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Bad enough that the unsaid words practically rang out in the cavernous room without Dana’s having no idea whose unsaid words they were.
Brother.
“So, shopping,” he said, scattering the unsaid words to the four winds. “What time do you have to be at work?”
And so it began. The great baby-and-work shuffle. Because their momentary sharing of living space notwithstanding, it wasn’t as if either of them could drop everything to stay home with a baby. The situation was still more expedient than living separately, perhaps, but far from ideal.
“Nine. Or thereabouts. I have to drop the baby off at my mother’s first.”
“Yeah, I’ll be gone by eight, so I guess the morning’s out.” Then his forehead knotted. “I thought you said your parents couldn’t take care of him?”
“What I said was, I didn’t think they should be saddled with taking care of a child at their ages. Especially since they’ve finally gotten to the point where they can load up the RV and hit the road whenever the mood strikes. As hard as they’ve both worked all their lives, they deserve time to themselves. When I suggested looking into day care, however, my mother had a hissy and a half.”
“I bet she did. Your mother’s a real—”
“Piece of work?” Dana said around a mouth full of blissfully gooey cheese.
“I was going to say, a real she-wolf when it comes to her family.”
“Same thing,” Dana muttered, and C.J. chuckled. But she’d caught, before the chuckle, a slight wistfulness that had her mentally narrowing her eyes.
“I take it, then,” C.J. said, his hands now folded behind his head, “a nanny or an au pair wouldn’t be an easy sell, either?”
“Let a stranger look after her own great-nephew? Not in this lifetime. Trust me, you do not want to get her started on the evil that is day care.”
His gaze was steady in hers. Too steady. “But sometimes there’s no alternative.”
“Yeah, well, you know that and I know that, and God knows millions of children have come out the other side unscathed, but this is my mother we’re talking about. As far as she’s concerned—” she finished off the slice of pizza and crossed to the sink for a glass of water, only to find herself completely bamboozled by the water purifier thingy on the faucet “—a child raised by anybody but family is doomed to become warped and dysfunctional. Okay, I give up—how the heck do you get water out of this thing?”
She heard C.J. get up, sensed his moving closer. He took the glass from her hand, flipped a lever and behold, water rushed into it. Amazing.
“Thanks,” she muttered, taking a sip as he returned to his seat.
“Maybe she has a point,” he said softly, and Dana started.
“Who?”
“Your mother. After all, I was raised by nannies and look at me.”
As if she could do anything else. He’d donned a T-shirt to go with his sleep pants, but for some reason it only added to the whole blatantly male aura he had going on. And while she was looking at him, she set the glass on the counter and crossed her arms. “Your mother worked?”
A small smile touched his lips. “No. She died in a crash when I was a baby.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t you dare go all ‘oh, poor C.J.’ on me. I never knew her, so it’s not as if I ever missed her. We’re not talking some great void in my life, here. Okay?”
She nodded, thinking, Uh-huh, whatever you say, then said, “What about your father?”
The pause was so slight, another person might have missed the stumble altogether. “He made sure I had the best caregivers money could buy,” he said. “All fifteen of them. You want another slice of pizza?”
“Fifteen?”
“Yep. Pizza?”
“Uh, no, I’m good,” she said, and he rose to put the rest back in the fridge. Somehow, she surmised the fifteen-caretakers subject was not on the discussion list. For now, at least. “Still,” she said to his back, “I’ve known warped people in my time. Trust me, you don’t even make the team.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said, shutting the door, then shifting his gaze to hers. “But I’m hardly normal, am I?”
“And is there some reason you waited until after I’m living in your house to mention this?”
He smiled, then said, “You do have to admit, reaching my late thirties without ever having been in a serious relationship is pushing it.”
“So what?” she said with a lot more bravado than she felt. “Lots of people are slow starters. Or … or prefer their own company. That doesn’t make you weird.”
Even if it did make him off-limits, she reminded herself. Especially when he leaned against the refrigerator, his arms crossed over his chest and said, “I’m not a slow starter, Dana,” he said quietly. “I’m a nonstarter. A dead end. Remember?”
The occasional rapacious glance aside. Yes, he might be willing to take responsibility for his own child, or a nondemanding stray cat, but that was it.
Which she knew. Had known all along. Remember?
“And just to set your mind at ease,” she said, “I learned a long time ago it’s easier to grow orchids in the Antarctic than to convert a die-hard bachelor into husband material. And lost causes ain’t my thang. Because, someday? You better believe I want ‘all that messy emotional stuff.’ And the strings. Oh, God, I want strings so bad I can taste them. But only from somebody who wants them as badly as I do. So you can quit with the don’t-get-any-ideas signals, okay? Message received, C.J. Loud and clear.”
His eyes bore into hers for a long moment, then he said, “So we’ll go shopping after we get off work tomorrow night?”
“Sure,” she said, then left the kitchen, Steve trotting after her, hopping up onto her bed as though he owned it. She and the cat faced off for several seconds, she daring him to stay, he daring her to make him get down. Finally she crawled into bed, yanking up the cover. “Mess with my birds and you’re toast.”
The cat gave a strained little eerk in reponse, then settled in by her thighs, absolutely radiating smugness.
No wonder C.J. hadn’t taken the thing to the pound.
Sunlight slapped Dana awake the next morning, along with the alarm clock’s blat … blat … blat. Like a sheep with a hangover. Groaning, she opened one eye to discover that she’d apparently hit the snooze button.
Three times.
Covers, and a very pissed cat, went flying as she catapulted from the bed and hurtled toward Ethan’s room, not even bothering with her robe since C.J. had said he’d be gone by eight, and—sad to say—eight had long since passed.
“Hey, sugar,” she sang, sailing through the door, “you ready to get up …?”
No baby.
She scurried across the room to check the crib more closely, because that’s what you do when you’re not firing on all jets yet and the baby entrusted to your care isn’t where you last left him, only to spin around and make tracks toward the kitchen, hoping against hope C.J. had lied about leaving at eight and/or that wherever he was, Ethan was with him.
But no. Oh, she found Ethan, who greeted her from his high-chair with a joyful “Ba!” But instead of a tall, good-looking man in his prime, there, beside the baby, stood (at least, Dana thought she was standing, she wasn’t quite sure) a short, squat, black-haired woman whose prime, Dana was guessing, had predated color television. But before she could get the words, “And you are?” out of her mouth, the phone rang. Whoever-she-was picked it up, said, “Sì, Mr. C.J., she is right here,” and held it out to Dana with what could only be called a beatific, if curious, smile.
“Hey,” C.J. said, “did I happen to mention Guadalupe?”
Dana’s gaze slid over to the smiling woman. “I take it that’s who answered the phone?”
“That would be her. She comes in to clean for me twice a week. It completely slipped my mind that today was her day. I briefly explained things to her when she came in this morning. I would have awakened you before I left, but Steve looked like he’d remove a limb if I tried.”
With a flickering smile at Guadalupe, whose steady stream of Spanish Ethan was apparently eating up as enthusiastically as his rice cereal, Dana carted the portable phone out of earshot. “Never mind that I nearly had a heart attack when I went to get Ethan out of his crib and he wasn’t there,” she whispered into the phone. “A little warning might’ve been nice. And how the heck does one briefly explain the sudden appearance of a baby and a strange woman in your house?” She put up a hand, even though he couldn’t see her. “Unfamiliar, I mean.”
After a barely perceptible pause, she heard, “You have no idea how tempting it is to say, no, you were right the first time.”
“And where I come from, bantering before coffee is a hanging offense.”
A soft laugh preceded, “In any case, I simply told her the truth, that Ethan’s my son and you’re his cousin, that neither of us knew of his existence two weeks ago, and that we’re trying to figure out the best way to handle a very complicated situation. She seemed to take it in stride. But then, taking things in stride is what Guadalupe does. You’ll see.” He paused, as though catching his breath. “I really do apologize for the brain cramp. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, now. Five minutes ago was something else again. Look, thanks for calling, but I’m running seriously late—”
“Right, me, too, I’ve got an appointment in ten. See you tonight, then.”
And he was gone. Dana told herself the sense of watching an un-subtitled foreign movie was due to the combination of severe caffeine deprivation and leftover heart arrhythmia from the earlier shock.
She returned to the kitchen, where Guadalupe was busy wiping down a squealing Ethan, who wasn’t taking kindly to having his attempts at pulverizing a blob of cereal on his high chair tray thwarted whenever Guadalupe grabbed his little hand to clean it. The older woman flicked a brief, but chillingly astute, glance in Dana’s direction.
“So,” she said. “Mr. C.J. says you are not the mother?”
Dana shook her head. “No. His mother’s my cousin.”
“She as pretty as you?”
Warmth flooded Dana’s face at the out-of-left-field compliment. She sidled over to the coffemaker and poured herself a huge cup. “Trish is … very different from me,” she said, dumping in three packets of artificial sweetener, some half-and-half. “Lighter hair. Tallish. Skinny.”
One eyebrow lifted, Guadalupe went for the other little hand. “So how well do you and Mr. C.J. know each other?”
“Not very, really. Oh, let me take the baby, I need to get him dressed to go to my mother’s.”
“I can get him dressed, just leave out what you would like him to wear. And while you shower, I fix breakfast, no? I bring eggs, chorizo, the green chile for Mr. C.J.,” she said when Dana opened her mouth. “There is plenty extra for you. Is muy bueno, you will like. So, go,” she said, shooing.
Fifteen minutes later, Dana returned, face done, hair up, body clothed in a silky loose top and a drapey, ankle-length skirt in jewel tones that coordinated with the plastic fruit gracing her high-heeled, Lucite mules. The baby was dressed and in his car seat, ready to go; from the tempered glass breakfast table, a plate of steaming, fragrant eggs and sausage beckoned. Her brain said, “Stick with the coffee,” but her stomach said, “Who are you kidding?”
After depositing her purse on the island, she clicked across the stone floor, sat at the table. Lifted fork to mouth. Groaned in ecstasy.
“Is good, no?” Guadalupe said, smiling, from the sink.
“Delicious. Thank you.”
“De nada. You cook?”
“I love to cook. But I’ve never gotten the hang of Mexican.”
“I teach you, if you like. I teach all my daughters, now my grandchildren. Twenty-seven,” she said with a grin, and Dana nearly choked on her eggs.
“Goodness. Y’all must have some Thanksgivings.”
The old woman threw back her head and laughed, her bosoms shaking. “Sì, last year we had three turkeys and two hams, and enough enchiladas to feed half of Albuquerque. Done?” she asked, when Dana stood, whisking away her empty plate before she had a chance to carry it to the sink.
“Well, this little guy and I better hit the road,” she said, moving toward the seat, which Guadalupe had set by the patio door in a patch of filtered sunshine. But the old woman touched her arm.
“I know I am a stranger to you, but I have worked for Mr. C.J. for many years, I am good with children, you could leave el poco angel with me….”
“Oh … I’m sorry, I can’t. Not because I don’t trust you,” she hastily added at the woman’s hurt expression, “but my mother would kill me. Because it’s very possible that Ethan’s as close as she’s going to get to a grandchild. At least for the foreseeable future.”
Confusion clouded the dark eyes for a moment, replaced by an understanding sympathy so strong Dana was glad for the excuse to squat in front of the baby’s seat. Steve shoved himself against her calves, mewing for attention.
“Hey, guy,” Dana said softly, crouching in front of Ethan, who gave her a wide, trembly smile when she came into focus. “Ready to go? You are?” she said, laughing, when the baby started pumping his arms. “Well, come on then, your Auntie Faye’s waitin’ on you….”
Just like that, the unfairness of it all squeezed her heart so tightly, she could barely breathe. Clutching the sides of the seat, waiting for her lungs to get with the program, she heard behind her, very gently, “What will you do when your cousin comes back for her niño?”
Dana stood, hefting seat and baby into her arms. “There’s no guarantee that she will.”
“But if she does?”
“Then I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“And if the bridge is one you do not wish to cross?”
Balancing the seat against one hip, Dana grabbed her purse off the counter and slung it over her shoulder. “Thanks again for breakfast, it was great,” she said, making herself smile. “Will you be here this evening when we get home?”
Heat flooded Dana’s cheeks at the slip. We and home in the same sentence? After one day?
A little presumptuous, yes?
Guadalupe’s eyes narrowed, but all she said was, “I usually leave at three, there is not much to clean in a house where only one person lives. But anytime you need me to take care of this precious child,” she hastily added, “I will be more than happy to stay. You have a good day, Miss Dana, okay?”
Yeah, well, Dana thought as she lugged His Highness out to her car, she’d do her best.
During a lull between appointments, C. J. brought Val into his office, shut the door and told her about Ethan. Not surprisingly, the further into the story he got, the higher went her eyebrows, until he half thought they’d crawl off her face altogether.
“The Trish who worked here?” she said at the appropriate point in the narrative. “What the hell were you thinking, boy?”
“Could we please not go there, Val? The past is past.”
“Actually, it looks to me like the past just came up and bit you on the butt, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so.”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have told you. But wait. There’s more.”
There went the eyebrows again. “You mean, you can top a six-month-old son you didn’t know about?”
“I don’t know about topping, but …” His desk chair creaked when he leaned back in it. “You remember Dana Malone? The woman who was in here a couple of weeks ago?”
“Sure do. Cute little thing. Big eyes. What about her?”
“Trish is her cousin. And she kind of … left the baby with her. Granted her guardianship, actually. In writing. So she’s kind of … living with me. Well, they are. Dana and the baby.”
Three, four seconds later, Val blinked at him, then lifted her hands in an I-don’t-even-want-to-know gesture. Then she sighed. “I knew there was somethin’ goin’ on, I just knew it, the way you were acting mush-brained all last week. And didn’t I tell you I’d find out?” When he didn’t answer—because, really, what could he say?—she finally sank into the chair across from his desk, her eyes brimming with concern. “So what are you going to do?”
