by Tina Leonard
“Lady, you getting out or not?” the cabdriver demanded.
“I’m getting out,” she replied, not aware that she’d already opened the door.
Jonathan got out, too, and handed her as many of the packages as she could carry. The rest he set on the sidewalk. “I’d offer to carry those up, but I think you’re going to have all the help you need.”
“Thanks, Jonathan.”
He leaned down to give her a kiss, with Cody’s gaze simmering on them. “I’ll call to check on you later.”
“Okay,” she said breathlessly, only barely aware the taxi pulled away from the curb. “Hi, Cody,” she said, walking toward him. Her mouth felt frozen, her face muscles tight. What could she say to this man that wouldn’t sound utterly foolish?
“Hi.”
He came forward to stand near her but didn’t touch her. His gaze swept down to her belly and Stormy felt a flush run all over her that had nothing to do with the Los Angeles heat or her pregnancy.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said.
“I’m surprised to be here.”
“Oh?” Stormy looked around. “Did you bring Mary for the auditions?” she asked, trying her best to sound nonchalant.
“No.” His gaze was focused on her. “I thought about bringing her. Sometimes, it was the best excuse I could think of to get out here. But then I realized you and I need to have a little time to talk. If you don’t mind, and if your fiancé won’t mind.”
“No, he won’t,” she replied swiftly, completely forgetting to tell him that she was no longer engaged. “Come on up. I’m dying to hear what the subject of this conversation is if it couldn’t be handled over the phone.”
He leaned down to pick up the packages, shaking his head at her when she tried to take some from him. “No. You convince that doorman I’m not here to do anyone bodily harm, and I’ll manage the rest.”
Quickly, she told the doorman that Cody was her guest. The doorman frowned at Cody, and Cody glowered back, and Stormy tried not to smile at all the macho posturing.
“Come on. It’s a good thing I returned when I did. The two of you might have engaged in fisticuffs,” she said wryly, digging out her key.
Cody didn’t say anything. Stormy hurried to press the elevator button, and they stepped inside. The elevator whooshed to the sixth floor a whole lot faster than she would have liked. The thought of having Cody in her little apartment made her hands tremble as she put the key in the lock. She felt like stuck film in a film projector, with images jumping crazily all over the screen.
“Home, sweet home,” she said, pushing the door open so he could pass her.
“I got it.” He propped the door with his boot and waited for her to move past him. She did, but her belly and all the packages he was holding made it a tight squeeze. “Let me take some of those,” she said to save face. “I’ll put them away.”
She worried that he might ask what was in the bags, but he didn’t, saving her from bringing up the need for baby necessaries. “Can I get you anything?” she asked, unable to look at him.
“Didn’t come all the way west to share a soda with you, Stormy,” he said, coming to stand in front of her. He caught her chin with his hand and forced her to meet his gaze. “Are we having a baby?”
“Yes,” she murmured, swallowing in a suddenly dry throat. There was no point in denying it.
“I thought so.” He let out a tense breath and released her chin, moving away to sit heavily in the nearest chair.
She sat opposite, knotting her fingers. He seemed overwhelmed. She felt the same way. This man and she had created a human being. The knowledge that their lives were locked together in this way for all time hit her. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
He rested his hand against his cheek, scratching at his temple.
“Well, I thought about it,” she said hurriedly, “but there never seemed to be a right time.”
He eyed her dispassionately.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.” She pleaded with her eyes for him to understand. “I was…afraid of how you’d feel. About me. About us…having a baby.”
He nodded once, as if he completely related to the words she was babbling. Stunned, Stormy realized he was at a loss. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m trying to decide what to do.”
“About what?” She hoped he wasn’t angry, though she knew he had a right to be. But do? There wasn’t anything for him to do. He was the father, not a participant at this point. Maybe never a participant.
“I’m either going to wring your neck or holler out loud that I’m going to be a father. I’m afraid that doorman’s got security listening outside the door, so maybe I won’t yell. Wringing your neck would be a quieter operation.”
“I won’t let you wring my neck, Cody.” Stormy waved him off with a dismissive hand. “I understand you being upset but what’s done is done. There’s nothing to do except wait until the baby comes.”
“Anger suits my mood right now; waiting doesn’t.” He stared at her. “Why shouldn’t I give you the yelling you deserve?”
“It’s a waste of time,” she said, faking an airiness she didn’t feel. “Just because we’ve developed this unexpected hitch is no reason to get all uptight.”
“You’re not marrying that elderly man you drag around like a security blanket,” he stated.
“What?” she repeated, outraged.
“He’s not raising my child. Shoot, I doubt he’s even got enough breath left in him to pitch baseballs to my son.”
“Baseballs?” Disbelief swept Stormy. Of all the reactions she’d expected from Cody, this wasn’t one she had envisioned. “Jonathan would be a good father.” She ought to know. He’d certainly kept a paternal eye on her through the many stages of her creative parents’ up and down career.
“I understand that you and he have a relationship, but he’s not going to be a father to my son.”
Hot fury whipped from out of nowhere. She jumped to her feet, pointing at her stomach for emphasis. “This might be a girl, not that you’ll allow your chauvinistic brain to consider your having anything in you but requisite male chromosomes. Heavens! Since it’s your child, I might give birth to a donkey!” Setting her hands on her hips, she glared at him. “You can quit criticizing Jonathan, too. He’s been unfailingly supportive.”
“I’m not interested in that.” Cody stood, too, meeting her furious gaze with some righteous heat of his own. “Let’s stick to the problem at hand. If you’re going to marry an old man and have an ‘understanding’ marriage—” he repeated the term she knew he despised, “—and if you intend to continue living like a flake, then I think in the interest of all parties, the child is better off living with me in Texas where he can grow up like a man.”
Stormy sucked in a breath. “How dare you!”
“We need to come to some terms, and if I’m not as supportive and understanding as you’d like, I’m sorry. I’m just the way I am. I say things the way I see them. One time, that was a quality I admired about you.” He stared at her, regret in his eyes. “You mighta sounded like a wacko, but at least you were an honest wacko. Now, you’re living such a big lie I wonder if I ever knew you.”
“What in the hell do you mean ‘big lie’?” Her neck stiff with anger, Stormy refused to release his dark, angry gaze.
“You don’t love that man. You’re going to have an ‘arrangement’.”
“What’s it to you?” Stormy snapped.
“It’s a lot. Your whole way of life is something I don’t want my son growing up around.”
“Well, I beg your pardon! You didn’t seem to mind—”
Knocking at the door halted the abuse she was about to heap on him. Promising with her eyes that she wasn’t finished with him yet, Stormy opened the door. Her heart sank. “Hello, Mother, Father. Please come in.”
“We decided to drop by and get you to go to dinner with us. We want you to be sure you’re eating
right for the—” Her mother caught sight of Cody and her voice trailed off awkwardly. She walked past Stormy into the room, burnt-orange hair crimped into a frizzy ball and three-inch yellow peace signs swinging from her ears. Her father wore his best clothes, Stormy had to admit, even if the jeans were more than ragged and the sandals worn down to the thinness of paper.
“Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet Cody Aguillar,” she said, pointing to the black-eyed man staring at her folks. “Cody, these are my parents, Sun and Moon Nixon.”
Slowly, he swept the hat from his head, nodding. He put his hand out for her father to shake. “Nice to meet you.” They echoed his greeting, but he wasn’t paying attention. His eyes had shot back to hers and it was all too clear what he was thinking. What a bunch of fruitcakes. These nuts aren’t going to get the chance to turn my son into a fruit.
“You must be the father of Stormy’s baby,” Sun said without preamble.
“Mother, why don’t you sit down?” Stormy asked hurriedly. “Father, can I get you something to drink?”
They ignored her, frozen into an uneasy moment with Cody.
“Stormy confirmed my suspicions about that a few moments ago,” he replied.
Sun nodded, walking over to sit down. “We tried to get her to tell you at once.”
“We did. But she wouldn’t listen to us.”
Moon went to sit beside his wife as if they were the same teenagers who’d fallen in love during their hippie days. Cody propped himself into a round, flowered chintz chair that didn’t quite accept his body.
“We tried to explain to her how important it was for children to have strong parental influences in their lives, but Stormy has always gone the opposite direction of anything we tell her.”
“What?” Stormy stared at her parents, shocked. “When did you two turn into model June and Ward Cleaver types?”
“We always were,” Sun admonished her lightly. “You had the most normal childhood of any kid in any family we ever traveled with.”
“I’m sorry.” Stormy stepped forward so that she was speaking directly to Cody. “They’ve been breathing too much fresh California mountain air. Never did we have a normal lifestyle in any definition ‘normal’ can be stretched to include.”
“Maybe it wasn’t your average suburban home,” Moon agreed, “but we stayed married. It’s better for children to have a home where the parents live together.”
“Even when they’re sleeping with other people?” Stormy nearly shouted. “Have you two gone off your health-store medication? Don’t even try to pretend that you were apple pie parents!”
“We weren’t.” Sun shook her head, smiling at Cody. “Stormy was never an apple pie child, either.”
“I believe you,” he said sincerely. His gaze flashed to Stormy, for one moment lighting on her ankle bracelet, or maybe the tiny tattoo she had on her bare ankle, she wasn’t sure which. No doubt he’d rather have a woman who wore boots all the time, she thought sourly. Then she thought about Annie, who’d treated her like part of the family. Annie had boots on every time she’d seen her. She shouldn’t have let such a bitter, narrow-minded thought get in her head. Stormy took a deep breath, putting a hand on her stomach to soothe herself and any turmoil she might be causing the baby.
“I wasn’t an apple pie kid myself,” Cody said conversationally. Suddenly, he had everyone’s attention riveted on him, waiting for him to elaborate. He swallowed hard, feeling stupid, the kind of rattled stupid he’d felt when a bull gave him a good thump into a barn wall. His brain whirled with everything he’d heard in the last forty minutes. Stormy’s parents stared at him as if he were some unique animal in a zoo. He held his hat in his hand, pressing the edges of it between his fingers for something to do, then realized what he was doing and stuck it under his chair. “I was never as good at school…as my brother was,” he said softly. “I…” He broke off, thinking about Carlos and how he’d died, and suddenly, Cody knew he’d spent all his life in a shell. A secure, somewhat narrow-minded shell of things familiar and not intimidating. He’d never been on the hot seat with anybody’s parents before. Any home he’d been in to see a girl, the family had known him for ages, and his parents, too. This was different. He didn’t know the Nixon way of life, but they didn’t know the Aguillar way of life either. And it was kind of hard to explain to a woman with orange hair and a man who looked like a cave dweller that his intentions toward their daughter were honorable, in some ways.
He owed them that respect. This woman with her searching gray-purple eyes like Stormy’s, and this man with a worn road for a face and eyes that looked permanently strobe-lit, were Stormy’s parents. He had gotten their daughter pregnant. No matter how disgusted he might be with Stormy right now, he was going to sit here and let her parents examine him until they’d gotten it out of their systems. “I was the wild child, the spoiled younger brother.”
“His nickname in Desperado is Crazy Cody,” Stormy supplied helpfully.
He gave her a pointed stare-down for her help.
“Crazy Cody?” Sun repeated, looking like she might break into tears any second.
“Ah…yeah.” Cody scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I don’t know how I got that handle.”
“He lies. He revels in the respect being crazy gets him.” Stormy brought out a tray. “Here’s some spring water, Cody. Try it. It tastes a lot better than that murky stuff Desperado calls water. They pull it out of a lake and it always tastes like dirt,” she informed her parents.
“It does not!” Cody sat straight. He’d been drinking that water all his life and it was just fine.
“Oh, it does.” Stormy shook her head as she squeezed some lemon into a glass. “You don’t notice it, but I called the water company, just to inquire. I thought maybe the lake had gone dry, and the city didn’t realize they were pumping up the last little drops of their supply. Well, the water man said they were having a hot summer and the lake was warm but they’d pour more chemicals into it. Chemicals!” She shook her head at her parents.
Startled, they stared at Cody for confirmation. “You better drink all the spring water you can while you’re here,” Moon told him. “This is as fresh and pure as it gets.”
Cody took a tentative drink. “Tastes like water,” he pronounced.
“That’s right!” Stormy looked so proud. “Water, not dirt! You see? You can tell the difference.”
He couldn’t, but the Nixons all seemed so pleased with their spring water he wasn’t about to bust their collective bubble.
“We should take Cody out to dinner, Moon.” Sun turned to look at her husband, peace signs all asway. “Don’t you think so?”
Cody realized he was being treated as a son-in-law prospect. That really wasn’t a good idea. He and Stormy hadn’t even had a chance to air anything out between them. An evening spent with her parents probably didn’t bode well for his bachelorhood. Heck, their daughter was carrying his child. No doubt they expected his ring on her finger before the night was over. He swallowed, feeling distinctly cornered. “That’s all right. You don’t have to do that, but I sure do appreciate it.”
Moon snapped his fingers, catching Cody’s attention in a sudden way. The man had long fingernails. Obviously, he had never done much riding or roping.
“Sushi. We should take Cody to a sushi bar!” Moon suggested.
“What a wonderful idea!” Sun beamed at Cody. “Have you ever had sushi?”
Stormy waited for his reply with a sarcastic smile, knowing full well he was a meat and potatoes man.
“Is sushi that raw fish stuff?”
“Oh, yes, quite delicious,” Sun told him.
He could maybe eat some fish. “Will they cook it for me?”
“I…don’t think so.” Sun looked at her husband, obviously perplexed as to why anybody would want their dinner cooked.
“Well, maybe they’ve got a steak or something.” Cody had pretty well resigned himself to this adventure with the Nixon crew fro
m outer— No, they aren’t weird. Just a…little out of the ordinary. Like Stormy. His gaze caressed her belly. She might be out of the ordinary, but she looked fabulously sexy in spite of it.
“Steak?” Sun repeated. “Stormy’s a vegetarian.” She sent her daughter a questioning look that said, What were you doing in bed with a man who eats red meat? “In fact, Moon and I never touch red meat. Or any meat except fish. The muscle meats aren’t healthy for you,” she said, obviously trying, by the smile on her face, to be informative and helpful.
“Cody raises cattle for a living,” Stormy murmured.
The awkward silence in the room burned Cody’s ears.
“Oh,” Sun said awkwardly. “You raise cattle.”
Those disgusting muscled creatures, she might as well have said. “And eat them, too,” he said smoothly, because they were all feeling so awkward he felt like an absurd remark would take the tension to extratight. “Truth is, I don’t waste my time listening to rock ’n’ roll music. It’s the equivalent of jelly for your brain. Much healthier to stick to classical music, or country and western.”
Of course he knew that Stormy’s parents were rock ’n’ roll junkies. He crossed his arms over his chest, seeing clearly the startled, wondering glance Sun sent her only child. The deck was cut, the cards reshuffled. Teams were chosen. In his mind, they were on one side, and he was the unpicked player. Odd man out. The different, undesirable one.
“Take me to a restaurant where they cook the food and I’ll buy your dinner,” he said to restart the game.
“Cool,” Moon said, jumping to his worn-sandaled feet. “We’ll take you up on that.”
“Good.” Cody put on his black hat with the tooth in the leather hatband and held the door open for Stormy and her diminutive, eccentric parents. As she passed by him, his eyes promised that, after this interesting side trip, the two of them were going to hash out their differences and come to a compromise.
