Baby, Oh Baby! (6 page)

"I see." I see that you sound seriously disturbed. What was the mental illness where people thought they heard voices? Schizophrenia?

"You're not drinking your tea," Annie pointed out. "Sorry." Jake obediently took a large gulp.

"The next thing I knew, there was another billboard. This one was for evening courses at a university, and there was Grandpa's voice again. Just as clear as day, I heard him say, `It's never too late to start over.' That one really got to me. But not as much as the next bill- board."

"Oh?" Jake struggled to keep his expression impas- sive.

"It was an ad for life insurance, and it featured a picture of an adorable baby. Underneath the picture, it said, `It's the little things that count.' " Annie leaned back. "I know it sounds crazy, but I heard a click in my head, like everything had just fallen into place."

That wasn't the sound of things falling into place. That was the sound of your mind snapping.

"And all of a sudden, I knew what I was going to do."

Commit yourself to ' a mental institution? Unfortunately, that apparently had not been her decision. Jake shifted uneasily. "What was that?"

"Follow the dream I'd had as a child." The dog waved his front paws in the air, urging her to resume stroking his belly. Annie complied. "I was sick to death of living in the city-sick of walking on concrete instead of grass, of never seeing anything green that wasn't in a salad or a planter. I was sick of worrying about products instead of people. I wanted to do something fulfilling, something that would make a difference in the world. I wanted..

She hesitated, and her face softened. "I wanted to have a baby. And I wanted to raise it here."

It took all of his resolve to feign ignorance. "So... did you remarry?"

She shook her head. "There weren't any candidates. I hadn't even seriously dated anyone in years. I realized I couldn't just keep waiting for Prince Charming to come along. If I wanted my dreams to come true, I'd have to take action myself."

She rubbed the dog's long ears. "I sat there in that taxi, thinking about single parenthood, telling myself how difficult and impractical it would be. And then the next billboard made it all clear." Her lips curved into a Mona Lisa smile. "It was a Nike ad."

Oh, Christ. This was too hokey to be believed. "Just do it?"

She leaned back and nodded. "So I did."

Great. The mother of his child was a wacko who thought her dead grandfather talked to her through bill- boards. Jake drained the cup of tea, only to gag on a mouthful of dregs. He reached for the paper napkin and violently coughed into it.

Instead of asking if he were choking, she simply smiled. "Oh,, good. You're done." She reached out and took the cup from his hand. "Now—let's talk about you."

Jake cleared his throat. The woman was nuts. It was time to come clean and get the heck out of here. "Look—I'm not who you think."

"No one is. First impressions are usually deceptive."

She wasn't even looking at him. She was staring intently into the teacup.

Jake shifted uneasily on the sofa. "Yeah, well, there's

something I need to tell you." No it's better if you don't give me any clues."

"But I need to. .

She held up a hand. "Shh. I need a few moments of silence."

Hadn't she just said it was time to talk about him? Then why the hell wouldn't she let him get a word in edgewise? He stared at her as she swirled the cup three times, then turned it upside down on the saucer. After a few moments, she turned it over and studied the bottom.

"You've experienced a great loss." She spoke in a low, soft voice. "I see lots of pain and suffering. It's clinging to you, close as skin. But you're on the verge of a new life now." She looked up and flashed him a smile so bright he felt momentarily blinded. It was a relief when she turned her attention back to the cup. "A new person is entering your life. No, wait—two new people."

She was reading tea leaves. This crazy woman was reading tea leaves! She didn't think he was a blind date arranged by his grandmother; she thought he was as flaky as she was. She honestly believed he'd come to have his fortune told.

"'You're going to have a child." She held the mug closer and peered into its depths. "No, wait—the child is already here."

A chill crawled up his spine. How could she know that? He didn't believe in fortune tellers.-He didn't believe in anything but the cold, relentless march of time and the inevitability of pain. Still, there was something about her words that gave him the creeps.

She frowned into the cup. "I see ...`turmoil. Dark, swirling, inner turmoil—for you, and for the people around you. You'll have to make a decision."

The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked loudly in the silence as she studied the inside of the cup. "It will be a difficult decision. Whatever you decide, everything will change. In fact, the change has already begun." She looked up, her eyes somber. "It'll be the most important decision of your life. You can't decide it with your head. You'll have to follow your heart."

Her eyes bored into his in a way that made the hair rise on the back of his neck. She wasn't looking at him like a casual acquaintance or someone she'd just met. She was looking at him intently, almost intimately, and her expression was worried, as if she cared what happened to him.

Which was ridiculous. She didn't even know him. How the hell could she care?

He squirmed uneasily, his gut tightening. It was time to stop this game. "Look. I tried to tell you this a few minutes ago, but you wouldn't let me."

Her delicate auburn brows drew together. "Tell me what?"

"That I'm not Pearl's grandson."

Her lips parted. His gaze fastened on her mouth, and a totally irrelevant thought flew into his mind. Would her lips taste as sweet and ripe as they looked?

"Then who ... Why ... ?"

Appalled at his thoughts, Jake ripped his gaze away from her mouth. "I'm surprised the tea leaves didn't tell you." He yanked a business card out of his jacket pocket and thrust it at her.

Annie stared at the heavy vellum card. Jake E. Chastaine, attorney-at-law, with the firm of Morrison and Chastaine in Tulsa. She gazed at the, emblem of Lady Justice with the scales on the corner of the card, and felt a kinship to the blindfolded image.

An attorney. Oh, dear-attorneys didn't show up on one's doorstep unless some kind of trouble accompanied them. The last time a representative from an attorney's office had come to her home, she'd been served with divorce papers.

She set the dog on the floor, her stomach clenching with cold dread. "I don't understand."

"I'm here because of the child."

The chill in her belly spread up her spine. "The one I mentioned in the reading?"

"The one you gave birth to."

Annie's heart froze. "Madeline?" she whispered. "That's her name?"

His eyes were dark and intent and determined. They were the eyes of a man who would not be deterred, who would not be dissuaded.

Fear stabbed her, cold and sharp as icicles. She fought an impulse to rush into her child's room and snatch her up, to protect her from whatever threat this grim-mouthed stranger posed. She wasn't sure why, but she was suddenly certain he posed a threat.

She somehow found her voice. "I-I don't know what you want, Mr. Chastaine, but I think you'd better leave. My child is none of your business." She rose from the sofa on legs that felt too weak to support her weight.

The man rose as well. His height was intimidating. "Oh, yes, she is."

The words were bitten off and curt, but it wasn't his tone that made the blood drain from her face. It was that look in his eyes, that hard, stubborn, unrelenting look. "I have reason to believe that I'm her father."

The floor seemed to lurch and sway beneath her like a runaway rollercoaster. Annie gripped the back of a red-and-beige-checked wing chair for support. "Wh—what are you talking about?"

"I just came from the Tulsa Fertility Center. I saw their records, and it appears you've had my child."

"No." Annie's fingers tightened on the back of the chair, her thoughts thrashing about like wheat in a windstorm. "No. You couldn't have. Those records are sealed."

The moment she said it, she wished she hadn't. Dear God—she'd just confirmed she'd been a client of the clinic! Why did she always babble so when she was upset?

It was too late to try to deny it. "Donors sign a release," she said rapidly. "They surrender all rights, all claims to their ... their ... their ..."

Children. The word reverberated in the air, even though Annie couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. Saying it would make it sound as if the donors were actually parents.

And they weren't. Not really. The nameless, faceless man who'd contributed his chromosomes to create Madeline wasn't really a father—not in any meaningful way. He was distant, uninvolved, disembodied, unreal.

Or at least he had been. Until now.

Annie stared at the man before her. She tried to swallow, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. "Donors have no parental rights."

"I wasn't a donor." His voice was clipped, the words dry. "My wife and I were undergoing fertility treatment. Our lowlife excuse of a doctor decided to help himself to my specimen when the donor bank ran low."

His wife. He was married. He wanted a child. Madeline was his child. The thoughts swirled in her mind, attaching to each other, growing darker and denser, building in force like a thundercloud.

"No." Annie mouthed the word, but no sound came out. Her vocal chords seemed paralyzed. Her entire body seemed incapable of movement.

"Ma-ma-ma-ma."

The familiar call jerked Annie out of her daze. She turned to see Madeline toddle into the room, rubbing her eyes and dragging her favorite yellow blankie. The child's pink-and-white striped romper with the ruffled bottom was wrinkled from her nap, and her dark hair stuck out in short, Shirley Temple ringlets around her ears. Her four teeth gleamed in a predominantly gummy grin as she started toward Annie. Then the child spotted Jake. She stopped in her tracks, stuck a blanket-covered thumb in her mouth, and stared.

Jake stared back. "My God," he whispered.

It seemed as if time had stopped, as if life had been cryogenically suspended. Madeline slowly turned and looked at Annie, her big, brown eyes round and quizzical.

Annie's heart tumbled like a sock in a clothes dryer. Because she suddenly knew, with horrible certainty, why Jake looked so familiar.

His eyes were the mirror image of her daughter's.

And oh, dear Lord—it was more than just the eyes. Annie's gaze shifted from Jake's face to Madeline's like an oscillating fan. Her daughter had a miniature version of Jake's mouth, Jake's hairline.

Adrenaline flooded her veins in a hot, hard rush. Every protective maternal instinct roared to red alert. Before she had time to think, she'd dashed across the room and snatched up the child as if rescuing her from a charging bull.

Alarmed, Madeline started to cry. Annie held her tightly against her shoulder.

"You're scaring her," Jake said.

He was right, but the idea of this man criticizing the way she handled her own daughter was intolerable. "Get out."

He glared at her, his eyes challenging. "You're not getting rid of me. She's my child, and I have rights." «No." -

"Look at her! She's the spitting image of me." Annie cradled the child's head against her shoulder. "That doesn't mean anything."

"I've got records from the Tulsa Fertility Center that mean something. But if you still refuse to accept the obvious, I'll be more than happy to pay for blood tests."

"No."

"No?"

"You heard me. Get out."

His chin jutted out at a stubborn angle. "I'm her father, damn it. I'm also an attorney. A damn good one."_

Madeline howled louder. Hot Dog barked. The room' swirled with the dark energy of a tornado. "Get out," Annie ordered again.

He showed no sign of budging. Fear pumped through Annie's veins. Oh, dear heavens—he was tall and muscular and hard as a wall, and he outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds. If he tried to take the child by force, she would have no way of stopping him.

A car door slammed in the driveway.

"That must be your voodoo appointment." Jake strode to the door and flung it open. Over his wide shoulder, Annie saw a portly man with- Pearl's curly hair heading toward the steps of the porch. Her knees weakened in relief. She'd never been so glad to see another human being in her life.

Jake turned and leveled a steely gaze at Annie, ignoring the man who was trying to wave in greeting. "I'll leave for now, but I'll be back. I'm that child's father, and I have rights. If I have to drag you through every court in the land to exercise them, I'll do it."

He strode past the other man as if he were invisible and stalked to his car.

Clutching her sobbing child, Annie watched him drive off, his tires spewing gravel. Her whole world seemed to swirl away in the stream of dust that rose in the wake of the retreating white car.

He'd be back. He'd said he would, and Annie was sure he meant it. With a sickening certainty, she was equally sure that nothing in her life would ever be the same.

Chapter Four

Annie sat in the darkened comer of the nursery later that evening, rocking her sleeping child by the dim glow of a Cinderella nightlight. It was nine o'clock-an hour past Madeline's bedtime—but the baby had just dozed off.

It had been a long afternoon. Madeline had been cranky ever since she'd awakened from her nap and wandered into the living room. She'd fussed during her bath, thrown most of her dinner on the floor, and balked at bedtime.. It had taken four stories and six lullabies to finally lull her to sleep.

No wonder the child was upset, Annie thought, sifting her fingers through the baby's dark, soft hair. Babies picked up on the emotions of the people around them, and Annie had been shaken to the core by Jake Chastaine's visit. Annie had tried not to let her agitation show for the sake of the child, but Maddie's emotional radar hadn't been fooled.