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Their gazes skirmished for a second or two before she finally said, “Yes, you’re probably right,” then got into her sweltering car and drove off, repeating “No isn’t fatal” to herself over and over until, by the time she got home and called Cass with the good news about the store, she was almost tempted to believe it.
Way to go, dumb ass, C.J. thought as he sat at a stoplight, palming his temple. In less than a century, man had invented cell phones, the Internet and microwave pizza. And yet after fifty thousand years, give or take, no one had yet to figure out how to let a woman down without hurting her.
But what else could he have said? That, yeah, actually he would have killed for the privilege of spending a little more time in her company? To see that dimpled smile, to hear her laugh? To simply enjoy being with a woman without an agenda?
Except … she did have one, didn’t she? Maybe a bit more soft-edged than most, but no less threatening. Or sincere. And how fair would it have been, to accept her offer, to give her hope, when he knew it wouldn’t go any further? That selfish, he wasn’t.
And then there was the little sidebar revelation about Trish being her cousin. Uh, boy … he could just imagine what would hit the fan if Dana knew everything about that little side trip to insanity.
C.J.’s brow knotted. So why didn’t Dana know? Then he released a breath, realizing that whatever Trish’s reasons for keeping certain things to herself, if she hadn’t told Dana by now, she probably wouldn’t. And there was no reason for her to ever find out, was there?
A car horn honked behind him: while he’d been on Planet Clueless, the light had changed.
And even if she did, he thought as he stepped on the gas, what difference would it make? Once this deal was finalized, he’d have no reason to see or talk to Dana Malone ever again.
Which was a good thing, right?
In a bathroom flooded with far too much morning sunshine, Dana blearily stared at herself in the mirror. She pulled down a lower lid—yeah, the bloodshot eyes were a nice touch. Not to mention the still slightly visible keyboard impression in her right cheek. Charming.
She shakily applied toothpaste to brush, only to realize she wasn’t sure she had the oomph to lift the brush to her mouth. From the living room, her pair of finches chirped away, merrily greeting the new day, momentarily tempting her to go find a hungry cat. But if she’d been up until nearly 4:00 a.m., at least she hadn’t spent it brooding. Much. Since here she was, still alive (sort of), she guessed her “No isn’t fatal” mantra had worked. And anyway, she’d only have to see C.J. once, maybe twice more, right? If that. So. Over, done, let’s move on.
She shoved the brush into her mouth. And naturally, right at the pinnacle of sudsiness, the phone rang.
Dimly, from some tiny, marginally awake corner of her brain, it registered how early it was. She spit and flew back into her bedroom, fumbling the phone before finally getting it to her ear.
“Hel—”
“Dana?”
A few more brain cells jerked awake. “Trish?” She glanced at the caller ID. Blocked call. Shoot. “Where are you—?”
“I just wanted to make sure you were going to be at the shop at nine. That’s what you said, right? Nine? I mean, are you going to be there any earlier?”
As usual, she sounded borderline crazed, but in a controlled sort of way.
“I usually get there around ten ‘til. Trish what’s going on—?”
Click.
The girl really needed to get herself some phone manners. Sheesh.
An hour or so and a half bottle of Visine later, Dana pulled into the far side of the empty parking lot in front of the shop. It was her day to open up, a good thing since she wasn’t yet ready to face humanity. Or Mercy’s inevitable squinty assessment of Dana’s putty-knife makeup application. She was, however, supposed to be facing Trish, who was nowhere in sight. But then, reliability had never been her cousin’s strong suit.
Bracing herself, Dana took a deep breath and swung open the car door. Instant oven. Already. Yech. And it always took an hour for the store to cool off after being closed up all night. Double yech.
Her purse gathered, she slammed shut her door and crossed the parking lot, noticing the drooping petunias in the oversized planters by the front door. If they didn’t get water soon, she thought as she shoved her key into the lock, they’d turn into twigs. Lord, her slip was already fused to her skin. Knowing she had thirty seconds to deactivate the alarm before it went off, she shoved open the door—
Behind her, something sneezed.
The key still in the lock, the door swung open as whatever it was sneezed a second time. She turned, letting out a half-shrieked, “Ohmigod!”
The baby peered at her from underneath the nylon hood of the car seat, its face tinted blue from the reflection. It stared at Dana for a long moment, then offered a big, basically toothless, drooly grin.
Dana was far too stunned to grin back. But not too stunned to immediately scour the neighboring parking lots, her hand shielding her eyes from the morning sun glinting off the top of a beige sedan as it disappeared down the street. She stepped off the sidewalk—
Brrrrannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggg!
Dana yelped and the baby started to yowl like a banshee as the alarm blared loud enough to wake the dead. On Mars. She grabbed the car seat and roared into the store, thunking the seat onto the counter so she could dump out her purse to find the key to deactivate the alarm. Ten seconds later, she’d killed it, but not before nearly wetting her pants.
In the ensuing silence the baby’s howls seemed even louder. Dana unlatched the ridiculously complicated harness and hauled the little thing into her arms, then paced the jammed sales floor, almost more to calm herself than the infant. After a bit, the wails had softened to exhausted sobs, and Dana no longer felt as though her heart was going to pound out of her chest. She dropped into a rocking chair, the infant clutching the front of her dress, now adorned with baby tears and drool.
“No …” she breathed. “No, God, no … this can’t be happening….”
Trish surfaces out of the blue, asks when Dana’s going to be at the shop; lo and behold, a blond baby appears, smelling of cheap perfume and cigarettes. As she assumed the baby didn’t wear cheap perfume or smoke, it didn’t take a real big leap of faith to figure out who did.
She got up, deposited the baby—dressed in a miniature football outfit, so she was guessing boy—into a nearby playpen and stormed back outside, startling a couple of pigeons.
“Well, Patricia Elizabeth Lovett,” she muttered to the air, “you’ve outdone yourself this time.”
Since said Patricia Elizabeth obviously wasn’t going to jump out from behind a Dumpster and yell, “Surprise! Had you there for a minute, huh?” Dana’s only option was to go back inside and figure out what to do next. As she turned, however, she noticed the shopping bag. A quick glance inside revealed a small stack of clothes, six or seven disposable diapers and three filled bottles.
How thoughtful.
Dana snatched up the bag so hard one of the handles broke, nearly dumping everything into the gasping petunias. That’s when she noticed the note. Of course. There was always a note, wasn’t there?
She dumped the bag on the counter, saw that the baby seemed happy enough gurgling to his own hands as he lay on his back, then tore open the envelope.
Her eyes flew over the one-page letter, picking up the essentials, “… tried it on my own … knew how much you loved and wanted kids … it’ll be better this way … full custody … hopeyou’ll forgive me … Ethan’s really a little doll, you’ll love him … birth certificate enclosed …”
It was so Trish. On a sigh, Dana unfolded the birth certificate, if only to find out how old this kid was.
“WHAT?”
The baby lurched at the sudden noise, then started to cry again. Nearly in tears herself, Dana threw the letter and birth certificate on the counter and went to pick him up. None of this was the baby’s fault, she reminded herself as she hauled the infant out of the playpen and cuddled him in her lap. None of it. Least of all who his daddy was.
Cameron James Turner, the paper said.
Cameron James Turner, of “fatherhood isn’t part of my future” fame.
“Well, guess what, buddy?” Dana hissed under her breath as she grabbed a bottle off the counter and stuck it in her new little cousin’s mouth. “Fatherhood sure as hell is part of your present.”
Chapter Four
Dana thanked the police officer for coming so promptly, assured her she’d be in touch if she heard anything or needed her, then showed her out. Not that the visit had been exactly productive. Or even illuminating. Turned out there wasn’t a whole lot anybody could do, seeing as Trish had left Ethan with family and all. Technically, it wasn’t abandonment. Of course, the officer had said, if Dana really felt she couldn’t take care of the baby, there was always foster care …
Uh-huh. Sharp sticks in eyes and all that.
Mercy took the baby from her as Cass—whose own son was sawing logs in a cradle in the back—slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“For crying out loud,” Dana said, “how could anyone be so selfish? Ooooh!” Her palm slammed the counter, dislodging a teddy bear from its perch by the register. She caught it, only to squeeze the life out of the thing. “If Trish showed her face right now—” the bear’s floppy limbs flailed as she shook it “—I swear I’d slap her silly. What an air-brained, self-centered, addlepated little twit.”
“Familial love is such a wonderful thing,” Cass wryly observed.
Ignoring Cass, Dana stuffed the bear back into its chair. “What am I supposed to do now?” She shook her head, watching six-month-old Ethan play with Mercy’s hair. Her own, as usual, was coming undone. “How am I supposed to take care of a baby on my own? I live in this itty-bitty apartment, and hello? I work full time? What on earth was Trish thinking?”
“Maybe your parents could take over during the day,” Mercy suggested, but Dana wagged her head emphatically.
“Neither one of them is up to full-time babysitting at this point in their lives.”
Then both of her partners went ominously silent, instantly putting Dana on the alert. “What?”
“What about C.J.?” Mercy asked, wincing a little as she dislodged curious little fingers from the three-inch-wide gold loops dangling from her ears.
“Oh, right. Mr. Family Man himself.” When they both blinked at her, she sighed and ‘fessed up about the day before. Okay, she might have done a little judicious editing of the conversation—they didn’t need to know about the dinner invite—but she definitely left in the “He doesn’t want kids” part.
“Be that as it may,” Cass said, assuming the role of Voice of Reason. She folded thin, bare arms over a button-front blouse already adorned with a telltale wet spot on one shoulder. “C.J. doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d blow off having a kid. So my guess is Trish left town without telling him.”
Dana hadn’t thought about that. Still, she wasn’t exactly in a charitable mood. “And if she did?”
Mercy leaned against the counter, setting the baby on the edge, protectively bumpered by her arms. He yanked off her turquoise satin headband and began gnawing on it; she didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, if he knew about the baby and refused to take responsibility, you better believe I’d be first in line to string him up by his gonads. But if he didn’t—and remember, you’re not absolutely sure Ethan is C.J.’s—then I think you’re gonna have to wait and see. Give him a chance.”
“You weren’t there, you didn’t see the look on his face …” Dana began, then shook her head, her mouth pulled tight. She reached for Ethan, her eyes burning for reasons she had no intention of thinking about too hard. “I think it’s pretty safe to assume I got me a baby to raise.”
The bell jangled over the door; with a grunt of annoyance, Mercy left to help the pregnant woman slowly picking her way through the store. Cass, however, stroked Dana’s arm for a second, then grasped Ethan’s chunky little hand.
“Honey, I understand what you’re saying. But you really have no idea how C.J.’s going to feel once he sees his son. Look at him—he’s adorable. How could he not fall in love with him?”
At that, the baby turned all-too-familiar blue eyes to Dana and grinned as if to say, “Hey! Where ya been, lady?” Amazement and terror streaked through her, so powerful, and so sudden, she could hardly breathe. Dana nestled the infant to her chest, rubbing his back and sucking in a sharp breath. I’ve been given a baby, she thought, only to then wonder … was this a dream come true?
Or the beginning of a nightmare?
She gave Cass a wan smile. “Hand me the phone, wouldja?”
Hours later, Dana watched Mercy scan the tiny one-bedroom apartment, her features a study in skepticism. Between her Firebird and Dana’s Jetta, they’d managed to haul a portacrib, playpen, baby swing, a case of powdered formula, two jumbo packs of disposable diapers, clothes, rattles, wipes, bedding and at least a million other “essentials” Mercy insisted Dana would probably need before sunrise. In the middle of all this, Ethan lay on his back in the playpen, grunting at the birds. Mercy’s eyebrows knotted a little tighter.
“You sure you’re gonna be okay?”
“Uh-huh,” Dana squeaked out. “Besides, I don’t want any witnesses when C.J. shows up.”
“Damn. I always miss all the fun.”
Dana managed a weak, but nonetheless hysterical, laugh. All afternoon she’d ping-ponged between hope and profound skepticism. Maybe prejudging the man wasn’t in anybody’s interest, especially Ethan’s, but she wasn’t so naive as to expect him to take one look at his kid and suddenly switch tracks.
“Sweetie,” Mercy said gently, “why don’t you call your mom? Let her come help you out.”
“I will, I will. Soon. But one does not spring potentially life-altering news on my mother without a plan. The woman has turned worrying into an art form.”
“I hear ya there. At least let me set up the portacrib—”
Dana took her friend by the arm and steered her toward her door. Not that it wouldn’t make sense to let her stay. Most of Mercy’s sisters were spittin’ out babies like popcorn. No matter when one visited the Zamora household, it was awash in little people. But while Mercy’s presence would have been a great help in many ways, Dana wouldn’t have been able to think. And thinking was the one thing she most needed to do.
And she really didn’t want any witnesses when C.J. arrived. Not because she was going to kill him—she didn’t think—but because Ethan’s sudden appearance had turned a nonrelationship into … well, she didn’t know what, actually. But so much for never having to see the guy again.
Thirty seconds and a heartfelt hug later, Dana was finally alone.
With a baby.
She zipped to her bedroom, rummaging through her bottom drawer for a pair of old shorts, and a faded UNM T-shirt, changing into both at warp speed. The gurgling, drooling six-month-old pushed himself up on his elbows when she walked back to the living room; Dana squatted down in front of the playpen as if inspecting a new life form. Yesterday, she had no idea this child even existed. Now she was responsible for him, maybe for a few days, maybe for the rest of her life.
The thought slammed into her so hard she nearly toppled over. One day, she figured she’d adopt a child or two, when she was ready, both financially and emotionally. At the moment, she was neither. She’d always assumed she’d have some prep time for accepting a child into her life. As, you know, part of a couple?
So much for that idea.
A particularly ripe odor wafted to her nostrils. A byproduct of the earlier grunting, no doubt.
“Let me guess. You messed your pants.”
Ethan grinned and cooed at her, lifting his head at exactly the right angle for Dana to get a good gander at his eyes. Lake-blue, flecked with gold around the pupils, exactly like you-know-whose. On a sigh, she stood and hefted the smelly little dear out of his cage and over to the sofa, where she changed his diaper with surprising aplomb and less than a dozen wipies.
“Now I bet you’re hungry, right?”
In answer, Ethan stuck his fist in his mouth and started gnawing on it with the enthusiasm of a lion ripping into fresh wildebeest. Dana picked up the much sweeter smelling child and plopped him back into his car seat, which she figured was as safe a place as any to try to shovel food down his gullet. But what food, she wondered, might that be?
“Next time you dump a kid on me, Trish,” she muttered, ransacking the paper bag full of little clanking jars Mercy had helped her pick out at Albertson’s on their way home, “don’t forget the dag-nabbed feeding instructions!”
She yanked out ajar, holding it up to the baby hunk with the killer eyes. “Carrots?”
Ethan gurgled, then let out a loud “Bababababababa” while waving his arms. Then he chortled. Not giggled. Chortled.
Dana sort of chortled back, popping open the jar. “Carrots it is, then.”
Except carrots, it wasn’t. It was like trying to shove a video into a malfunctioning VCR—it slid right back out.
She opened another jar, held it up. “Peaches?”
That got a slightly more forceful rejection.
“O-kaaay … maybe orange stuff isn’t your thing. How about green?”
Green beans went in … and green beans oozed out, accompanied by the quintessential “Get real, lady,” expression.
Dana quickly discovered that baby food didn’t exactly come in a wealth of colors. Or tastes. But she gamely tried creamed corn, chicken (that, she couldn’t get past the baby’s lips), squash, pears and beets.
Pears and beets went down. And down and down and down, until Dana wondered if babies, like puppies, would simply stuff themselves until they got so full they threw—
“Oh, gross!”
—up.
