Soon the men had baby-proofed her house and every drawer, cupboard, outlet, and doorway was locked down. Her house looked like some kind of plastic obstacle course, but Laura was glad that she wouldn't have to worry about Annie's safety when she began to crawl.
Sam and Michael said their goodbyes and wished her well when the baby-proofing was done and left her and Daniel alone for a while.
“They seem like nice guys,” Laura said as way of starting the conversation.
“We've been good friends since training,” he told her. “I knew they'd do anything to help me. We all helped Sam when Helen got pregnant with the twins and then again when Michael's son was born. It's what friends do.”
“Sophie is the same,” Laura smiled. “I don't know how I'd have done this without her.”
“I'm grateful for her, too,” Daniel told her. “I owe that girl a huge thank you for looking out for you while I was gone.”
A faint cry from upstairs caused Laura to rush to her bedroom to take Annie from her crib. That familiar look of wonder settled over Daniel's face when he first saw his baby girl appear around the corner once more.
“I can't get over how beautiful she is,” he said.
“Do you want to try feeding her?” Laura asked.
Daniel brightened and grinned. “I'd love that!”
Laura handed Annie to him once more and had to show him how to hold her in a cradle position now that he was feeding her. She prepared the bottle for him and handed it to him so that he could feed her. The expression on his face as he held the bottle for his daughter was of a man completely mesmerized. No matter what Sophie said about this man and his intentions, there was no way that he could fake that look of wonder.
“Was it ever part of your plan to have kids?” Laura asked him softly.
He looked up at her and smiled warmly. “Someday, definitely,” he told her. “I always thought of myself having a little boy to play sports with. I pictured him wearing my helmet around the house and playing with a little toy fire engine, wanting to grow up to be a fireman, just like his dad.” Laura smiled as he spoke and Daniel smiled back. “But I think I'm going to love having a daughter,” he said sentimentally. “Do you think she'd play with a fire engine?”
Laura laughed. “I think we could get her interested in one of those,” she said. “We can raise her to be a little feminist who wants to fight fires. Although I picture her as a doctor.”
“I wouldn't mind if she became a doctor,” he agreed. “I bet she's going to be smart. Don't you think?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Daniel finished feeding Annie and when she was soundly sleeping once more he followed Laura to the bedroom and laid the baby down on her blankets.
“Wow, she has a lot of stuffed animals, doesn't she?” he said, his eyes widening at the vast array of teddy bears arranged at Annie's feet.
“That would be Sophie,” Laura said.
Daniel told her to wait a moment and he ran to his car. He returned with several bags full of things for the baby and from one of them he pulled a little soft pink rabbit with floppy ears.
“I wanted her to have something from me,” he told Laura. “Although she has a lot of animals to choose from...”
“This will be her favorite one,” Laura predicted, taking the little pink rabbit from him and laying it down next to Annie. “It's her first gift from Daddy.”
“It sounds so strange when you say it,” Daniel laughed. “ ‘Daddy.’ I thought it would be a while before anyone called me that.”
“Yes, she took me by surprise too,” Laura laughed. “Being a mother was a long way off in the plan.”
“I screwed up your plan?” Daniel said guiltily.
Laura shook her head. “No,” she said sincerely. “This little angel is my world. She's the new plan.”
“I bought some things for her,” Daniel said, gesturing to all the bags he'd brought in from the car. “I wanted to make sure she had everything. There's formula and diapers and some clothes for when she grows. Sam got her these tiny little shoes. They are so cute. We'll have to set up a play date with his twins. I want to make sure my girl has friends looking out for her.”
Laura smiled. Daniel's talk of play dates and fire engines made a feeling of incredible happiness swell up inside her. This was the future she'd dreamed of for herself and her daughter. Even though Laura had had her moments of letting her thoughts wander to Daniel and craving a man's presence, she didn't realize how alone she'd felt as a single parent until the father of her child had suddenly appeared again.
“I'm glad you're back,” she said meaningfully.
“I won't leave you again,” Daniel promised.
He meant it, too. Thoughts were churning in the fireman's mind as he got in his car to drive to his parent's house. This last twenty-four hours had been something of a whirlwind and he still felt like the earth was spinning a little too quickly. The only thing that had been able to bring it to a standstill was looking at his perfect little girl. She was beautiful. Even the thought of her brought a smile to his face. It didn't matter that he hadn't expected to be a father and that Annie wasn't planned, because when she took hold of his finger with her tiny little hands, something in him made him instinctively want to protect her and love her forever.
Then there was Laura. Wow, Laura. He had never expected to ever see her again, let alone find out that he had fathered a child with her. He'd thought of their one night of passion a million times over the last year and every time she came to mind he had felt a heated and strange feeling of longing for her. Nobody had ever made him feel as alive as she had and he'd been seeking that feeling of electricity and complete connection ever since.
The thought made him feel guilty once more, and not because he'd left Laura alone, but because he felt a spark with her that was lacking with his current girlfriend. He and Stacy and been on and off now for several years. There had been times when Daniel had thought he'd loved her and times when the feeling was much closer to contempt.
Stacy was a beautiful woman, but mean-spirited and demanding. When he'd first met her, Daniel had been attracted to her confidence and ability to command a room, but the attraction had soon faded when he realized that what seemed like confidence on first impression was actually a control freak under the veneer of self-assurance.
Daniel wasn't sure what had kept him coming back to her over the years. Part of it was habit, he knew, and another part was the feeling of duty he had towards her because they'd been together for so long. Not that it had been a smooth ride. Stacy was possessive of him and she was definitely high maintenance.
There had been a time when he was younger, when he'd found her jealousy flattering and he had enjoyed the way he could command her attention, but as time passed, and the arguments had become more frequent and had needed less and less fuel to ignite, he began to realize that she was simply insane. Every time he so much as looked in the direction of another woman she would be on his back; weeping and crying about how he didn't love her.
The fact was that the only reason he was still with her, despite all the arguing and suspicion, was because he was too soft-hearted to break up with her. Every time he tried she would scream and cry and he would lose his resolve. Of course, there were moments when he saw flickers of a girl he had used to admire in Stacy, when she was in a good mood or when she did something romantic off the cuff. Then he told himself that he still loved her, even though the times when her voice gave him a headache far outweighed the times he found comfort in her arms.
Then of course there was his mother, too. She was desperate for him to find a nice girl and settle down because a man of his age should have a wife and a family... In fact, it was his mother that he wanted to see first. She had told him a thousand times that she wanted grandchildren, but Daniel didn't know how she would feel that Stacy would not be the mother of her grandchildren, and that her son had gotten a stranger pregnant.
He pulled up at his parent's house, walk
ed up the driveway and knocked on the door. His mother answered, with her grey hair in rollers and her feet in worn-out slippers, but her face broke into a huge, loving smile when she saw him at the door.
“Daniel!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here, son?”
“Can I come in, Mom?” he asked her. “I have some news.”
“Of course!” his mother said, stepping back to let her son in and shuffling away in her slippers towards the kitchen to make some tea. “Your father's in the living room watching some awful history program. He's become obsessed with that digging science, with the bones and the coins and the... What's it called? Archaeology. That's the one.
Now I can't think of anything more dull myself. Heaven knows why he's so interested in it all of a sudden. Maybe because he's a fossil himself!” The old woman hooted with laughter at her own joke and continued her monologue as she heated water for her tea. Daniel had learned that it was always best to let his mother run out of steam first if he wanted to get a word in edgeways.
“We watched this program the other day which lasted an hour. An hour, can you believe it? And at the end all they found was this little old broken pot and they were all amazed at it and I said to your father, I said, ‘Why are they so excited about this pot?’ Well apparently the pot meant that so-and-so had lived there at some time or another. I don't know. I stopped listening after the first thirty minutes of them ooh-ing and ah-ing over every scrap of dirt. You know, at our age, we don't have time enough to waste an hour watching people dig, but that's not why you came here. You have news you said? Another promotion? What comes after captain? Chief?”
Daniel listened to her say all of this without her pausing for breath and then jumped in’ as she took a moment to inhale.
“No, it has nothing to do with work Mom,” he told her. “It's something else. You might want to sit down.”
His mother finished making the tea, handed him his cup and shuffled in her slippers to the living room where Daniel's father was sitting in his old robe, watching the History Channel. She sat down pointedly and looked up at him expectantly, waiting for her news.
“Well?” she prompted. “Quick, while the commercials are on!”
Daniel sat down and tried to find a way to begin, but there was no easy way to say it.
“I have a baby,” he announced.
His mother laughed. “Wonderful joke, darling,” she said. “I saw Stacy last week. There's no way that girl is pregnant. A stick she is. An absolute stick. The last time I saw her, I offered her a piece of cake and she looked like I'd kicked a puppy. I don't trust girls who don't eat.”
“Well, it's not Stacy's baby,” Daniel told them. That piqued his father's interest. He had always been a surprising gossip for a man and the old man turned off the television and turned in his armchair to listen to his son.
“Well if it's not Stacy's baby, whose baby is it?” his mother asked him impatiently.
“Her name is Laura,” Daniel said. “Stacy and I were broken up at that time.”
“You're always taking breaks with that girl,” his mother interrupted. “Because she's difficult. That's why. I always said that—”
“Shut up, Annie!” Daniel's father cut her off. “The boy's trying to tell us he's got some girl pregnant and you're blathering on about cake and about how you don't like Stacy. Quiet for a second! Daniel, are you telling us we have a grandchild?”
“I'm trying to,” Daniel replied exasperatedly. “The mother's name is Laura. Stacy and I were broken up and I met this woman who lived near a fire I was putting out. We hit it off and she invited me for dinner and one thing led to another... Anyway, we only spent one night together and then I headed to Colorado. You know, I just got back last week. Anyway, I was sitting a café with some buddies the other day and who should walk in, but Laura with a stroller! We go for a walk and she tells me that I have a three-month-old daughter.”
For once, his mother fell silent and Daniel felt a sudden nervousness that he had disappointed her and that her remarkable talent for speaking without needing to breathe would allow her to give him a stern lecture for getting a strange girl pregnant. Annie was quiet for some ten seconds or so and then let out one long, high-pitched squeal of delight like a teapot that had reached boiling point.
“Did you hear that, Roger?” she exclaimed. “We have a grandchild! A grandchild! I need to call Susan! I need to call Lucy! I'm going to call the paper and get one of those little announcements put in with a photo like Gloria did when her great niece was born. Son, I'm going to need her name and date of birth. Heaven above, her name! I don't even know her name!”
“It's Annie, Mom,” Daniel told her.
There was another long pause and then another teapot shriek of ecstatic joy. His mother, who was usually so frail and arthritic, leaped to her feet and began to dance around the living room.
“After me?” she gasped. “Did you hear that Roger? They named her after me!”
Annie crossed the room to plant two big kisses on her son's cheeks and then ran to pick up the telephone, handset, deliberating over who to call first.
“When do I get to meet the mother?” she asked him excitedly. “Laura is it? When will I meet her? We have so much to talk about. Has she thought about preschool yet? Gloria knows all the best preschools. We'll have lunch. And does Laura know about infantile colic? You suffered from that, you know, and so did your sister. It wouldn't surprise me if your daughter was just the same, but I have just the thing for it.”
Daniel's panic melted away and he grinned to see his mother so happy. Even his father was sitting with the happy, proud smile of a new grandfather on his face and Daniel felt some of the pressure dissipate, as he realized that his parents were simply happy to have a grandchild at last.
“I'll call Laura tonight,” he promised. “She can come for dinner tomorrow.”
Laura was surprised when she received Daniel's call, but excited too. Even though he'd said that he was going to tell his parents about her, she supposed she'd doubted it slightly. Even now that he felt afraid that they would think she was some irresponsible floozy. Still, if she wanted Daniel to be a part of Annie's life, then she supposed that she would have to welcome his parents too. Annie would be a lucky little girl to have two sets of grandparents who loved her dearly.
The Final Chapter
So the following evening, Laura got her daughter ready in a sweet little pink dress, tucked her pink bunny beside her in the stroller and waited for Daniel to pick her up.
“Nervous?” he asked her, as he carefully strapped his daughter into the new car seat he had bought just for her and opened the door for Laura.
“Yes,” Laura confessed. “What did you tell them about me?”
“The truth,” Daniel told her.
“That some woman, who was a stranger to you, enticed you into her bedroom for a night of wild, unprotected sex?” she asked.
Daniel shook his head. “No,” he reassured her. “I told them that a bright, intelligent, young woman invited me for dinner one night and that even after I got her pregnant and left her alone for months while I was away, she still took care of my child and was nothing but gracious and forgiving when I returned.”
“I guess that's a better way to phrase it,” Laura smiled.
The captain reached over and laid a comforting hand atop hers. “They're going to love you,” he promised her. “You could be a lice farmer and my mother wouldn't care so long as you brought her a grandchild.”
“Lice farmer?” Laura giggled. “Is that a thing?”
“I said the first thing that came into my head.”
“Lice farmer?”
Daniel laughed. “Are you teasing me?”
“When I'm not seducing firemen, I actually have a pretty good sense of humor,” she told him.
“When I'm not impregnating gift card store owners, so do I,” he grinned.
Laura smiled and looked back at Annie in her car seat. Her baby was wide-awake for o
nce and watching the world go by.
“I haven't heard her cry yet,” Daniel commented.
“It doesn't happen very often,” Laura told him. “Only when she's hungry or tired, just like her mother.”
“Bad Italian,” Daniel recalled. “Is that what our daughter will eat?”
“Actually, I've been taking cooking lessons I'll have you know,” Laura told him proudly. “I've learned how to poach an egg.”
“Impressive,” Daniel grinned.
Laura nudged him playfully and he laughed. She looked out the window then and wondered what she was doing. Ever since Daniel had returned, she had found herself flirting with him, except it wasn't a conscious effort this time, but something that just came so naturally between them.
Even though she was supposed to be playing it safe and keeping her guard up, the man just made her smile and since he'd returned he'd done everything in his power to do right by her and their daughter. He had not played any games, or said he'd needed time and even now he was driving her to meet his parents.
She had to admire how courageously he stepped into his duties. She recalled all too well how stunned she had been, looking at that line of positive pregnancy tests; how afraid and uncertain and upset because her plan had gone off track. She'd had nine months to grow used to the idea and prepare. Daniel had no such luxury. He had gone off a young, handsome bachelor and returned a father, and he hadn't shied away or run off.
Laura had to give him credit for taking responsibility and being so kind, even though she still felt she had to accept her share of the blame for Annie's conception. Daniel did not try to place any blame on her at all. He'd simply looked at his daughter and fell in love with her.
They arrived at Daniel's parent's house and Laura took her time unstrapping Annie from her car seat, and carrying her on her hip up the driveway.
“Don't look so afraid,” Daniel reassured her. “They don't bite.”
The captain rang the doorbell and Laura was a little overwhelmed by the whirlwind that opened the door. This Annie, Daniel's mother, was a lively chatterbox of a woman who wasted no time in scooping Annie up from Laura's arms and cooing over her excessively, making faces and playing peek-a-boo.
The Baby Shower Page 93
