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A slightly panicked laugh burst from her mouth. “Loving them and keeping them alive are not the same thing. I’m an only child, never had any little siblings or anything to practice on. I never even babysat, because I was too busy being the nerdy straight-A student. So I don’t have anything more to go on than you do.”
“I somehow doubt that,” C.J. said, and there was no mistaking the bitterness edging his words. But now was not the time to pursue it. Especially when he asked, “Why do you think your cousin lied about being on the Pill? Why would she have taken that chance?”
Dana lowered Ethan onto his tummy in the playpen, then sat on the sofa in front of it, laying her cheek on her folded arms across the padded top. “Logic has never exactly been Trish’s strong suit,” she said, watching the baby. “Who knows? Maybe she …” She gulped down the pain. “Maybe she wanted to get pregnant.”
“That’s nuts.”
“No, that’s Trish.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me about the baby, for God’s sake?”
She shifted to look at him. “Because this wasn’t about you, it was about whatever was going on in my cousin’s head at the time. Although those I’d-rather-eat-scorpions-than-become-a-father vibes you give off probably didn’t help. And no, it wouldn’t even occur to her to fight that. Staying power isn’t exactly her strong suit. Heck, sitting through a two-hour-long movie is a strain.”
C.J. pushed out a groan. “And you have no idea where she is?”
“Not a clue. I did talk to the police, however,” she said, filling him in on the events leading up to her becoming Ethan’s caretaker, including her chat with the officer that morning.
“You think she’ll come back?”
Dana leaned to one side to see if his face gave more of a clue than his voice as to what he was really thinking, then stood up, retrieved the note. Handed it to him with a, “For what it’s worth.”
She watched him read it, watched his expression grow more solemn.
“C.J., until you know for sure that Ethan’s yours, maybe you shouldn’t get yourself anymore tied up in knots than you already are.”
Haunted eyes met hers. “And if he’s not?”
“Then I’ll deal,” she said quietly. “Somehow.”
He held her gaze in his for several seconds. “And if he is, then so will I.” He handed the note back to her, his gaze drifting to Ethan. “What a crappy thing to do to a kid,” he said, the steeliness underlying the softly spoken words sending a shudder up her spine. “No way am I turning my back on my own son, Dana. I’m not hurting financially, he’ll have everything he’ll ever need. But if she wanted you to have custody …” He shook his head, letting the sentence trail off unfinished.
Several seconds passed before she could speak. But no way in hell was she going to just sit here and nod and go, “Okay, sure, whatever.” That Dana didn’t live here anymore. “Excuse me? What happened to ‘no way am I turning my back on my own son’? I didn’t shove that birth certificate in your face in exchange for your checkbook, you big turkey!”
“But Trish left him with you!” he said, and a raw anguish she hadn’t seen before blistered in those deep blue eyes. “Not me.”
And with that, comprehension dawned in the deep, muddled recesses of her brain.
Dana sucked in a steadying breath and said, “C.J., my cousin is so many sandwiches short of a picnic she’d starve to death. But she certainly knew I’d recognize your name, and that I’d contact you. So in her own weird way, I don’t think she deliberately meant to shut you out.”
“Never mind that that’s exactly what she did,” C.J. said coldly, and Dana thought, Ah-hah.
“In any case,” she said, “we’ll deal with Trish later. Maybe. But right now, this is about Ethan. And if he is yours, damned if I’m letting you off the hook like she did.”
C.J. flinched as though she’d poked him with a cattle prod. “Dammit, nobody’s letting anybody ‘off the hook!’ Believe me,” he said, his mouth contorted, “nobody, nobody, knows more than I do that this is about a helluva lot more than money. But pardon me for needing more than fifteen minutes to get used to the idea of being somebody’s father!”
The last word came out strangled. His throat working overtime, C.J.’s head snapped toward Ethan, sprawled on his tummy in the playpen. The baby had been contentedly gumming a teething ring; now he lifted his face to them, his drooly grin infused with a trusting curiosity that twisted Dana’s heart.
She shifted her own gaze to C.J., thinking, This is not a bad man. Screwed up, maybe, but not bad. And expecting him to turn on a dime was not only unfair, but unrealistic. Especially when she remembered how she’d felt after receiving her own life-altering news not all that long ago. It takes time to regain your balance after getting walloped by a two-by-four.
At that, Dana rammed her fingers through her hair; it finally succumbed to the inevitable and came completely undone. “Look,” she began again, more gently, “this is a really bizarre situation, and I don’t know any more than you do what the next step’s going to be. I mean, it all hangs on what you find out, right?”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
“All righty then. So. Ethan and I are good for now. And you …” she pushed herself away from the playpen to take C.J. by the arm and steer him toward her door “… need to go home.”
Genuine astonishment flashed in his eyes. “You’re throwing me out?”
“What I’m doing, is giving you some time to adjust. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”
At her doorway—which he did a remarkable job of filling—he twisted, his eyes grazing hers, rife with emotion. “Later, hell. I’m thanking you now.”
“Whatever.” Then, with a half-assed shove, she turned him back around. “But if you don’t leave immediately,” she said, so tired she was beginning to wobble, “I’ll have to sic the birds on you.”
C.J. looked over her shoulder at Ethan for a full five seconds, gave a sharp nod and left. Dana leaned back against the closed door, watching the small person happily smacking the bottom of the playpen, and thought, Well, this has been one swell day, hasn’t it?
Back home, C.J. turned on the air-conditioning, ignored his mail, which Guadalupe had left neatly stacked on the kitchen island, and changed into a pair of holey jeans he couldn’t imagine any woman putting up with. From the center of the bed, the cat did the one-eyed stare routine and it hit C.J. with the force of a tidal wave that his unencumbered bachelor days were, in all likelihood, history. Because while he’d be an idiot not to get proof that Ethan was his, he’d be a lot more surprised to find out the baby wasn’t.
C.J.’s stomach growled. His bare feet softly thudding against the uneven, cool tiles, he stalked to the kitchen and threw together a sandwich without paying much attention to the contents. One set of nitrates was as deadly as another, right?
Ignoring the air-conditioning, he cranked open the kitchen window over the sink, breathing in the scent of fresh cut grass from his neighbor’s yard that instantly suffused the still, stuffy room. Steve jumped up onto the sill, mashing his ears against the screen and chattering to the delectable whatever-they-weres incessantly chirping in the juniper bushes under the window. Still standing, C.J. attacked the sandwich, somehow swallowing past the grapefruit-sized lump in his throat as an image of Dana sprang to mind, barefoot in that matchbox of an apartment, her burnished, baby-food-streaked hair floating around her face.
The hard, unforgiving look in her eyes when she’d greeted him at the door, Ethan firmly parked on her hip. Now there, he thought as he took another bite of the sandwich, was someone with all her nurturing instincts firmly in place.
Unlike him. Who wouldn’t know a nurturing instinct if it bit him in the butt.
A plan, he thought. He needed a plan. Plans solved problems, or at least reduced them to manageable chunks. When in doubt, just bully your life into order, was his motto. So, still chewing, C.J. marched into his office. Steve followed, complaining; C. J. tromped back to the kitchen, filled the cat’s bowl, returned to the office. Sat down. Rammed both hands through his hair.
Thirst strangled him. Seconds later, ice cold beer in hand, he sat down again, yanking open desk drawers until he found a legal pad and a pen. He slapped the pad on his desk, to which Steve promptly laid claim. C.J. threw the beast off; he hopped right back up and settled on top of the phone, glaring. C.J. glared back, then picked up the pen, stared at the paper.
Nothing. Not a single, solitary, blessed thought came to him. But then, how the hell was he supposed to make a plan without all the particulars? Instead, all he saw were two sets of eyes, one blue, one glinty gray green. A child for whom he might very well be responsible, and a woman he had no business getting anywhere near. And, if he got the test results he expected, the two were inextricably linked.
As he would then be to them.
Because while he really wouldn’t turn his back on his own child—no matter how unlikely the situation in which he now found himself—neither would he, could he, take the baby away from Dana if her cousin didn’t come back. Not that she’d let him, he thought on a wry smile. Poleaxed as she undoubtedly was, she was also clearly already superglued to the kid.
Envy sliced through him, along with a sense of longing so sharp, so unexpected, it took his breath away.
The pen streaked across the room, dinging off the wall. What if he couldn’t do this, couldn’t be what both woman and child needed him to be? Not that he wouldn’t give it his best shot: Even going through the motions would be better than letting a child grow up believing he was a mistake. A burden. But what if that wasn’t enough? Would they both end up hating him? The boy, when he realized his father had been faking a connection he’d never really felt? And Dana. Oh, God, Dana. Could he deal with the inevitable disappointment in her eyes?
So what are you going to do about it, lamebrain?
Seconds later, C. J. found himself standing in one of the two guest bedrooms. The one he’d left empty, since guests had never been an issue.
As Steve writhed around his ankles, his questioning meow seeming to ask what the hell they were doing in here, C.J. stood frozen in the center of the room, visualizing a crib in one corner. And in that crib, a chubby little boy with blue eyes leaning over the side, smiling, arms outstretched …
… trusting in his father’s unconditional love.
C.J. shut his eyes and waited until the dizziness passed.
Chapter Five
At 8:00 a.m., the phone rang. Wedged in the corner of the sofa with twenty pounds of guzzling baby in her lap, Dana could only glower from across the room as some chick with this godawful Southern accent told whoever to leave a message.
“Hey, it’s C.J. I’m on my way over.”
Click.
She muttered something unseemly, realizing she wouldn’t be able to use the no-no words for long with a baby around. Not only did the apartment look worse than it had yesterday, but she was still unwashed and in her Mickey Mouse sleepshirt. And despite the Glade PlugIns rammed into every available outlet, she strongly suspected the place reeked of beet-infused baby doo.
Mercy said six-month-olds generally slept through the night. Unfortunately, no one had informed His Highness of that fact. The kid not only peed like a herd of goats, but was apparently one of those “sensitive” types who didn’t tolerate wet diapers very well, stay-dry linings be damned. Dana calculated she’d had roughly three hours sleep over an eight-hour period. Again. The last thing she needed was company. Especially sexy male company who would probably waltz in here looking ready for brunch at the country club. Whereas she, on the other hand, looked like week-old roadkill. Probably smelled like it, too.
She jiggled the bottle, determining Ethan had maybe five minutes yet to go. It occurred to her she had no idea where C.J. lived. With any luck, Taylor Ranch, clear on the other side of the—
Bzzzzzzzt went her doorbell.
—city.
Cell phones, she decided, were the instrument of the devil.
“Who is it?” she yelled, as if she didn’t know.
“Dana? Honey?”
Apparently, she didn’t.
“Dana?” Her mother’s voice came through the door, thin and anxious. “It’s just me, honey, I thought I’d drop by before I went on to church. You okay in there? Why aren’t you opening the door?”
There was only one person she’d rather see less than C. J. Turner at that moment, and that person was standing on the other side of her door.
“Just a sec, Mama!” Dana heaved and grunted her way out of the deep-cushioned sofa. Ethan never broke his rhythm. “I’m not, um, dressed.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, honey, I’ve seen you undressed before … oh …”
The last oh was the kind of oh people say when they think they’ve caught you at an awkward moment. Which was true, God knew, but, alas, not that kind of awkward moment.
“Hang on, almost there …” Swinging Ethan to one hip, she looked down into his fathomless blue eyes. “Okay, you’re about to meet your great-aunt Faye.” Formula dribbled out of the corner of the baby’s mouth, making tracks down his chin. Dana bunched up the hem of the already baptized sleepshirt and wiped away the trickle. “Now, she really loves babies, but don’t be surprised if she acts a little peculiar there for a bit. Just hang loose, and we’ll all get through this. Okay?”
And exactly who was she trying to reassure here?
“Dana? It’s gettin’ hot out here in the sun, honey….”
She plastered a smile to her face and swung open the door.
“Hey, Mama! What brings you here?”
Her mother’s eyes zinged straight to the baby, then drifted over Dana’s shoulder to inside the apartment. “I, uh, made coffee cake,” she said, sounding a little distracted, “and figured I’d better not leave it around or your father’d eat the whole … dang thing.” There was a small, anxious pause, then, “Honey?”
“Mmm?”
“Why are you holding a baby?”
“Because he can’t walk yet?”
In a flash of pale rose polyester, Mama pushed her way past Dana into the apartment. “Looks to me,” she said, her voice gaining altitude with each syllable, “you’ve got any number of places you could put him—it is a him, isn’t it?—”
Dana nodded.
“—down … oh, my word!” Her hand flew to her mouth. Dana somehow caught the foil-wrapped paper plate before it landed on the carpet and set it on the dining table. She cringed as realization bloomed in her mother’s eyes.
The hand fell, and words gushed forth. “Oh, sweet heaven, tell me that isn’t Trish’s baby! But it has to be, doesn’t it? He’s the spittin’ image of her when she was a baby! That’s why she suddenly left town, isn’t it? Because she was pregnant? Why she called, wanting to know all about what you were doing and all? Because she had a baby? Well, say something, Dana, for goodness sake!”
“As a matter of fa—”
“Oh, my stars, he looks exactly like her! That chick-fuzz hair, and those fat little cheeks … Except for those blue eyes. Where did those blue eyes come from?”
“Anybody home?”
Both women snapped their heads around to the man of the hour, standing in the doorway. He held up a McDonald’s bag, as if in explanation for his presence.
“Breakfast?”
Ethan let out a series of gleeful grunts, as if he recognized C.J., who wasn’t, Dana realized, dressed for brunch in any country club she’d ever heard tell of. A gray sleeveless sweatshirt, ratty jeans, well-worn running shoes. Far cry from dress shirts and business suits. And yet, he had the nerve to still look good. Probably smelled good, too, fresh from the shower, she guessed, judging from the way his damp hair curled around his ears.
Yeah, heckuva time for the hormones to kick in.
“And who might you be?” Dana’s mother shrieked, effectively smashing to paste all hormones foolish enough to venture forth this fine Sunday morning.
C.J. thrust out his free hand, laying on the charm thick enough to suffocate the entire Northeast Heights. “C. J. Turner, ma’am.” Dana saw her mother’s eyes pinch in concentration as she tried to place the name. “And you must be Dana’s mother,” he said, grinning. “There’s no mistaking the resemblance.”
Faye’s eyes popped wide open, arrowing first at C.J.—”The Realtor Trish worked for”—then to Dana—”the one who’s showing you places for the shop?”
Wouldn’t be long now. “The very same.”
“Well, what’s he doing here this early on a Sunday morning? And why is he bringing you breakfast?” Her eyes zipped up and down his body, settling on his eyes. His very blue eyes. With gold flecks around the pupil. Just like Ethan’s. “Dressed like tha—” The word ended in a gasp as Faye slumped against the edge of the table, clutching her chest.
The woman had truly missed her calling.
“You … and Trish … and … and …” Faye jiggled her index finger at C.J.’s face, her jaw bouncing up and down for several seconds before she got out, “Blue eyes … your blue eyes. The baby … you … and Trish … and … oh.”
And still, he managed to give her mother the perfect smile, a little abashed, a little nervous, appropriately contrite. “Yes, Mrs. Malone,” he said calmly, “there’s a strong chance I’m Ethan’s father.”
Shock gave way to blazing indignation, of the kind peculiar to Southern women whose kin have been wronged. “Lord have mercy, boy—you must be at least ten, twelve years older than Trish! What were you thinking? She was barely more than a child!”
“Oh, come on, Mama.” Bouncing Ethan on her hip, Dana grimaced at her mother. “You know as well as I do Trish hasn’t been a child since she hit puberty. Or it hit her. And C. J. already told me how it happened, so you can’t put all the blame on him—”
Sparking eyes shot to hers. “What do you mean, he already told you?” Dana’s face flamed. She was eight years old again, caught sneaking off to her girlfriend’s house before she’d cleaned her room. “Yesterday,” she said in a somewhat steady voice. “Which is when, uh, Trish left Ethan with me.”
“So you spoke with her?”
