Baby Business: Baby Steps

Dana’s frown deepened. “Oh, you’re talking serious crime against nature. Donuts with half the sugar is like sex without … you know.”

“And sex without ‘you know’,” Mercy said, delicately selecting a long john and taking a huge bite, “is better than no sex at all.” She wagged the mangled treat at Dana. “He’s actually making noises about you moving in before he even knows for sure Ethan’s his?”

On a heavy sigh, Dana snatched one of the donuts from the box and morosely bit into it, surprised to discover it wasn’t half-bad. As opposed to her life, which was rapidly going down the tubes. She took another bite before mumbling, “He even started talking schedules, believe it or not.”

“And like most men,” Cass said drily, “he’d no doubt decided that since he’d come up with a solution, it had to be the solution.”

“Yeah, that pretty much covers it.” Dana licked guilt-free glaze off her fingers, then popped the plastic top off her skinny latte. “Guy looked like he’d just bagged the mastodon single-handed.” If scared out of his wits, Dana silently amended. “Because, he said, it would be the best solution for Ethan. If … well, if things work out that way. Apparently his outrage over Trish’s little stunt trumps whatever issues he has about being a father. Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she said when she realized they were both giving her say-it-isn’t-so looks, “I didn’t agree to move in with him. Years of dealing with my mother’s unilateral decisions notwithstanding, I’m not about to blithely go along with one made by a man I barely even know. Especially when it involves sharing the kitchen at seven in the morning.”

Mercy winced in sympathy, while Cass muttered something about God saving them all from men’s honor complexes.

“Hah!” Mercy said. “I could name names….” She rolled her eyes.

“So can I,” Cass said. “Blake pulled the same number on me, remember? My second husband hadn’t even been dead a month and there my first husband was, asking me to remarry him. To save me.”

“Yeah, except you needed saving,” Dana said. “Alan had left you in debt up to your butt, you were pregnant, you had like a million people dependent on you—”

“Hardly a million, Dana.”

“Okay, so three. Four, counting the baby. Plus, you and Blake did still have a son together. A teenaged son at that. Oh, and another thing …” She selected a second donut, because she could. “Blake really, really wanted you back. I don’t think honor had a lot to do with it, frankly.”

“Chick’s got a point,” Mercy said.

“Still,” Cass said with a daggered looked toward Mercy, “why do they insist on equating ‘rescuing us’ with ‘doing something’?”

“Because they’re hardwired that way,” Mercy said. “The good ones, anyway. Protecting their womenfolk and children is what they do. And sometimes,” she went on before Cass, who Dana knew had suffered from her father’s obsessive overprotectiveness, could object, “we rescue them. Even if they don’t know it.” The brunette shrugged tawny shoulders. “Basically, I don’t see the harm in a little well-placed macho protectiveness, but that’s just me.”

“In any case,” Dana interjected, “that’s not what’s going on here. This isn’t about rescuing me, it’s about doing right by a six-month-old. And it’s not as if I’d be giving up my apartment or anything.” Wide-eyed, she looked from one to the other. “Oh, God … I really said that, didn’t I?”

“Hey,” Mercy said, taking a sip of her rudely unskinny latte with gobs of whipped cream, “if it were me, I’d be over there so fast it’d make his head spin.” When both Cass and Dana gawked at her, she shrugged. “The guy’s loaded, right? So we’re probably not talking some crumbling old adobe in the South Valley. And let’s face it, sweetie …” She leaned over and patted Dana’s hand. “You live in a shoebox. Besides, if the man wants to help take care of the kid, why not?”

“Because nothing’s settled yet?” Dana said.

“And the longer he has to mull things over before the paternity issue is settled, the more chances he has to change his mind. Trust me, honey. Giving a man time to think is never a good idea.”

Dana’s gaze swung to Cass, who lifted her shoulders. “I’m afraid I have to cede that point to her. And you do live in a shoebox. Of course,” she said, swirling the remains of her coffee around in her cup, “you could always move back in with your parents.”

“Like hell,” Dana said, and Cass smiled.

“So when will C.J. know for sure whether he’s the father?” she asked.

“In a few days, depending on the lab’s turnaround. He had an appointment for first thing this morning. He, uh, decided to go ahead and submit … samples for both tests now, rather than wait on the … you know, before initiating the paternity test. As a matter of fact, I have to take Ethan when we finish here to let them swab the inside of his cheek for the DNA sample. What?” she said at Mercy’s head shake.

“I think the word you’re looking for is semen?”

Cass choked on her coffee while Dana blushed. “We’re practically strangers,” she said in a whisper. “Talking about his …”

“Swimmers?” Mercy supplied.

“… just seems a little … personal at this point.”

“And yet, somehow, you’re not still a virgin. Amazing.”

“So still no word from Trish?” Cass asked. Bless her.

“Nope. But C.J.’s got her social security number from her employee records, he said he might have someone see if they can find her that way. He wants some answers. So do I.” Her eyes burned. “I never realized how much I hated being taken advantage of before this happened. And you know what’s most annoying about this whole thing? The unsettledness of it. So what happens if I take care of Ethan for a few months, or a year? Or more? And then Trish waltzes back and decides she’s changed her mind? Not only have I put my own life on hold during the interim, but how is this good for Ethan? It kills me to think that right when everybody starts thinking in terms of permanent, Trish’ll have a change of heart and we’ll all the get rug yanked out from under us.”

Dana caught herself, flushing with embarrassment. Because her outburst hadn’t been only about Ethan, although it was true—withholding part of herself from the child, in case she lost him, wasn’t even an option. She simply wasn’t made that way. Withholding part of herself from C.J., however, was another issue entirely. Yes, falling for him would be beyond stupid, but, like every other woman in the known universe, stupid was not as alien a concept as she might have wished.

And if she did end up moving in with him, maybe sharing living space would knock those stars right out of her eyes. With any luck, he put on all that charm and suaveness like one of his thousand-dollar suits, shucking them the minute he got back home, revealing the real throwback lurking underneath the public persona. Maybe C.J.’s living alone was actually a blessing to womankind the world over.

Okay, so it was a long shot. But you never knew, right?

Then Lucille, Cass’s former mother-in-law, tottered out onto the patio in platform sandals, clutching a squirmy, Onesie-clad Jason to her nonexistent bosom. “Somebody wants his mommy,” the blazing redhead said as Cass quickly took her infant son from his grandmother. “And yours,” she said to Dana, “is still sacked out in the middle of my bed like somebody slipped him a mickey. Hey, donuts! Don’t anybody tell Wanda,” she said, reaching over and snagging one, “or my tuchus is in a sling for sure.”

But Ethan wasn’t hers, Dana thought with a prick to her heart, only half listening as her partners finally got the business discussion back on track. Because for all Trish’s tenuous grasp on reality, she’d still clearly taken good care of her baby. Yeah, she’d freaked, as Trish was wont to do, but still, that it had taken her six months to reach her breaking point said a lot.

Namely, that in all likelihood she would change her mind. Maybe tomorrow, maybe months from now. But eventually she’d come back for her child, leaving Dana with nothing but memories … and an ever-widening hole in her heart. And then, to make matters ten times worse, there was C.J.’s offer to consider.

If he turned out to be Ethan’s father.

If Trish didn’t return.

If Dana decided there was no better way to handle the bizarre situation. For Ethan’s sake.

If, if, if … the tiny words pelted her like hyper BBs.

One day, she thought, it’ll be for real.

One day, she thought, scarfing down another donut, maybe I’ll finally get to live my own life, instead of being a placeholder in everybody else’s.

If. If.

If.

Chapter Six

C.J. stared through his office window at the mottled Sandias on the other side of the city, backlit by masses of foamy, billowing white thunderheads. He checked his watch for the hundredth time, but it was still too early.

Today. Today, he’d know for sure.

The first lab result—which showed that, yep, his little guys had indeed, against all odds, found their way back into the game—had left the door open for the second. He’d been reasonably able to concentrate up till now, but the closer he got to D-Day, the more toastlike his brain became. Every time his phone rang, his stomach jolted. He’d even spaced on an appointment with a new client earlier, something he never did.

Not since his MBA days, when he’d sweated out that last, excruciating final in Statistics, had he gone through this kind of wait-and-see hell. Only a damn sight more was hanging on the outcome of this test.

Worst of all, C.J. still had no idea how he felt about any of it. Or was supposed to feel. Not that the idea of being responsible for this innocent little dude still didn’t make his stomach knot, but the initial constant howl of outrage had at least throttled down to the odd, intermittent burst of irritation. After all, he’d been warned this could happen, that he needed to be diligent about checking. That he hadn’t was nobody’s fault but his. So if he’d dodged the bullet, by rights he should be profoundly relieved.

Except …

C.J. glared at the cloud-shaped shadows scudding across the face of the mountains. So what was up with the kick to his gut every time he saw the baby—which had only been a couple of times, given both his and Dana’s impossible schedules and Dana’s justified resistance to getting too cozy before the results came back? Never in a million years would C.J. have guessed that, in the end, some idiotic biological imperative could override more than twenty years of what he’d been completely convinced he’d wanted. Or, in this case, not wanted.

But there it was, jeering at him from the sidelines: an unwarranted, and completely illogical, anxiety that Ethan might not be his.

Val appeared in his doorway, hands parked on hips. “Okay. You want to tell me what in tarnation is up with you today?”

C.J. swiveled his gaze to her don’t-even-think-about-messin’-with-me one. And part of him wanted nothing more than to come clean to this woman who’d become far more than an office manager over the past few years. But until he knew for sure, he wasn’t keen on letting any more people into the loop than absolutely necessary. Even Val, increasingly difficult though it was to keep her out.

“Sleepless night,” he said. Which was true. And not only because of the whole tenterhooks thing about his possible paternity, but because every time he’d start to drift off, Dana’s horrified reaction to his suggestion that they live together would romp through his thoughts. Not that he blamed her. Why in God’s name he’d thought it made perfect sense at the time, he had no idea. Why he still thought so, he understood even less.

Especially considering the serious train wreck potential of having Dana Malone living under his roof.

“Never affected your work before,” Val said, her power-saw twang slicing through his musings. “Sleepless nights, I mean.”

He glowered at her. “And how would you know whether I’ve had sleepless nights or not? I don’t exactly advertise it.”

“Other than the fact that on those mornings you grunt instead of talk, you guzzle coffee like somebody declared a shortage, and your ties never go with the rest of your clothes? I’ve seen subtler billboards. Still and all, I’ve never known you to let your private life—if you even have one, which I sometimes doubt—affect your work. So I repeat … what’s going on?”

C.J. gave his office manager a long, steady look. “First off, there’s a reason it’s called private, Val.” She gave an unrepentant snort. “And secondly, I repeat, nothing’s going on. So sorry to blow your theory.”

“You haven’t blown anything. Because sure as I’m standing here you’re lying through those movie star teeth of yours. And you do know there will be hell to pay when I find out the truth.”

Refusing to rise to the bait, he said instead, “Thanks for covering with the Jaramillos, by the way.”

“No problem. Just remember it when it’s time for my salary review. And when you come out of that fog you’re not in, that market analysis you’re gonna ask for is already on the computer. As are the month-end sales figures. We’re up ten percent over last year, by the way, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding money for that raise you’re gonna give me. You want more coffee?”

“God, yes. But you don’t have to—” Her raised eyebrows over her glasses cut him off. “Thank you,” he said on a rush of air.

“You’re welcome,” Val said, turning to leave.

“Don’t know how I’d live without you,” he called to her retreating back, chuckling at her fading, “That makes two of us,” from down the hall. A half minute later, she appeared with a huge mug of steaming coffee, his mail and a pink While You Were Out Slip, all of which he took from her.

“You took this message five minutes ago,” he said, frowning at her scrawled time notation beside the unfamiliar name and number. “Why didn’t you put it through?”

“Because I’m screening your calls today, that’s why. Said she’s got a house up in High Desert to go on the market, some friend of hers recommended you.”

He handed her back the slip. “I’ve got more listings than I can handle, pass her on to Bill. What?” he said after a moment when he realized Val was still standing there, gaping at him.

“Since when do you pass up a listing for a million-dollar house? She gave me the address and the square footage, I checked the comps,” Val said to his unanswered question. “Maybe even a million-two.” She firmly put the slip back on his desk. C.J. picked it up again, held it in front of her.

“And the whole reason I took on the other agents was to give me at least half a shot of seeing forty. And Bill could use the finessing practice. What?” he said again at the twin lasers piercing him from those beady eyes of hers.

“Nothin’s goin’on, my fanny,” she muttered, snatching the slip and once again hotfooting it out of his office. A few minutes later, she buzzed him to announce she was going to lunch and that all the calls were being forwarded to his office, and to ask, did he need anything before she left?

“No, I’m good,” he said, although he wouldn’t mind putting in an order for an auxiliary brain right about now. He cursorily checked his mail, which included an invitation to yet another charity function, then forced himself out of his chair and down the hall to the small room where they kept employee records, finally addressing a task he’d been putting off for days.

Minutes later, he was back at his desk, Trish’s social security number scrawled on a Post-it note, making a phone call he’d never in his wildest dreams envisioned himself making. And not only because he’d once dated the P.I., years ago when she’d been a rookie cop who’d pulled him over for speeding.

“You say this chick left the baby with a friend of yours?” Elena Morales now said, clearly unable to suppress the curiosity in her voice.

“Yeah. The mother’s cousin, actually.”

“I see. And you’re worried this gal won’t come back?”

“No, actually, I’m worried she will. That is to say …” C.J. rubbed the space between his brows, realizing he must sound like a primo nutcase. “It’s complicated. And I’d like to see as few people hurt as possible.”

“The baby’s yours, C.J., isn’t he?” Elena said quietly.

“Very possibly,” he admitted. “I’ll know soon.”

“Wow,” Elena said, the single word positively drenched in amused irony. “Sounds like somebody’s finally grown up.”

C.J. grimaced. Even in her early twenties, Elena had wanted more than C.J. had been willing, or able, to give her. From what he understood, she’d found it, with someone else, shortly after they’d split. “I was twenty-five when we dated, Lena. Thinking back, I probably shouldn’t have been allowed out in public, let alone anywhere near another human being.”

She laughed. “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s over, it’s done, and I seem to recall we had a lot of fun. For a while, anyway.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Besides, regrets are a waste of energy. I’m just saying, I’m hearing something now I never heard then.”

“And what might that be?”

“I’m not sure. Like maybe you actually give a damn? That you’re involved. Anyway. I’ll get on this, and I’ll let you know as soon as I find something. Or the woman herself.”

But instead of feeling more settled now that he’d taken at least some control of the situation, he felt more discombobulated than ever. Involved? Try trapped. In a situation not of his choosing, and yet undeniably a result of his own idiocy. If he’d only listened to his urologist … if he hadn’t given in to Trish’s entreaties …

If, if, if.

The phone rang; without checking the display, he punched the line button.

“Turner Realty—”

“Mr. Turner? It’s Melanie from Foothills Lab. We have the results of your DNA test….”

This, there was no keeping from her mother. Not that she hadn’t been tempted.

“But why, Dana? Why do you have to go live with the man?”

As she was saying.

“Because, Mama,” Dana said, mindlessly tossing enough clothes into a suitcase to get her through the week, “now that there’s no question that C.J.’s the father, his custodial rights far outrank mine. No matter what Trish wants,” she added, cutting her mother off. “And, you know, considering his initial aversion to fatherhood, maybe everybody should see his willingness to do right by his kid as, you know, a good thing?”

“What’s this?”

Dana turned to find her mother fingering through one of the many spiral notebooks Dana kept around the house, confusion etched in her features when she glanced up. “You’re still writing?”

“Yes, Mama, I’m still writing,” Dana muttered, practically grabbing the book from her mother and tossing it on top of the clothes. She’d started scribbling down ideas for a story as a way to dodge the depression that had threatened to take her under a year ago, only to find the outlet far more fulfilling than she would have ever expected. And increasingly habit-forming, despite all the other demands on her time. She’d only mentioned it to her mother once, however.

“Oh. I thought you’d given up on that. I mean, isn’t it kind of pointless?”

“Ma? Hello?” She zipped up the bag. “Bigger fish to fry right now?”

Her mother huffed and seamlessly shifted gears again. “So why can’t you share custody? Ethan could go to his father’s house one night, yours the next—”

“Because C.J. knows less about taking care of a baby than I do? Because it’s going to be hard enough for him to bond with his son without shunting him back and forth between our houses? Because my place is too small? Because Trish left him with me.”

Dana headed to the living room, her mother’s, “You could move back in with us, you know,” following in her wake. Grabbing the birdcage cover, she tossed her mother a brief, but pointed, not-in-this-lifetime glare in response. “It’s an option, honey,” her mother said, wilting slightly.

“One which I entertained for about two seconds and immediately rejected.” Dana tossed the cover over the cage, earning her a squawk from Ethan, who’d been holding a lengthy conversation with the finches from his playpen. When she caught the just-kill-me-now set to her mother’s mouth, however, she let out a long breath, then put her hands on the older woman’s arms. “Look, I know this isn’t ideal. But what can I tell you, crazy circumstances call for inventive solutions. And this is the only way I can figure out how to do what’s right by everybody. Including not violating Trish’s wishes.”

Worry still crowding her mother’s eyes, she reached across to lay her hand on top of Dana’s. “But you don’t even know what she’s gonna do, honey. And I hate the idea of you gettin’ in over your head. It’s happened before, you know, more than once. Now, don’t be put out with me,” she added when Dana pulled away to gather up the rest of her writing journals and laptop from her desk, tucking them into a canvas totebag. “The way you always see the good in people is a wonderful thing, it truly is. But while I’m sure C.J. intends to do his best by his child, that doesn’t mean—”

“—that he’s even remotely interested in taking us as a package,” Dana finished over the sting of her mother’s words.

“Well. It’s just that you’re so tender-hearted, you know—”

“That doesn’t mean I’m blind,” Dana said, reeling on her mother, her arms clamped over her midsection. “Or stupid.” Faye’s eyebrows lifted. “Okay, fine. To put an end to your pussyfooting around the subject, I don’t suppose there’s any point in pretending I’m not attracted to the man.”

“See, that’s what worries me—”

“Well, stop it. Right now. Because I am also very well aware that C. J. Turner isn’t interested in me that way. Besides, even if he was looking to settle down, which he’s made plain he isn’t, I can’t see that we have anything in common other than Ethan. So see, Mama, I have thought this through. Long and hard. So you’re going to have to trust that I’m made of sterner stuff than you’re apparently giving me credit for.”

“And if your heart gets broken? Again?”

“Not gonna happen.” Dana looked steadily at her mother, knowing full well it wasn’t only Dana’s potential attachment to C.J. she was worried about. She tapped down the twinge of apprehension that echoed through her and said, “Now if you want to be helpful, you could pack up Ethan’s diaper bag for me.”

A request that, amazingly enough, derailed the conversation.

Two hours later, however, standing in the stone-floored entryway to C.J.’s more than spacious house, holding a babbling Ethan and gawking through the living room’s bank of floor-to-ceiling windows at the mountain vista scraping the periwinkle sky, her only thought was, I am so screwed.

And only partly because of the excruciating awkwardness of the situation, the way C.J. and she were suddenly acting with each other like a couple on a forced blind date. Nor was it—she told herself—because she was in any danger of falling for the guy. His house, however …

Slowly, she pivoted, taking in the twelve-foot ceilings, the stone floors, the archways leading in a half-dozen directions. Not that her parents’ three-bedroom, brick-and-stucco ranch house was exactly a shack. But compared with this …

This, she could get used to. Unfortunately.

“You hate it,” she heard behind her.

She turned to see C.J., in jeans and a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt, carefully setting the birdcage into a small niche right inside the living room. “Not at all. Why would you think that?”

“There’s not exactly a lot of furniture.”

True, other than the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed to the gills, the decor was a bit on the spartan side. But the oversized taupe leather sofa and chairs, the boldly patterned geometric rug in reds and blacks and neutrals underneath, got the job done. “It’s okay, I like it like this.”