His Daughter

Name: His Daughter
Author: Ellie Rayne

94 pages

Last night at 3 a.m., I heard crying on my porch and opened the door to find a baby tucked against my doorframe.

She was wrapped in a soft cashmere blanket, soaked from the rain, with a folded note resting beside her.

“She’s yours now. I’m sorry.”

I should have called someone right then, but I carried her inside away from the cold.

I took her to the nursery I had prepared for a baby who never came, and pulled formula from the supplies I still had waiting.

She drank with both tiny hands wrapped around the bottle, like she had been fighting all night to stay awake.

I bathed her in the kitchen sink, and dried her with a towel, then dressed her in a white onesie covered in yellow stars.

By sunrise, she was asleep on my chest, while I lay there afraid to breathe too hard.

When she was finally asleep, I carried her back to the nursery and went to wash her blanket in the kitchen sink.

That was when I saw three initials stitched into the corner.

DJH.

I typed them into my phone, and the first thing that came up was a photo of Declan James Hale.

The billionaire had the same light-blue eyes she did.

My hands were still wet when a knock sounded at the front door.

I opened it, and Declan James Hale was standing there in the rain.

His eyes moved past me toward the nursery, and his voice went low.

“Where is my daughter?”

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