by Ciana Stone
She pulled out her phone and called Belinda again when she got into the truck. Still no answer. Cody didn’t bother to leave a message. She didn’t want to upset Bernice.
The local consignment shop was still open when they reached town. Cody parked her truck and took Bernice inside. She’d never seen a child get so excited.
“Look, Cody. Look.” Bernice turned around, her arms thrown wide and her face aglow.
“I know. So many pretty things. Let’s see what we can find that will fit you, okay?”
“Okay!”
Cody lost track of time. Bernice got excited about each and every stitch of clothing Cody had her try on. They ended up with four huge bags of clothes, ranging from shorts and tops, to jeans, jackets, dresses, gowns, shoes and boots and even some fancy ponytail elastic bands and a cowboy hat.
They also found a used toddler’s car-seat that was in good condition. Cody had no idea how long Bernice and Belinda would be with her, but it wasn’t safe for Bernice to be riding around without a car-seat, so she bought it.
Bernice left dressed in a princess costume, cowboy hat and boots. The lady who ran the store shook her head and laughed. Cody knew it wasn’t the most coordinated outfit, and maybe there was some unwritten rule about kids wearing costumes only on Halloween, but when Bernice put on that costume and looked at herself in the mirror, Cody had seen it on her face. Bernice saw a princess in that mirror, someone special. And that was something she needed to feel.
So let people shake their heads or disapprove. Cody thought it was adorable.
They took the bags out to the truck and piled them on the floorboard.
“Me hungry,” Bernice announced.
“Me too.” Cody checked the time. It was a quarter to seven. She started the truck and drove to the steak house.
“Well looky here,” Mrs. Green, one of the owners, greeted Cody when she entered with Bernice. “We have royalty visiting. What’s your name princess?”
“Bernice.”
“Well, Princess Bernice, it’s sure nice to meet you. I’m Mrs. Mary.” Mary looked at Cody. “Table for two?”
“Three.”
“Three it is.” Mary smiled. “Come with me.”
Once they were seated, Cody ordered an iced tea for herself and a juice for Bernice. As their drinks were delivered, Mary returned with Riggs following her. “Here you are, Mr. Riggs.”
“Thank you, Mary.” The smile Riggs gave Mary had her blushing.
Riggs leaned down to kiss Cody softly and then took a seat beside her and across from Bernice. “Well, looks like I have two beautiful girls as my dates tonight. Who is this pretty little princess?”
“Me Bernice,” Bernice said shyly.
“Well, hello Bernice. I’m Jax.”
Bernice smiled at him. “You my friend?”
“I sure hope so.” He looked at Cody. “Been here long?”
“No. Just long enough to order drinks.”
“Me hungry,” Bernice announced.
“Me too,” Riggs agreed and looked around. He flagged a waitress and she took their order.
Cody marveled at how patient and sweet Riggs was. The entire meal, his attention was primarily on Bernice. Cody wasn’t surprised when Bernice wanted Riggs to carry her when it was time to leave.
“I need to stop by the bar,” she said as he put Bernice in her truck. “I left my phone charger in the office.”
“I’ll follow and watch Bernice while you go in.”
“Thanks!” She stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll just be a minute.”
That was her intention when they arrived at the bar. She’d go in through the back, grab her charger from the office and be back out in two minutes. Her intention faded like night giving way to dawn when she peeked around the corner to see how crowded the place was.
There stood—correction, leaned—Belinda against a man at the bar. Damn, it was barely eight o’clock and she was clearly already well on her way to full blown drunk. Cody’s anger erupted like a sudden summer storm and before she realized it, she’d marched into the bar, grabbed Belinda by the hair on her head, and jerked her toward the back of the bar.
They made it to the kitchen before someone grabbed Cody from behind and she released Belinda to jerk free and whirl around. The man behind her started to raise his fist, but never finished the motion. Her prep chef, Randy, cold-cocked the man with a pot to the back of the head.
Belinda started screaming bloody murder and came at Cody, hands outstretched like claws. Cody couldn’t understand the incoherent babble coming out of Belinda’s mouth, but she understood perfectly Belinda’s intent. To draw blood.
Cody sidestepped as Belinda rushed her. Belinda’s reflexes were hampered by alcohol and she ended up slamming into a counter After some grunting and fumbling around for support, she got herself steady and turned.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she screamed at Cody. “You’re supposed to be my friend and all you’ve done since I’ve been here is give me shit.”
“What?” Cody couldn’t believe it. “Don’t you go throwing that crap at me, Belinda Mae. You’re the one who left your child in a truck and then stayed out all night with god-knows who not even caring where your baby was.”
“Oh you did not just say that!” Belinda rushed at Cody.
Normally Cody would have avoided a full on fight, but tonight she was mad enough to welcome it. So when Belinda came at her, Cody drew back and let her have it. Blood flew as Cody’s fist met Belinda’s nose. Belinda’s head snapped backwards and after a second her body followed, lifting up and flailing back before she fell.
By that time there was a crowd watching. Hannah was trying to shoo everyone back into the bar. Cody looked around, released a shit and turned to walk outside. She called Riggs on the phone. “We have a problem.”
“Do you need me?”
“No.” She quickly told him what had happened. “I need to get Belinda back to my house and I don’t want Bernice in the truck with her.”
“I’ll take Bernice to your house.”
“No. I can’t let—”
“Consider it done.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, thanks.” She ended the call and then returned to the bar. Her staff had Belinda off the floor, sitting at the employee table in the kitchen with a ziplock bag of ice on her nose.
“Come on,” Cody said to Belinda. “I’m taking you home.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I should have you arrested.”
“Yeah? Well, why don’t you call the police now? In fact, I’ll do it for you if you want. Let’s tell them how you abandoned your child—left her drugged in a hot truck so you could drink and fuck the night away? Let’s tell them how you disappeared when I took your child from that truck to make sure she was okay. And oh, let’s tell them how you dropped off the damn map and wouldn’t answer your phone and no one knew where you were until you showed up here—with another man, all busy getting plastered. Let’s tell the police all that and see what they think.”
“You’re such a bitch, Cody.”
“Right back at’cha, girl. Now get off your ass and let’s go.”
Belinda grunted, but got up and accompanied Cody outside to the truck. Not a word was spoken between the two of them until they cleared the city limits. Then Belinda lowered the ice from her nose and looked at Cody.
“I know you think I’m a bad mother, and maybe I am. I just…” She started crying and for a few minutes, that was the only sound in the truck. Finally, she dried up. “Remember I told you I came here to see you?”
“Yeah, but you never explained that.”
“I want you to be Bernice’s godmother. Legal guardian…if something happens to me.”
“What?” That was the last thing Cody expected to hear from Belinda’s mouth. “Why?”
“I…” Belinda turned her head and looked out of the side window. “I’m dying.”
Cody literally jolted. Something hot and nausea inducing ran through her. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. If I don’t get a kidney replacement inside of thirty days I’ll be dead.”
“But…are you on a transplant list?”
“Of course I am.”
“And?”
“And there’s no guarantee. That’s why I’m here. I have to know Bernice is going to be taken care of if… Well, you know.”
“Why not your parents? Or Bernice’s father?”
“My parents don’t want anything to do with me or her. They wrote me off when they found out I was pregnant and not married.”
“Then what about Bernice’s father?”
Belinda cut a quick look at Cody. “He doesn’t want either of us.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he didn’t believe me when I told him Bernice was his.”
“I… I don’t understand. Where is he? Where did you meet him?”
Belinda pulled a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and lit one. Normally, Cody would have pitched a fit, but this time she just grimaced and rolled down the window, asking nicely. “How about rolling down that window.”
“Oh, sorry.” Belinda complied.
“So?” Cody prompted her.
“So, I don’t even know where he is.”
“Well, let’s start with where he was.”
“Last I heard, still in South Dakota.”
“South Dakota? That’s a long way from Cotton Creek. What were you doing there?”
“I was dating this guy in Colorado. Benny. He worked in oil—not a big wig, but he worked steadily. He finished his gig in Colorado and headed up to the Dakotas to work for Quinlan Oil. You ever hear of them?”
“I might have.”
“Well, they’re big and I mean rich as a damn sheik. Anyway, once we got there, I got a job at a bar and that’s where I met him.” She took a long drag on the smoke, then tossed it out of the window. “God almighty, he was fine. Not like any man I’d ever been with. He was sexy, smart, sophisticated and…and I felt like Cinderella when he asked me out.”
“So you fell for him?” Cody asked. “And what happened to Benny?”
Belinda shrugged. “I blew him off.”
“So this new guy, what happened with him?”
“It was… God, it was so exciting.” Belinda leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment. “I was in love and I thought he was too. We were going along fine—at least I thought we were—for nearly three months and then he just stopped coming around. At first I thought maybe it was his family. They’re such hotshots—maybe they thought he was too good for someone who worked as a waitress. I decided to give him a couple of weeks. He’d come back.”
She opened her eyes but looked out of the window as she continued. “Then I realized I was pregnant. Nine weeks. I went to see him at his office. I almost thought his secretary wasn’t going to let me in and she might not have if I hadn’t raised hell. But anyway, she let me in and I told him.”
Cody wondered if it was shame that kept Belinda from looking at her as she talked. “So what happened?” Cody asked. “When you told him?”
“He called me a whore and said he wasn’t the father and for me to get the hell out.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. I mean I might have been with a couple of guys—just when he was gone and I was all alone, you know. But I know he’s the father. I hung around until Bernice was born and even took her to see him, but he acted like I was a pile of shit he’d stepped in.” Belinda lit another smoke as she talked. “I told him I was going to find a lawyer and make him take a paternity test. The next morning there was a knock on my door and a man gave me a travel case, you know the kind you carry on with you on a plane? It was full of hundred dollar bills. He said it was mine if I signed a letter saying I’d leave and never contact him again or claim he was Bernice’s father.”
“I’m guessing you took the money and the deal?”
“Hell yeah, I took it. There was over two hundred thousand dollars in that suitcase. It’s how Bernice and I survived. Well, for the first couple of years. Then it ran out. I tried to call her father and he threatened me so I went to my parents. They didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I found jobs and we managed to survive and there were men along the way who helped. Then my luck ran out and here I am.”
“You mean you found out about being sick?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what I meant.”
Cody was thrown for a loop. She felt bad about hitting Belinda but agreeing to be Bernice’s godmother and knowing there was a good chance Belinda was going to die—well, that was a big thing and one she didn’t know if she could do.
“So, are you going to do it?” Belinda asked.
Cody looked over at her. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I have to think about it.”
“Cody, you have to. Bernice, she doesn’t have anyone else. If I die and she doesn’t have a guardian she’ll end up in an orphanage. I can’t die knowing my baby won’t be loved.”
Belinda put her hands over her face and sobbed. Cody wanted to feel sympathy for Belinda. She really did. But where had all this motherly concern for Bernice been before? When she’d been hungry or homeless or drugged and left in some stranger’s truck?
God, what a mess. What was she supposed to do?
No answers appeared and there was no more conversation on the remainder of the drive. As she drove up the driveway to her house, she saw Riggs sitting in the porch swing, holding Bernice, gently rocking back and forth. Bernice was sound asleep.
It was the visual personification of the wish she’d never had the guts to pray for. A man she loved so much it was painful, cradling a child in his arms. God help her, that was what she wanted. Someone she loved beyond reason, who loved her and who would have a family with her.
She slowed even more and glanced over at Belinda. “I’ll agree under one condition.”
“What?”
“That you tell me who Bernice’s father is and we find him and tell him the truth. He deserves to know.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, so what’s his name?”
“Cooper. Cooper Quinlan.”
Cody felt nausea bubble up her throat and she had to force it back down. “Cooper Quinlan?”
“Yeah. His old man owns Quinlan Oil.”
Cooper Quinlan? Damn, it hadn’t been that long ago that Cooper’s ex-fiance showed up claiming to be pregnant with his child. Was this another of those situations? Was this the kind of thing that happened to wealthy men?
Cody didn’t have a clue, but she did know the right thing to do in the situation. “Okay, so we’ll get in touch with him and tell him about Bernice and if he doesn’t want her, then we’ll go see an attorney friend of mine.”
“Thank you.” Belinda reached over to take Cody’s hand. “Thank you.”
Cody could only nod and look once more at Riggs sitting there on the porch holding Bernice. She no longer saw the dream. Not that it had suddenly died. She just realized that she wasn’t the one who should be Bernice’s guardian. If Cooper was really her father, then he needed to acknowledge it.
More importantly, Hannah needed to know.
Chapter Seven
“That lying bitch.”
“Whoa!” Cody held up both hands as Hannah’s fists went to her hips.
“I mean it! How dare she show up here telling lies about Cooper that way!”
“Well, she doesn’t even know he’s living here. She just said that he’s Bernice’s father.”
“He’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. Cooper would never sleep with someone like her.”
“Someone like her? You mean tall, sexy and brunette?”
Hannah flopped down onto the couch. “You know what I mean. She’s…cheap. Common. You know.”
“No, I don’t. And you don�
��t know that he’s not the father.”
“He’s not. He can’t be.” Hannah seemed to deflate. She grabbed a decorative pillow off the couch and hugged it. “He just can’t be.”
Cody heard the fear and understood. If Cooper was Bernice’s father and something happened to Belinda, then they’d be getting married with a child to take care of and that wasn’t the way Hannah had imagined her life with Cooper starting out.
When Cooper’s ex-fiance had shown up claiming to be pregnant, it had really hurt Hannah. Hannah didn’t want to think Cooper could be the kind of man who would get a woman pregnant and then abandon her.
She’d been so relieved to discover that the ex-fiance had simply lied. Cody knew what Hannah was thinking. Here we go again.”
Now another woman was claiming he was the father of her child. She feared it was going to devastate Hannah.
“Well maybe he isn’t,” Cody tried to ease Hannah’s mind. “That’s why he and Bernice need to have DNA tests done. That’ll prove without a doubt whether he’s the father.”
“I think you should at least ask him if he knows Belinda before you start demanding a DNA test,” Hannah argued. “She could be lying. She probably is. And you know, I bet she isn’t even sick. I mean, if she’s in need of kidney transplant then would she be walking around? The way I understand it, once your kidneys shut down you’re on the downhill slide and she doesn’t seem too damn feeble.”
“Hannah, I don’t know if or how sick she really is. She’s borrowing my truck in the morning because she has an appointment with a nephrologist in Rock Ridge. I doubt she’d be doing that if she wasn’t sick.”
“Whatever.” Hannah put the pillow to her face and screamed into it, then lowered it. “So, are you going to tell Cooper?”
“Someone has to do. Do you want to tell him?”
“No!”
“Okay, fine. I’ll do it.”
“When?”
Cody thought about it for a second and then got to her feet. “Well, I guess now’s a good a time as any. Is he at his office this morning?”
“As far as I know.”
“Okay, I’ll head over there. What are you up to this morning?”
