Baby Business: Baby Steps

Standing barefoot at the island, tossing a salad, Dana glanced up when C.J. entered the kitchen. Her forehead creased in concern. “Everything okay?”

“What? Oh … sure. I just …” He smiled, shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said, setting the monitor on the counter. “Work stuff.”

Her expression said she didn’t believe him for a minute, but all she said was, “I fake-baked a potato in the microwave for you, but I thought we could do the steaks out on the grill?”

C.J. grabbed a beer from the fridge, then allowed a rueful smile. “Guess this is as good a time as any to tell you I’ve never used the damn thing.”

“Get out! What kind of red-blooded American male are you?”

“One who eats out a lot.”

Dana huffed a little sigh that eased his mind somewhat—at least his ineptitude as a backyard chef was giving her something to focus on besides herself. Undeterred, she picked up the salad bowl and the monitor, commanding him to bring the steaks, adding it was high time he learned this basic suburban survival skill. When they got outside, she shook her head in amazement at the built-in grill tucked into a low wall on one side of the patio.

“Heck, compared with my daddy’s little old barbecue, this is like going from a motorboat to a yacht. So maybe you should go sit way over there, so you won’t see me make a fool out of myself, trying to figure this thing out.”

But for all her concern, the steaks turned out fine. And as the sun set, the temperature dropped and a light breeze picked up, there they were, just two people enjoying dinner out by the pool.

Yeah, right.

“So if you can’t cook,” she said, dangling a tiny piece of steak for Steve, whose purr C.J. could hear from five feet away, “what can you do?”

“Well, I make a great deal of money. Does that count?”

“Maybe,” she said, her eyes sparkling for the first time that evening. “Of course, it depends on what you do with all that money.”

“Meaning, do I horde it like Scrooge? No. Although I do have quite a bit socked away in various retirement funds. The thought of ending my life living in a cardboard box does not appeal.”

“No,” she said softly. “It doesn’t.”

“But then, the thought of anybody else living in a cardboard box doesn’t appeal, either. So I support a lot of local charities. For the homeless, the food bank, things like that. In fact …” He took a pull of his beer, thought What the hell. “I’ve got a fund-raiser to go to a week from Saturday, and—”

“Oh, I can stay with Ethan, no problem.”

“—and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”

She stared at him for a second or two, then jumped up and began clearing their dishes.

“Dana? What the—? It wasn’t a trick question!”

Plates balanced in both hands, she turned. “Wasn’t it? I mean, why ask me now? Tonight?”

He stood, as well, taking the plates from her. “Look, if you don’t want to go, just say so.”

“It has nothing to do with whether or not I’d like to go.”

“Then what is it?” When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with that woman in the store, would it?”

She snatched up their water glasses and headed inside. “You tell me.”

“You think I’m inviting you because … what? I feel sorry for you? Dana, for God’s sake.” He followed, setting the plates by the dishwasher. “It was a simple invitation, no ulterior motives behind it.”

“C.J., get real. Nothing’s simple between us.”

“Point taken. But I swear, I only asked you because I hate going to these things alone, and I thought you might enjoy getting out … and I’m just digging myself in deeper, aren’t I?”

She emitted a desiccated little sound that might have been a laugh, then looked at him. “You’re not exactly winning any major points,” she said, but without a lot of steam behind it. “What happened to the charmer who’s supposed to know exactly the right thing to say?”

“Is that what you think I am? A charmer?” When she shrugged, he reached out, taking her hand. “Fine, so maybe playing the game is what’s gotten me through so far. You say what people want to hear, they generally do what you want them to do.”

“And you’re proud of this?”

“I’ve never deliberately misled anyone, Dana. Or used anyone for my own purposes. There are ways of working it without hurting people. Still, to answer your question … no. I don’t suppose I am particularly proud of how I’ve lived my life. But what I’m trying to say is … the baby …” He stopped, shutting his eyes for a moment, trying to make the words line up, make sense. When he opened them again, it was to meet that cautious, careful gaze. “I look at Ethan, and I realize a large part of who I was won’t cut it anymore. I don’t really know yet what that means, what I’m supposed to do, or who I’m supposed to be. But I do know you’re somehow part of that revelation.”

She flinched. “Me? How?”

“Because when I’m with you, I don’t want to be who I was before, either. I mean, before tonight, I can’t remember ever being angry enough on someone else’s behalf that I wanted to hurt another human being. Not that I’m going to go off the deep end and start beating up little old ladies—”

“Good to know.”

“—but my point is, since Ethan came into my life, I suddenly … care. About how someone else might feel.”

She tilted her head. “Empathy?”

“Yes! That’s it! I mean, yeah, I’ve always felt I needed to help people who were down on their luck, or who’d gotten a raw deal, but never on a personal level before. And tonight, the more I realized how hurt you were, the angrier I got.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And yet you weren’t inviting me to this charity thing because you felt sorry for me.”

“No, dammit, I invited you because I like you! Because I want to beat people up for you! And that’s not all!”

“It … isn’t?” she said, looking slightly alarmed.

“No! Because I grew up in a house where nobody talks to anybody, and it sucks. Which is why I’ve always preferred to live alone. But Ethan’s here, and you’re here, and if you need to vent, I’m not going anywhere. In the meantime, get out of here, go write or whatever you want to do while I clean up.”

“Lord have mercy,” she said after a long moment, “but you are one strange man.”

“Yeah, well, if you felt like somebody’d just removed your brain, rearranged all the parts and crammed it back inside your skull, you’d be strange, too.”

She blinked. “Maybe … I’ll go sit out by the pool for a while, then.”

“Fine.”

She walked to the door, hesitated a second, then turned back around. “Okay, I’ll go with you. To the charity thing.”

“Taking pity on the strange man, are we? Hey, don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m not. Like you said, it’s been a while since I’ve been out.”

And she left. Fifteen minutes later, however, he was finishing the washing up when he heard the muffled double-shushing of the patio door opening, then closing. C.J. watched as she padded over to the fridge, pulling out a jug of orange juice. After pouring herself a small glass, she slid up onto one of the barstools.

“See,” she began quietly, “the skinny people of the world look at people like me and think, What’s wrong with her? Why can’t she control her weight? They never stop to think that, you know, maybe I have tried every diet known to man, maybe I’ve even gone to doctors about it, maybe I do exercise and eat right ninety-five percent of the time.” Her mouth pulled into a tight smile. “That maybe I would have done anything to stop the other kids from calling me Fatty when I was a kid. Except it doesn’t always work that way. For some of us, it’s not just a matter of eating less, or exercising more, or having willpower.”

“You’re not fat, Dana,” he said, meaning it.

“Oh, but according to every chart out there, I am. I weigh thirty pounds more than I ‘should’ for my height. Which, by the way, is thirty pounds less than I weighed about five years ago, when I finally realized scarfing down a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every time I got stressed was a bad idea. Then again, the thought of never again eating real ice cream, or a piece of cheesecake, or mashed potatoes with gravy, or a cheese enchilada …” She shook her head. “Now that’s depressing. But God forbid I go into a restaurant and order something besides a piece of broiled fish and a salad, hold the dressing. People look at me like I’m a criminal.”

“That’s their problem, honey. Not yours.”

“And most of the time I do know that. But every once in a while it gets to me, what can I say? Just like the other thing. Not being able to have kids. And with all this about Ethan … you happened to catch me at a bad time.”

“Lucky me,” he said, and she smiled. Not a big one, but enough to see the dimples. God, he loved those dimples.

“Okay, your turn,” she said, her expression brightening. “If I have to open up, so do you. So what’s your story … oh, shoot,” she said as Ethan’s reedy cry came through the monitor. Her gaze touched his. “Coin toss?”

“No, that’s okay, I’ll go,” C.J. said, barely managing to keep from jumping off the stool. “And anyway, it’s late, and I’ve got a seven-thirty breakfast meeting tomorrow, so maybe we should call it a night, anyway.”

Still smiling, Dana shook her head. “You are so transparent, C. J. Turner,” she said quietly. “But you know something? You can run, but you can’t hide. Maybe from me, but not from yourself. And one day, you’re gonna have to face whatever you don’t want to face. And deal with it, too.”

But as C.J. tromped down the hall to see what was up with his son, it occurred to him that “one day” was already there.

“Sorry I’m late,” Dana shouted to Mercy over the Friday-night crowd chatter in the little bistro by the university. “Traffic tie-up on the freeway.”

“It’s okay, there’s a fifteen-minute wait.” Mercy held up a small pager. “They’ll call us when the table’s ready. Outside or bar?”

“Your call.”

“This was a great idea, by the way,” Mercy yelled over her shoulder as they pushed their way through the throng. “If a surprise.”

“Yeah, well, it occurred to me that C.J. needed some one-on-one time with Ethan,” Dana yelled back. “And I needed the night off.”

“So naturally you decided to spend it with someone you already see five days a week,” Mercy said, slithering up onto a bar stool. “Makes total sense.”

“Says the woman who pounced on the idea like a cat on a grasshopper.”

Shortly thereafter, as Dana reluctantly sipped a glass of white wine and Mercy tackled a margarita larger than her head, her partner nodded appreciatively at Dana’s outfit, a low-cut blousy top tucked into a long, tiered skirt. “The cleavage is seriously hot.”

Dana glanced down. “Not too much?”

“No such thing, chica. Really, you should take the girls out more often, they look like they could use the air. Well, look at you, Ms. Techno Babe,” she said as Dana set her cell phone on the bar. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

“C.J. insisted I needed one. Because of the baby.”

“And you love it already.”

Dana smirked. “And I love it already.”

After a chuckle into her drink, Mercy poked Dana’s wrist with one long fingernail. “So. Have you slept with the guy yet?”

“Honestly, Merce. You really do have a one-track mind, don’t you?”

That got an unrepentant grin. “I live to yank your chain, you know that. But seriously. How’s it going? It’s been, what? Nearly a week, right?”

Dana took a small sip of her wine, flinching when some man brushed against her as he got up onto his bar stool. “Not quite. Five days. Seems longer.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I’m not sure. In some ways it’s a lot easier than I thought it would be. I mean, we’ve worked out a pretty good routine, C.J.’s been a real trouper about taking care of the baby …”

“But?”

“But …” Dana frowned at the slightly trembling liquid in her glass. “No matter how gracious C.J. is, I’m still a guest.” She lifted her eyes to Mercy’s dark, sympathetic gaze. “And the question is, for how long?”

“Because of Trish, you mean?” Dana nodded. Mercy fingered the rim of her sombrero-sized vessel. “So you haven’t heard anything yet?”

“The investigator C.J. hired keeps running into dead ends, apparently. As though Trish dropped off the baby, then the planet—”

“Hey,” said a reasonably good-looking suit who’d popped up out of nowhere. His gaze bounced off Dana’s breasts, then zeroed in on Mercy in her bright red spaghetti strap top and matching, flippy skirt. “Can I buy you ladies a drink?”

“Thanks,” Mercy said, “but we’re fine.”

“Hey, you know, maybe it’d speed things up if we shared a table—?”

One French-manicured hand shot up. “No. Thank you.” She faced Dana again, pointedly turning her back to the guy. “So. You were saying?”

As the poor schlep trundled off, his wounded ego trailing behind like a strip of toilet paper, Dana smiled and said, “We don’t have to hang out tonight. I mean, if something better comes along …”

“Better than you? Never happen. Besides, when have you known me to pick up a strange guy in some bar?” At Dana’s raised brow, she huffed out, “Recently?”

Dana chuckled, then sighed. “But what does it say about us that, here we are, two women in our thirties, spending our Saturday night with each other?”

“That we’re comfortable enough with who we are to do that?”

“Or bored out of our skulls.”

“Yeah, that, too … oh! I’m blinking!” Mercy said, snatching the pager off the bar, then her drink. “Although you know,” she said as the hostess signaled them over, “at least you had an option. You could have stayed home with Mr. Gorgeous, flashing your girls at him instead of me. But no … Thanks,” she said with a bright smile for the hostess as they slid into their booth. Then she leaned across the table. “You’re here. With me. Instead of there. With him.”

And Dana leaned over and said back, “And maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“One can hope.”

Dana rolled her eyes, then told her about the whole “You make me want to beat people up” speech, which didn’t exactly elicit the reaction Dana had hoped.

“Dios mio, you little idiot!” Mercy’s dark eyes glittered in the dim light from the puny little votive in the center of the table. “This is huge, like something right out of a movie, when the guy suddenly realizes he can’t live without the girl! We ‘re talking When Harry Met Sally, or As Good as It Gets.”

“Oh, this is definitely as good as it gets, all right.”

Mercy’s eyebrows collided over her cute little nose. “Not following.”

“Merce, all this is, is C.J.’s coming to terms with being responsible for another human being. Meaning Ethan. I watch him, and I can tell being with his son is opening him up to all sorts of emotions he’s never dealt with before. Never let himself deal with before. And it’s as if …” She glanced away, trying to find the words, then looked back at her friend. “You know what it’s like, when you first fall in love, how the whole world seems brighter? And suddenly you love everybody, because what you’re feeling is too overwhelming to focus on a single person? That’s all that’s going on here, trust me. Only it’s with Ethan, not me.”

After a couple of seconds of introspective frowning, Mercy said, “So you think he said all that because, what? You happened to be in the vicinity? Like the victim of a gas cloud?”

“Basically, yeah. Nothing’s going to come of this, Merce,” she said firmly when the brunette pushed out a sigh.

“Well, it sure as hell won’t as long as you go out with me, or spend the night in your own apartment.”

“But that’s what it’s going to come down to eventually, anyway. Or did you think I was going to live with C.J. until Ethan graduates from high school? It was only ever supposed to be temporary, so the last thing either of us needs is to get too used to the other’s company.”

“I see. And you’re not just saying this because you’re afraid of getting hurt?”

Dana’s eyes snapped to Mercy’s, irritatingly astute under those perfectly arched brows. “I’m saying this because I’m a realist.”

“And?”

“And … I’d be a fool to believe the man’s done a complete about-face in less than three weeks, baby or no baby. Accepting his responsibilities as a parent doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind about anything else.”

“So this is about protecting yourself.”

She snorted. “Can you blame me?”

“No,” Mercy said gently. “But people do change, honey.”

“I know they do,” Dana said. “Because I have. Or at least, I’m trying to. And it’s going to take a lot more than a single impassioned declaration for me to let my guard down—”

She clamped shut her mouth, focusing on the flickering little flame between them. And Mercy, bless her, did nothing more than reach across the table to quickly squeeze Dana’s trembling fingers.

Somehow, though—probably because of the mutual, unspoken moratorium imposed on the subject of C.J. and/or anyone’s love life—she actually enjoyed the rest of the evening. For the most part they talked business, since the move into the new space was imminent, so by the time they went their separate ways a little after nine, Dana was beginning to feel at least a little less crazed.

In fact, she even thought she might get some writing done before she went to bed, only to remember she’d left her laptop and all her notebooks at C.J.’s. She was half tempted to forget it, except it seemed a shame to blow off her muse simply because she didn’t feel like trekking all the way back to C.J.’s.

Praying he wouldn’t notice her return, Dana let herself in and started toward “her” room, only to be waylaid by Steve, plaintively meowing and head-butting her shins as though he hadn’t seen her in three years. Or been fed, more likely. Honestly. She followed the cat into the kitchen, where, as she suspected, Iams abounded in his food dish.

Which is when she heard C.J.’s voice coming in low, angry bursts through the slightly open patio door.

Chapter Nine

Dana froze, knowing she should hotfoot it out of there, and yet … she couldn’t. Not that she could really hear what C.J. was saying—or wanted to!—but simply because it was such a shock, hearing those sounds come out of that man.

The sounds of a man having his heart shredded, basically.

Then suddenly the door slid open and he was there, barely ten feet in front of her, his cell phone clamped to his ear, a hundred emotions roiling in his eyes. Not the least of which was irritation at her unexpected presence.

Blushing furiously, Dana pointed toward her room and hurried away, even more hurriedly stuffing her laptop and notebooks into a canvas tote. Although if her muse hadn’t run for the hills by now, she’d be very surprised.

Naturally, she had to peek in on the baby on her way back down the hall. In the charcoal light, she saw him lift his head, heard him burble at her.

“Hey, little guy.” She set down the tote by the door and crossed the room, fighting the urge to pick him up. Bad enough she’d come in instead of walking away, letting him get back to sleep. Still, since she was here anyway, she bent over and sniffed. Nope, nothing but baby powder and tear-free shampoo.

“‘Night-night, sugar,” she whispered, handing him back his blanket, which earned her a quavering, sleepy smile. Oh, heck, how could she not touch him? So she cupped the silky head, only to practically jerk back her hand, as though she’d been tempted to take something that didn’t belong to her.

On a sigh, she crept back out, snatching her tote bag along the way, hoping against hope to make her escape without running into C.J.

“Dana?”

So much for that.

His voice drained of its earlier fury, her name floated out from the darkness in the living room. Then, like an apparition, the man himself appeared. Wrecked was the only word for his expression. Exhaustion, and something else Dana couldn’t quite identify, slumped his shoulders, fettered his smile. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming back tonight.”

She lifted the bag. “Left my writing stuff here. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

“Sorry,” she repeated. “So … how’d it go with Ethan?”

The smile relaxed, a little. “I gave him a bath. Or he gave me one, I wasn’t quite sure which. He asked where you were.”

“He …? Oh. You almost had me there for a second.”

C.J. slid his hands into his khaki pockets, his eyes fixed on hers. “You aren’t going to ask who I was arguing with?”

“Why would I do that?” she said, slightly confused. “It’s none of my business.”

“It’s not an old girlfriend, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything. Really.”

Actually, her brain was processing so many possibilities she half expected it to short out. But if he was hinting that maybe he was ready to talk … well. He’d have to do more than hint. Because almost every time she’d handed him an opening the past few days, he’d clammed up. So, tough.

Never mind that everything inside her was screaming to give him one more chance, one more opening. To be the sounding board she suspected he’d never had, or at least not for a long time. But torn as she was, the new Dana—the older, wiser Dana—had finally learned there were some roads best left unexplored.

At least, until she was sure she’d come out okay on the other end.

C.J. closed the space between them, taking her bag. “I’ll carry this out to the car for you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Hush, woman, and let me be the man.”

The cat barreled past her when the door opened, streaking into the night. They walked to her car in silence; C.J. opened her door, setting the bag in back.

“Thanks.”

“De nada.” Was she hallucinating, or was he focusing entirely too much on her mouth? Then he lifted his hand, and she held her breath …

… and he swatted away a tiny night critter fluttering around her face.

Then, with what sounded like a frustrated sigh, he gently fingered a loose curl hovering at her temple.

“I’m a mess, Dana.”

“So I noticed.”

He dropped his hand. And laughed, although the sound was pained. “And here I always thought Southern women bent over backward to be diplomatic.”

“Clearly you’ve been hanging out with the wrong Southern women.”

“Clearly,” he said, his expression unreadable in the harsh security light. Then, gently: “Go, Dana. For both our sakes … go.”

Only, after she slid behind the wheel, he caught the door before she could close it. “That was my father,” he said. “On the phone.”

Her breath caught. “Oh? Um … I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be. I finally got some things off my chest. Someday, I’ll tell you the whole sordid story. If you really want to hear it, I mean.”

Afraid to speak, she simply nodded. He pushed her door shut; her throat clogged, Dana backed into the street, put the car into Drive, drove away. Noticed, when she glanced into her rearview mirror, C.J. still standing in the driveway, hands in his pockets, watching her until she got all the way to the end of the street.

“Oh, Merce,” Dana whispered to herself. “Now this is huge.”

“No news yet?” Val asked from the doorway to C.J.’s office.

He swiveled in her direction. “What? You’re bugging the phones now?”

“No, I was on my way to the kitchen and your voice carries. And when you’re the youngest of seven you get real good at deducing what’s going on from only one side of the conversation.” She waltzed in and plopped down across from him. “So what’d she say? That private investigator gal?”

“Not much. But if Trish is working off the books somewhere, or hasn’t used a credit card recently, it might be harder to track her down.”