Baby Daddy (6 page)

“
Hey…open bar,” Reno announced.  “How about a round of shots?”

Everyone nodded their agreement, and Reno quickly returned with five shot glasses, a bottle of Jose Cuervo gold and a bowl of limes on a tray that he placed on a metal side table.

“I’m sticking to water,” I said before he could pour me a shot and Liberty, too, declined.  Reno pulled a bottle of water out of the cooler and filled our two shot glasses, then poured tequila in the other three.

“
Here’s to Roger…I guess we should thank you for fucking our mothers…,” Reno began.

“And for dying before
you could fuck up our lives,” Dallas finished.

We clicked our
glasses together and downed our shots.  Reno poured everyone another round.

“To new brothers and sisters,” I said, holding up my glass.  “I always thought I was an only child.”

Everyone clicked their glasses again and drank.

“I can’t get over the view here
,” Tulsa commented.  “Too bad the house isn’t part of the deal.”

“
Sounds like you’re thinking about staying,” Dallas said.

Tulsa stared out into the night for a moment before answering.  “I’m furious that someone would be so careless and cavalier to travel from town to town, impregnating every woman he meets, then letting the kids suffer through a life without parents.”  Her hands had balled into fists in her lap, and she forced herself to relax.  “My life has been shit up to this point.  Maybe he owes me a future.  I could contribute my computer skills to the business, and it would be kind of nice to have some roots.”

“Well, I’ve had a good life, with two great parents.  I don’t need any of this,” Dallas told them.  “I can certainly use the $50,000 toward my education, but I have plans for my future that don’t include working in a P.I. agency.”

Reno shrugged.  “I’m willing to listen.  I’m always open to a good deal.”

They turned their focus on me.

“I’ve got nothing better to do until school starts,” I said.  “I don’t know how I feel about Roger, though.  My mom told me she was very much in love with my real father, but that he wasn’t the marrying kind.  She never said one bad word about him.”

“My mama loved him, too.”  It was one of the first times Liberty had spoken up, and we all turned to her.  “She never married.  I heard the story about their affair over and over, but I had no idea who it was.  She said he was the only man who ever touched her soul.”

“That wasn’t all he touched,” Dallas muttered.

For some reason, that struck me as hilarious, and I started laughing.  Reno’s deep chuckle soon joined in, along with Liberty’s giggle.  Eventually even Dallas and Tulsa cracked up.  Maybe it was the alcohol, although that certainly wasn’t my excuse, but we laughed until our stomachs ached.

It was silly, but I felt closer
to these people than I had to anyone in a long time, even the despicable Brandon.  Sure, we shared blood, but now we also were together in a strange adventure, one few people had ever experienced.  Whatever choice we made, we would always know that there were four other people out there with electric-blue eyes…and a father who cared too late.

CH
APTER SEVEN

Two hours later, the bottle was empty.  Reno had stripped down to his boxer briefs and was floating around the pool on a blow-up raft. 
Dallas, his shirt unbuttoned and hanging open to reveal an impressive six pack, was sprawled on a lounge chair.  I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or just deep in thought, but his eyes were closed.  Tulsa was sitting on the diving board.  Liberty was curled up under a blanket on a chaise and I had rolled up my capris and was sitting on the edge of the pool dangling my legs in the water.

“
Does it strike any of you as odd that all of us have city names?” I asked curiously.

Tulsa looked up.  “You know
…you’re right.”

Reno rolled over onto his back on the float and sat up. 
“That can’t be accidental.”

“You don’t suppose it had something to do with where Roger met our mothers, do you?” Liberty asked.

“That’s fucked up,” Dallas mumbled, rousing enough to add his two cents, but not sitting up.

“I guess in a twisted way, it sort of makes sense,” I said.  “Killeen, Dallas, Tulsa, Liberty, Reno
…sounds like a tour route to me.”

“He was a busy son-of-a-bitch,” Reno said.

“It had to be more than one tour,” Tulsa pointed out.  “We’re all about a year apart.  He must have limited his procreation to one per season.”

“Great, my mom was Miss 19
91,” Reno said.

“Mine was Miss 1992
,” Dallas lifted his beer bottle in a singular toast.

Tulsa snorted in disgust.  “It figures.  By the time I was born in December of 1992, Roger was already banging another woman.  My mom didn’t even get her own year.”

“What if there are more of us out there?” I asked as the idea struck me.

That brought on a moment of thoughtful silence.  As screwed up as this whole situation was, it wasn’t out of the question that there were other groupies who had fallen under Roger’s spell.

“He must have had something going for him if all those women fell for him,” Tulsa reluctantly pointed out.

“And never had anything bad to say about him,” I added.

“You know what I find odd?” Tulsa commented.

“Everything about this is odd,” Reno answered, “but what were you thinking?”

“I find it strange that this man who was a relatively successful country star and lived a decidedly wild lifestyle, full of drugs and sex was able to stay out of the tabloids all these years,” Tulsa said.  “Why didn’t any of these women sell their story to
The National Enquirer
or
TMZ
?”

“Maybe he paid them off,”
Reno suggested.

“Or threatened them,”
Dallas added, still not moving from his collapsed position.

“I think they loved him and cherished what they had with him,” Liberty spoke softly, but her words were powerful.

“Too bad we’ll never have a chance to meet him,” I said, genuinely sorry.  “I know I should hate him for what he did to us and our mothers.  But I can forgive him for not disrupting my childhood.  And I am appreciative for what he did to help me get an education.  I want to learn more about him.”

“Well, I for one, can never forgive him,” Tulsa retorted.  “Anything, and I mean even the tiniest participation in my life could have kept me from getting shuffled from foster home to foster home.  That was pure hell.”

“And maybe my mother wouldn’t have become an alcoholic,” Reno commented, “or maybe she was already on that path when Roger met her.  It might have been what brought them together.”  He sighed and laid back on the float.  “I guess I can’t resent the man who actually caused me to be born.”

“Our mothers all chose to go through with the pregnancies and keep us,” Liberty pointed out with wisdom beyond her years.  “If they had hated him, they wouldn’t have done that.”

That gave us all food for thought, especially me.  That statement really brought it all home to me.  Here I was, in the same position all of our mothers had been in, pregnant with an absentee father.  They had made the choice not to end those pregnancies and to keep us, in spite of all the hardships they were sure to face.  It couldn’t have been easy for any of them.  But if their decisions had gone any other way, the five of us wouldn’t be sitting here now.  It was a sobering thought…and I hadn’t even had anything to drink.

Liberty stood and wrapped the blanket around her.  “I don’t know about you all, but I’m exhausted.  I’m heading up to bed.”

“Yeah, me too,” I agreed and scrambled to my feet.  “I guess tomorrow we’ll find out if we want to be
Roger’s Angels.
”

“Dallas you’re the business
and legal expert here,” Tulsa said. “What did it mean when Harlan said we needed to have an active interest in the firm.  What other kind could there be?”

“Passive,” Dallas answered, slurring his words.  “
Probably it would follow the IRS definition…if you never went to work, handled any cases, answered any phones, returned any letters and made no policy decisions, you’d be a passive investor.”

“Which would exclude us from any claim,” Reno pointed out.

“I think it’s clear what that Christopher guy wants us to do,” I said.

Dallas
sat up, but looked like he couldn’t quite focus as he stated, “Have us walk away, so it would all be his.”

“Which would be like robbing us of our birthright!” Tulsa said indignantly.  “Damn it,
Roger did nothing up to this point.  He owes this to us.”

“
But to share in the Scandals P.I. firm, we would have to move to Austin…right?” Liberty asked.

“
If they hold us to the stipulation, then yes,” Dallas said.  “It doesn’t impact where I live…just how it would affect my career.”

“I guess I could transfer my scholarship here,” I commented. 
“I don’t know what I could do for the agency, but I might consider giving up softball since…” I caught myself almost slipping out the baby news.  “…it would be hard to fit in hours of practice with a full course load and work at Scandals.”

“S
ummers are cooler here than in Phoenix,” Dallas pointed out with a hint of a smile…the first one I had seen from him. 

“Yeah
…instead of 115 it will only be 105.  Big improvement.”  I smiled back at him.  “Don’t forget that I grew up in Ft. Worth, so I know what it’s like here.”

“It wou
ld be weird to be out of the bright lights of Vegas.  I haven’t exactly made a splash there, but I don’t think they have much magic going on here” Reno sounded depressed.

“Austin’s the
live music capital of the world
.  Great music everywhere,” Dallas told him. “And there are lots of motorcycle shops around where you could work part time, if you wanted the artistic outlet.”

“Do you work for the Austin
Chamber of Commerce
?” Tulsa asked, but her voice was actually teasing.

I decided that alcohol had definitely helped improve this group’s attitude.  Too bad tomorrow everyone would be sober.

“Maybe once we see the agency and learn more about what they do, we’ll be able to make better decisions.”  I gave a little wave.  “Goodnight everyone.”

Liberty and I headed toward the house.  We didn’t talk as we walked up the stairs, but it was a companionable silence.  I had gotten the impression that Liberty had lived a sheltered life and was very shy.  However, when she spoke, it was usually worth listening
to.  She gave me a gentle smile when we reached my room.

“Goodnight, Killeen.  I’m very glad we’ve met.  I think you and I are going to become great friends.”

I nodded.  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

She continued on down the hall toward her room as I turned the knob and walked inside mine.  The bed looked even more inviting than before.  It didn’t take me long to brush my teeth, wash my face and change into a pair of sleep shorts and a t-shirt before I turned out the lights and crawled under the covers.  The ceiling fan overhead
hummed a wordless lullaby, and I was soon asleep.

For a few moments, I had no idea where I was.  Snuggled under a plump comforter in a huge four
-poster bed, it took my sleepy brain a few minutes to focus.  Oh, yeah, I was in a mansion just outside of Austin, surrounded by John, Paul, George and Ringo.  I had just found out that I had four half-brothers and sisters, and that my mom had been a groupie who had been sexually involved with a country star.  No matter how I rephrased that, it sounded weird.

I
hadn’t closed the drapes last night, and the morning sun poured between the cracks in the wood blinds.  I guess Roger had a cleaning service for a house this size and they were to be complimented. There wasn’t a single speck of dust floating in the sunbeams.  I didn’t know how that was even possible in Texas.

I rolled over and
burrowed into the mound of pillows.  I knew if I shut my eyes, I’d fall back asleep.  If I did, I would sleep well into the afternoon.  The past two weeks had been physically and mentally exhausting.  I lifted my head and peered over the pillows at the clock and saw it was a little after 9 a.m.  I had less than an hour until breakfast.

With a reluctant sigh and a promise to the
glorious bed that I would be back tonight, I forced myself to get up.  A quick shower woke me.  I didn’t take the time to dry my hair, but pulled it into a high ponytail and secured it with an elastic band.  I brushed my teeth and put on some lip gloss and a couple swipes of mascara to darken my long, but light-colored eyelashes.  There wasn’t anything special going on today, so I pulled on a pair of shorts and a loose sleeveless peasant blouse.

The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee filled my senses as soon as I opened my bedroom door.  As good as it smelled, my stomach did its usual flip-flop and I had to rush back into my room, barely making it to the toilet before I threw up.

A minute later, the nausea had passed and I stood, looking down at my flat belly.  “Hey you in there, give me a break,” I demanded softly.  When did this wicked morning sickness end?  So far I had been avoiding researching pregnancy, in general, but I vowed it was time I looked it up on the internet.  I had a lot of questions, and I knew that the timing was critical if I planned on doing anything drastic to end it.  The thought came to me that my mom had been exactly my age when she had been pregnant with me.  She hadn’t had the internet.  But she had had my grandmother and maybe Roger had still been around.  It really sucked to be pregnant and faced with making the ultimate decision all by myself.

I brushed my teeth again and reapplied the lip gloss.  As inconvenient as these daily
barfs were, once they were done, I usually felt just fine for the rest of the day.

I hurried downstairs and followed my nose searching for the kitchen.  I didn’t bump into anyone along the way.  I wondered how late the others had stayed after Liberty and I left the pool last night.  The
barbeque had been really nice, great food and interesting company.  I was kind of relieved to find out that I didn’t have the worst childhood in the crowd, and, at the same time, I felt awful for Tulsa and Reno.  I had had a wonderful mom for the first nineteen years of my life.  And I missed her every day.

I
really liked Liberty, but she was a fish-out-of-water here, in the heart of civilization.  She reminded me of the hippies I had seen in old movies from the 1960s.  Dallas was not damaged enough to want to take a chance on a new lifestyle.  Tulsa, Reno and I had little in common, but we also had little to go back to, so we were most likely to at least give it a shot.  Ultimately, the fewer participants, the better the split.

I finally found
the kitchen where John was busy at the eight-burner gas stove.  There were four large commercial ovens, a walk-in freezer and a double refrigerator.  The cooking island was massive and had room for at least eight people to sit around.  “Good morning, John.  That coffee smells good,” I greeted him.

He turned around.  “Hey Killeen
...you surprised me.  I didn’t hear you come in.  How did you sleep last night?”