His Baby Surprise

by Lisa Childs

  “You didn’t see anyone?” Priscilla asked.

  “No.” He sighed. “I didn’t hear a car, so I checked the closest snowmobile trail.” Several of them wound through the woods surrounding the house. “But I didn’t see anyone.” Just a deer that had been as startled as he was. “The trees and brush are thick, though.” Someone could have easily been hiding out there, watching him and the house and the infant.

  He crouched down and studied the baby more closely. She had perfectly shaped rosebud lips, a little dimple in her left cheek and a dark fuzz of hair that already looked as if it was going to curl. Along with a flash of recognition, that sensation of foreboding rushed over him again, chilling his bare skin.

  “Who…who would just leave a newborn this way?” Priscilla asked, her voice cracking with emotion. Then she turned to him, and her green eyes widened with regret and sympathy. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think….”

  “About my mom?” he asked. “Yeah, Brad wasn’t much older than this when she took off for good.” Dread tightened his stomach as he realized that this infant looked exactly the same as Brad and Ryan had as babies. He groaned. “Oh, no…”

  “Your mom has to be beyond childbearing years,” Priscilla assured him.

  “I wasn’t thinking about my mom,” he replied. But he was trying to think—to fight through the fog the concussion had left of his memories—to figure out who this baby’s mother could be.

  “Your dad?” she asked, her voice squeaking with shock.

  He laughed. “No. Not my dad.”

  “Then whose is she?”

  He swallowed back the emotion and fear that threatened to overwhelm him. “I—I think she might be mine.”

  As if she was as horrified as he was at the thought he could be her father, the baby released a high-pitched cry. Her body tensed against the straps of the car seat and she lifted her fisted hands, punching at the air. The kid was definitely a Hoover. His dad claimed that every one of them had come out swinging.

  Brooks glanced from the baby’s face, which was growing red with frustration, to Priscilla’s, which was eerily pale. Apparently she was as stunned as he was by his admission. Too stunned to react to the baby’s cry for attention. But just because she was female didn’t mean she had any maternal instincts.

  Hell, when it came to kids, he had no instincts at all. His hands shook as he unclasped the straps that secured the baby into the carrier. He hadn’t held a newborn in fourteen years, and while his brothers had looked uncannily similar to this baby, they’d never been as small and seemingly fragile.

  But they had been this loud. The baby’s cry increased in volume and desperation. His head still pounding, Brooks winced as much in commiseration as pain. Poor kid…

  “How do you do this?” he asked, sliding his hands beneath the tiny tense body. “How do I pick her up?”

  Priscilla expelled a shaky little breath and started directing him. “Cradle her head. Infants’ necks aren’t strong enough to hold them up.”

  He held his breath as he lifted the baby, careful to palm her delicate head. That soft dark hair, which was barely long enough to curl, brushed his skin. The baby blinked and stared up at him, focusing on his face. Her eyes were dark and already fringed with lashes. Did babies this young have eyelashes that long?

  God, she was beautiful.

  “She stopped crying,” Priscilla whispered.

  He’d been staring at her so intently, studying her perfect, miniature features, that he hadn’t realized she’d fallen silent. But a single tear slid down the side of her dimpled cheek to pool in his palm.

  “Wh-why do you think she was crying?” he asked, his heart contracting at the thought of the child being in pain. She was so tiny, unable to protect herself. She had to rely on adults being there for her. Poor kid…

  “She’s probably scared.”

  She wasn’t the only one. He had that familiar old pressure in his chest, the one he’d felt back in his teens, when he’d worried that he would never get out of Trout Creek.

  “Or hungry.” Priscilla crouched down next to the carrier and picked up a diaper bag. “There’s formula, bottles and some diapers in here. Are you sure someone just rang the bell and left her?”

  “I looked all around,” he reminded her. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  “If you think this baby is really yours, you need to call the mother and talk to her—find out if she’s the one who left the baby.”

  “Who else could have left her but her mother? Especially like this, with the car seat and the diaper bag.” And the little bib that called her Daddy’s Girl.

  “It probably was the mother,” Priscilla agreed. “All the more reason you have to see her and find out what’s going on.”

  With an inward grimace, he admitted, “I don’t know who the mother is.”

  “Brooks…”

  He didn’t need to look at her to see the disgust on Priscilla’s face. It was there in her voice. He could have used the concussion as an excuse, but it wasn’t to blame for his not being able to remember who the baby’s mother was. He had dated a lot. Still, he struggled to understand how he could have possibly become a father. “I always use protection.”

  “It’s not one hundred percent effective,” Priscilla said.

  As assistant principal, she had probably given more than her share of safe-sex lectures. As his father’s son, Brooks had already heard more than enough.

  “It’s a little late and I’m a little old for your abstinence speech, Ms. Andrews.”

  She laughed. “I wouldn’t waste my breath giving it to you. But why do you think the baby is yours?”

  He studied that perfect little face. Even though she’d quieted down and was staring up at him, her fists still moved in little air punches, filling him with that same sense of recognition. “I just…”

  “Can’t know for certain—this is the sheriff’s house,” she pointed out. “Maybe someone was just abandoning the baby to the local authority.”

  Brooks wished he could believe that, but he shook his head. “Then they would have left her at his office, not his house. He’s not even home. Hell, the only cars in the driveway are ours. Unless the kid is yours…?”

  She gasped.

  “Sorry, bad joke.” He quickly apologized, wondering about the panic that flashed in her eyes. She worked with kids but had an aversion to babies? He suspected there was a lot more to Priscilla Andrews than he would ever know.

  “You can’t be certain that she’s yours, either,” she stubbornly maintained.

  “No,” he agreed. But his gut—the one that had guided him to every winning shot—told him the baby was his.

  “You’re a relatively high-profile athlete and pretty notorious for your playboy ways,” she said with that disapproval again. “I’m sure you’ve had previous paternity suits.”

  He snorted. “Gee, boss, your opinion of me is so high.” Unfortunately, it was pretty damn accurate. “But you’re wrong about one thing. I’ve had no previous paternity suits. Like I said, I always use protection.”

  “You need a DNA test.”

  Gravel ground under rubber as a car headed down the driveway. “Maybe she’s coming back,” he said, the tightness easing in his chest. But then disappointment flashed as he stared down into those alert, innocent eyes. She was such a pretty baby.

  “It’s your dad,” Priscilla informed him.

  A door creaked open, then slammed shut again. The baby tensed in Brooks’s hands and began to cry again.

  “Shhh…” He tried to soothe her, cradling her closer to his body.

  “What the hell—” Rex’s jaw snapped open in shock. “Whose baby is that?”

  As Priscilla had suggested, he needed a DNA test to prove it, but even knowing his father’s disapproval would surpass hers, Brooks had to confess what his gut was telling him. “Mine.”

  NUMB WITH SHOCK, Priscilla stared out the window of the bus. Since the nights were already growing longer in norther
n Michigan, there was nothing to see but the occasional animal’s eyes glinting in the dark along the country road. She was supposed to be chaperoning the football players and cheerleaders as they traveled home from an away game. That was the excuse she’d given to rush off from the Hoovers’ house that afternoon. As the athletic director, she was responsible for the entire sports program and was expected to appear at every match, meet and game.

  Tonight was the first time she had really appreciated that responsibility. The raised voices and raucous laughter of the victorious kids kept her from her own thoughts and from the long-ago memories she didn’t want to revisit.

  She shifted as someone dropped into the seat beside her. Welcoming the distraction, she turned away from the window. She’d expected one of the cheerleaders, but instead found a reminder of the man and the baby she was trying to forget. “Brad.”

  The youngest of the Hoovers, at least until now, had the same mop of dark curls, dimples and dark eyes as his oldest brother—and that baby someone had abandoned on their doorstep. “Hey, Miss A. So did you give my brother Coach Cook’s old job?”

  Despite being a freshman, Brad played on the varsity football team. His speed made him a natural quarterback, but his real love was hockey. Just as it had been with Brooks.

  “No,” she replied honestly.

  “But—but why not?” the boy sputtered, his face flushing a deeper shade of red than it had from the exertion of scoring the winning touchdown in the close game.

  “He’s not qualified,” she explained.

  “But he was a pro player.”

  “But he’s never been a coach.”

  “So?” the boy challenged, his dark eyes full of anger.

  “His lack of coaching experience didn’t make him the right candidate for the job,” she patiently explained. The same way she’d done to her boss when Principal Drover had questioned, then overruled, her decision. He, as well as most of the members of the school board, was friends with the sheriff; they had coffee every morning at the Trout Creek Inn.

  “That’s stupid.” Brad didn’t conceal his disgust. “And it’s probably why he didn’t show up for the game tonight.” Disappointment dimmed the boy’s eyes. He idolized his older brother, but he’d only been a toddler when Brooks left home, and the truth was, Brad barely knew him. “He probably took off already. That’s why Dad didn’t show up, either. He won’t be happy if Brooks left.”

  She knew why Brooks and their father had missed the game, but it wasn’t her place to tell Brad that he and Ryan might have become uncles. The boy scrambled out of the seat before she could say anything to allay his fear. For all she knew, despite the baby’s arrival or maybe because of it, Brooks might have left town already.

  As if she could feel their angry stares, she glanced to the back of the bus, where Brad had rejoined his brother Ryan. The sixteen-year-old had the same curly hair and dark eyes, but his build was bigger than his brothers’. So he played defense on both the football and hockey teams.

  As they glared at her, Priscilla was the one who felt defensive. Even though she’d been overruled, she’d done the right thing in not hiring Brooks. He was about as qualified to be a coach as he was to be a father.

  How angry would he be when he learned what she’d done after leaving his house that afternoon?

  SHE’D CALLED A DAMN social worker on him. Brooks cursed at the pain radiating from his knuckles, which oozed blood. With another curse, he tossed the wrench onto the floor.

  A cry pierced the air and another curse followed it, but this one came from his father’s lips. “Damn it, I just finally got her to sleep.”

  “Now there’ll be somewhere to put her when she falls asleep again,” Brooks said, as he scooted out from beneath the crib he’d just assembled. Pressing down with his hands on the wooden sides, he tested the sturdiness of the little bed, and a sense of satisfaction shot through him. He’d proved one of Priscilla’s claims to the social worker wrong.

  Granted, he hadn’t been prepared for a baby showing up on his doorstep, but that could be fixed. After having her checked out at the hospital in the city, he and his dad had stopped at a department store for the things Rex had promised the social worker they’d buy for her: a bed, a changing table, more clothes, more formula and diapers.

  Boxes and bags overflowed the room where Brooks had spent his childhood. His suitcase still lay open on the bed, the few things he’d brought with him already packed. His worn jeans and old jerseys looked out of place in what had essentially become a baby nursery.

  Noticing the suitcase, his dad remarked, “You should take care of that.”

  If Brooks put it where he wanted, it would be in the trunk of his car as he fled Trout Creek. “Here.” He reached instead for the baby wailing in his father’s arms. “I can try to rock her back to sleep.”

  The ancient rocker, with its wicker seat and back, had been the first thing they’d dragged in from the living room. Rex sat in it now, wearing only an undershirt, because the baby had soaked his khaki sheriff’s shirt. With more ease and grace than Brooks could manage, the old man rose from the chair and handed off the crying baby.

  Brooks struggled to support her neck and hang on to her tense body. That panic pressed on his chest again. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Maybe she’s upset that Priscilla Andrews called the social worker on us,” his dad replied sarcastically. Obviously he was pretty upset about it.

  A county employee, Mrs. Everly had met them at the hospital. “I’m sure she was just concerned about the baby.”

  “Concern?” Rex snorted. “She couldn’t even look at the little girl when she was here. Hell, she couldn’t get away fast enough.”

  Brooks stared down at the squalling infant. Priscilla hadn’t been comfortable around the baby; even he had noticed that. He shrugged. “I guess she had a phone call to make.”

  “Yeah, it backfired on her. She didn’t know I had a foster home certificate.”

  “I didn’t, either,” Brooks admitted.

  The old man shrugged. “As sheriff, I’ve had to put some drunken parents in jail overnight. If there’s no place for their kids to go, I can bring them here.”

  His father was a good man, something Brooks hadn’t realized until that blow to the head had knocked some sense into him.

  If the DNA test they’d taken at the hospital proved this baby really was Brooks’s daughter, would he be able to love her as much as his dad loved him? Was he even capable?

  “Shhh…” He had no idea what to call the baby. “You need a name, little girl.”

  “You really don’t know it?” Rex asked.

  He shook his head. “And I think she’s too young to tell me.”

  His father didn’t laugh at his lame attempt at a joke. Instead he began to fire questions at Brooks as if he was interviewing a suspect. “You really didn’t see who left her at the door?”

  “No. I looked around, but there was no one.” He suspected someone had been out there, watching.

  “You have no clue who the mother could be?”

  “Priscilla thought the baby might have been left for you,” he replied.

  His dad laughed. “That’s not possible.”

  “I heard you were dating.” The boys had said something about their father going out with a woman.

  Rex flushed. “That’s not what I mean. I had that…little procedure years ago. I thought it might make your mom stick around.”

  “That wasn’t the problem, though, was it,” Brooks said. “She didn’t want the ones she already had.”

  “Brooks—”

  He shook his head. “Priscilla thought someone might have abandoned the baby here because you’re the sheriff.”

  Rex stared down the infant’s red face and flailing fists, and sighed. “She’s a Hoover.”

  “Yeah.” Brooks’s gut had already told him the same thing.

  “Trout Creek is small and gossipy,” his father pointed out. “If anyone was pregn
ant, it would have been all over town.”

  Brooks winced. “Just like someone dropping a baby on our doorstep is going to be all over town. And in the papers pretty soon.”

  “Yeah.”

  Since the hockey season hadn’t started yet, he’d figured he had some time before the press began to hound him, questioning why he wasn’t playing. But hell, he’d rather have them think it was because of the baby than his being medically unable to play.

  “I’m surprised she—whoever the baby’s mother is—hasn’t already gone to the press,” his father remarked. “Or at least called you for child support or something.”

  “She’s obviously not thinking clearly, to leave a baby on a doorstep. We need to find her.”

  His dad nodded. “Yeah, the doctor said she must have had the baby alone, the way the cord was so crudely tied off. I have calls in to the local hotels and motels, trying to track down a single woman who checked in pregnant.”

  Rex Hoover wasn’t only a good man, he was a good sheriff. That was why he’d been elected term after term after term. If anyone could find the baby’s mother, he could.

  “So, do you have any idea where to start looking?” his dad asked. “Can you give me a list of women you were dating nine months ago?”

  His head pounded hard as he tried to remember names, faces, anything. The concussion had muddled some of his memory, but it wasn’t the reason he couldn’t recall past relationships. He just hadn’t cared enough about anyone he’d dated. “No.” Brooks stared down at the tiny red face. “But whoever she is, she’ll come back for her baby.” She had to.

  “I thought the same thing about your mother,” the old man admitted.

  And she had never returned.

  Brooks had spent a lot of his life blaming his father for his mother’s leaving. Would his child blame him for her mother abandoning her? Was that why she cried now, because she missed her mother? Or because she instinctively sensed that he wasn’t cut out for fatherhood?

  He knew the admission wasn’t going to please his dad, but he had to voice his fear aloud. “I can’t do this.”