Shotgun Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Wait a minute,” Con called. But he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say when she turned back to him, her eyebrows raised in irritation.

  “He’s normal, isn’t he?” he asked, suddenly scared to death that there might be something wrong with his son, something he couldn’t fix.

  “Does it make a difference to your wanting him?” Her voice was like an icicle dripping down his spine.

  Of course she’d believe the worst of him. “No.”

  “He’s perfectly normal, Mr. Randolph. And happy, too, for that matter. He’s been well cared for. And will continue to be well cared for if he’s adopted. I suggest you think long and hard before you decide to change the course of his young life. Even if you succeed in this foolishness, what could you possibly give him that would make up for his losing his rightful place in the bosom of a loving family?”

  Con never moved a muscle as she delivered her last verbal slap, then strode to her car, climbed in and sped away.

  Long minutes later he shut his front door, went into the living room and fell onto the couch.

  He had a son. My God, he had a son.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HE WAS STILL HALF LYING there, holding the telephone receiver in his hand and staring off into space when Robbie burst through his front door an hour later.

  “Hey, what’s with the beer here?” she called by way of greeting.

  When she didn’t get an answer, she picked up the bottle from the front-hall table, took a swig and choked. “Yuck! How long’s that been sitting there? I can’t get a cold beer tonight to save my soul.”

  It was then that she looked into the living room and noticed Con on the couch. His face was ashen, his gaze vacant. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked, her heart pounding in fright as she came in. “What happened?”

  “I have a son.” He didn’t even look at her.

  She stopped in her tracks, feeling the shock of his words all the way to her toes. She must have heard him wrong.

  “You have a son,” she repeated. This was some kind of cruel joke, just like the conversation she’d overheard at the station. It had to be.

  “Yeah.” His vacant gaze slid over her as he finally hung up the phone. “I have a son. Kinda hard to get used to, huh?”

  She stared at him, seeing the truth in his shell-shocked eyes. She’d always told herself this day would come. When she’d be faced with the final evidence of Con’s love for a woman who wasn’t her. But she’d expected to have survived the pain of his marriage first

  “Who’s his mother?”

  She prayed that Con wouldn’t notice the jealousy in her voice. He’d never had any idea how she felt about him. And she intended to keep it that way.

  He shrugged. “Cecily something or other.”

  “You don’t know?” Con’s flings were always premeditated. He was never careless, would never allow the possibility of repercussions.

  “It was that night at the Pink Lagoon.” He said the words so softly she barely caught them. And suddenly she understood.

  “I thought you said nothing happened.” She stood in the middle of the living room, her arms wrapped around herself.

  “I hoped nothing had. I can’t remember.”

  Her heart twisted inside out, her limbs as weak as her stomach had suddenly become. She was a tough woman. She could handle anything. So why was she falling apart at the seams?

  And why, if he was going to make love and not remember it, couldn’t it have been with her?

  “So that makes him what, five, six months old?” she asked, still unable to convince herself the child was real. She was the one who craved parenthood, not Con.

  “Six months tomorrow, the twentieth. He was born December twentieth.”

  She sank onto the opposite end of the couch before her legs gave out on her. Con even knew the birthdate.

  “So, are you going to see his mother?” She detested the woman, everything about her.

  Con glanced at Robbie. “I don’t know.”

  She couldn’t hold his gaze, couldn’t trust herself to hide the tumult of emotions raging inside her. She loved him. She hurt for him—and for his child. She hurt for herself. Her worst nightmare had always been losing Con.

  “Don’t you think you should?” She could barely get the words past her lips.

  “I didn’t even know her name until an hour ago. Besides, she doesn’t have the kid.”

  “Then who does?”

  “He’s in a foster home at the moment.”

  Oh, God. Her heart filled with the same hopeless desperation she’d felt as a teenager trying to under-stand the unfairness in Con’s life. She knew there were some wonderful foster homes, some children who lived better lives because of loving foster parents, but Con only knew what could go wrong with the system. He’d grown up in a foster home. Right next door to her. He’d lived with people who called him their son but never adopted him because of the support they would lose from the state for his care. And they’d never let him forget that he should be grateful to them for taking him, someone else’s bastard, either.

  He’d always hated his biological parents for subjecting him to that, for not standing by him, and had always sworn he’d never do the same to any kid of his.

  Just one more reason to hate himself.

  “What’s his name?” she asked.

  Con looked at her blankly for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  She ached to hold him.

  “I didn’t even think to ask,” he added, as if he was lower than dirt.

  “So you’ll ask.”

  Con has a son. A baby. It was suddenly frighteningly real. And maybe even a bit exciting.

  “How soon can you see him?” And can I go with you?

  He shrugged. “It’s not that simple.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out an empty cigarette pack, tossed it, then grabbed a new pack from the end table. He opened it, shook out a cigarette and lit it.

  Robbie waited.

  “He’s a ward of the state,” he finally said. “I have to go through social services.”

  “Even to see him?”

  He took a long drag on the cigarette. “Apparently.”

  Even back when she’d first met Con, he’d been a boy of few words, having already learned not to trust his thoughts and feelings to those around him. But if she’d done nothing else in the twenty-five years since, she’d proved to him that she was the one person in the world he could count on.

  She took his cigarette from his fingers and had a puff, then put it out. She was trying to get him to quit.

  “Talk to me, Randolph,” she said.

  He lit another cigarette. “Want a beer?” He was off the couch and heading for the kitchen, taking his pack of cigarettes with him.

  What she wanted was for him to stop shutting her out: “Sure.” She followed him to the kitchen and sat on a stool at the ceramic-tiled breakfast bar.

  Con grabbed two beers from the refrigerator and joined her, dropping his cigarette in the ashtray on the bar. Robbie picked it up, took another puff and put it out.

  “I want my son.” The words were raw, shattering the silence.

  She resisted the urge to reach for his hand and hold it, a form of comfort she knew he wouldn’t accept. “Of course you do,” she said, raising her bottle and taking a swallow of the cold brew.

  He lit another cigarette. “I want to raise him,” he said, his look challenging.

  “OK.” If he’d hoped to shock her, he’d failed. That he’d want to be a father to his child didn’t surprise her in the least.

  “I’m not father material.” The stark words hung between them.

  “Baloney.” She eyed his cigarette, but took a sip of her beer, instead.

  “That social worker, Mrs. Muldoon, couldn’t have made her horror at the thought of my raising the child plainer,” he said, his voice low. “When she arrived I had a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, a beer in my hand, and I’d just come away from
a man who was threatening to cut off my balls.”

  Robbie smiled. “You don’t need’em, Randolph, you already made the kid.”

  Con didn’t return her smile. He took another swallow of beer, then proceeded to scrape off the label with his thumb. “I should’ve answered the door before getting the beer.”

  “Lots of fathers have an occasional beer. Ever since you’ve been old enough to drink, you’ve been drunk a total of one time. I hardly think anybody can condemn you for that.”

  He shrugged.

  “And besides, since when do they do a character check before allowing a man to see his son?”

  “Since the state only wants a man to give the kid away.”

  “They what? To whom?”

  Con shrugged again. “There’s a family…”

  “Why would they look for a family to take him without consulting his father first?”

  “They’re under the impression I already knew about the child and refused support.” He pushed the beer-label scraps into a neat pile.

  “Why would they think that?”

  “Cecily said so.”

  None of this was making any sense. Getting answers out of Con was difficult at the best of times. When his emotions were involved, it was damn near impossible.

  “Why would Cecily say a thing like that?” she asked. “And come to think of it, why didn’t she tell you about the baby?”

  Abandoning the scraps, Con took another drag on his cigarette. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. She knew I was with the bureau. It wouldn’t have been hard to find me. Maybe she didn’t want to keep the baby, and my support would have given her less excuse to give him up,” he said, the look in his eyes empty.

  “Or maybe she was afraid to tell you.”

  Robbie could understand someone’s being afraid of him. His size alone was pretty intimidating. And this Cecily couldn’t have known him very well, couldn’t have known about the tender vulnerable man beneath the rock-hard protective shell.

  “So what’s going to happen?” she asked, wondering about the baby, Con’s son. The closest thing she was probably ever going to have to a child of her own—her best friend’s son.

  “I called social services and they’re sending some-one out tomorrow afternoon to ask questions and fill out some forms. Then I can meet him.”

  “And then what?”

  Con took another drag on his cigarette. “They’ll run blood tests to make certain I’m really his father,” he said, his gravelly voice subdued. “Then we go to court.”

  “Why court?” That didn’t sound good. She took a sip of her beer. .

  “I have to petition for custody and there’ll be a hearing. The judge decides whether or not I’m fit to be a parent.”

  He stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette as if it held some sort of wisdom. Clearly, were he the judge presiding over the case, he’d lose.

  Robbie hated it that Con saw so little worth in himself, but then, with the lessons life had taught him growing up, she couldn’t blame him. Still, he was a good man with a loving heart if he’d only learn to trust himself enough to believe that.

  “I don’t know anybody else more fit to be a parent,” she said, as sure of that as she was that the sun was going to shine in Phoenix the next day.

  “I’ve never held a baby.” There was no emotion in his voice, none apparent in his face. He was all agent, just stating the facts.

  “What about Pete and Marie Mitchell’s son, Scotty?”

  “Marie laid him on my lap once when he was asleep. And she was right there beside me the entire five seconds.”

  Robbie wasn’t about to give up. “So you’ll learn how to hold a baby. We can run out to a store and buy a doll that’s the right size to practice on. We’ll get one that comes with diapers and learn that, too, while we’re at it.”

  She finished her beer and grabbed Con’s cigarette for one last puff. She put it out. “Come on, let’s go now before they close.” All at once she couldn’t wait to get started, to make certain they were prepared. He wasn’t going to lose his son, certainly not to the same institution that had failed him so miserably.

  He didn’t budge. “Most of what it takes to be a parent can’t be practiced on a doll.”

  The hollow look in his eyes almost made Robbie forget twenty years of hiding her love for this man. But now, more than ever, he needed her friendship— something that would be lost forever if he knew her real feelings. She was his anchor. Always had been. And that was far more important than any physical love she might crave.

  She looked at him now, resisting the urge to run her fingers through his hair. Buddies didn’t touch each other that way. “You’re a good man, Con Randolph. You know what’s important, what matters in life. And that’s all it takes to be a good parent. The rest you learn as you go.”

  “What matters, Robbie?” He frowned. “I don’t have any idea what matters. Not anymore.”

  She wasn’t buying it. “Yes, you do, Con. You just stopped listening to your heart. But it’s still in there." She tapped his chest. “And maybe this baby is just what’s needed to get you listening again.”

  He lit another cigarette. “I smoke like a chimney.”

  “So quit.”

  “My job’s dangerous.”

  “So’s driving a car, breathing the smog, having me for a friend.” She grinned at him.

  Life was dangerous. He knew that more than most. But he was also doing something to try to make the world a safer place. Who better to be trusted with the life of a youngster than one trained to protect?

  He looked over at her, his glance unusually personal. “Having you for a friend has never been dangerous, Robbie. It’s the one thing I’ve done right.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes and she couldn’t hold his gaze. She reached for his cigarette, took a puff and then started to grind it out in the ashtray.

  “Hey, don’t!” Con said, grabbing the cigarette from her.

  “You’re trying to quit, too, remember?” she said as she tried to snatch it back.

  “Right.” With one last puff he put out the cigarette. “Let’s go to the store.”

  Robbie wasn’t about to give him a chance to change his mind. She pulled her keys from the pocket of her pants. “We can take my truck,” she said.

  He immediately grabbed the keys. “I’ll drive.”

  And for once Robbie let him. Her mind was elsewhere.

  A baby. Con’s flesh and blood. A child I didn’t even know existed an hour ago, and yet I feel like I already know him. I’ll be an auntie. I can take him to the newsroom, maybe even on a job or two when he gets older. We can take him to the zoo, teach him to swim…

  “Hey, Robbie, you doing anything tomorrow afternoon?” Con asked as he locked his front door behind them.

  She was pretty certain she had an interview with the governor. “Nope.”

  “You wanna be here when the social worker comes?”

  “Sure.” She wanted it more than anything else she’d ever wanted, except maybe for Con to love her the way she loved him.

  They climbed into her truck. “I want you to meet him, Robbie.”

  Already half in love with this child she’d never met simply because he was Con’s, Robbie’s heavy heart lightened just a little. “Good.” A baby. We’re gonna have a baby…

  ROBBIE PULLED UP in front of Con’s house the next afternoon with a stomach full of butterflies. She’d wanted a baby of her own to love ever since she could remember, and now at thirty-three, with no one even calling her for a date, playing auntie to Con’s son was probably as close as she was ever going to get.

  Climbing out of her truck, she smoothed her hands down her favorite cotton top, making sure it was still tucked into the matching cotton shorts she’d hardly ever worn. She could do this.

  Con was in the kitchen when she let herself in, leaning over the breakfast bar. She’d left him in the exact same position the evening before.

  “You been
at that all night?” she teased, trying to see around him to the plastic toy on the counter.

  “Lay off, Robbie. I just want to be ready in case the woman from social services puts me to the test.”

  Robbie came around the bar and climbed onto a stool so she could judge his progress. “She’s not bringing the baby with her.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

  He held the tiny plastic feet between his thumb and forefinger, raising the doll just enough to slide the diaper beneath its bottom. She was impressed. The night before he’d stood the baby on its head trying the exact same maneuver.

  “If only Pete Mitchell could see you now,” she said, grinning.

  “Shut up, Robbie.”

  Con looked so right, tending to the make-believe baby. This huge rugged man diapering a child’s toy.

  As soon as he’d finished, she took the doll, inspecting his work, holding on to her composure by a thread. “You’ve improved.”

  He grabbed the doll back by the hair on its head, ripping off the diaper and starting the process again, concentrated intent in every move.

  Robbie grinned. “We’ll have to work on the rest of your handling there, Randolph,” she said just as the doorbell rang.

  Her heart leaped. Were they ready?

  Con shoved the doll in the oven.

  It was only as they were walking together to the front door that Robbie noticed the absence of a cigarette in Con’s vicinity. There were no ashtrays around, either.

  SOCIAL SERVICES HAD SENT Sandra Muldoon again. Par for the course, Con thought, that the state had seen fit to send the same uptight woman to his door after he’d spent half the night hoping for a more amenable sort.

  “So you see, Mr. Randolph,” she was saying, “you’re asking the impossible if you hope to convince the court that the child would be better off with a man in your position than with a normal loving family.”

  Con’s blood burned at the woman’s words, even as his doubts grew. By what right did he think he deserved to disrupt the child’s life? Especially when he knew he couldn’t hope to provide for him the way a married couple could. He needed a cigarette.