With Child

by Janice Kay Johnson

  It just would have been nice, she’d thought wistfully at the time, if they’d been left with more interests that they truly had in common.

  What she hated to think—what had scared her tonight—was that they’d both been just a little dissatisfied with their choice. What if Dean had fallen in love again—with some other woman? What if having a child together hadn’t been enough?

  But he was dead and she’d never know. So why did the whole idea upset her so much?

  Maybe, she thought with disquietude, because Quinn didn’t bore her. Quinn’s house was filled with books. He didn’t drive the latest-model car. The music in his collection was eclectic. The house itself had charm, but it wouldn’t impress anyone. Dean had really, really loved to impress people.

  Quinn mowed his small lawn with an old-fashioned push mower that had no engine at all. She’d peeked in the garage the other day and seen it, along with Dean’s Camaro and a tidy workbench and tools that made her itch to play with them.

  She liked talking to Quinn, too. The other night they’d spent an hour arguing about the ethics of big business after watching the documentary The Corporation. She’d never have even gotten Dean to sit down and watch a film like that.

  “Who wants to see talking heads?” he’d have said dismissively.

  But the talking heads had had interesting, scary, provocative things to say. Quinn seemed to think so, too.

  She’d been so sure she didn’t like him! Or so sure she didn’t want to like him. Mindy wasn’t sure which.

  Except, a niggling feeling inside told her she did know. She just didn’t like the answer. She didn’t like her secret suspicion that her husband’s best friend had unsettled her because… No! Why even think it? Quinn was being nice now for Dean’s sake, not hers. He’d be horrified if he knew that, despite her ponderous body, she was having stirrings of… Darn it, there she went again. The point was, all she’d do was confirm his initial belief that she’d been too young and…and flighty to have deserved Dean’s love and vows.

  And maybe, she thought unhappily, he was even right.

  SHE STAYED IN BED the next morning until Quinn had left. His footsteps paused once in the hall outside her bedroom, but he didn’t knock and she would have pretended to be asleep if he had.

  By evening, she’d decided she had just been silly the night before. All widows probably wondered whether their marriage would have endured if their husband had lived. There were a lot of “if onlys” that wandered through your mind, when you couldn’t go back and change anything or see what really would have happened.

  She’d made the firm decision not to compare Quinn and Dean. It was pointless. She was lucky Quinn was being so nice and that they were able to enjoy some of the same movies and that they could have a good discussion or a rousing argument, since he was determined to take care of her for Dean’s sake. Staying here was…nicer, since he wasn’t glowering at her all the time anymore.

  When she heard him arrive home, she detoured to the bathroom to peer at herself in the mirror and brush her hair before she went out to say hi.

  He was already setting a bowl and casserole dish on the stove when she sat on a stool at the breakfast bar.

  “Hey.”

  His gaze swept unreadably over her. “How are you feeling?”

  Mindy made a face. “Bored. As if I weighed three hundred pounds. How was your day?”

  He grunted. “We found Marvin. Dead.”

  “Oh, no! His poor mother.”

  “Telling her was no picnic.”

  “Does that mean he was your guy? Or not?”

  “Probably was.” Quinn grabbed olive oil from a cupboard and set out spices. “He must have become a liability. Either he had a big mouth or he was panicking.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said again. “Where was he found?”

  “Lake Union. Marina owner spotted him.”

  He talked a little more about his day as she watched him slice potatoes.

  Finally she asked, “What are we having?”

  “Hmm?” He glanced up. “Oh. Oven-fried potatoes, garden-burgers and a fruit salad.” Apparently satisfied with the quantity of potatoes, he sprinkled them with olive oil, rosemary and other spices. Then he spread them in the casserole dish and put them in the oven.

  “Quinn.” Mindy took a deep breath. “Tomorrow’s my doctor appointment.”

  “Right. I hadn’t forgotten. I plan to drive you. What time?” He was now assembling fruit and had pulled out a second cutting board.

  “Ten. Um… What I was wondering is if you’d like to come in with me.”

  His hands stilled. “In with you?”

  “Yes. I mean…” She gripped the edge of the countertop. “To hear the baby’s heartbeat. And…well, to talk to the doctor. Since you’ll probably be driving me. When I go into labor. Or when she decides to induce.”

  One brow lifted. “Probably?”

  “You might be caught up at work. I could call a cab.”

  She could tell he didn’t like that idea. Frowning, he mulled it over.

  “You have my cell-phone number. I’ll be available.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, not pointing out that he might be in the middle of, say, inspecting a body that had just been pulled from Lake Union.

  After a moment, he began chopping an apple. “Sure,” he said as if he didn’t recognize how momentous her offer had been. “I’d like to hear what this doctor has to say.”

  So it was that the next morning, he sat next to her in the waiting room at the women’s clinic, looking as out of place as—she tried to think of the right analogy—as a jaguar strolling by a swing set in a suburban backyard. Dangerous, and not quite domestic, she thought, stealing a look at him frowning and flipping through the notebook he invariably carried.

  She tried to see him with other eyes. After all, she knew he wore a holster and gun under that worn black leather coat and that his reactions were, according to Dean, scary fast.

  But however hard she tried, she still saw the qualities that had unsettled her when she’d first met him. To start with, he was six feet tall or maybe a little more, broad-shouldered and obviously fit and strong. Compared to him, most men looked…soft. The black slacks and jacket didn’t help, but really it wasn’t his wardrobe so much as a grimness about the set of his mouth coupled with a stillness and sense of containment, as if he was both guarded and hyperalert. His eyes, a startling blue, had a laser intensity when he looked up at an arriving couple. Mindy suspected he was very, very good at interrogation.

  But he also had that air of suppressed sadness, of melancholy, that she’d found as disturbing as anything. Sometimes, when he didn’t realize she was looking, his eyes were so bleak it sent a shiver through her.

  Brendan Quinn, she had always suspected, was a lonely man, but one who would never accept pity.

  And now he sat next to her in the waiting room as if he were any husband or father, when the idea of him changing a baby’s diaper was impossible to bring into focus. Slamming a suspect against a wall, sure. Cooing in response to a toothless smile…probably not.

  But, to his credit, he was here, and he stood promptly when the nurse appeared in the doorway and called, “Mindy Fenton?”

  Mindy was no sooner through the doorway when the nurse handed her a cup.

  “You know the drill!” she said cheerily.

  Quinn looked at it as if it were an incendiary device. “You have to…?”

  “How do you think they found protein in my urine?”

  “Ah.” Then, unexpectedly, a grin tugged at his mouth. “I don’t suppose you ever have trouble producing some.”

  “Smart-ass,” Mindy muttered, turning in to the restroom. The closing door shut off his laugh.

  When she was done, he waited in the hall while the nurse weighed her and then took her blood pressure. Finally, Mindy was left alone to take off her maternity pants, heave herself onto the examining table and wrap her lower half like a mummy in the white drape.
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  “I’m ready,” she called, and Quinn stepped in, looking cautious.

  “You know, men have it easy,” she told him.

  He eyed the metal stirrups on the table with thinly disguised horror. “Yeah, we do.”

  At a knock on the door, he turned.

  Dr. Gibbs swept in, Mindy’s chart in her hand. “Hello,” she said briskly, holding out a hand to Quinn. “You are…?”

  “Brendan Quinn.” He shook. “Mindy’s husband was my best friend.”

  “I’m staying with Quinn,” Mindy explained. “He was nice enough to offer, and now he’s paying the price. I’m being waited on hand and foot.”

  The doctor’s assessing gaze became approving. “Good for you.”

  “He even went to the Lamaze class with me the other night. I thought he might like to hear the baby’s heartbeat.”

  “Good idea. Let’s have you lie back.” Dr. Gibbs supported Mindy as she lowered herself. Then she lifted her maternity shirt to expose the huge, pale mound of her belly. “You’re certainly looking pregnant.”

  Despite her self-consciousness, or perhaps because of it, Mindy laughed. “You think?”

  As they all looked, a knob poked up, then disappeared. Her belly shifted, as if a whale had passed under the surface of smooth water.

  “I’m glad to see the baby so active.” Dr. Gibbs smiled and took her stethoscope from around her neck. “Let’s have a listen.”

  After she’d located the baby’s heartbeat, she signaled for Quinn to come closer. He was staring at Mindy’s belly with something, she thought, of the same faint shock with which he’d regarded the cup. But he put the stethoscope to his ears.

  “Hear anything?”

  Frowning, he shook his head.

  The doctor moved the diaphragm a tiny bit, then a tiny bit farther, stopping when she saw his eyes widen.

  He listened raptly, his expression stunned. Mindy’s heart gave a bump at the wonder on a face she’d thought too closed, too cynical, ever to show such vulnerability or surprise.

  After a long moment, he removed the stethoscope from his ears with seeming reluctance. “It’s so fast,” he said, still staring with fascination at her belly.

  “Babies have a much faster heartbeat than adults.”

  “I guess I knew that,” he admitted. “From CPR. But it’s really racing.”

  Dr. Gibbs chuckled when Mindy’s stomach bulged and shifted again. “Well, the little guy—or gal—seems to be doing gymnastics right now. Your heart would probably race if you were doing somersaults, too.”

  Quinn’s laugh had a rusty sound. “Yeah, I suppose it would.”

  Dr. Gibbs sent him into the hall while she did a quick exam, then left Mindy to get dressed. Both returned to the room when Mindy was slipping on her flip-flops. It might be November, but she had no intention of putting on shoes—especially since there was no way she could get close enough to her feet to get socks on first.

  “You’re looking good,” the doctor informed her. “Your blood pressure is down, I don’t see the puffiness around your ankles or face, and the baby is obviously active. I recommend we continue to wait.”

  “Would the baby survive if it was born now?” Quinn asked.

  “Yes, many are born far more prematurely than this. Nevertheless, I don’t believe in hurrying labor unless we have no choice. Preemies are more likely to have problems, and you could run up some serious bills if he or she had to stay in the neonatal unit for any length of time.”

  “I can pay the bills if that’s the safest course for the baby.” Those vivid eyes briefly rested on her face. “And for Mindy.”

  “That’s good to know,” Dr. Gibbs said. “But I’m still of the wait-and-see mindset.” She fixed a stern gaze on Mindy. “You’re following my instructions?”

  Mindy nodded. “I get up only to go to the bathroom and to eat. And I did go to my Lamaze class Monday night.”

  The doctor pursed her lips. “That should be fine as long as you’ve been resting in bed all day. Well.” She flipped the chart closed. “Any questions?”

  “Do you think my due date is still accurate?”

  “Yep. I give you two more weeks tops. And that’s assuming your blood pressure stays down.” She rose from her stool, nodded, said, “Glad to meet you, Mr. Quinn. Mindy, be sure to make an appointment for next week,” and left the room.

  The examining room seemed very small in her wake. Mindy stood, eager to escape its confines. “Well, that was exciting, wasn’t it?”

  “It was interesting.” Quinn let her precede him out the door and down the hall, then waited patiently while she scheduled the next week’s appointment.

  Outside, he held the car door while she got in, then went around to his side. With the key in the ignition, he paused. “Hearing the heartbeat…” His shoulders moved. “I guess the baby didn’t seem real until now.”

  “Well, it does a little more to me since I’m the jungle gym.” Mindy patted her belly. “But I know what you mean. Hearing the heartbeat makes you realize there’s really a whole separate being inside me.”

  “Yeah.” He seemed to tear his gaze from her stomach. “Yeah, that’s it.” Giving himself a little shake, he started the car and then turned to look over his shoulders. “It won’t be just the two of us pretty soon.”

  She liked living with him. Liked it a whole lot. But pride made her say, “You know, once the baby is born, I won’t need the help. No more bed rest. You won’t want a baby keeping you awake at night. I can leave you in peace.”

  Quinn braked hard enough at the street to jolt them both. “You gave notice on that apartment, didn’t you?”

  “I had to. But I’ll have to find a different place. Eventually, I mean. And it’s not as if I can afford anything better! Maybe the Sanchezes won’t have rented it out again yet…”

  “Damn it, Mindy, that’s no place for a baby!”

  “He won’t be crawling for months! What difference does it make where the playpen and crib are?”

  “He’d develop asthma from the mold.” Quinn glowered at her. “Why are you determined to move out of my place?”

  “Um…” Very carefully, Mindy said, “I wouldn’t say I’m determined to move out.”

  “Then what the hell are we talking about?”

  “Quinn, you offered me your spare bedroom because I was desperate! I won’t be desperate anymore once the baby is born. Your offer didn’t include postnatal care.”

  “Well, now it does.” He cast an irritated glance at the rearview mirror and she realized that another car had been waiting behind them. “Yeah, yeah,” Quinn muttered, and turned onto the street. “I’d feel better,” he said, his tone oddly formal, “if you’d plan to stay for a while.”

  She hadn’t cried in at least a week. A recent record. But she immediately felt teary. “Thank you, Quinn.”

  “Good, it’s settled.” His shoulders seemed to relax.

  It occurred to Mindy that he had just insisted, once again, that she do what he thought best, and she had once again submitted docilely. Where was her pride? Her sense of independence? She should resent his high-handedness! Why was he so convinced she needed to be taken care of?

  She tried to fan a spark of resentment to life. She might even have succeeded, if just then Quinn’s fingers hadn’t flexed on the steering wheel and he hadn’t said, “I don’t usually put a Christmas tree up. But this’ll be his first Christmas. We ought to do it right.”

  Her heart melted, dousing the spark. This big, tough, lonely man was worried about her newborn baby having the kind of Christmas Quinn himself hadn’t had when he was a child. Never mind that the tree would be no more than a blur of color to an uncomprehending baby, that Mindy would have to unwrap any presents. Doing Christmas right meant something to Quinn. And that made her heart ache.

  “Just think.” She gently rubbed her belly and smiled at him. “A baby by Christmas.”

  HE’D SPENT THE PREVIOUS Thanksgiving with Dean, Mindy and half
a dozen other friends of theirs. Quinn would have escaped as soon as he’d eaten except for the football game. The women had hung out in the kitchen, the men in the living room.

  Most years he volunteered to work on holidays. Let the guys with families have ’em off, he figured.

  This year, he was up at eight groping inside the turkey, pulling out semi-frozen gizzards. Mindy, sleepy-eyed and bundled in her fuzzy robe, sat at the breakfast bar to supervise. Once he’d stuffed the turkey, wrapped it in aluminum foil and put it in the oven, she yawned, said, “I’m going back to bed,” and disappeared.

  Grateful for two ovens, Quinn mixed up pie crust and got out the rolling pin. Damn, wasn’t he domestic?

  The Howies arrived at noon, shivering as they stepped in. The rain, they reported, was mixed with sleet, and the news said the snow level was down to a thousand feet.

  Quinn helped them out of their coats. “Mindy is in the living room. Why don’t you go on in? I need to check on the turkey.”

  “Don’t stand up!” Nancy ordered as Mindy started to struggle up. “Is Quinn taking good care of you?”

  Without hesitation, without a glance his way, she said, “The best. He’ll deserve sainthood by the time he gets rid of me.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Nancy sat next to her. “Dean’s child. What a shame he isn’t here. You must think about him every day.”

  From the kitchen, Quinn missed Mindy’s answer. The comment was a punch to his stomach. When was the last time he’d really missed Dean? Having Mindy here, expecting Dean’s baby, maybe he should be caught at every turn by a memory, but the truth was he’d almost quit thinking of her as Dean’s wife. She was just…herself. A mop-headed, pretty woman with more than her share of pride, a quick mind, and a softness when she talked about the baby. Even the baby…damn it, Quinn knew it was Dean’s, but in Quinn’s mind the kid had become his own person, too. Or maybe her own person. Someone distinct. Someone who mattered aside from her parents.