With Child

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “You’re serious about him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” her mother said breezily. “But his apartment was being turned into a condo, and he didn’t want to buy it. He’s been spending a lot of nights over anyway, so it made sense for him just to move in for now.”

  “Do you think he’d mind…”

  “I’m afraid I don’t even have a spare bedroom anymore,” her mother continued, as if she hadn’t heard Mindy. “Mark’s using it as his office. I got rid of the bed ages ago. I never liked having houseguests anyway.”

  Except the men who shared her bed, Mindy thought with the remembered bitterness of the teenager who had seen her beloved father replaced in her mother’s bed within weeks of his funeral.

  “Why don’t you just hire your landlady?” her mother suggested, with the pleased tone of someone who’d come up with a perfect idea. “You mentioned that she might babysit for you.”

  “That’s because she already takes care of her grandchildren. At their house.”

  “Well, why couldn’t she have them come to her house instead? And then she could pop in on you several times a day. I’ll bet if you ask her, she’d consider it.”

  Mindy thought of her landlady’s living room, tiny and cluttered with porcelain collectibles. They sat atop the doilies on every table and even marched along the top of the television set, which looked like an anachronism in what might have been a Victorian parlor. Three preschoolers in that living room evoked images of King Kong marauding through Manhattan.

  “Or Selene!” her mother added. “Why don’t you suggest that she get a place with you?”

  “She has two roommates. And a boyfriend.”

  “Or what about Isabel? You two used to giggle in high school about how someday you’d get an apartment together.”

  Tears oozed from beneath Mindy’s lashes. “Mom, she doesn’t even live around here anymore.”

  “There are all kinds of possibilities you haven’t considered,” her mother scolded. “You know if you get absolutely frantic, I’ll figure something out, but honestly, right now isn’t very convenient. It’s not like you’re eighteen and I expected you to bounce home again.”

  A huge lump in her throat kept Mindy from whispering, I am frantic. I wouldn’t have called you if I weren’t. But instead she said, “Yeah, okay, Mom.”

  “Let me know if you want me to grocery shop for you.”

  Mindy pressed End and let the phone drop onto the bed beside her.

  She was alone. Completely, utterly, alone.

  No, not alone, she thought in panic—responsible for another life. For Dean’s child. And she couldn’t even take care of herself.

  QUINN COULD JUST BARELY SEE the woman’s face through the grey haze of the closed screen door. The latch had stayed hooked.

  “When is the last time you heard from your son?” he asked.

  “That boy knows I don’t like the stuff he’s gotten into,” she declared. “He calls sometimes and I say, ‘Are you clean, boy?’ Until he say yes, he’s not welcome in my door and he knows it.”

  “Do you remember when you spoke to him last?”

  “It was back a while. Three, four weeks. Why you looking for my boy?”

  “Right now, just to ask him some questions,” Quinn said. “His fingerprints were on a gun.”

  “A gun!” The screen door rattled, and he saw that she’d grasped the frame. “My Marvin?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He paused. “Will you let me know if you hear from him? We’ll find him sooner or later. It would look better for him if he came in voluntarily for questioning.” He held out his card. “Here’s my phone number.”

  After a long silence, a hand lifted the latch and the screen cracked open just long enough for her to snatch the business card from him.

  “I’ll tell him what you said,” she promised, then stepped back and shut the door.

  He was inclined to believe she didn’t know where her son was and disapproved of his behavior. He also doubted she’d actually turn him in. A judge might okay a wiretap, but Quinn thought he’d pursue other possibilities first.

  Back in his car, he yawned and decided to get a cup of coffee. He’d passed an espresso place half a mile back.

  There was a spot open at the curb right in front of the place. He swung in, nodded at a trio of young men loitering one business down, then went in.

  Three small tables were crammed into the tiny space. The only other customer, a young guy with a mohawk and an eyebrow ring, briefly lowered The Stranger, a counterculture weekly, to see who’d come in. Behind the counter, the barista hadn’t even glanced up. Her tousled blond hair gave Quinn a pang.

  Just as he reached the counter, she lifted her head. Shocked, he found himself staring at Mindy. A Mindy who looked very different.

  His gaze traveled from her blue eyes and a face that looked puffy down the front of the red apron. It…swelled.

  “You’re pregnant,” he said stupidly.

  She bit her lip. “Quinn. What are you doing here?”

  He let out a ragged sound. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I…” Her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know.” God almighty, she’d kept from him the knowledge that Dean would have a son or daughter, and she didn’t know why?

  “That’s a lie.” She clasped her hands together over her belly, the fingers writhing. “You’re so bossy! So…disapproving.”

  Quinn shook his head in disbelief. He remembered why he’d been relieved when she’d told him to get lost. He’d forgotten how exasperating she could be. But…she was pregnant. Very pregnant. He calculated quickly.

  “Did Dean know?”

  Now the tears sparkled on her lashes and she shook her head. Her whisper was thick with those tears. “I hadn’t told him yet. Oh, Quinn! I wish I’d told him. I wish I could go back and do it over again.”

  Quinn heard the scrape of chair legs on the tile floor and he turned his head to see the punk with the mohawk tuck The Stranger under his arm and saunter out. The bell on the door rang.

  “Is anybody else here?”

  Mindy sniffed. “No.”

  Quinn stalked to the front door, locked it and flipped the Open sign to Closed.

  “I can’t close in the middle of the day!”

  “You just did.” He turned to face her. “Will you come out from behind there and sit down?”

  After a minute she nodded. “I’ll get in trouble.”

  He swore. “You don’t need a crappy job like this! Damn it, if Dean could see you…”

  Just emerging through the waist-high swinging door, she winced. “I do need the job.” She took a deep breath. “I did need it. This is my last day.”

  She needed a minimum-wage job? Had she blown Dean’s money already? You could do it fast at a casino.

  He waited until she’d lowered herself into one of the small wrought-iron chairs. Then he pulled out the one across the round table from her and sat, too. Seeing the apprehension and misery on her face, he said as gently as he could, “Will you tell me what’s happened to you?”

  She wiped angrily, he thought, at her tears. “Even after I sold everything, there wasn’t that much money left, Quinn. You know that. If I wasn’t pregnant, I could have used it to go back to grad school or to live on while I tried to make it as an artist. But there isn’t just me anymore. I don’t have health insurance, so I have to use some to pay the doctor and hospital and to live on for a couple of months after the baby is born. And then kids are expensive. I mean, they need toys and bikes and piano lessons and soccer shoes.”

  He nodded.

  She sniffed. “And I wanted to put some away for college. Not for me. For…him.” Her hand fluttered toward her belly. “Or her. So I got a job right away. And I have an apartment.”

  “But you’ve been doing okay?”

  “I thought I was. I mean—” she rubbed her belly “—I really was. Until, I don’t know, the last month. I�
��ve gotten so big and so tired.”

  God. He hated the idea of her standing all day. And alone here in a neighborhood that wasn’t the best.

  “You’re not on by yourself at night, are you?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes.” A shadow seemed to cross her face. “I don’t like closing.”

  She closed by herself. Counted money from the cash register while anybody could be looking in the front window. Then she walked out, locked the door and had to get to her car. His teeth ground together.

  Her eyes widened at his expression. “Nobody’s bothered me,” she said hastily.

  Okay. Today was her last day. He made himself relax, muscle by muscle.

  “So now what?” he asked. “Will you be staying with your mother?”

  Mindy bowed her head. After a moment, she shook it.

  “You’re staying in your apartment?”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do!” she burst out, lifting her head to show him eyes again swimming with tears. “I hate not even being able to take care of myself!”

  What in hell? “Are you out of money?” he asked carefully.

  She grabbed a napkin and gave her nose a defiant blow. “No. It’s not that. It’s…” This look was wild, her eyes shying from his.

  There was something she didn’t want to tell him. Something that scared the crap out of her.

  “What?” he asked.

  When the defiance left her, she seemed to crumple. Hands splayed on her belly, she rocked, her head bent and her voice muffled.

  “The doctor wants me to stay in bed until the baby comes. I just don’t know how I can do that. If I can’t even grocery shop—”

  “In bed?” he interrupted. “Why?”

  This small sniff sounded forlorn. She still didn’t look up. He focused on the top of her head and on the graceful, somehow vulnerable line of her slender neck.

  “I have a condition called preeclampsia. My blood pressure is elevated and I have protein in my urine. If I was another few weeks along, the doctor would induce labor, but it’s too soon. So I started on medication for the blood pressure and she wants me lying down most of the time. But I can’t! I just can’t!”

  Voice brutal, he asked, “Will you hurt the baby if you don’t?”

  “I…” She pressed her fingers to her mouth. Nodded hard.

  In that same hard voice, he said, “Risk your life?”

  Barely audible, she whispered, “I… Maybe.”

  “Then what in hell are you doing here?”

  “I told you!” she cried. “It’s my last day!”

  Still angry, he asked, “How long have you been working since the doctor prescribed bed rest?”

  “Only two days. I saw her yesterday morning. I had to give my boss a day to find someone else. Or rearrange the schedule.”

  He felt as if he’d wandered into Wonderland. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the queen had ordered his head off.

  “Let me get this straight. You won’t be working, but you’re refusing to commit to resting in bed?”

  “It’s hard when you live alone,” she mumbled. “Okay?”

  “I know you hate the idea of going home, but damn it, Mindy! Isn’t this the time to take your mother’s help?”

  She didn’t move. Just sat there with her head bent and her hands over her face. “She…doesn’t want me to come home. She doesn’t even have an extra bed.”

  The desolation in her voice pierced him. He knew what it must have cost her to admit her own mother couldn’t be bothered to help her.

  Shoving his chair back, he circled the table and squatted beside her. He wrapped a hand around the fragile nape of her neck and gently squeezed. “I’m sorry, Mindy. God. I’m so sorry.”

  After a moment she turned, just the smallest amount, but he wrapped his arms around her and she leaned into him. Without drama, she cried against his shoulder, wetting his shirt. One hand gripped his shirtfront, as if she were afraid he’d run if she let go.

  Quinn ran his hands over her back, kneaded her neck, murmured God knew what. At last, she went still, resting against him as if she weren’t strong enough to sit up.

  “When I was a little kid, my mother would disappear for days on end,” he said. “She just…left me to take care of myself, even when I was only five or six. I got good at it. I didn’t know any different. I could see her addiction driving her. But, you know, when you need a person, it hurts when you realize you can’t count on her.”

  Her head bobbed against his shoulder.

  He patted her again, a little awkwardly. “I guess I don’t have the world’s best people skills.”

  She gave a watery laugh.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, despite himself. “Okay. I suck at any kind of long-term relationship. I drive people away.” Except Dean. Dean was the only one who’d ever been in it for the long haul for Quinn.

  Except, he realized, the Howies. He just hadn’t let himself notice that they still cared.

  He cleared his throat. “The thing is, if you don’t let me help now, I’ll worry. About you and the baby.”

  She stirred and started to push away from him. He found he didn’t want to let her go, but he made himself.

  Mindy’s eyes were puffy and red, and her lashes stuck together. Her hair poked every which way and she needed to blow her nose again. But she said, “I don’t need any money, Quinn. Really. Mom did offer financial help, but that’s not…”

  As if she hadn’t spoken, he said, “I have a big house. Well,” his shoulders moved, “not like Dean’s. But three bedrooms. I can’t take much time off work, but if you’d be okay by yourself during the day…”

  She gaped. “You’re inviting me to…to live with you?”

  “Uh…yeah. For now. As long as you need to.”

  She made a funny sound. Half sob, half laugh. “You’d drive me crazy. I’d drive you crazy.”

  “Probably,” he admitted. But he wanted her to agree anyway. No, damn it! He wouldn’t let her say no. He’d abduct her. He’d…

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re offering because you think I can’t take care of Dean’s baby. Right?”

  He stood, perhaps to give himself a chance to avoid her gaze. “No. It’s you I’m worried about. Dean was the closest thing I had to family. I guess that makes you family, too.”

  “You mean, we had a sort of sibling squabble?”

  He had never thought of her as a sister. Never would. Maybe that was part of the problem.

  “Could be,” he lied.

  “Oh.” Her shoulders relaxed. She sat in silence for a moment, her forehead puckered. At last she looked searchingly at him. “Do you mean it, Quinn?”

  “I mean it.”

  Mindy groped for the paper napkin on the table and blew her nose. Wadding it in her hand, she said in a small voice, “All right. If you really…”

  “God damn it, I said I meant it!”

  “Don’t yell at me!” she yelled back.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. She would drive him crazy.

  Knowing she had nobody to help her would drive him even crazier.

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” He paused. “How late are you supposed to stay here?”

  “Um…” She glanced instinctively toward the clock. “Until five. This guy, Diego, is coming in for the evening.”

  “All right. I’ve got a couple more people I have to talk to. How about if I come back at five?” He didn’t like knowing she’d be on her feet even that long, but didn’t see an alternative. “We’ll go by your apartment and pick up the necessities, then you’ll come home with me.”

  She hesitated, but finally nodded. “Okay. I hope…” She gave her head a quick shake. “Never mind. Thank you, Quinn.”

  He walked to the door, flipped the sign back to Open, then paused with his hand on the knob. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I…” She was quiet behind him. “I think I would have. Soon. But after I told you I didn’t need you anymore
, calling to ask for help… Um, the idea wasn’t very appealing. I know you’ve never thought very much about me, but I do have some pride.”

  He didn’t dispute her belief that he hadn’t thought much of her, because it was true. On the surface. Beneath the surface, down where it was dark and quiet and hard to see, he didn’t know what he felt for her.

  Without turning around, he said, “I’m sorrier than I can tell you that I made you feel that way. If it’s any consolation, right now I feel like scum.” He hesitated, didn’t know what else he should say, and finally made himself open the door. He walked out, tossing over his shoulder, “I’ll see you at five.”

  Quinn got in his car, shoved the key in the ignition, and thought, I found her.

  He hadn’t lied: he did feel like a real son of a bitch. She was in danger of losing the baby and she hadn’t been able to turn to him because he’d treated her with such contempt before.

  But self-loathing wasn’t as powerful as the relief that swelled in his chest, and something that might have been happiness.

  She was coming home with him. She was going to let him take care of her.

  And she was having a baby. Dean’s baby.

  As Quinn started the car, he thought, Wait’ll George and Nancy hear they’re going to be grandparents.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HIS HOUSE WAS PERFECT. Darn it. Mindy didn’t want to like Quinn too much, or else she’d have to admit she’d been wrong about him. She’d half hoped his house would be okay to visit but not appealing—all chrome and black leather, or maybe heaped with magazines featuring naked women in come-hither poses and decorated with pyramids of beer bottles and posters of professional wrestlers.

  No such luck.

  Way back when, she’d dreamed up all kinds of hideous possibilities once she realized that Quinn was never going to invite her to his place, even if she was his best friend’s wife. No, when he felt obligated to reciprocate their hospitality, he paid for a dinner out. She’d known perfectly well that Dean went over to Quinn’s sometimes; she was the one who wasn’t welcome.

  Which made his offer to take her in even more extraordinary. She must seem really pathetic to him. Like a pregnant stray cat.