Dylan's Daddy Dilemma (The Colorado Fosters Book 04) by Tracy Madison Page A

same effectiveness as a shotgun blast. Well, to say he’d been fast asleep would be an overstatement. Fitfully dozing, perhaps.
    Squinting open one eye, he saw Henry, who was clothed in the brightest fire-engine-red pajamas Dylan had ever seen, approach the minifridge. Assuming the boy would grab a bottle of water and return to the other room, Dylan closed his eyes and feigned sleep.
    What had he gotten himself into? How in the hell was he going to create a brand-new fresh start for a vulnerable, stubborn woman and her feisty child?
    It was a helluva lot. More than he’d originally realized when he’d arrived at the harebrained scheme a few short hours ago. Chelsea required a job, a place to live, child care for Henry and, unless the prior three were within walking distance of each other, reliable transportation until she could afford to buy another car.
    Again, he considered the simplest action: leaving her to her own devices and going on his merry way as if they’d never met. And once again the tension in his gut told him—in no uncertain terms—that he couldn’t. Nope, she was not his
logical
responsibility. That was fact. Yet fate had seen to it that she’d walked into his family’s restaurant, that her car had broken down in their parking lot and that he’d been the Foster to find her.
    Sensible didn’t have a foothold in the equation.
    Urgency to get started overtook his body’s desire to sleep, but Henry hadn’t yet returned to his mother. Once he did, Dylan would go downstairs and call the junkyard, see about getting someone over here within the next few hours. Then he’d check in with his family to see if they had any ideas, and if all went well, he’d soon have the beginnings of a plan in place.
    The thought had no sooner crossed his mind when Dylan heard a door open and close, and then the telltale sounds of Henry all but running down the stairs to the restaurant’s kitchen. Dammit all. What was that kid up to?
    Sitting, Dylan wiped the grit from his eyes and contemplated his next move. The kid couldn’t be more than four or five, tops, and the kitchen wasn’t exactly childproofed.
    He stood and followed Henry’s trail, taking the stairs two at a time, thoughts of sharp knives and gas-burning stoves filling his heart with dread. When he entered the kitchen, he stopped and waited for his pulse to return to normal. The kid was standing in front of the commercial refrigerator, his sandy-brown hair spiked and mussed from sleep, with the door wide-open. He was staring at its contents so intently he seemed oblivious to Dylan’s presence.
    “Morning, Henry,” he said. “Hungry, I take it?”
    The boy startled, sending a tremor through his thin, almost bony body. “You scared me! You shouldn’t do that. Mommy says it’s not nice to scare people.”
    “Sorry, kid. But you probably shouldn’t be exploring on your own.” At least, not in a room filled with an abundance of child-safety hazards. If Dylan hadn’t been awake,
anything
could have happened. He shoved that thought far into the abyss—the boy was fine, after all—and asked, “Does your mom know you’re down here, or is she still sleeping?”
    “I told her and she said she’d get up in five minutes, but she didn’t.”
    “Ah.” And that, Dylan knew from his own childhood, was equivalent to receiving permission to go ahead and do as you pleased. “Well, I bet your mom is more tired than usual.”
    “Right, so I ’cided to let her sleep.” Henry finally turned to look at Dylan. “She was sad last night. I thought if I made her breakfast, she’d smile. I like it when she smiles.”
    Unexpected emotion gathered in Dylan’s throat. He swallowed it down, nodded and knelt in front of Henry. “That’s a fine idea. Mind if I help? I’d like to see your mom smile, too.”
    “Don’t know,” Henry said, his tone solemn. “Do you cook good or bad?”
    “Um. Neither, I guess. More like somewhere in between.”
    Narrowing his eyes