Fortune's Christmas Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  And then she was back, his Lizzie, holding a tiny little body with flailing arms and the biggest, roundest wide-open brown eyes that were staring right at him.

  Through him.

  The pink one-piece thing had hearts all over it. Varying sizes, some white, some yellow, some a darker pink. He couldn’t stop staring at those hearts.

  Pink. A girl?

  He wanted to ask what Carmela had named her baby, how long Lizzie would be babysitting, but the truth wasn’t letting him breathe, let alone talk.

  “Her name’s Stella,” Lizzie said, cradling the little thing who seemed perfectly content now that she was being held.

  A girl. A baby girl.

  Nolan wasn’t sure how long he stood there, staring at the hearts. Too long, for sure.

  Finally he turned to go, then turned back, intending to say a ton, came up empty and turned away again. He made it to the edge of the parking lot. Turned back and double-timed it to the door.

  Lizzie still stood there, holding that baby. He looked her in the eye. Brown eyes, like the baby’s. And like his, too.

  “She’s yours,” he said.

  Her nod confirmed what he already knew.

  “And mine.” The last word stuck in his throat.

  Lizzie neither confirmed nor denied his assertion. Nolan was fixated on the round chubby cheeks, the big brown eyes that seemed to know him as well as he knew himself, a little bird mouth that he imagined had a lot to say.

  “There are no tears on her cheeks,” he said inanely. She’d been crying so hard.

  “She was just mad because she woke up in the swing and couldn’t see anyone. That was her mad cry.”

  She had a mad cry. Lizzie recognized it when she heard it.

  He couldn’t look at Lizzie. At the mother of that baby who hadn’t said that the child was his.

  “I have a daughter.” The words were so unreal they didn’t seem to have any effect on him at all.

  This time she replied. “Yes.”

  Starting to shake from the inside out, he looked up at Lizzie. He saw a wealth of love—not for him—and fear—because of him?—and said the only thing he could. “May I come in?”

  * * *

  Stella started to fuss even before the door closed behind Nolan. As if she could truly sense her mother’s state of mind, as some experts said babies could do. More likely, she could feel the trembling Lizzie was trying desperately to control. There were two full bottles in the fridge, and frozen breast milk in the freezer, too, but Stella wasn’t usually content to take a bottle whenever Lizzie was around.

  Grabbing the baby’s favorite pacifier, she offered it up, and sent up a quick word of thanks when Stella suckled contentedly. The baby wasn’t due to eat again for another hour or so. But that could fluctuate an hour either way, too. She was keeping Stella on a baby-driven schedule at the advice of her pediatrician and based on the reading she’d done. As much as she could, anyway, with her and Carmela’s schedules. Carmela, who’d been to a few of their doctor appointments, supported her choice.

  Would Nolan?

  Would his family try to intervene? To determine that some other way was better for the child? Try to force formula on her so that Stella wasn’t as dependent on Lizzie?

  Rocking the baby softly as she walked, she told herself to get a grip. If she went nuts she’d be no good to Stella at all.

  Nolan was sitting on the edge of one end of the couch, hands folded, thumbs rubbing back and forth against each other. He seemed to be honing in on the blank TV screen, but every other second or so, he’d glance at the baby swing.

  Feeling a little less rattled, Lizzie lifted a dozing Stella up onto her shoulder, and joined him in the living room—taking the chair farthest from the couch.

  “I’m sorry for how I look,” she said softly, not wanting to rouse Stella. “I was planning to shower while she napped.” His glance finally turned her way, and she wished like hell that she’d kept her mouth shut.

  Why hadn’t she just been silent?

  What did one do when the father of one’s child showed up suddenly on one’s doorstep and found out he was a father?

  She took control, that’s what. Stella was depending on her to take care of this situation.

  “I don’t want anything from you,” she said, putting every ounce of classroom authority she could muster into her tone. “You purposely aren’t named on the birth certificate so you needn’t worry that I’ll come after you later. And I’ll sign anything you need me to sign relinquishing you of any responsibility.” Once the words started, they just rolled off her tongue, as though all of those months, thinking about what she’d say to him if she ever saw him, had been rehearsal for now.

  “When I found out I was pregnant there was time to terminate easily, medically speaking, and with little risk. Adoption was always an option, too. On my own, I knowingly made the conscious decision to have her, to keep her, to become a single mother. I chose to take on this adventure and I hold no one but myself accountable to it.”

  There. Good. She was in control. The boss.

  “I have a daughter.”

  Sounding more shocked than threatening, Nolan looked right at her. Lizzie, feeling threatened, said nothing.

  “I’m a father.”

  “Biologically speaking.” Yes. Right. She could do this. Stella sighed, her pacifier slipping down the back of Lizzie’s shoulder as those tiny lips let go. Lizzie rocked her.

  Nolan blinked. And seemed to change, right there before her eyes. It was like someone had opened up a spout and all kinds of emotion came pouring out. His gaze was personal, warm, to the point of melting her insides. Nolan Fortune was gone and Nolan Forte had entered the room. Not really, she knew that, but for a second there, she was in love again.

  But only for a second.

  “I don’t know what to say.” He just sat there, rubbing his hands, staring, while his expression changed. And changed again. His eyes had grown moist. Her heart lurched. She’d had weeks to come to terms with reality before she’d really even started to show. Months before her life had irrevocably changed.

  He was getting the full deal in a matter of seconds.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” she assured him, calming as she realized that she truly did have the upper hand. “This has to be a shock, but really, Nolan, nothing in your life has to change. It’s not like she suddenly just landed on earth. She’s been here three months, we’ve been doing just fine, and will continue to do so. I’m happy. Truly happier than I’ve ever been.”

  Except maybe during some of those most incredible moments with him the year before. She’d touched true joy for the first time the night he’d held her in his arms.

  “I...” He just sat there, watching her.

  Lizzie didn’t want to be rude, but she really did have to get on with her day. Take her shower. Do some laundry. Change the sheets. Make dinner for Carmela. Feed the baby several times in between it all.

  Cry a bit, now that Nolan knew.

  “I don’t know how to hold a baby.” His hands stilled. “I’ve never held one. We don’t... None of my siblings have kids yet.”

  “You don’t need to hold her.”

  “I think I do.”

  No. Really. He didn’t.

  “I meant what I said, Nolan. You don’t have to do anything here.”

  “I think I do.”

  Okay, it was going bad fast. She had to stop it somehow.

  “What is it you think you have to do?” She had to know what she was defending against before she’d know how to do it.

  “I have no idea.”

  Good. Somehow she had to keep it that way. Still, her wayward heart cried for him. Reached out to him. She hadn’t meant for him to be hurt.

  She hadn’t meant to be pregnant in the first place. They’d used
condoms. Every time.

  “She doesn’t need you to do anything, Nolan,” she said, trying to soften her words enough to make them sound as kind as she intended. They were just fine without him.

  So why did she feel a sudden stab of guilt as she felt her daughter sigh against her again, so trustingly.

  What if Stella wanted Nolan to do something? What if she needed more than Lizzie could give her as a single schoolteacher mom?

  What if his family had a wealth of love, in addition to an overflowing bank of money, to offer her?

  “Can I touch her?” He stood and approached her chair, so Lizzie stood, too.

  “What do you mean?”

  He reached out a hand. “I just want to...touch her.” His hand stopped inches from the baby’s back. “Can I?”

  He was her father! “Of course,” she said, because there was no other option.

  His hand came closer, and then stopped again. Nolan looked at Lizzie. “She’s so small. I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, her heart taking over as she lifted her own hand to his and placed it gently on Stella’s tiny back. “She likes to have her back rubbed,” she said softly, moving his fingers in a slow circular motion. “Gently, like that,” she said, then dropped her hand.

  His movement stopped for a second and then started again. Rubbing gently in the same exact circle Lizzie had started him with. Over and over. Just rubbing.

  Maybe he wasn’t ever going to stop.

  The thought was ludicrous, but the man seemed so engrossed. So completely lost to his endeavor.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She didn’t mean them to. Didn’t want them to. And yet, there they were, blurring her vision, and she knew, life had just changed.

  Irrevocably.

  Again.

  Chapter Nine

  He’d made Lizzie cry. And made the baby cry, too, apparently, as she’d started to squirm and wail right when he was rubbing her back. Having taken that as his clue to excuse himself, he’d hightailed it out of the apartment.

  Lizzie had said Stella needed to eat.

  He needed time to think.

  He didn’t get more than a couple of blocks away from the apartment before he was bombarded by his own questions. When was she born? How old was she? Oh, right. Lizzie had said she was three months. Quickly counting the months since their last night together, he came up with that same answer. Three months, give or take a week or two.

  How had Lizzie managed, alone, pregnant and in school? Was there debt? He’d settle that immediately.

  Had she been all alone at the birth?

  How long did it take an infant to eat?

  He gave it half an hour, pacing back and forth between Lizzie’s apartment and the coffee shop they’d frequented, last year and this.

  She’d called him after he’d left her last year.

  Because of Stella.

  He was a father.

  His mom and dad were grandparents.

  Oh, God.

  He couldn’t think of them right now. Couldn’t think of the family.

  He was the youngest son, and the first to produce an heir to the family fortune. The thought gave him a stupid little thrill.

  It lasted all of two seconds and then the sick feeling of dread, accompanied by a weight he had no idea how to carry, descended on him again. Accompanied by just a hint of something more.

  Something...beyond good. It was nebulous. Completely out of reach. But hanging there.

  He was a father. Forevermore there’d be another human being in the world that he’d helped create.

  With Lizzie.

  His yearning had become his coparent.

  Who wanted nothing to do with him. Wanted nothing from him.

  In fact, she wanted him out of her life. And Stella’s, too.

  Nolan wanted to give her whatever she wanted, but he couldn’t walk away from them. Maybe physically he could put distance between them. Maybe. But they were his responsibility. His family now. And family was everything.

  As that one thought settled, he headed back up to Lizzie’s door. When she answered his knock, almost immediately, holding his sleeping daughter, he didn’t hesitate as he said, “We need to talk.”

  As though she’d expected him, maybe had even been watching for him, she nodded, pulled open the door and settled back in her chair in the living room, tucking her bare feet up into the cushion with her.

  “Do you need to put her down?” he asked.

  That small bundle, the sweet pudgy face with closed eyes and that tiny little puckered mouth—it made him speechless. And he had a lot he had to say.

  “She’ll sleep better if I hold her,” Lizzie said. He had no idea if she was speaking the truth, half wondered if holding the baby gave her some kind of edge over him, and figured, if it did, she deserved it.

  “She looks perfect,” he said, dropping back down to the edge of the couch, his hands on his thighs. They seemed out of place, having nowhere to hang. Nothing to do.

  They were too empty.

  And easier to focus on than anything else in that room.

  “She is perfect.” The love in Lizzie’s voice was audible.

  And heartrending. He’d lost his chance to be a part of this little trio from the beginning. To be a partner to her in bringing their child into the world. She’d called him and he’d made himself completely unattainable.

  “So...she’s healthy? There were no problems? With her birth, I mean. Or the pregnancy?”

  He’d missed the first year of his daughter’s life. The fetal stage. And everything that came between then and the sleeping baby across from him.

  Lizzie’s silence ratcheted up the tension inside him.

  “What’s her birthday?”

  “September 23.”

  Nine people in his family—seven siblings and their parents—and they had no September birthdays.

  “She’ll be three months old next week,” Lizzie added, giving him information he could figure for himself when what he needed were real details. All of them.

  Though he probably didn’t deserve them. He’d had his chance. She’d tried to find him.

  “How long were you in labor?”

  He had no personal experience, but he’d seen television and knew the basics. Labor looked excruciating—something he’d never understood a guy putting a woman he loved through. Figured, when it came that time for him, he’d have better understanding.

  “Not long.”

  Thank God. “You had her quickly, then?”

  She shrugged. Kind of nodded.

  “Did you have a coach?”

  “No.”

  “Was Carmela there? Or your aunt?” He was immediately jealous of both of them.

  “No.”

  Now he was put out by them. They’d left Lizzie all alone at such a critical time? As had he. The guilt was a strong acidy taste in his mouth. It made no difference that he hadn’t known. He had no right to point fingers. No rights at all.

  But he had responsibilities. Having no idea where that led him didn’t let him off the hook.

  “I can’t believe Carmela wasn’t there,” he said, scrambling for his next move. Or word. “She—”

  “Carmela got there as soon as she could.” Lizzie’s tone was unmistakably defensive as she interrupted him.

  “You went that quickly?” He’d heard of that. There was an episode of some sitcom where a woman gave birth in a cab or something. He couldn’t quite remember.

  “I had to have an emergency cesarean. That’s why Carmela wasn’t there. I wasn’t even sure I was in labor. I had just gone into my doctor’s office to have her check me, and my blood pressure was off the charts.”

  Her words, issued softly, almost as an afterthought, stabbed so deep.

>   “You were in danger?”

  “I had a seizure at the doctor’s office,” she said, continuing to twist the blade of guilt inside him. “If they hadn’t taken her I could have died. Or ended up with brain damage.”

  She could have had a seizure on the way to the doctor’s office, been in a car crash. They both might have died.

  Oh, God, what had he done? His damned selfish need to be free had driven him to make a woman pregnant. Fighting that yearning had left her alone to almost die.

  “I’m so sorry, Lizzie.” The words didn’t even scrape the surface. “I should have been there. I’m so damned sorry.”

  “There’s nothing you could have done. It came on suddenly. I’d just been in for a check earlier in the week because she was a couple of days late. Everything was fine. It was just one of those things.”

  “But you had major surgery... I... And caring for a newborn...” He had an entire family who’d have stepped in to help her. Three sisters and a mother who’d have known what to do.

  And would’ve kicked him in the head on their way out the door, he was certain.

  His family would love Stella. They weren’t going to like what he’d done, however.

  And they weren’t going to be happy about Lizzie, either. They’d see her as another Molly, at least at first. And he couldn’t blame them. Or maybe a Kelly. After Kelly, everyone was leery. The experience with Austin’s wife had cost them all. Changed them all.

  God, what had he done?

  Ramifications closed in on him. He could just hear it now, him telling his family he’d impregnated a woman he’d only known a couple of weeks. A woman so far out of their normal social circle that if he hadn’t been posing as Nolan Forte she’d never even have gotten close to him.

  He’d have to tell them about his alter ego.

  He could lose everything he held most dear—his time with the band and his family’s respect, too.

  But he’d gained something from which he could not walk away.

  That little life over there. She was connected to him for all eternity.

  She was going to need so much...deserved so much more. “I’m going to open a bank account,” he told her. “In her name with you as trustee.” He named a sum, a weekend’s excursion to him, as starting money. “But until I can work that out...” He handed her a wad of cash that he’d pulled from his wallet. Safety cash in the event something catastrophic happened while he was on the road. “That’s just what I can access immediately,” he told her.