Peaceful Pilgrims Series is set in Karen Wiesner’s fictional town of Peaceful, Wisconsin, a small community with old-fashioned values and friendly people you’ll want to get to know and visit often.

 

 

 

 

Continue the Series:

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

“Why in the world would anybody put chains on me? I’ve paid my dues…” Avery Worchester crooned along with the beloved 1977 Commodores hit playing throughout his apartment. “Ooh, that’s why I’m easy…”

Standing in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom, he buttoned a slim fit V-neck shirt in a shade of mint he was partial to. It was too nice to wear at the garage, but he didn’t plan to actually work on cars today. Wednesdays were generally his office day. If he had to be out on the floor, he’d put on an overall uniform to make sure one of the few nice shirts he owned–along with his best brown chinos that were fashionable without being too formal– didn’t get stained.

The realization that he felt good, really good, this morning, was almost as strange as the awareness that he hadn’t felt that way in a while. Longer than he’d considered of late. Maybe as a result of his spirited mood, he found himself admiring his appearance. His dark hair, shaved close at the sides and back but full and thick at the top, spilled over his forehead in a riot of appealing waves. His body looked muscular and trim. At 6’4, he generally never worried about overeating; instead, he tended to lose weight rapidly when he was too focused on any one thing, the way he had been recently.

As usual, Dante was right. The last eight months by myself, making the effort to become the good father my kids need, have been the best in my history. Not exactly a great commentary on my love life, nevertheless accurate…

Avery had suffered three failed marriages. Those had been followed up with a monogamous affair that hadn’t led to tying the knot, as all his previous relationships had. Stella had been more interested in her looks and unrealistic, 24/7 romance than in what he–and his three children conceived with his ex-wives–needed. In fact, she’d all but hated his kids and went out of her way to alienate them while stealing all his time and attention. His fault he’d allowed her to do that, of course. His usual hat trick–he’d taken the easy way out. But, at his best friend Dante Robinson’s urging, Avery had broken up with Stella back in May of the previous year.

Taking the high road all by his lonesome had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. Coming out the other end, though, he couldn’t deny it’d been worth all the heartache and stress, accepting the rebuffs he’d gotten from his two sons and daughter for the longest time. Dante had told him not to let their rejection defeat him. After his previous incompetence, he had to prove himself to them, show them he would work hard to be worthy of their respect and affection.

Never thought I could be alone and survive all I’ve been doing without these months. But I am and I have, and… Avery laughed at the thought. …I’m not sure I could have done what was required of me, winning my kids over again, if I’d had to divide my time between them and a woman. The wrong woman. Hell and damnation, Stella was the wrong woman every which way I look at it…regardless of the mind-blowing sex.

He definitely didn’t want to remember any part of that. He had to get going anyway. Another thing he’d been dealing with was making sure he got to work on time each day and he did an exemplary job of taking care of clients and his dad’s…no, my…employees. Since his father handed the reins of his highly successful and lucrative business, Holt’s Auto Repair, over to him instead of to Dante–the master mechanic he’d groomed as his heir for long years–Avery had been aware a lot was expected of him. His dad had spent his lifetime building the business. Avery couldn’t let it fail. Beyond that, Dante was his best friend. Avery had stolen something from Dante that maybe Avery didn’t deserve. For a long time, it’d looked like Dante might never forgive him for that. Against all odds, he had. Avery intended to remember that. He would make sure Dante and the other employees never got anything less than his best.

Avery pulled himself forcefully back from the direction his thoughts were headed. He’d never done a great job of balancing all the areas of his life. His work, his wife, his kids–one of the three had always suffered when he’d tried to juggle them all at once. At the moment, not having anything resembling a love life had allowed him to give himself over to the other two priorities in his life. Now wasn’t the time to start questioning that decision, and fawning over himself in the mirror would only lead to a resurgence of desires he’d managed to compartmentalize to a place he never would have believed existed inside him before.

Bottom line, he wasn’t ready to get back out there as an eligible bachelor. Things were better with the kids, who were between the ages of nine and sixteen. They’d forged a solid base for the future, but Avery didn’t dupe himself it was stable enough that he couldn’t easily fall right off the wagon again. Dante had told him finding the right woman who would love his kids as much as he did was the only way to maintain balance between his three prime concerns. Having been a lifelong womanizer himself, Dante knew what he was talking about. Instead of trolling bars and nightclubs for available women who might have been looking for love but not the lasting kind, Dante had stumbled at the feet of a sweet, virginal librarian who’d changed his whole life in no time at all. He and Lena were still newlyweds but they’d both wanted to start a family right away. They were expecting their first child. Avery couldn’t imagine that would go catastrophically wrong, the way it had for him. Three times.

Happily ever after for me might not ever come, but my relationship with each of my kids matters more than anything else. Continuing my dad’s legacy matters. Right now, those two things are all that matter. I’m making inroads on stabilizing both for the long haul. I can’t let anything interrupt my focus on priorities. It’s too much of a risk, considering how much I’ve screwed up in the past when I tried to juggle too much at once.

Avery turned away from the mirror, allowing himself a light little dance spin despite his heavy thoughts, as he joined Lionel Richie on the bridge of Easy: “I wanna be high, so high, I wanna be free…”

He noticed the clock on his boogie out of the bedroom, acknowledged with it that he had just enough time to grab breakfast and a chapter of the ebook version of Jane Eyre he was reading. He’d noticed not long ago his neighbor had put a sticker with the book on it on her mailbox next to his, and somehow it’d brought the urge to read the book. He’d always been a sucker for classic romance, and this particular one was a favorite of his–not something he’d probably admit to a single other living soul. He’d been caught reading a paperback of Wuthering Heights in the garage on his lunch break once, and he had yet to live that teasing down. Using a tablet to read allowed him to indulge without exposing his secrets to the mockers who weren’t as in touch with their feminine side as Avery was.

Outside his small, cluttered but otherwise decent apartment, the sound of a baby not just crying but very nearly wailing seemed to get closer. He knew enough about his neighbors to be aware none of them had babies. Although this building wasn’t specifically designated for college habitation, it was close enough to the college that a lot of students lived here at any given time. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, his newest neighbor–right next door to him–was a college student. He’d seen her fairly often, but they’d only just nodded in passing those times. Usually, she was getting mail from the wall boxes on the lowest level, or she was hovering near the billboard that the landlord and other residents used to communicate with other building occupants. While he couldn’t say he’d noticed how old she actually was, though she certainly appeared young enough to be a freshman, he would have picked up on whether she was pregnant. She was a small, slight female, one who easily fit the description of a starving college student. He’d noticed her build mainly because she was always carrying a lot–far more than her delicate frame suggested she was capable of, including a heavy camera bag, an oversized, stuffed backpack, and a fringy tote purse.

The crying baby got much closer, and he frowned in surprise at just how loud it was. But even that was drowned out by an absolutely commanding pound of a knock on his door, which seemed to rattle and shudder under the force. He couldn’t have mistaken that someone was visiting him, as he often had in the past because the walls and floors in the building allowed him to hear far too much of everyone else’s business. Hence, his reason for playing music nearly all the time but not too loud, just loud enough to cover his privacy and his neighbors’.

That someone was calling on him didn’t make any sense though. The building he lived in was callbox access. Visitors had to be let in by the inhabitants. Even with his music on, he would hear that insistent buzz. But there hadn’t been one. So who could be visiting him, other than another resident?

Quickly, he turned down his music, worried that the volume was the reason for the unexpected visit. He’d never had anyone complain about loud music and his enthusiastic singing along in the past. Even when his kids were here and their activities got a little exuberant, no one found cause to grumble about him. He wanted to keep it that way.

His mind turned over how quickly he could dispatch the person on the other side of the door as he advanced in that direction, the sound of the baby ratcheting up alarmingly and confusing his thoughts. He didn’t have a lot of time before he had to head out for work. This would give him even less.

By the time he made it that far, Avery didn’t have a single doubt the unhappy infant was right outside his door. He just couldn’t begin to imagine who would come to visit him with a baby. His kids were much older, and even the children his ex-wives had had with other men were too old to be this one.

The sound was starting to fragment him. He couldn’t think, couldn’t handle the insistent howl on any level. Why doesn’t someone comfort the kid? he thought an instant before he shoved back the deadbolt and yanked open his door. If Avery had ever known what he intended to say to the person with the baby in the hall outside his apartment, those words died in his throat and his brain all but exploded with disbelief.

No, hell, no. The very last person he expected was to see Stella. Sure, a month or two after he broke up with her, unequivocally telling her not to come back because he wouldn’t change his mind about the direction his life had to go in, he’d expected her to show up often and beg him to take her back. She’d been devastated when he’d dropped her. He’d felt guilty until Dante reminded him that it was his kids who’d been getting the short end of the stick all the time he’d spent with Stella instead of them. She’d been the one to insist he hire a babysitter who saw to their needs whenever he got one of them for his custody-approved weekends. Stella had effectively ensured she got all his free time while his kids got a stranger instead of their own dad.

In the past six months, he’d become Marty McFly’s mom in Back to the Future, constantly saying, Well, he’s right. Dante was right about the bad deal he’d given his own offspring when he’d been with Stella. Because she couldn’t stand the sight of any of his kids, he’d let her dictate how he should raise them when they were on his turf. The only way to stop it had been to break up with her. He’d known at all times that he couldn’t do it halfway. Whenever he was in a relationship, he’d followed the dictates of his woman almost without question. It was his Achilles Heel. The last thing he needed was to be tested.

His mind was a powder keg when he spoke, not really conscious of what he would say before he demanded, “How did you get in here?”

“Someone was on the way out and held the door for me.”

Just like that, Avery belatedly made a series of deductions that came in the wrong order. Who wouldn’t hold open the door for a woman carrying a crying baby? Following that, his gaze was drawn to the baby carrier at her feet, where the source of the howling he’d been hearing the last few minutes geared up for a renewal of protest.

What was Stella doing with a baby? Stella, who’d hated his kids from her first, ill-advised introductions to them. Following that, she’d systematically ignored and insulted them, and schemed to undermine their position in his life.

At that moment, Avery noticed that Stella simply didn’t look like herself. Not once in the time they’d been together had she worn anything that wasn’t highly fashionable and sexy, displaying her considerable assets to their best advantage. She’d literally rolled out of bed looking like a fashion model. Her lion’s mane of bleach blond hair and makeup were always picture perfect. She wouldn’t have been caught in her worst nightmare wearing what she was at this moment. The leggings were plain black, the sneakers flat and functional, her cotton shirt bulky instead of form-fitting, the unbelted wool cashmere winter jacket over them completely out of place with such a disastrous outfit. Remembering her hourglass Playboy Bunny body was entirely too easy for him, as easy as seeing right now that she’d gained weight. Because…she was pregnant? Because this baby…this screaming baby…is hers?

He was already talking himself out of that conclusion. He didn’t have time to deal with this, so he might as well rip off the bandage without worrying himself over unnecessary details. “What are you doing here, Stella? We don’t have anything to say. It was over when I ended it.”

Her fatigued and puffy, unadorned eyes narrowed in fury.

He’d never wanted to tell her he wasn’t madly in love with her. He’d chosen Stella because he was physically attracted to her…but not in love with her. There’d been little danger of his ever feeling that way for her. Yes, they’d had a monogamous relationship, something that had been a concession on his part because he was 100% sure she’d been in love with him, but he’d never let himself fall for anything but the consistently good sex they’d shared. After three failed marriages, he hadn’t trusted himself to let anything get serious. But, once Dante advised him the best thing he could do for both him and Stella was to end it, he’d realized how unfair he’d been to her. Maybe she was superficial and unrealistic about relationships, but she’d at least been honest about herself, her desires and intentions. He’d been trying to rectify the wrongs in his own pattern, but he hadn’t felt comfortable indulging in a physical relationship without the commitment. Somehow, he’d made himself believe it was okay for him to string her along if he didn’t cheat on her with any other woman. When Dante laid it on the line with him, not pulling any punches in his assessment of his countless sins, Avery had woken up to the truth about himself.

That mirror of myself changed me. I didn’t like what I saw through my best friend’s eyes. I hated the confrontation because I think deep down I knew it before Dante spoke the truth about me out loud. Becoming a good man and a good father and making up for my endless mistakes in both arenas are what all the time since then has been about for me.

Stella standing on his doorstep not looking like herself brought with it the herald of fear that he’d been fooling himself about whether he was capable of changing long-term.

His mind felt like a container of cottage cheese at the moment, especially when Stella thrust a bag at him. It hit him square in the chest. While her force wasn’t enough to physically move him, he still felt like he had the wind knocked out of him. Glancing down as he instinctively took it, he saw that the tote had the name of a local hospital on it. The flap and clasp of a big manila envelope stuck out the top of the bag.

“Maybe it was over for you, but it wasn’t for me when you dumped me like your personal trash. But I forgot you real fast, Avery, because I fell in love with someone who deserved it. I only found out recently I was pregnant, not just getting fat. When Russell learned I was pregnant, he…” Her voice caught as if a sob overwhelmed her, but she controlled it. “…he left. But he’s willing to take me back now.”

Although the sound of the crying hadn’t abated let alone decreased in volume, Avery realized he’d become nearly oblivious to it because of Stella’s fast and furious punches. When she glanced back at the baby carrier at her feet, she said in a clear, determined tone, “She’s not his. She’s yours. I had a paternity test done. Russell will take me back as soon as I’m done with all this. I tried…I really tried to be a mother, but you probably know better than anyone that I’m not cut out for that role. So…”

He noticed she didn’t try to say a “good” mother. Was there a trace of guilt in her eyes? Avery wasn’t sure, but if there was, it wasn’t enough for what she said next. She was chewing on a broken nail. In all the time they’d been together, she had nails that clearly came out of a salon and she babied them. All of them looked ragged now, and one of them was actually broken. He could see how badly it was bothering her.

“I’m done.”

What was she saying? She couldn’t be saying any of this. Nothing made sense. “But–”

She didn’t pause let alone allow him to interrupt her. “She’s probably hungry. Probably needs her diaper changed. The birth certificate is in there, too. I filled in the date she was born, but nothing else. It’s up to you, whatever you decide to name her. You have everything you need.” Her hand waved over to the side of the hall for a second before returning to him. He didn’t look away from her for an instant as he attempted (and failed) to digest her words. “My phone number and address have changed permanently. It’ll change again because I’m going to Russell now. So…tell her whatever you want when she’s old enough to ask. Don’t tell her anything. Or make up whatever seems best to you. It doesn’t matter to me. Don’t contact me, Avery. Ever.”

He was so shocked, he might have stood there, literally holding the bag, forever if his cell phone hadn’t buzzed–his alarm to make sure he left for work on time. It was one more noise in a sea of overwhelming sounds, and he added his voice to it when Stella started walking away. “Wait! You can’t–”

He chased her down the stairs, but she just kept walking without acknowledging him. The baby behind him seemed louder than ever, even as he got further away. His protective nature where children were concerned drove him to return to the baby instead of following Stella outside into the parking lot and demanding she stop and… What? Tell me this is all just a big mistake? The front door of the building closed with a resounding slam.

As he returned to the hall outside his apartment, he saw the neighbor across from him glance out his door to find what was going on. Annoyed shock filled the guy’s expression. Avery apologized, not sure he was in his right mind at all.

As if he’d been blind and suddenly could see, he noticed all the baby stuff Stella must have brought with her piled against the wall in the hall outside his apartment. “You have everything you need.” That was what she’d meant! She’d clearly wedged something in the front door to hold it open while she’d hauled all this up here to drop on him along with the baby. This had to be “everything he needed”. But he couldn’t worry about any of that now. The baby was distressing his neighbors, and she needed him–needed to be fed, her diaper changed.

He grabbed the carrier and entered his apartment, closing the door with his foot. After setting the carrier down in front of him, he shut off the alarm on his phone, typed a brief text to Dante with something that he hoped expressed he’d be late or absent today, and then he opened the tote bag to see a handful of capped bottles, a stack of teeny-tiny diapers, and an unopened pack of wipes inside it with the manila envelope.

His agenda became a checklist just like he used at the office to cut through the din of multiple tasks all requiring to be done yesterday. Squatting, he fumbled with the carrier buckles that held the shrieking baby, freed her, and took her into his arms. Following her almost stunned sounding hiccup, her crying lessened just the fraction he needed to remember what it was like to care for a newborn. Rusty old gears cranked into motion, however reluctantly–maybe more like shellshockedly–even as he accepted that the damning pattern that had ruled his life–instead of being broken by his recent efforts at redemption–had just gone through another, unaltered cycle. Crazy in love, pregnancy, marriage, a struggling time of happiness followed by a few short months of utter misery that ended in divorce. Rinse, repeat, damned. Maybe marriage and divorce hadn’t been factors with Stella, but crazy in lust, commitment, and fracture had played starring roles.

When Dante had convinced Avery he could become a better person, the two of them had failed to realize the overarching truth that, at this critical moment, seemed set in stone: Avery was well and truly cursed.

 

***

 

Are babies usually this small? Even for a newborn, this one felt too small. Avery wondered if she’d been a preemie, but that couldn’t be right because wouldn’t she still be in the hospital if she had been? There was nothing to her as he rocked her, trying to calm the ragged crying that had lessened since Avery picked her up but hadn’t stopped.

He reminded himself he knew nothing. Stella had distinctly said she’d “only found out recently” she was pregnant “not just getting fat”. That was classic Stella. If he had to estimate how much of their time together she’d spent worrying whether she was fat, he’d conservatively peg it at least half, maybe more. Nothing he or anyone else said or did provided the slightest affirmation of her perfection to her. Most of the time she wasn’t even listening while he scoffed that she wasn’t even close to fat. She’d starved herself, if anything. Her figure was almost identical to a Barbie Doll’s–impossibly tiny waist, mile long legs, huge boobs, curvy feet that were strangely delicate and even pretty despite that her shoe size was a giant’s nine. He’d teased her once (before he realized how sensitive she was about any hint of imperfection) that she needed her feet to be as big as they were in order to balance her frame, considering her sizeable upper rack.

Avery was blindsided by the realization that she must have been pregnant when he broke up with her in May of the previous year. Guilt speared him, spreading its heavy, virulent poison through his veins. Weirdly enough, he remembered she’d had her period like normal the month before–something he was forever aware of, since it messed up their sex schedule–but she’d been strange the next month. He’d been considering breaking up with her and that had affected their sex life as well. He’d suspected she was well aware of his thoughts, but she’d confirmed it at her lack of surprise when he finally dropped that bomb. She’d been in tears long before he got to the point of ending it with her, which nearly made him retract his decision. He was mush against female tears.

We made love every single day of our last month together. Even when neither of us was feeling it and might have otherwise withdrawn. She wouldn’t let me do that. Later, I figured she sensed me getting ready to make the move to dump her and the constant sex was supposed to change my mind. It very nearly did. If Dante hadn’t kept me focused on what was important, I don’t think I would have had the backbone to carry out the execution of our relationship. Why the hell did I never consider she wasn’t getting her period, the way she should have, that month?

But he knew the answer to that. He hadn’t been sleeping. He’d been exhausted at the ordeal he was about to bring about with huge life changes on the horizon. His brain had been little more than oatmeal. Thinking straight in either condition was asking too much. He’d spaced that her period was late, never once considered it was missing altogether. Before long, the relationship was over, and he’d stopped thinking about her altogether. More guilt. I didn’t treat her right at all.

Stella…well, Stella had some really dumb ideas about birth control. She assumed all methods were a hundred percent effective. He remembered talking about how he’d gotten each of his exes pregnant before they got married. Stella had asked if they forgot the birth control. He’d said, no, of course they didn’t. He’d always been aware of the need for birth control, undertaken well in advance because he knew once the act started, he’d be gone–far from caring about anything but the pleasure he was sharing with someone who mattered to him.

Even still, every time, with each of his ex-wives, contraception hadn’t been effective. Various methods had been employed. Bad luck or his curse, he’d gotten all of the women he loved pregnant despite that they’d used birth control each time. Stella refused to believe pregnancy was possible when contraceptives were used. She said they must have done something wrong. Yet she, who was as adamant about protection as he’d always been, had gotten pregnant, just like all his exes had early in their relationships.

Avery felt his face get hot, remembering Dante’s dad Landon saying something like Avery’s hell-bent-on-conception sperm must be made of acid and burned through any barrier. Much as Avery had denied it, he couldn’t help wondering if that was the case.

So Stella had been pregnant when he broke up with her. Maybe she’d gone off her birth control, hoping to convince him to stay with her. He didn’t know if she’d go that far and he couldn’t quite imagine it because she’d been so uncompromisingly against the idea of having children. In any case, Avery could imagine exactly how it’d gone. If Stella had only realized she was pregnant recently, she’d spent the months before assuming she was getting fatter and fatter. She would have dieted obsessively, especially if she was already with new some new, worthy guy. Her every thought would have been on getting back to skinny and sexy. Maybe eventually she’d realized something was wrong, and pregnancy might have crossed her mind or she’d gone to her doctor, distraught.

How do I know for sure this baby is mine? He remembered her saying she’d had a paternity test done, but he wondered how, since he wasn’t part of that process. That he’d left something behind that had his DNA wasn’t unthinkable. He knew Stella kept boxes of stuff from her three-mile-long list of ex-boyfriends down in her storage unit in her apartment building. So she might have gotten his DNA from hairs still in a brush he’d left behind at her place.

The big question is, do I believe she wouldn’t lie about the results of a paternity test if it meant getting this true love Russell of hers back? Hell, Stella would beg, steal, or borrow–whatever got her the end result she was looking for. So…

As disturbing as his thoughts were, Avery circled back to the pregnancy almost involuntarily as the baby continued to fuss unhappily against him. Dieting wasn’t good for a fetus.

“I tried…I really tried to be a mother, but you probably know better than anyone that I’m not cut out for that role. So…I’m done.”

Stella had never been one for putting up with something that brought her misery. Avery had no choice but to believe that this baby must have been born not long ago. He did the math in his head based on when she must have gotten pregnant, if he was indeed the father, and when she would have given birth. Late January was his best guess. Potentially that meant this newborn was a week or two old. If Stella hadn’t given birth to a preemie, then did that mean the baby had been born normal, without health issues?

Belatedly, he recalled Stella saying the baby was probably hungry and needed a diaper change, and he swore under his breath because he’d had the very means to pacify the creature in his arms but he’d been reeling too much, looking for answers.

Grabbing the tote bag again, he went to his bedroom, wishing when he laid her down that he’d gone against his usual unwillingness to make the bed every morning. The baby started wailing instantly, but he knew he’d have to allow it to change her diaper. He took out the smallest diaper he’d ever seen, the pack of wipes, and then unwrapped the tiny creature from the blanket around her instead of a proper winter coat. She wore mint green footie pjs. He quickly unsnapped them, saw that the bellybutton stump was very nearly desiccated, would probably fall off in a matter of hours or days. By all appearances, she looked okay, if a little dirty. There was dried–formula?–on her chest and she had a bit of a sour smell, as if Stella hadn’t bathed her for a while. He just barely remembered that the umbilical cord stump was supposed to fall off before the baby could be properly bathed in a baby tub.

It’d been nearly nine years since his youngest was this small, and he hadn’t performed many of the diaper duty tasks. Wren had been an almost fanatic mother, after having lost their previous child before birth. She’d wanted to do everything herself–the right way. So he’d let her. His first wife Heather had been the same way. Only Phoebe had constantly been giving him one job or the other after Kaylee was born. I never minded either. It was when they stopped including me that I got in trouble.

The baby had a very definite rash. Seeing it made him angry since this was clearly not the first diaper that hadn’t been changed as soon as necessary. He opened the bag and rummaged through it. There was a tube of unopened butt cream, and he spread it on liberally after using the wipes. Carefully, he fastened the fresh diaper, not too loose, not too tight.

Despite that the baby was crying hoarsely, he didn’t let it faze him while he finished the job. He would have liked to wash her and put new pajamas on her, but he knew she was hungry and that was more important right now.

Once she was buttoned up, he wrapped the blanket around her again in case she was cold. He got the bottle from the bag, popped the cap, and put it in the baby’s mouth mid-cry. His first kid Jeremy, they’d had to heat the bottles, but the last had been breastfed and, even when Wren used the pump to store her milk in bottles, they hadn’t warmed it up before a feeding. They’d used it at room temperature, as this was.

Instantly, the newborn realized what was happening and all her focus went into eating. More to give himself something to do, on his way back into the living room he turned the music back on but not quite as loud. Then he sat on the couch to feed the baby.

His thoughts might have overtaken him again if he wasn’t so captivated by the sight of the baby. She had a dark shock of wavy hair all over her head that was thick with grease. From the moment he settled with her, her dark eyes were fixed on him with nearly as much attention as she gave the bottle. She was too new to have anything more than tiny indications of where eyebrows should be. Her skin was pink, cheeks chubby and sweet, and when he tentatively brushed the back of his finger against her face, he instantly remembered how soft all his kids had been as newborns. They were like little velvet dolls, so tiny in his arms, he’d instinctively vowed to protect them with the last breath in his body, if need be.

Was this baby smaller than his previous three had been? He wasn’t sure. When he spread his hand over her front, it was nearly as big as her whole body.

Don’t let anything be wrong with her, he found himself praying. Maybe Stella had spent the time since the child was born thinking about herself and her own unhappiness, but Avery couldn’t help worrying there was more wrong here than a need for a diaper change, feeding, and a washcloth bath. How would he even know?

He turned to see his cell phone on the end table beside him, though he barely remembered putting it there after he’d sent that text to Dante. At some point his friend would want to know why he was going to be late or gone altogether from the shop today. He considered going in, but he couldn’t think how he’d do that. He couldn’t leave the baby alone. She would need feeding again, diaper changes, comfort. And if there was more wrong…

No, he needed to take today off, figure out what was what. As much as he might welcome help, he only had to consider it for a few seconds before he dismissed the idea of telling his dad and stepmom (who were on a cruise in the Bahamas anyway), Dante and Lena, or Dante’s older sister Gemma. Gemma’s daughter Maddy had babysat his older kids a time or two, what she called just hanging out with them, refusing to let him pay her. Eventually, he couldn’t deny he’d need help, but right now…no.

The baby’s eyelids were heavy, and, though she instinctively sucked, the bottle was empty. Recalling something about air getting into her tummy, he eased the nipple out. She was asleep now and didn’t seem to notice. Her lips continued the sucking motion.

One-handed, he typed another text, one that he went back and forth on until he decided simplicity was best: I’ll be out all day. Talk soon. He lowered the volume on the phone so it wouldn’t wake the baby.

He wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about this just yet. In part, he worried that Dante would be disappointed in him. From the time he’d met him, Avery had wanted Dante’s approval. He couldn’t even say why. Dante was just that sort of person that other guys wanted to impress, while women wanted to take his breath away for whole different reasons.

What would Dante think of this? Avery wondered. Dante might well be disappointed because the loop of Avery’s life seemed to follow a definitive pattern. His best friend since he moved to La Crosse had been the very one to call him on it. But Dante would tell him to be the father his kids needed him to be, this newborn included. Even if she wasn’t actually his kid, even if Avery hadn’t known of her existence until an hour ago, she was his responsibility, however temporarily.

His insides burned as the pang of compassion flooded him. Despite the insanity of feeling like he couldn’t let her go since he’d only just met her, he knew it was already too late for him. He would care for her, fight for her, make sure nothing ever happened to her from this moment on. Done deal. No turning back now.

Lifting the sleeping child as gently as he could, he put her on his shoulder, patting her back. A burp ripped out of her that would have done a linebacker proud. Avery grinned, chuckling silent as he murmured, “Good show, angel.”