For Their Baby

Because the whole thing was impossible, that was why. Insane. She was nothing to him today, but tomorrow they might be as intimately connected as two people could be. Nothing in between. Either she was a lying nutjob who would vanish like a bad smell, or she was the mother of his child, who would change his world forever.

And he couldn’t do anything but wait to see which way the coin fell.

This shouldn’t have happened. They’d had one sexy, rather sweet night together, the way millions of people the world over did all the time. They’d both been trying to drown some sorrows, forget some ghosts. Neither of them had dreamed they might be stepping into this kind of trap.

So what the hell was he supposed to say? What the hell was he supposed to feel?

The silence stretched on, but eventually grew less tense as she seemed to realize he wasn’t going to lecture her. She gave him directions as needed, and by the time they reached the Bull’s Eye, David felt back in at least some semblance of control.

He parked near the door—it was far too early for a crowd, even in this neighborhood. He turned off the engine and swiveled toward her. She looked pale, as if the wordless emotional standoff that had just passed between them had taken its own kind of toll.

He offered a smile as a truce. “Would you like me to come in with you?”

She shook her head. “I won’t be a minute.”

She was as good as her word. Less than sixty seconds later, she emerged from the small, dark, brown-planked building, hugging a white plastic sack to her chest. Her face was bent over the sack, and she walked so quickly he wondered if she was running from someone.

Had her new boss given her a hard time?

She pulled open the door and lurched in.

“Is everything okay?” He couldn’t see her expression. Ducked down like this, her face was hidden by a cascade of springy green curls. “Did you get your uniform?”

“Yes.” Her voice sounded odd. Was she crying?

“Kitty—”

“Please,” she said in that same muffled strangeness. “Could you take me home now?”

“Of course.” He started the car and pulled back onto the main drag. She still hugged that bag, wrapping her arms around it as if it were a life raft.

He tried to think of something to say, but failed. He had an insane urge to tell her that if she hated the idea of taking that bartending job, she didn’t have to do it. He’d help out, financially. Hell, even if the baby wasn’t his, he would help. He didn’t want her to have to serve drinks in that greasy, half-rotted dump.

But he couldn’t say any of that. He had no idea what he could say. He’d never felt so wrong-footed in his entire life. Thank God her hotel was only three blocks from here. All he had to do was get there without saying or doing anything to upset her more.

From the moment they’d met at the doctor’s office, he’d seen that she was angry with him, desperately angry at being forced to submit to the test. What he saw as common sense, she saw as a monstrous personal insult.

Or perhaps a cowardly attempt to dodge responsibility.

That, he realized, wasn’t entirely untrue. He’d never pretended to be a saint. He didn’t want to be a father, not now, not like this. He didn’t want to bring his first child into the world…like this. So, yes, damn it, he did want a way out of this impossible situation. If by some miracle the baby wasn’t his, what a get-out-of-jail-free card that would be.

For him.

But… He glanced at Kitty’s huddled body and her trembling fingers. What about for her? The baby wasn’t going to go away just because David found out it wasn’t his. What would she do then? If he wasn’t the father, and she knew it, why would she have come to him in the first place?

Because she had nowhere else to go. No other safety net below her, ready to catch her fall.

“The lab has promised to expedite the results,” he began awkwardly. She made a strange sound he couldn’t identify, and he wondered if she thought expedite was pompous and absurd. Hell, this was like trying to have a conversation with someone from another planet. You didn’t know what the simplest words meant to them.

“They’ve promised an answer by Wednesday,” he soldiered on. “So I’ll call you as soon as—”

She waved her hand toward him, making another peculiar noise. She fumbled with the bag.

“Kitty, look,” he said, frustrated, but starting to get worried. Why wouldn’t she tell him what was wrong? “I know this is rough on you, but I want you to know that, no matter—”

And then, with one final, strangled moan, she opened the bag and promptly vomited all over her brand-new bartender’s uniform.

THE FOLLOWING MONDAY AFTERNOON was crisp and windy, the blue sky filled with long scalloped rows of clouds that looked like fish scales. It would have been a great day to feel healthy, rested and free.

Instead, Kitty felt sick, exhausted and trapped.

It was only the second day of her job selling puppets at Punch and Judy—the retail job she’d taken at the wharf because the bartending gig didn’t offer enough hours. And already her patience meter was sagging toward Empty.

She had hoped this store, which sold gorgeous, quirky hand puppets, might be less boring than other retail jobs she’d had in the past. But the novelty had worn off quickly—about the time she realized the customers expected her to perform full puppet plays, complete with voices and dancing about, for their spoiled, impossible-to-please children.

This particular family, who had asked her to bring down every dragon puppet in the store, was really getting on her nerves. The parents kept backing into the corner to continue what looked like The Neverending Fight, counting on her to keep their seven-year-old son entertained enough that he didn’t overhear.

A losing battle. She’d seen too many little kids like this as she toiled at her various service jobs. She’d even been a little kid like this. And they always heard. They always knew.

What was worse, the family’s stop at the puppet store was probably just a ruse. At the last minute, the parents would undoubtedly refuse to buy, with some lame excuse like their luggage being overstuffed already.

The kid would go home empty-handed. That was rough, because, for once, this little boy wasn’t a brat. And he really, really liked the green dragon with crystal-teardrop scales and the red felt fire trailing from its nostrils. It cost about fifty dollars, and she wanted to warn him before he got his hopes up.

She glanced over at the dad. Good-looking guy, until you got to the smug face. And doing well for himself. Haircut, two hundred dollars. Sweater tied around the hips, five hundred dollars. Hips? Well, clearly, in his estimation, priceless. He’d just informed Mommy that he had janitors in his office who took better care of themselves than she did.

He caught Kitty looking at him, and lowered his voice. Right. God forbid anyone should think there was trouble in Yuppie Paradise.

Hypocrite.

She pulled off the puppet and wiped her hair back from her face, which felt suddenly sweaty. Aw, please, she thought, tightening her stomach. No vomiting now, not on this fifty-dollar dragon.

And all at once she’d had enough. She plucked one of the crystals from the dragon’s tail and turned to the dad again. “Oh, look. There’s a little damage to the scales here. I don’t know if that bothers you, but it does mean I could offer a pretty good discount.”

A discount she’d have to cover out of her own pocket, unfortunately. But the kid’s face was so hopeful, and she couldn’t stand it. She could make up the difference in her own budget by bringing a bag lunch the next week or two.

And maybe a few peanut-butter sandwich dinners.

She thrust the puppet out a bit farther to show the dad. “It’s only a tiny flaw. I’m sure your son would still love it.”

She turned to the boy. “I bet your dad does a great dragon voice, doesn’t he?”

The boy nodded. “Daddy, do your dragon voice! I’ll be Sir Galahad, and we can fight.”

The cheapskate was still considering saying no. His wife put her hand on his arm and said hesitantly, “Honey, surely we—”

He brushed her hand away. “How big a discount?”

Kitty smiled placidly. “I think it’s fifty percent. When there’s damage.”

The little boy squeezed his hands together so tightly the blood flow stopped, and his fingers were as white as marble. Kitty glanced down at him, then up at the dad with a smile that said she knew he was a great father who wouldn’t dream of breaking his kid’s heart.

With a low murmur of irritation, the man finally dug out his wallet. Kitty took a deep breath of relief.

She kept up a running chatter, to keep Dragon Dad in a good mood so that he wouldn’t take his frustration out on the family later. When they left, she pulled out her phone and calculated what her half of the dragon would be, including the tax, then took her wallet out with a sigh.

She was so focused that it wasn’t until she’d slipped her cash into the register that she noticed David Gerard standing on the other side of the store.

Her heart stumbled slightly. Now that was a sight that qualified as priceless. Muscled grace from head to toe. His thick, golden hair wind-tousled, a suit made for winning cases and breaking hearts, not necessarily in that order.

He was watching her with a dark, unreadable gaze. She flushed, wondering how much he’d seen. Did he think she’d really been flirting with that jerk? Had he seen her rip off the crystal? She’d have to explain. She didn’t need any more black marks against her in his mind.

And then her breath caught. She forgot about the little boy, the dad and the dragon, all in one swoop. Because she knew why David was here.

Though it was two days early, only one thing could have brought him all the way out here.

The test results were in.

She didn’t move from behind the register. She couldn’t. Her legs didn’t seem connected to her brain. She held on to the counter, just in case the legs gave out entirely.

She’d pictured this moment a hundred times. She’d known what the test results would be, of course, so she’d never felt any anxiety—only an eagerness to be vindicated.

She’d imagined how satisfying it would be to see his face once he understood what a bastard he’d been. How ego-soothing to listen to him try to find the words to apologize.

What she hadn’t realized was how intimate this moment would be.

The moment they looked at each other, not as adversaries in some paternity chess game, but as parents. As two people who, whatever else they might become, would be “Mommy and Daddy” to the child she carried inside her now. She didn’t want to be enemies. For her baby’s sake she wanted peace in whatever kind of family they formed. But, if not enemies…what were they?

The current sizzled across the store, connecting them like a glowing thread of awareness. He moved, then, but slowly, as if walking through a dream. By the time he reached the cash register, she felt her nerve endings spark painfully. Her mouth was dry, and it hurt to swallow.

He stopped only when the counter got in the way. “Can we talk? Outside?”

She shook her head. “My replacement will be here in a few minutes, but I can’t leave till she arrives.”

He frowned. “Kitty, we have to talk.”

She wondered what he expected her to do. Quit? For a minute he reminded her of the dragon dad, who expected everything in the world to run on his schedule.

“So talk. There’s no one in here but us. The puppets aren’t going to repeat anything they hear.”

Her voice sounded rougher than she intended it to. But she didn’t know what to do, what to say, and her voice wasn’t fully under her control. No part of her was. She still clutched the counter as if her knees might fail her at any minute.

She wasn’t exactly a pro at situations like this. If her voice sounded tough, so be it. One thing was certain—she’d rather sound like an unforgiving bitch than a breathless beggar.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll talk here. If that’s the way you want it.”

Want it? Want really didn’t come into this, but she let that go. “I take it you’ve received the test results.”

He nodded. “It’s conclusive. The baby is mine.”

She waited. Strangely, now that the moment had come, she no longer felt the slightest urge to say “I told you so.”

She was still angry, of course. Still hurt, still frightened. But she recognized his expression. That unique mixture of shock and dismay, and under it all, that blind, gutsy determination to find a way to face the unfaceable. It was exactly what she’d seen in the mirror the day she found out.

For the moment, anyhow, that expression bound them together, made them teammates in this dangerous game. So she didn’t say she’d told him from the start that of course the baby was his.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply.

She lifted her chin. “Sorry it’s yours?”

“Sorry I didn’t believe you.” He ran his hand through his hair. “And sorry that we’ve found ourselves in this situation. I know it’s just as hard for you as it is for me.”

That made her smile, and he understood the wry reaction instantly. He shook his head at his own stupidity. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course it’s harder, much harder, for you. It’s your body that’s changing. Your life that’s completely disrupted—”

“My uniforms that need to be dry-cleaned.”

“Yes.”

Their gazes met. A welcome moment of harmony. It felt like an oasis in the desert of this difficult journey. Neither of them spoke right away, as if they were both afraid another word would make the feeling break like a mirage.

“Kitty—”

She held up her hand. “No, it’s all right, David. I know it’s hard to accept. Hard to believe. And you’ve got a lot of things to consider. I’m sure you’ll want to talk to your lawyer before you—”

“No.”

She stopped cold. “No?”

“No. I don’t need to talk to Colby. I don’t want Colby’s advice. I know what I want to do.”

She held her breath.

“I want to marry you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

KITTY FLUSHED, turning her face away slightly. “Don’t make a joke of this, David. We—”

“It’s not a joke. I want to marry you, if you’ll have me. We can work out the details with Colby and with your lawyer. We can consult every lawyer in San Francisco, if that’ll make you feel safer. I want to do this.”

She could tell he was serious. “But…why?”

The question seemed to surprise him. “For the baby, of course. It may be old-fashioned, but I don’t want my child to be illegitimate.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, David. Terms like illegitimate aren’t just old-fashioned. They’re dead. Why would you marry a complete stranger just because—”

“Because I think our child deserves a shot at having a family. I think he deserves a chance to have a mother and a father, both at the same time, not on alternate weekends. We created this child. Don’t we owe him something?”

She nodded, struck by the intensity in his voice. She knew how he felt. Once she wrapped her mind around the idea that she was going to be a parent, she saw all the terrifying power of that relationship.

She suddenly realized that, sometimes, all the clichés were true. As a mother, a woman would drag the evening star out of the sky for the baby’s first birthday candle if she thought it would make him happy. She’d work till she bled, and negotiate with God, and lie down on the proverbial railroad tracks. Well, not her mother, maybe. But normal mothers. And thank God, she already knew that she would be a better mother than her own. Her pregnancy had already triggered a ferocious, protective passion for her unborn child.

“We owe him everything,” she said. “But marriage won’t necessarily—”

“No, I know. It won’t necessarily fix anything. I have no idea if we can make it work. It’s a dark-horse long shot at best. But we should at least try. For a while—a reasonable try. We can put together a contract, so that you can be sure you’ll be protected.”

He drew a long breath and put his hands, palms down, on the counter. “What do you say, Kitty? Will you do it? Will you give this crazy thing a chance and marry me?”

She hardly knew what to say. What was the “right” answer?

She looked into his gorgeous blue eyes and remembered the feel of his hands on her naked skin. She thought of the baby, no more than a delicate pea inside her, waiting with an absolute, unthinking trust. Growing silently, preparing to be born and loved.

But she also thought of her restless mother and her wounded father. And all the barnacle men who came after, right up to the unspeakable Jim Oliphant. She thought of the dragon dad she’d just waited on, who wanted everyone to believe he possessed the model family, though his son had anxious eyes and his wife was afraid to talk back to him.

She thought of all the brutal dramas that were playing out right this very moment, invisible behind neat doors and elegant lace curtains.

What, in the end, did marriage guarantee? Especially a marriage without love?

Not a damn thing.

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

His blank face told her how shocked he was. She almost laughed. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that she’d turn him down, had he? He’d come here so confident, like Prince Charming holding out the glass slipper. Every princess in town itched to wear it, so just imagine how ecstatic and grateful the little cinder maid would be!

And, in some ways, it was the fairy-tale ending. From unemployed bartender to lawyer’s wife. From sooty rags to society pages. Wasn’t that every struggling unwed mother’s brass ring?

But she wasn’t every unwed mother. How little he knew her!

That was, of course, the point. He didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him. They’d gone at this thing all backward.

At that moment, Cheyenne, her replacement for the evening, came in.

“Just let me clock out,” Kitty said. “We can talk outside.”

He nodded grimly and backed away from the counter. She went through the motions of turning the store over to Cheyenne, then met David at the door. They strolled out onto the boardwalk without speaking.

She tried to read his expression. When the shock of being turned down wore off, what kind of emotion would take its place? How he behaved right now might tell her a lot about who David Gerard really was. Would he be angry, insulted to have his generous offer rejected? Would he use it as an excuse to wash his hands of her? Would he be polite, but secretly relieved?

Of all the men she’d ever met, he was the most difficult to figure out. For a couple of minutes, he didn’t speak at all. He moved to the railing and leaned his elbows on it, as if this were any lazy afternoon and he wanted to watch the water.

She joined him there, pulling her sweater close around her chest. The winter sun sparkled on the waves, but didn’t provide much warmth. The wind was loud in their ears.

She started to say again that she was sorry, but she stopped herself. If he had a petty temper or a fragile ego, she wasn’t going to play beta dog, rolling over and showing her belly. She wasn’t asking for David’s charity, but for his partnership. The child she carried was his.

A gust of wind caught her curls and began to play rough. She grabbed the longest ones and tucked them behind her ears. She clenched her jaw, so that she wouldn’t shiver, and so that she wouldn’t say anything before he did.

Finally, he took a deep breath and turned to face her. “I’m not sure what to say. I might have expressed myself badly. You don’t have to answer right away, of course. Maybe it would help if you took some time to think it over.”

“I don’t need to think it over,” she said. “I can’t marry you. The truth is, I hardly know you.”

He didn’t quite let his gaze drop to her stomach, but one corner of his mouth turned up, acknowledging the irony. “Fair enough. But I promise you I’m healthy, law-abiding and relatively sane. If you’d like, I can provide references.”

“This isn’t a job application.” She smiled, in spite of herself. “Although I’ll be darned if I know quite what it is.”

For a second, he smiled, too. Then his face sobered, and he reached out to touch her wrist with cold-tipped fingers. It was a gentle contact, and she felt no urge to pull back.

“It’s the biggest decision we’ll ever have to make,” he said. “One that will change our child’s life forever.”

She didn’t have an answer for that. Of course, as a lawyer, he would be good at framing arguments.

She stared at him, hoping for inspiration, but she got distracted by how elegant, handsome and intelligent he looked. How reasonable and calm. His hair lifted, sparking gold as invisible fingers of wind moved through it. The sun spotlighted his face, and his piercing eyes seemed an impossible blue. Just surface stuff, of course, but as baby-daddies went…

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