Resurrection_a ROCK SOLID romance

by Karina Bliss

  “Let’s be clear.” Carefully, he placed his hands on her shoulders and moved her away. “I don’t love her, and I don’t want to love her. That’s your job until I find someone to adopt her.”

  Her throat was so tight, she wondered how she could get the words out. She’d lost, but she couldn’t give up. “And I’m telling you that if you don’t try with your daughter, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Here’s what an open mind looks like to me. You spend time with her. You share care. You open the door a crack, Moss, and you think about keeping her, as seriously as you’re investigating giving her up.”

  Though he was shaking his head, she persisted. “Maybe adoption is the best option for her. But how are you going to find Grace the right family if you don’t know her?”

  He blinked, and she thought, I hit a nerve. “Don’t you see—”

  “Moss!” The guy who’d tried to pick her up hollered from the bar. “The party’s shifting to Patti’s. We’re leaving now, if you want a ride.”

  The moment passed, or maybe she’d imagined it. His expression closed down, shutting her out. “Go home, Lily. Do your job.” He walked away, not looking back.

  Stunned, she left the club, following a group heading toward the same parking lot. Their raucous laughter underscored her failure. Did she really think she could wave a magic wand and fix this? Wake up and stop being that naive dreamer.

  Maybe Moss was right, she thought as she fumbled for her key. Why believe when believing hurts so much?

  In the privacy of the car, she bowed her head over the steering wheel and tried to find some comfort. At least you tried.

  And it still wasn’t enough.

  It was her Achilles’ heel, her secret fear, returning to haunt her. She’d given Zander everything and it hadn’t been enough to make him fall in love. Reinventing herself hadn’t been enough to stop her past rising up to threaten her new life. She’d certainly never managed to win over her mother. “Who the hell do you think you are,” Dee Dee’s voice echoed in her head, “thinking you could make a difference?”

  Someone who tries. That was the truth, no tinge of rainbow in it. Lily lifted her head. At least I tried. And she’d do it again in a heartbeat, because she did believe in hope and love and second chances and things getting better, and people being able to change. You can only live by your own truths.

  And Moss would have to live with his.

  She started the engine and released the handbrake. The Honda’s headlights swept the unlit parking lot. A man stepped into her path, his arms spread wide, and she slammed on the brakes. Moss stood illuminated in the beam, heavy-lidded and scowling. He stumbled toward the Honda, opened the back door and climbed in, slamming it shut behind him.

  Lily glanced in the rearview mirror but he’d already sprawled onto the back seat.

  “Why?” a tortured voice demanded. “Why does this matter so much to you?”

  Wiping her eyes dry with her bare forearm, she pointed the Honda in the direction of home. “Because as a wise man once told me, people like us need more than one break.”

  * * *

  It took Moss a while to understand that he was looking at the back of the driver’s seat in Lily’s car. Something painful gouged his cheek as he tried to get more comfortable.

  With a groan, he sat up—saw Winnie the Pooh was his pillow—and rubbed the sore spot where the bear’s glass eye had dug in. Yanking off the baby blanket covering his legs, he stared blearily out of the window. The Honda was parked outside the house and the angle of the sun suggested it was late morning. He fumbled in his jacket for his cell, remembered that he’d left it in this car yesterday. The events of the previous night flooded his brain.

  Lily at the club. Dressed to kill and mad. Really mad. Because…she’d found out that he was investigating adoption. He grimaced recalling some of her comments. And she wondered why he hadn’t told her.

  How will you choose the right family if you don’t know your daughter?

  Except that had stuck. That had made sense. Every other argument he’d expected, every other argument he could counter. He couldn’t counter that. So he’d acted on impulse and guilt and got in her car. In the cold light of day, mostly sober, he understood that what he’d really agreed to was to suffer before he gave Grace to better parents. He’d agreed to get hurt. And good morning to you.

  Cursing, he opened the passenger door and half fell out of the car. Bypassing the front door, he went to the side gate, dropping his leather jacket as he went, kicking off his shoes. Keying in the code he shoved the gate open and entered the pool area, his shirt, his jeans, his boxers falling in a trail behind him. Naked, he walked into the pool and let the water close over him like a baptism.

  He swam twenty lengths in a fast crawl to a mental refrain of ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  When he stopped, Lily was standing by the ladder, holding a towel and Grace.

  “Fuck,” he said aloud, because Grace was nonverbal. Maybe he did know something about babies. “What did I agree to?”

  Entirely too composed for his liking, Lily held out the towel. “Baby training starts in thirty minutes,” she said, cool and determined. “After you’ve cleaned up and eaten.”

  Ignoring the towel, he climbed the ladder. Why should he be the only one uncomfortable around here? She averted her eyes as he snatched the towel and dried off before tying it around his waist. “Give me the baby.”

  “Really?” Her gaze flew to his, no longer cool but excited and hopeful. She honestly thought she could change his mind with this. He almost pitied her. Almost.

  “Really.” He gestured for the baby. “If I’m going to suffer, I might as well start right away.”

  He laid Grace against his bare chest, angling his body to stop the sun getting in her eyes. His body was chill from the pool and she startled a little at the change in temperature.

  “Hold her so she can see you,” his tormentor ordered. Awkwardly, he changed the angle of his hold to cradle her, as he’d seen Lily and his friends do a hundred times. Grace looked up at him and started to cry.

  “Yeah,” he said bitterly, “you and me both, but she’s making us do this. Hang in there and we’ll get through it. You’ll have someone better real soon, I promise.”

  “I’m not hearing an open mind,” said Lily in a sing-song tone.

  He glared at her. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m only doing this so I can match her to the right family. Right now,” he shifted his gaze to his wailing daughter, “I’m thinking she’s a great judge of character.”

  “Or she needs a diaper change.” Lily leaned forward to sniff. “You can’t call yourself a real dad until you’ve changed a poopy diaper.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Yeah, I figured that,” she said cheerfully.

  “And this works two ways. If I have to keep an open mind, so do you. You can help me sift through the adoptive couple applications.”

  Her face fell. It should have made him feel better. “I won’t love her, Lily,” he warned. “I’m not made that way.”

  She looked at him a long moment and it was impossible to read her thoughts. “How you feel about her is your business,” she said at last. “Since this may be your only opportunity to spend time with her, go put some clothes on and let’s get to it.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  There was no one else filling their tank as Lily pulled into the forecourt of a 24-hour gas station at four a.m. Holding her breath, she tilted the rearview mirror until the sleeping baby came into view and cautiously switched off the engine and engaged the handbrake. Grace didn’t stir. Beside her, neither did Moss.

  With the care of someone approaching the pin on a grenade, she inched her hand down beside her seat and pushed the lever unlocking the cap on the gas tank. It released with a metallic clunk. Both stayed asleep. Going for gold, she eased open the car door and slithered out of her seat. Leaving the door ajar she went to the pump.

  The pre-dawn world was
so quiet and still that every sound was amplified—the clunk of the nozzle as it hit the aperture, the clicking over of the numbers as the gas started to pump, the gentle gurgle as it refilled the empty tank.

  No sound emanated from the interior of the car. Smothering a sneeze, Lily stretched to release the tension in her shoulders. If Grace was solidly asleep the next stop was home and bed for everyone. On that thought, she yawned luxuriously.

  “Need any hel—”

  She spun around, planted her hands on the surprised attendant’s chest, and walked him backward from the car.

  “Sleeping infant,” she whispered.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said in a normal voice. “I—”

  “Shush!”

  She dropped her hands and pricked her ears, waiting.

  A wail emanated from the Honda.

  “Uhh.” Her head slumped forward. I’m not going to win this.

  “Sorry,” said the attendant.

  She lifted her head, dragged up her spirits. “Do you sell coffee? Strong?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He looked young enough to be tucked up in bed himself. “I’ll take two, one with cream, the other black with two sug—”

  Notes of a guitar tumbled out of the car and washed across the forecourt. A voice, smoky and desperate, picked up the melody. “Go to sleep, baby, you’re driving Daddy crazy…”

  Despite her exhaustion, Lily smiled.

  “I thought rock ‘n’ roll was taking its toll but it’s a walk in the park compared to you in the dark…”

  The attendant grinned.

  The nozzle clicked, tank full. They remained where they were, listening.

  “You win, baby. You’re driving Daddy crazy…”

  The attendant finally moved. “Your husband has a great voice.”

  “He’s not—” Nope, too tired for explanations. She was also fighting off Grace’s flu. “Thanks.”

  Inside, she paid for a bar of chocolate—what the hell—as well as the two coffees. Used the public washroom. In the mirror she saw her ponytail was askew and retied it, without effecting any improvement in her appearance. Heavy-eyed, pale. She didn’t care. C’mon Grace, start making parenting look easy.

  Anxiety had become her constant companion. If this was what stage moms lived with, she thought as she returned for the coffees, no wonder they were borderline crazy.

  So far, her little princess was waking half a dozen times a night and the only guaranteed way to get Grace back to sleep without an hour’s playtime was a drive. To his credit, Moss was sharing the suffering. She’d rather he stayed in bed and thought his daughter perfect.

  In the last three days, she’d taught him how to prepare formula, change a diaper, and soothe and dress his daughter, mostly at night because that was when he was free. What she couldn’t seem to teach him was how to love her. He handled Grace as if she was someone else’s child. In his mind, he’d already given her away, and Lily couldn’t break through that impervious self-protective shell to the man she’d glimpsed in the nightclub.

  And Grace wasn’t helping, the little wretch. Wakeful, restless, drooling like the monster out of Alien, and spitting up after every bottle, she was a exercise in bodily fluids right now, bless her. With diapers that would make a plumber gag.

  The guitar accompaniment had stopped but Moss was softly singing when she returned to the Honda. Placing the coffees on the roof, she cautiously opened the rear passenger door.

  Unshaven and disheveled, he was leaning his head against the car seat, his eyes closed and one hand clasped around the neck of his guitar. “Go to sleep, baby…”

  His daughter had spit up on him at some point; there was a wet patch of drool on the shoulder of his Grateful Dead T-shirt. Grace had tearstains on her cheeks but she was wide-eyed and curious and one tiny fist maintained a ferocious grip on her father’s hair. The simple notes of his song tied them together like a ribbon on a gift.

  A shard of pure love cut through Lily’s fatigue. For one simmering moment she could feel the pulse of the world and life breathing around her. “This,” she thought, “this is what I—”

  Eyes still closed, Moss stopped singing. “I smell coffee.”

  Her trance broke. “I have coffee.”

  Green eyes opened, then narrowed. “You’re finding a bright side, aren’t you?”

  She cleared her throat. “I might be.” Taking the cups off the roof, she handed him one.

  “If you say one day we’ll look back at this and laugh, I’m driving off without you,” he warned. “And I don’t give a damn if my license is suspended. They’ll let me sleep in jail, I bet.”

  Grace started waving her hands in that, ‘something needs to happen now’ signal. Wincing, Moss loosed her hold on his hair and rubbed his head. “Don’t get your hopes up because I sang to Grace.”

  Dang, but this man could read her. “You said ‘Daddy.’”

  “I needed two syllables to match ‘baby.’”

  “Uh-huh.” She started to sing. “Here’s your dad-dy trying to play the bad-die.”

  “Lily?” He closed his eyes again.

  “Drive?”

  “Drive.”

  “In a minute.” Putting her coffee in the console between the front seats, she leaned across him to dry Grace’s tearstains and kiss her smooth cheek, inhaling the scent of talcum powder and sour milk. The little girl waved her arms, but didn’t smile. Another trait she shared with her dad. As Lily withdrew, she dropped a second kiss on Moss’s temple.

  His lids flew open. “What the hell was that?”

  She had no idea. Yes, she did. It felt right. She couldn’t say that so she made something up. “Solidarity. You’re doing good.”

  He just looked at her.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” he said bluntly. “We’re not friends.”

  She’d rolled the dice on their friendship, for Grace’s sake, and now she had to pay. She tried not to show her hurt. “You’re certainly holding onto this grudge.”

  “No, I’m calling bullshit on you pretending we don’t still have a physical attraction.” His gaze pinned hers. “You’re overtired and over-hopeful, and I could really take advantage of that. Particularly when I’m pissed that I let you talk me into this.”

  Mentally reeling, she stood her ground. “Hey, don’t hold back. Tell me what you really think.”

  “A revenge fuck would really take the edge off.”

  Slamming the passenger door, she returned to the driver’s seat.

  Grace was crying when she got in, which made her feel mean. Exhaustion was no excuse for temper and upsetting the baby. “It’s okay precious girl, I’m starting the engine. Remember how much you like the car?”

  Ignoring Moss, she resumed their never-ending journey. Grace re-settled.

  “Okay, that was a cheap shot,” Moss conceded a few minutes later. “What I should have said was that I can do the right thing, but only one at a time. Currently, Grace has the whole allocation.”

  “Apology accepted,” she said, being the bigger person.

  “At least I’m honest.”

  She stopped being the bigger person. “Is that a dig at me?”

  “Why did you kiss me?” There was a thread of something deeper than anger in his voice. Torment.

  Now she felt guilty. He didn’t need her conflicted feelings for him complicating his already complicated life. She didn’t need them either, but she was so tired they’d wriggled free.

  “Solidarity,” she said again, distilling her feelings to their purest, nonsexual form.

  He was relying on her to help him make a decision that would affect not just his life, but the life of this little girl. That was her responsibility, not thoughtlessly reigniting their attraction. Helping him suddenly felt like the most important responsibility she’d ever had.

  “You’re scared that if you don’t make this bonding experiment easy, I won’t keep her.” He so
unded weary. “But, Lily, it’s not about her shortcomings, it’s about mine.”

  “You’re trying,” she said stubbornly. “That’s enough.” You can do this. I’ll prove it to you. You can be a good father.

  * * *

  Lily could hear Grace crying but sleep was a heavy swamp sucking her under.

  A hard rap sounded on her bedroom door. “The baby’s unhappy.”

  The note of panic in Moss’s voice jerked her to full consciousness. “I’m coming.” Her throat was on fire, the words a rasp across her vocal cords. She swung her legs out of bed and had to grab the side table for balance before she could put on her glasses. The bedside clock blinked two-thirty a.m. but her raw throat and throbbing head suggested it was end of days. Except she couldn’t get sick now. There was too much at stake.

  “I’m coming,” she called more strongly, though Grace had stopped crying. Lifting her hair from her sticky nape, she wound it into a loose topknot. Since the baby’s arrival, she’d slept ready for action in a baggy T-shirt and leggings. The marble was cold under her bare feet. Shivering, she returned for socks. Her balance was off, and she had to sit down to pull them on.

  Grace wasn’t in her crib and there were two diapers dumped in the trash, one sodden and another with broken tabs.

  Moss was trying. The reminder was enough to refuel her. She had to make the most of the opportunity. Had to break through his impersonal facade.

  She picked up a baby blanket draped over the end of the crib and made her way to the kitchen, only to find it empty. The pool lights were on, casting a blue shimmer across the ceiling of the unlit living room, and she opened the sliders and went outside. Moss was facing the pool. His forearms were under Grace’s belly, and he was rocking her as she stared mesmerized at the water.

  “You’re not fixing to pitch her in, I hope,” she croaked.

  “We’re still at the threats and intimidation stage.” He was still dressed, probably hadn’t gone to bed yet. More importantly, he hadn’t gone out either. “You’ve caught it, haven’t you,” he added.

  “I’ll manage.” A wave of fever started, and she fanned out her T-shirt. Suddenly, the pool looked cool and inviting. “I’ll make up a bottle for her.”