To Keep Her Baby

by Melissa Senate

  She let out a breath and sucked one in, accepting how things were. Sometimes you just had to do that. No planning her own luck here, folks.

  “Exactly,” he said. “So let’s keep things strictly professional from here on. For both our sakes.”

  “Like you can keep your hands off me,” she joked, trying to lighten the mood. But she felt anything but lighthearted. Her chest felt tight, her eyes were scratchy, and the feeling reverberating in the region of her heart was called sadness. She was in love with James Gallagher and she couldn’t have him.

  “Waaah!”

  They both looked to the monitor.

  “Duty calls again,” he said.

  Exactly what he didn’t want. Duty to a baby, to a family. She had to accept it. Maybe if she repeated it enough it would get though her thick head. All that hairspray she’d always used must have clogged things up in there because the truth wasn’t getting through.

  By the end of the night, there’d been no more kissing, no more touching. The Maselos came home and rushed up to see their baby. Ginger was so touched by how they’d flown up the stairs, unable to wait a second more than they had to see their little girl, to hold her.

  And then there was James, backing away from the crib, probably dying to get out of here already.

  No, this night had not gone the way she’d planned or hoped.

  Chapter Ten

  At almost two in the morning, James paced the living room of his family home, unable to sleep, unable to even go up to his room when Josie wasn’t home. And he’d been pacing for hours now. At first, thinking about Ginger and what had happened earlier while they’d been babysitting had occupied his mind, to the point that he hadn’t even realized Josie wasn’t home.

  Not that he made a point of checking on his sisters; they were adults after all. Of legal drinking age. But Josie’s room was before his, and he’d been unable to help noticing that she wasn’t in bed. She’d also ignored his texts—three of them.

  So he paced.

  Finally, at just after two, he heard a key in the lock and the door creaking open as if the person wanted to be extra quiet. He stood under the arched doorway into the foyer, arms crossed as usual these days, feeling the scowl pulling his face down. Josie was dressed like the old Ginger, in a tiny skirt, high-necked billowy black tank top and crazy platform heels, her pretty blue eyes ringed with black eyeliner. Artsy, he supposed.

  “Little late, don’t you think?” he asked, hoping the tattoo of three small musical notes on her shoulder were temporary fakes. They hadn’t been there yesterday.

  Josie jumped. “Jesus! You scared me half to death.” She frowned. “And why are waiting up for me anyway?”

  “Maybe if you answered your texts, I wouldn’t have worried.”

  “Maybe I shut off my phone because I was performing at the café after my shift,” she said. She gave him an eye roll and huffed past him, then whirled around. “Why even bother going on your world tour, James? Are you going to check in on us every day? How will you survive a day without knowing if we’re safe?” Her voice, full of venom, had softened with that last word, and her face crumpled.

  The family’s safety was everything to all of them, Josie included. “You’re driving me insane,” she continued. “I’m a grown woman. Sorry if you don’t like my choices. But they’re mine to make.”

  He let out a breath and looked down, the fight whooshing out of him. He was striking out with everyone he cared about today. She was right. But still.

  “Did Ginger walk out on you at the Cowabunga because of me?” she asked.

  “No. She left the café because of me. She thinks I should listen to you more, demand less.”

  She smiled. “I knew I liked her. You should listen to her. And me.”

  “I just want you to be okay,” he said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat, hating when he got emotional in front of his siblings. He was supposed to be the strong one, the protector, and here he was, an open wound.

  “I know,” she said. “But have a little faith in how you’ve raised us the past seven years.”

  He was struck speechless. That had actually never occurred to him. And to hear her say it filled up his cup to overflowing.

  “I guess I should,” he said. “You know I love you like crazy, right?”

  She flew into his arms and hugged him, and the weight of the world dropped off his shoulders. “I know. And ditto. But you have to accept that I’m my own person, with my own mind. I’m not always going to approach life the James Gallagher way.”

  “I do think you’re making a mistake, Jo. Sorry. I’ll accept it’s yours to make though.”

  She let out a grunt of utter frustration and threw her hands up. “You’re impossible!” she said before flying up the stairs.

  He sighed. All that good will they’d just created between them gone in an instant.

  He dropped onto the couch. He did have faith in how he’d raised his siblings the past seven years—a job made easy because of the foundation their parents had already built. But he also hadn’t sacrificed so much so that Josie could end up a tawdry lounge singer in a too-short skirt, singing for tips.

  Still, Josie was right about a couple things. One of them being that he couldn’t try to run her life—and certainly not from abroad. The point of his trip was to abdicate all responsibility. So why was he heaping it on his own shoulders when it wasn’t wanted or appreciated or even necessary?

  He thought of Ginger, working so hard to be who she wanted, who she thought she had to be. She was great just as she was.

  Why was everything so damned complicated and crazy all of a sudden?

  His cell phone buzzed on the coffee table, and he snatched it up. Who could be calling at 2:17 in the morning?

  Ginger.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Something,” she said, her voice small and broken. “I’m at the Wedlock Creek Clinic. James, I’m so scared.”

  No, no, no. “I’m on my way. Stay on the phone with me. I’m on my way.” Panic clawed at his gut. She had to be all right. The baby had to be all right.

  “I have to go, James. I’m being called.”

  Click.

  Oh God. Please let everything be okay, he sent heavenward and rushed out of the house.

  * * *

  When the pains had started an hour ago, Ginger kept thinking about one thing. One awful thing. That no one else on this earth cared about her baby. She was truly alone. James was her good friend—yes. Regardless of the push-pull, the kissing and the this can’t happen again, he was true-blue. But he wasn’t her baby’s father and wasn’t going to be.

  I have to find Bluebell a good dad. Someone like James. This crazy crush—which was so much more than that—ends now.

  Her resolution got her through the stabbing in her heart as the pains in her belly intensified. She’d thought about waking Madame Davenport or Sandrine or Karly, but some stubborn fixation on her new mission to find her baby’s father kept her from reaching out to anyone.

  Until she found herself in the emergency area of the town clinic, alone on a cot, waiting for the doctor to arrive. She’d needed her best friend, and James was her best friend. So she’d finally called him.

  Not five minutes later, he came rushing through the curtain separating her “room” from the rest of the ER.

  “What’s going on? What did the doctor say? The baby is okay?”

  Her relief at seeing him surprised even her. She was still scared, but at least he was here. “I haven’t seen a doctor yet. A nurse who took my vitals said everything was fine on that end.” She let out a series of fast breaths to ward off the pains.

  He reached for her hand and held it. “How bad is the pain?”

  “Every few seconds it lets up and then, whammo, stab city again.”

  A wo
man in a white lab coat and silver-rimmed glasses came in and introduced herself as Dr. Berring. James hit her with a barrage of questions, but with a gentle smile she directed him to a chair and said she’d have to examine Ginger first.

  Fifteen minutes later, after an ultrasound and blood tests, Dr. Berring diagnosed her with either a case of anxiety, gas or something-she-ate-itis.

  James bolted up. “Are you sure? She’s okay? The baby is okay?”

  “Your baby appears perfectly fine and healthy and developing on schedule,” the doctor said.

  James paled a bit, then let out a heavy breath of relief and dropped into the chair.

  He cared so much about her and the baby that he didn’t even have the energy to correct the doctor.

  After signing her release forms and cautioning her to rest and take it easy for the next twenty-four hours, the doctor left, and James moved over to the side of her bed. Ginger sat up, preparing to swing her legs over and get out of the cotton hospital gown.

  “I’ll wait just outside the curtain so you can change, then I’ll drive you home.”

  “No need,” she said. “For the ride, I mean. I have my car.”

  His eyes practically popped. “You drove here yourself? Doubled over in pain? In the middle of the night?”

  “I managed. I’ll have to, right? I’m on my own, James.”

  “Yeah, but you have people who care about you. Obviously,” he added, stabbing his thumb backward at himself. “Larilla would have driven you. Or one of your classmates.”

  “I know. But I also know that I’m alone. It’s me and the baby. There’s no one else, no one who’s going to run to rescue me every time something goes wrong. I need to stand on my own two feet.”

  “Ginger, what do you think friends are for?”

  She turned away as tears stung the backs of her eyes. “Are we friends, James? Is that what we are?”

  What was she even saying? she wondered. A few minutes ago, she’d thought of him as her best friend. He was. But he also wasn’t. Because she was in love with him. And that threw everything off between them.

  He stared at her—hard—his expression full of discomfort.

  “I knew I loved this baby, wanted this baby,” she said, her hand on her belly. “But until those pains started and I thought something might be wrong, that I might lose Bluebell—whoa. I had no idea how much I love and want this baby. No flipping idea, James. And now I also know that I really have to commit to finding a good father for him or her. That’s the whole point, right? Everything I’m doing is for the baby.”

  He was quiet but seemed consumed by thought. He gave something of a nod and then said, “I’ll let you get changed.” He rushed through the divide in the curtain as quickly as he’d come in, this time not able to get away fast enough.

  “Where’s Ginger?” a voice called. A female voice. Was that his sister Josie?

  “She’s in there,” she heard James say. “She and the baby are fine.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Josie said. “Ginger? Can I come in?”

  Surprised, Ginger sat back down on the bed. “Sure.”

  “Uh, I’m gonna go grab a cup of coffee,” James said from the other side of the curtain. “Can I get either of you anything?”

  “No, but thanks,” they both said.

  Josie, looking a lot like Ginger used to look, crazy platform high-heeled shoes in her hand, came in and gave Ginger a quick hug. “I’d just gotten home and gone upstairs to get ready for bed when I heard James on the phone. He left so fast I couldn’t tell him to wait for me, so I followed him. I’m so relieved to hear you’re okay.”

  Ginger reached for Josie’s hand. “Thank you. It means a lot that you came.” Ginger was really surprised. She would have expected Josie to just go to sleep and wait for her brother to come home with news. But instead, she’d been concerned and raced to the clinic in the middle of the night.

  “Not that I’m surprised James left so fast. He was seriously speeding. He’s lucky he didn’t get pulled over.”

  “Or in an accident,” Ginger said. “He sure was worried about me. The guy really cares about people, doesn’t he?” she added, shaking her head with a smile. “He’s a good guy to have in your corner.”

  “Sometimes there’s too much James in your corner,” Josie mumbled, but Ginger heard her loud and clear. “My corner.”

  “He adores you, Josie. I do wish he’d truly listen to your point of view though.”

  Josie sighed. “Well, I’m going to push back. I hate having to do it though. I mean, James really sacrificed for me—and my siblings. He gave up so much it’s crazy. He’d lost his girlfriend at the time—who he’d been totally in love with.”

  Heart. Stab. Turn of the knife.

  She forgave Josie for that, since the young woman was so young and really going through some heavy growing pains right now. She was trying to be her own woman while being given a really hard time by her brick wall of a brother. Sometimes standing up for what you believed in the face of an adversary made you only more resolute, more sure, since you had to defend yourself. Sometimes people gave in. She admired Josie’s strength.

  “And everything he did for me alone—I could write a book,” Josie continued. “When I was in high school, junior year, this pack of girls started being really nasty to me, starting rumors about my sexual preferences, that kind of thing. James marched into the principal’s office the first time I mentioned I was having trouble. And he went every day until the girls were dealt with. He threatened to bring the media with him, and suddenly, no one wrote things on my locker anymore or whispered crap at me in the halls.”

  “Wow. That ‘too much’ you were talking about comes in handy sometimes.”

  “Yeah. It does,” Josie said. “Which is why I feel so bad now about how things are between us. And what I just told you? That’s just one thing, one-quarter of a year. When I think of everything else, and with my brothers and sisters added in too, I don’t know how he did it. He deserves the world. He really does.”

  Ginger froze. How many times had she thought that same thing—he deserved the world, glad he was going to get it on his global summer trip. But here she’d been, hoping to get him to change his mind, his views of parenthood. She’d spent an entire evening trying to make him see that playing house with their little charge, Gia, would be wonderful. Instead, it had been...realistic. And she’d had the nerve to feel down in the dumps that her big plans for that night hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped.

  How flipping selfish could she be? Did she care about this guy? Or did she care only about what she wanted?

  That was it.

  She was letting him go. No more flirting, no more kissing, no more hoping.

  Because if she really loved him, how could she keep trying to make him want something he so clearly didn’t? How could she even try to deny James the chance to finally leave town, to see the world, to live responsibility-free for the summer?

  She’d been so focused on herself and her needs that she really hadn’t thought about him at all. And that was wrong. A good person, the person she wanted to be, wouldn’t be trying to make him think playing house was what he really wanted when it wasn’t. When he’d told her, in ways that had made her ache for him and all he’d been through with his siblings, exactly why he wasn’t ready or interested in fatherhood.

  And being a good person was why she’d come to town. Because being a good mother was all she cared about.

  A light bulb pinged on above her head. Holy cannoli, she thought.

  Being a good mother. It was never about how she looked. It was never about attracting a certain kind of man.

  How could she have possibly missed such a simple truth?

  Being a good mother was about being a good mother—not looking like a good mother. Being a good mother was about love, commitment, devotion, care, prot
ection, values and showing up, every minute of every day.

  Everyone learned in preschool that what was on the inside was what truly mattered—not the outside. Ginger had thought she’d understood that, that transforming on the outside was only a means to an end: looking the part to be safe from Alden, to find the right guy to be her baby’s father. But honestly, did she want someone who’d judge the old her? Who’d make assumptions about her based on how skimpily she dressed? Because she’d flashed her cleavage all over the place? That made her a lowlife?

  Alden, in his expensive suit, was the lowlife.

  She shook her head, finally getting it.

  And she knew exactly what she had to do in order to set James free. Time to call in the old Ginger.

  Chapter Eleven

  James insisted that Ginger take the next couple of days off from work. After getting her to promise she’d do nothing but lie in bed and read magazines and her baby books, including not attending class at the school, he felt a little better. She’d been pushing hard, and between all the internal pressure and starting a new job that had turned into something bigger, and all the stuff going on between them, she’d clearly had some kind of anxiety attack. He thought anyway. Amelia and Merry had reported that she’d been resting, and that Larilla had informed Ginger that she’d conducted herself with a little too much poise during her scare; if there were a next time, Larilla had said, Ginger was to scream at the top of her lungs for help.

  Today she was due in for a half day at James Gallagher Solutions, and to be honest, he couldn’t wait to see her. He’d missed everything about her.

  He heard the front door open and close and the click of heels on the wood floor. And he was well aware of his heart rate speeding up, his excitement at seeing her. But when he casually strolled out, he almost didn’t recognize her.

  She wore one of her old favorite outfits. A barely there leopard-print miniskirt in some stretchy material. High-heeled sandals. The babe tank top showing a lot of skin and cleavage. Lots of face makeup and eyelashes so long they almost reached her eyebrows. And very red lips.