by Lisa Childs
Chapter Four
Brooks shifted the baby to his shoulder, her head and neck in one palm, her back and diapered butt in the other.
A strong hand patted his other shoulder. “Hey, you used to help me with your brothers.”
“That was a long time ago,” Brooks reminded him. “Brad’s fourteen now. And neither he nor Ryan were ever this little.”
His father shrugged. “So we might be kinda rusty.”
“Should we have let the social worker take her?”
“You don’t want her?” his father asked—with the disappointment Brooks remembered so well from his youth. Every crazy stunt he’d pulled had disappointed the old man.
Brooks tightened his hands on the baby’s small body, and a burp slipped through her lips along with a trail of slimy spit-up that dripped down his neck. He grimaced, then grinned as her crying turned into a soft sigh of relief. “I don’t know what to do.”
His heart told him to stay; his head told him to run.
“Giving her a name would be a start,” his dad suggested.
“I—I can’t think of anything….”
“You can’t think of a girl’s name?” His dad chuckled. “You probably know more than most. Hell, that’s what got you in this predicament.”
Fatherhood. Could he really be a daddy? Brooks still had to put together the changing table, so he carried her to the bed and laid her down beside the suitcase. Then he reached for the diaper bag.
“You okay for now?” his dad asked. “Because speaking of predicaments, I need to find out where your brothers are. They should have been back from that game a while ago.”
Brooks glanced at his watch. “They broke curfew?” Maybe Priscilla was right; they were trying to be just like him.
“They better not be doing anything stupid,” Rex grumbled as he walked out of the room.
Being alone with the baby increased that pressure on his chest, and Brooks had to breathe deep. “I can do this,” he assured her—and himself—as he pulled out a diaper. He’d watched his father change her earlier. “Tabs in the back.”
First he had to pull open the snaps holding her pajama thingy closed. His fingers fumbled with the soft material until he freed her kicking legs. Then he ripped open the tabs of her soiled diaper and tried to stop breathing altogether at the pungent odor. He dumped out the diaper bag to get the wipes. A piece of paper fell onto the bed.
Forgetting the diaper for a moment, he grabbed the note, which was addressed to “Daddy.”
It’s time for you to grow up and take some responsibility for once. You need to stop being a self-absorbed, selfish jerk and raise your daughter.
Brooks flinched at the brutal assessment of his character, or lack thereof. It sounded like something Priscilla would write. Of course, under no circumstances would she have ever let him close enough to get her pregnant.
“Hey, Brooks—you’re still here!” a young male voice shouted as the front door slammed against the foyer wall.
Startled by the commotion, the baby cried and kicked, and the soiled diaper slipped out from beneath her, its contents spreading onto the bed and the baby’s clothes.
“God, it reeks in here,” Ryan murmured, gagging as he stepped inside the room.
“What is all this stuff?” Brad asked, his fingers pinching the end of his nose.
“What’s that?” Ryan asked, pointing toward the baby on the bed.
“Your niece,” their father answered as he joined them in Brooks’s very crowded bedroom.
“What? You knocked someone up?” Brad’s eyes were wide as he stared at the baby.
“Where is she?” Ryan asked, backing toward the doorway. “I bet she’s hot.”
Hot as in pissed off, yeah. Brooks shoved the note in his pocket. Seeing it would only disappoint his dad. “She’s not here.”
“What did she do—bring the baby and take off?” Brad asked.
Brooks nodded as he cleaned up the messy infant. “Dad’s going to track her down, though.”
“So she can take her kid back?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know about that,” their father replied. “The baby will probably be better off with us.”
“With us?” Brad’s voice cracked with disbelief.
“She’s staying here?” Ryan asked, clearly appalled at the thought of the baby living with them. “No way!”
“Of course she’s staying,” their father replied. “She’s family. And we’re all going to help your brother.”
“So you’re staying?” Brad asked him, glancing from the baby to the suitcase.
Brooks sighed. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to stick it out in Trout Creek, but he nodded. “Sorry I missed the game tonight.”
“We won!” Ryan announced, stabbing his fist in the air—exactly as the baby on the bed was doing.
“So you guys were out celebrating, then?” their father asked. “That’s why you missed curfew?”
“The bus was late getting back to the school,” Brad said.
“No,” Rex corrected. “I checked with Wes’s mom. The bus was back over an hour ago.”
“We were just a little late,” Ryan said. “It’s not like we’ve got anything going on tomorrow, anyhow—since we still don’t have a hockey coach.”
“Yes, you do,” their father announced.
“We do?” Brad asked.
“Your brother.”
“But—but,” Brad stammered, “Miss Priss said she didn’t hire you.”
“She changed her mind,” the old man explained.
Because he’d had it changed for her. Brooks doubted she would ever forgive him for letting his father go over her head.
“Uh, we didn’t know that,” Brad said, his eyes filling with guilt.
Ryan shrugged. “Just because she changed her mind this time doesn’t mean she’s not still a bitch.”
“Ryan!” Brooks reprimanded his brother, startling the baby. She began to cry again.
“Sheesh, she’s not gonna do that all night, is she?” Ryan asked. “We should have stayed out later.”
“You already broke curfew,” their father reprimanded.
“Maybe she will,” Brooks warned them. “You used to cry all night.” Especially after their mom had taken off. Brad hadn’t been much older than this baby when their mother had left. That time for good.
She’d disappeared after Brooks was born, too, and had stayed away for nearly half a decade. But then she’d returned to Trout Creek. She’d made him and his dad believe that she’d gotten her life together and was going to stick around. And she had—for several years—even after Ryan was born. But having Brad only two years later was too much for her. Or so she’d explained in the note she’d left.
“Don’t worry,” Brooks assured them. He was worried enough for all of them. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Yeah, you’re doing a great job,” Ryan scoffed. “What’s all over your neck and your shirt? Baby puke?”
“And look at your bed.” Brad’s face twisted into a grimace of disgust.
Brooks lifted the baby from the mess, and the diaper slid down her legs and dropped on top of the pajama thingy he’d pulled off her.
“She’s mooning you,” Brad said, jabbing his elbow into Ryan’s ribs.
“She’s mooning you,” Ryan retorted.
Rex laughed. “You didn’t put the diaper on tight enough.”
Brooks hadn’t wanted to irritate the clipped cord of her little outie belly button.
“Do you even know how to change a diaper?” Ryan asked, as if horrified at the thought.
“Yeah,” he snapped as he laid the baby back on the bed. “I used to change both of you. At least she can’t spray me in the face the way you guys did.”
“Gross,” Brad said.
“It’s gross in here,” Ryan agreed, and the two of them headed for the door.
“Hey!” Brooks called his brothers back. Something was worrying him besides doubts over his ability
to handle fatherhood. “You guys didn’t do something to her place, did you?”
“Whose place?” Ryan asked, all fake innocence.
“To Priscilla Andrews’s house,” he clarified, studying their faces. “Did you?”
The baby let out a bloodcurdling cry. While he turned his focus back on her, his brothers took advantage of the distraction and ran away.
He suspected there was something else for which Priscilla would hold him responsible.
PRISCILLA LIFTED HER GAZE to the canopy of trees surrounding her cabin. Toilet paper hung from several branches like streamers.
“I thought Halloween was a couple weeks away yet,” her sister mused as she leaned over the porch railing next to Priscilla.
“Every day is Halloween around me,” she said. This was the third time her place had been TP’d since the school year had begun. She’d lost count of the number of times last year and the year before that. Even though she’d been working at the school for five years, nothing had happened to her place until Ryan Hoover had become a freshman. “Are you sure you want to rent to me?”
“Rent? You mean you’re paying me?” Maureen asked, her green eyes wide with feigned surprise.
“I’ve been trying to pay you,” Priscilla reminded her stubborn older sister. When she’d moved back to Trout Creek, Maureen had offered her one of the guest cabins in the woods behind the fishing and hunting lodge her husband owned and managed.
Priscilla had eagerly accepted the gracious offer for a couple of reasons. One, the only other place to stay was the Trout Creek Inn, where the locals gathered for coffee and gossip every morning. She hadn’t wanted to be gossiped about, or to listen to gossip about other people. The second reason she’d accepted the offer was because she’d wanted to be by herself. Secluded in the woods, away from the lodge, her little cabin was perfect for her. But its private location also made it easy for the local troublemakers to vandalize without fear of getting caught.
Maureen shrugged. “You help me out with the kids. That’s more than Stan does.” Stan Wieczorek was Priscilla’s brother-in-law, but he wasn’t much of a father to his and Maureen’s four kids. He would rather fish and hunt than help with homework or bath time. And Priscilla doubted he had ever changed a diaper.
Had Brooks? Or had Rex done diaper duty last night? The social worker, Mrs. Everly, had left Priscilla a message that she’d allowed them to take the baby home, but she would be following up on the DNA test as well as their ability to care for a newborn.
The Hoovers probably thought Priscilla had called out of spite. But she’d been concerned about that tiny, helpless child. The baby needed someone responsible who could protect her from harm.
“Priscilla?” Her sister nudged her with her shoulder.
She steadied the mug of coffee Maureen had nearly made her spill and forced a smile. “I don’t have to help you very much. The kids were already out of diapers by the time I came home to Trout Creek. And they’re growing up so fast.”
“Too fast,” Maureen agreed with a sigh. She patted her hair, self-conscious of the few strands of gray that wound through the light brown.
Like Brooks and Ryan, nearly a dozen years separated Maureen and Priscilla, but they had a couple of brothers in the middle. The boys, however, had never come home to Trout Creek after leaving for college. Eventually their brother Charles had convinced their parents to move south with him and his family.
“Can you believe this is Adam’s senior year?” Maureen asked, referring to her oldest son. “It seems like yesterday that I was crying over putting him on the bus and sending him off alone for his first day of kindergarten.”
Priscilla felt a pang as she remembered someone who should have been starting kindergarten this year. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since yesterday afternoon. Needing the caffeine after her sleepless night, she drank deeply from her mug.
“Brooks Hoover called Adam this morning,” Maureen said. “The kid acted all casual while he was on the phone. But he was over-the-moon excited that he’d talked to a famous hockey player.”
“Brooks called Adam?”
“Yeah, he wants him down at the Icehouse to try out for the hockey team.”
“What?” As athletic director, she was supposed to announce tryouts—not just to kids Brooks had chosen but the entire school. He might not have gone over her head with the hiring, but he had now.
“Yeah, he was calling everyone who was on the team last year,” her sister replied. “I thought you weren’t going to hire Brooks, that you didn’t think he was serious about the job.”
“He’s not.” Priscilla was certain of that, especially now. What the hell was he trying to prove? And who was he trying to prove it to—his dad or her?
“And after Brooks hung up, Stan called. He was having coffee down at the Trout Creek Inn and heard some interesting rumors.” Maureen’s eyes were bright with excitement. “’Course, folks are always talking about Brooks Hoover—”
“It’s true,” Priscilla interrupted. “I was there when he found the baby on his doorstep.”
“You were there?” Maureen asked, her voice warm with concern. “Are you all right?”
Priscilla nodded. “Sure.”
“But that must be the first time you’ve been around a newborn since…”
Since her own baby had died. Ignoring the pain squeezing her heart, she shrugged off her sister’s concern. “I’m around kids all the time.”
“Teenagers. Not babies. I think that’s why you moved back to Trout Creek.”
“There are babies here,” she pointed out. But in the five years she’d been home, she had mostly been able to avoid contact with them. She might see them around town, but she didn’t have to touch them, the way Brooks had expected her to touch his…
Daughter?
Was the child really his?
When the infant had begun to cry, he’d looked at her, waiting for her to do the maternal thing and comfort the little girl. He had no idea just how unmaternal she was. She hadn’t even been able to take care of her own baby.
Chapter Five
Brooks closed his eyes, unable to watch any more of the action on the ice. And calling it action was generous. The kids were barely moving. Where was the speed Trout Creek High hockey was famous for? Where were the shots? Where the hell were the blocks?
Defense.
C’mon.
He gritted his teeth to hold back the curse burning his throat. His brothers had given him the phone numbers for the kids who’d played hockey last year. But not enough had showed up even to constitute a team. And the ones who had come…
“So this is how you’re going to pick your team?” a feminine voice, sharp with skepticism, asked. “You’re not paying any attention to the players.”
He tensed, and the baby, nestled inside his coat, wriggled. He shifted his grip, cupping her tiny head in his palm. “Shh…”
Her cheeks pink from the cold, Priscilla stepped closer to the bleachers where he stood. In jeans and a bright green coat, she looked more like one of the high school students than the assistant principal. She leaned toward him, her silky hair skimming his chin, and peeked inside his jacket. Her breath escaped in a gasp that turned to mist in the cool air between them. “You brought her with you?”
“I had to,” he said. Priscilla Andrews made him feel as defensive as his dad usually did. “I didn’t want to miss the first team meeting. My new boss is a real hard-ass who wouldn’t like that.”
She lifted her nose in the air, obviously offended as well as disapproving. “You arranged this practice,” she reminded him.
“Tryouts,” he corrected her. “I need to start putting my team together.”
“You can’t just call up the kids you want,” she said. “As athletic director, it’s my job to post the tryout day and publish it in the school newsletter so everyone who’s interested can come out.”
He’d stepped on her toes again. But he suspected that wasn’t
the only thing she was mad about. She confirmed his suspicion when she continued, “And your new boss would prefer that you didn’t bring an infant to an ice rink.”
“I couldn’t find anyone to watch her,” he said with frustration. “My dad got a call from Dispatch and had to go into the office. And the boys are here.”
“You shouldn’t have left her with the boys, anyway.” Her eyes were wide with horror. “Please, don’t ever leave her with your brothers,” she beseeched him.
He laughed at her overreaction. “Hey, I know they’re young. But I was watching them when I was about their age. And we all know I was no angel.” Despite some of the daredevil stunts he’d pulled, he hadn’t been as wild as some of the kids in their class because Coach Cook had had a very strict policy about no drinking or smoking. Anyone caught partying was suspended—permanently—from his team, no matter how well he played.
That was why Brooks wasn’t as worried about his brothers as their father and apparently Priscilla were. “Sheesh, you act like they’re psychopaths in training or something. It’s not like they drown kittens or anything.”
“They killed the fish in the science department.”
“Really?” He tightened his hold, albeit gently, on the baby. “Do you have proof?”
“No.” Anger flashed in her eyes. “The evidence is gone. They ate them.”
“Since the evidence is gone, you have no proof that it was my brothers.” Maybe she just hated Hoovers.
“Now you sound like your father.”
“God, no. Take that back.”
Her lips curved into a slight smile. “It wasn’t an insult,” she assured him. “Your father’s a good man.”
“I didn’t think you were a fan,” he admitted, “after what he did.”
“Going over my head?” She shrugged. “I blame you for that. He’s a good man but overprotective of his boys.”
Realization dawned, staggering Brooks. His father was like that because he hadn’t been able to protect his children from what had hurt them most: their mother’s desertion.
“He doesn’t make any of you take responsibility for your actions.” She glanced down at the ice, where his brothers were shoving each other around. Then she turned her attention back to him and the baby nestled inside his coat. “It hasn’t done you any favors.”
