robe and spread the pink blanket over them. The creases across Daisy’s tiny forehead made her resemble a worried old woman, and Violet took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself so her milk would flow. As she felt it release, Daisy’s eyes flew open and sought her mother’s. Although she’d known they were losing the blue color they’d had at birth, she realized now they were turning the color of Jake’s.
His eyes, softened by lust, had captivated her the night of the party. Today they were cold, full of anger — maybe even loathing. She sniffled, struggling not to cry again while she nursed the baby. It was so unfair, not to mention confusing. Had Jake misled her, or was she the guilty one for jumping into bed with a stranger?
Once she’d felt the first stirrings of her baby inside her, she’d decided guilt and blame did not apply. All that mattered was this exquisite, unexpected child who had come into her world. Had, in fact, become her world.
“We have to protect Daisy, Seth. I’ll do whatever I need to do.”
Crouching on the floor in front of them, her brother took her hand.
“I know you will.”
“Hand me the phone, and I’ll call him right now.”
Jake appreciated the natural beauty of every place he visited, whether it was the Himalayas, the Russian steppes, or Boston Commons. As he passed through on his way to meet Richard Rayburn at a trendy restaurant on Charles Street, he practiced the mindfulness meditation the Tibetan monks had taught him. He was a natural at it. When the boys were little, it was only Jamie their mother had to scold to pay attention. Jake was aware of everything.
Right now, everything included the mingled smells of flowers and food, sunlight reflecting off the water, and the shrieks of overexcited children who had come to ride the Swan boats and see the duckling statues. One of his earliest memories was of a ride in a Swan boat with Jamie and both their parents. Although he couldn’t picture his father’s face, he remembered being lifted in strong arms, and the rumble of his father’s laughter deep inside his hard chest.
One day his father hadn’t come home from work. Years later Jake would hear the details about the accident, but at the time his red-eyed mother told him only that his father had gone to heaven. Not knowing where heaven was — maybe on the other side of Main Street, which he wasn’t allowed to cross? — he’d hoped for a long time to someday find his father’s new home.
When the pigtailed toddler in front of him on the path stopped suddenly to sniff a flower, he realized he had strayed from his meditative state. His heart raced as he imagined his own daughter, whom he would meet in two days. Ever since he’d found out about her, his emotions had fluctuated wildly, an unfamiliar state for Jake.
At first he’d been furious at Violet for
getting
pregnant, but then had felt foolish when he realized that, of course, it had been an accident. One she’d had no more control over than he did. Then he’d almost punched her brother’s lights outs when he thought he was the man who wanted to adopt the baby — so much for practicing nonviolence. He smiled to himself, picturing the man’s startled face. If he got the opportunity, he’d have to apologize.
What would happen now, he wondered? Uncle Matt always told Jake and Jamie a real man did the right thing. Except he didn’t know what that
was
in this situation. Violet had moved on, found someone to love — someone more dependable than Jake. So much for the fantasy he’d entertained when Violet held the pink blanket against her chest, that this beautiful woman would now, somehow,
have
to be his. In those few seconds, it had seemed possible. But he knew the solution to his conundrum, if there was one, did not include him and Violet being together.