One in a Million

by Abby Gaines

  Sophia remained silent a moment or two longer, not breaking eye contact. Then she turned to her grandmother. “I believe him,” she said.

  Patsy nodded but Juliana opened her mouth as if to continue the argument. Quinn braced himself for another grilling but at the moment what sounded like music box chimes poured from the loudspeaker in the corner of the room, filling the air with the notes of “Rock-a-bye Baby”.

  “She’s here,” Sophia said, clapping her hands. “The nurse told us Daisy’s the only mother-to-be in labor right now so it must mean that her baby’s been born. Oh, I can’t wait to see her.”

  The double doors of the birthing center swung open and Rue Larrabee sailed through. She was wearing sea-green scrubs and a surgical cap concealed her red hair but it was her blazing ear-to-ear smile that caught and held Quinn’s attention. “We have our baby,” she announced with a flourish. “Brianna Grace Brookshire has arrived.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS ALL WORTH IT, the worry about their future, the fear that she’d harmed her child when she wrecked her car, the hours of pain that had left her exhausted but exhilarated when she finally heard her baby’s first cry. Daisy gazed down at the tiny, scrunched up face of her daughter and felt her heart constrict with a mixture of love and lingering sorrow. “She’s beautiful, Brendan,” she whispered, “so beautiful. I know you would have fallen in love with her the moment you laid eyes on her.”

  “I think so, too.”

  Daisy looked up, startled to find she wasn’t alone. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. Quinn Parrish stood in the doorway of the birthing room, his hands in the pockets of what appeared to be a very old leather jacket. He was wearing dark gray slacks and a black T-shirt and he looked every inch the successful and ruthless businessman he was. Her heart rate had quickened in anxiety when his shadow fell across her bed. She took a deep breath to get it under control. Remember, her inner voice told her, he was raised by August Carlyle. No matter what he did for you yesterday, be careful around him. She shifted the sleeping baby in her arms, grimacing a little at the pain in her left elbow when she moved.

  “Good morning,” he said advancing a few steps into the room. The door was propped open. He made no move to close it and Daisy relaxed a fraction. She hadn’t wanted to be alone with him, not when she was feeling so vulnerable and nearly as helpless as her infant.

  “Good morning,” she echoed, wondering how he had gotten into the hospital so early in the day. Visiting hours for anyone but fathers and grandparents didn’t start until one o’clock in the afternoon. It was only a little after nine.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine. Just stiff and sore from the accident—and the baby,” she said.

  “Mmm,” he responded noncommittally.

  Daisy felt herself flush. She looked a fright, she knew she did. Sophia had gone to her apartment the evening before to bring the small suitcase she’d packed but hadn’t intended to use until after Labor Day, so she was, at least, wearing her own nightgown, a soft apple-green one, and not one of those awful hospital things that opened down the back. But beyond brushing her hair and teeth an hour or so earlier she hadn’t done anything to repair the ravages of the day before.

  “I’d think you’d be more than just a little stiff and sore after everything you went through yesterday.” He was watching her closely, his movie star blue eyes fixed on her face with laser intensity. She wondered how many people were brave enough, or foolish enough, to try to lie to him when he looked at them like that.

  “You’re right. I’m a lot stiff and sore.” She glanced ruefully at her left ankle encased in a soft cast, a bootlike affair that allowed her to put enough weight on it to walk back and forth to the bathroom, but nothing more.

  “How long do you have to be off your feet?” he asked. His hands were still in his pockets, as though he didn’t know what to do with them, she thought suddenly. She liked the idea that he might not be as completely at ease as he appeared to be. Obviously he wasn’t used to being around a woman who had just given birth, or a newborn, either, for that matter. The thought gave her courage.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to the doctor yet this morning. Not long, I hope. I…I don’t want to be in here any longer than necessary.” She bit her lip and dropped her gaze to Brianna’s tiny pink fingers wrapped surprisingly tightly around her little finger. Her insurance was minimal. It wouldn’t pay for an extended stay in the hospital. And then there were the repairs to her car to consider. She hadn’t budgeted for that at all.

  “Will you have help with the baby when you get home?” he asked, looking down at Brianna a little warily, reinforcing her observation that he seemed completely out of his depth around a baby.

  “My mother was going to come and stay with me—my parents moved to Florida a couple of years ago—but she just got a new job. My dad’s been out of work for over a year, Mom almost as long.”

  “You haven’t even told them the baby’s here, have you?” he asked astutely.

  She tensed and Brianna screwed up her tiny red face and frowned as though she sensed Daisy’s uneasiness with his uncanny ability to almost read her mind. She shook her head. “I know she’ll want to fly right up here and stay to help me. I can’t ask her to do that when jobs are so hard to find.” Now, why had she told him that? Shown him another vulnerability; the fact that her parents wouldn’t be able to help her and the baby financially. It was another weapon August Carlyle could use against her if he found out. She felt tears burn behind her eyes and hurriedly blinked the weakness away.

  “You won’t be able to take care of the baby alone,” he said, stating the obvious, “not for a few days at least.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said stubbornly. “I have friends. They’ll help me.”

  “I’m sure they will but you’ll need to stay off your feet for at least a week. I’m not an obstetrician but you don’t have to be a doctor to know you can’t carry an infant around when you’re using crutches and have a bum elbow, too.”

  He was right. What should she do? She wished Rue or her friend, Mellie Donovan, or Sophia were here. They would help her figure something out. If only her little apartment wasn’t a third-floor walk-up, then she wouldn’t worry so much, but it was and there was nowhere else for her to go when she was released from the hospital.

  “I think you should come home with me.”

  “What?” She couldn’t do that. Remember who he is, her inner voice warned. “No, that’s impossible,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. Brianna began to frown harder in her sleep. Her tiny hand fumbled its way to her mouth. She began to suck her thumb. Daisy wanted nothing more than to watch this remarkable action take place but she kept her eyes firmly on Quinn Parrish’s hard, handsome face.

  “Why?” he asked reasonably.

  “I…I barely know you,” she said, lifting Brianna to her shoulder, patting her back with agitated little taps, more soothing to her than to the baby.

  “We’re family.”

  His mother had been Brendan’s stepmother, that hardly made them family. She opened her mouth to refute that dubious claim but shut it again with a snap. Fiona and August Carlyle stood in the doorway of her room. How had they found out Brianna had been born? She had been adamant that no information about her be given out by the hospital staff. She turned accusing eyes on Quinn Parrish. He met her angry stare head-on and gave a little shake of his head.

  “It wasn’t me, Daisy,” he said so softly only she could hear. “Believe me, I never said a word.”

  “QUINN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING here?” There was genuine surprise in his mother’s voice as her eyes met his across Daisy’s bed. Behind her August Carlyle frowned, his thin lips tightening into a disapproving and suspicious line. The hard look didn’t faze Quinn—he was used to it.

  “Hello, Mom. August,” he said.

  “Answer your mother. What are you doing here?” August demanded, his tone clipped and as disapproving as h
is stare. Three hundred years of breeding and money had given him an aura of aristocratic hauteur that always grated on Quinn’s nerves.

  “I met Daisy by chance at the cemetery yesterday,” Quinn explained. “Luckily I was close by when she had her accident. I stopped by this morning to see how she and the baby are doing.”

  “That’s why we’re here, too. Hello, Daisy.” His mother looked fabulous, just as she always did. Her silver-gray hair was styled to perfection, her manicure was flawless, her clothes designer, but he could see signs of strain around her eyes and the corners of her mouth beneath her expertly applied makeup.

  “How did you know I was here?” Daisy demanded, ignoring the pleasantries just as August had. Quinn silently approved of her tactics.

  “The police report of your accident said you’d been brought here. We…we didn’t know about the baby until we asked for you at the main desk.” Fiona’s explanation was too pat, too rehearsed sounding. His mother had never been a good liar. Quinn suspected August had been keeping Daisy under surveillance, probably ever since his brother had died.

  “You’ve been spying on me.” Daisy continued patting the little one on the back but her movements were more agitated and the baby squirmed against her shoulder.

  “May we come in?”

  “I guess so since you’re already here.” Quinn could see the tension in Daisy’s neck and shoulders beneath the pale green cotton of her nightgown. He stayed where he was beside her bed. She slid him a quick glance from the corner of her eye but continued to focus her attention on the older couple.

  Fiona advanced to within a couple of feet of the bed, drawn to the baby as though the tiny being was reeling her in by the heartstrings. His mother had raised Brendan from the time he was four years old. She had loved him deeply. Emotionally she would consider Daisy’s baby her grandchild. Quinn felt a quick stab of remorse. His mother was hurting and he had done little if anything to help lessen her pain.

  Fiona noticed the cast on Daisy’s ankle. “Is it broken?” she asked.

  “Just sprained, that’s all.” Daisy spoke warily.

  “I’m so glad you are both all right.” She clasped her hands in front of her as though she was having trouble restraining herself from reaching out to touch Daisy’s baby. “I really am.”

  “I know,” Daisy said, her voice softening slightly as her eyes met his mother’s. If there was any chance of reconciling Daisy and his parents it would have to come through Fiona’s efforts, Quinn knew. But in twenty years of marriage he couldn’t recall a single instance where she had gone against her autocratic and demanding husband’s wishes.

  “How long do you have to wear that thing?” August said, indicating the cast with a flick of his index finger.

  “A…a couple of weeks.”

  “How do you expect to take care of an infant on your own?”

  “I’ll manage.” Her voice didn’t waver. “I don’t want any help from you.”

  “You might not have a choice, girl. If you’re not able to take care of my grandchild properly then it’s my duty to alert the authorities, have the child removed to a safer environment.”

  “No.” Daisy’s cry came from her heart.

  “August,” his mother’s voice was soft but surprisingly firm. “What my husband means is that we would like you to come home with us. We have lots of room. We have spoken to a woman with excellent child care references to be…what did you name her?” she asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

  “Brianna. Brianna Grace.”

  “What a lovely name. How much does she weigh? How long is she?” It seemed that once she’d started asking questions about the baby she couldn’t stop.

  “She’s twenty inches long and she weighs six pounds and three ounces.” Rue Larrabee had told Quinn those were good numbers for a baby who had arrived two weeks earlier than expected.

  “Quinn weighed over eight pounds and his head was as big as a basketball—”

  “Fiona,” August said reprovingly.

  “I’m sorry, I’m rambling, aren’t I.”

  Quinn felt his hands curl into fists. He hated it when his stepfather belittled her in public that way.

  “Please, excuse me.”

  “Thank you for the offer, Mrs. Carlyle,” Daisy said with dignity. “But I’m not leaving here with you, nor do I intend to be beholden to you in any way.”

  “No matter how my wife is trying to sugarcoat the matter, I meant what I said,” August interrupted with his usual lack of tact. “If you aren’t physically able to care for the child I’ll be forced to intercede with the authorities—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Quinn said, unable to remain silent while his stepfather bullied Daisy the way he bullied everyone else. “Because she’s moving in with me until her ankle is healed.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “OH HONEY, ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?”

  Rue was standing by the bassinet watching Brianna as she slept. Daisy had already dressed the baby in an adorable little pink and white outfit that Sophia and Patsy had dropped off an hour earlier.

  “I don’t have a choice really.” Daisy was sitting in a chair by the window of her room. The view of the parking lot wasn’t inspiring but it looked like it was going to be a nice day. She, too, was dressed to go home in drawstring slacks and a loose-fitting top, although both of them were now too large to be truly comfortable anymore. She glanced out the big window. “I can’t climb the stairs to my apartment,” she explained to her volatile employer. “I won’t go to Brendan’s parents’ house.” She shuddered. “I can’t.”

  “Don’t think about them,” Rue commanded, reaching down to stroke Brianna’s cheek as she lay in the clear-sided bassinet—sucking her thumb. She had been doing that the day Daisy had had her ultrasound and learned the baby’s sex. The technician had chuckled and said, “You’ll have your work cut out for you in a year or two breaking the habit.” Daisy wasn’t worried about that just yet; right now she thought everything her daughter did was adorable.

  “You should come and stay with me, Lord knows there’s plenty of room in Andrew’s house,” Rue insisted.

  “No, I can’t do that, either.” Daisy longed for a moment to say yes but Rue and Andrew Clark, Patsy Grosso’s brother, had just moved in together themselves and she would feel even more uncomfortable as a fifth wheel in Andrew’s big house than she would in Quinn Parrish’s.

  “Don’t be silly,” Rue protested. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “I’m not. I’m trying to be practical and levelheaded.” The kind of traits she would need to cultivate as a single mother.

  “You barely know the man.”

  There was no arguing with that statement. But she knew some things about him: that he had loved his brother, that he wouldn’t be bullied by August Carlyle, but it infuriated him when his mother allowed herself to be diminished by that terrible man, and that like most men, babies made him nervous. For now those glimpses of his character and personality would have to be enough.

  “Patsy and Sophia are both okay with this. They know him better than I do. Patsy and Dean know everyone in NASCAR. He’s not a stranger to them,” she reminded her employer patiently—another quality she would need in abundance, she suspected.

  “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that endorsement,” Rue said but she didn’t sound convinced, even if Patsy Grosso would be her sister-in-law at some point in the not too distant future. “But if he gives you any grief at all pick up the phone and give me a call, you hear?”

  “Thanks, Rue.” A nurse appeared in the doorway with what appeared to be a small cooler and a handful of pamphlets.

  “Here’s Brianna’s formula and the information I promised you on the baby’s vaccinations and schedules for her doctor’s visits, and yours,” she said. “Be sure to put the formula in the fridge as soon as you get home.”

  “Thank you,” Daisy said. She had wanted so badly to nurse Brianna but the necessity of
returning to work at Cut ’N’ Chat as soon as possible meant it would be more manageable to bottle feed her daughter. The nursing coach had been sympathetic but Daisy was still torn by her decision.

  “Any more questions?” the plump middle-aged nurse asked, smiling down at Brianna as she automatically checked the baby’s wrist bracelet against the matching one Daisy wore.

  “Not that I can think of.” Daisy was torn between wanting to get out of the expensive hospital room and her reluctance to face Quinn Parrish once more.

  “If you do have any questions or problems you have our hotline number on every pamphlet. Remember we’re here 24/7/365. Babies are what we do.”

  “I won’t forget.” Daisy smiled in spite of her inner turmoil. The hospital staff had been great.

  “Push your call button when you’re ready to leave. I’ll take you down to the lobby.”

  “Thanks.”

  The nurse tucked a corner of Brianna’s blanket more snugly around her feet and sailed out of the room.

  “You’re sure this is what you want to do?” Rue asked one more time when they were alone again.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then I’d better be getting back to the shop.”

  “You should have left half an hour ago.” It was a long drive back to Mooresville. Rue was taking all of Daisy’s appointments as well as her own longtime patrons. She would be swamped the rest of the day. Anxiety tightened her nerves, allowing the fears and worries she’d done her best to suppress to vault to the forefront of her thoughts again.

  “I have plenty of time,” Rue insisted. “Remember I was doing hair before you were out of diapers. I can handle twice as many bookings as we have today if I wanted to.” She flexed a well-toned arm in a Rosy-the-Riveter pose. Daisy knew about Rosy-the-Riveter because there was a poster of the World War II icon in the back room of Cut ’N’ Chat where Rue’s male customers preferred to get their hair cut.