LITMIR.BIZ

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Dana saw her mother’s eyes pinch in concentration as she tried to place the name. “And you must be Dana’s mother,” he said, grinning. “There’s no mistaking the resemblance.”

      Faye’s eyes popped wide open, arrowing first at C.J.—”The Realtor Trish worked for”—then to Dana—”the one who’s showing you places for the shop?”

      Wouldn’t be long now. “The very same.”

      “Well, what’s he doing here this early on a Sunday morning? And why is he bringing you breakfast?” Her eyes zipped up and down his body, settling on his eyes. His very blue eyes. With gold flecks around the pupil. Just like Ethan’s. “Dressed like tha—” The word ended in a gasp as Faye slumped against the edge of the table, clutching her chest.

      The woman had truly missed her calling.

      “You … and Trish … and … and …” Faye jiggled her index finger at C.J.’s face, her jaw bouncing up and down for several seconds before she got out, “Blue eyes … your blue eyes. The baby … you … and Trish … and … oh.”

      And still, he managed to give her mother the perfect smile, a little abashed, a little nervous, appropriately contrite. “Yes, Mrs. Malone,” he said calmly, “there’s a strong chance I’m Ethan’s father.”

      Shock gave way to blazing indignation, of the kind peculiar to Southern women whose kin have been wronged. “Lord have mercy, boy—you must be at least ten, twelve years older than Trish! What were you thinking? She was barely more than a child!”

      “Oh, come on, Mama.” Bouncing Ethan on her hip, Dana grimaced at her mother. “You know as well as I do Trish hasn’t been a child since she hit puberty. Or it hit her. And C. J. already told me how it happened, so you can’t put all the blame on him—”

      Sparking eyes shot to hers. “What do you mean, he already told you?” Dana’s face flamed. She was eight years old again, caught sneaking off to her girlfriend’s house before she’d cleaned her room. “Yesterday,” she said in a somewhat steady voice. “Which is when, uh, Trish left Ethan with me.”

      “So you spoke with her?”

      “Well, no, not exactly. You know all those old movies where somebody finds the baby in the basket on the doorstep? It was kind of like that.”

      “Oh, for the love of …” Her mother shut her eyes, shaking her head, but only for a second. Presumably recovered, she said, “Wait a minute—she left him with you? Instead of with—” her eyes shot to C. J., then back to Dana “—him? And why didn’t you tell me?”

      “Because I couldn’t deal with having a baby dumped in my lap and your overreacting, too!”

      “Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve never overreacted in my life!” Faye quit clutching herself long enough to press her fingers into shut eyelids. “But I’m so confused. Was this a secret or something? Did you know about this?” she lobbed at C.J., then to Dana, “Did you? I mean, what did Trish say when she dropped the baby off? And where is Trish, anyway?”

      Not before a shower and breakfast, Dana decided, could she deal with this. And since C.J. looked as though he’d had the luxury of at least one of those things already—and probably more than three hours sleep, to boot—he was more than welcome to have first crack at her mother.

      It was a rotten thing to do, but hey. In all likelihood, he was family now. The sooner he weathered his first Faye Malone interrogation, the better it would be for all concerned.

      “Tell you what—” With a sweet smile, Dana handed the baby to a very startled C.J. “Why don’t you play with Ethan while I go jump in the shower before the city slaps me with a condemned notice? And you can get acquainted with my mother, while you’re at it.” She grabbed the McDonald’s bag out of C.J.’s hand, extracted coffee and an Egg McMuffin. “Good choice,” she noted, then got her fanny, as well as her unconfined 38 D’s, the hell out of there.

      Holding an active six-month-old, C.J. immediately discovered, was like trying to hang on to a stack of greased phone books. Every part of the child—and there seemed to be an amazing number of those—was hell-bent on veering off in a different direction from all the other parts. After nearly dropping the kid three times in as many seconds, he settled for securing him to his hip under his left arm, his hand braced across the baby’s chest. That finally settled, he dared to look up at Dana’s mother, who was glowering at him with all the sympathy of a highway patrolman who’s clocked you at eighty in a fifty-five-mile-per-hour zone.

      Talk about curveballs. Here he’d been all revved up to discuss possible options with Dana, only to be confronted with this fire-breathing she-dragon ready to chew him up and spit him back out in itty-bitty pieces. Her daughter’s quick vanishing act didn’t seem to faze her. Nor did the fact that two minutes ago, they’d never laid eyes on each other.

      “One question,” Mrs. Malone said, crossing her arms. “Why are you doubting my niece’s assertion that you’re the father?”

      After he explained, as obliquely and quickly as he could, she regarded him shrewdly for several seconds, then blew out a breath.

      “I think I need to sit down,” she said, doing just that. “And you do, too, before you drop that baby. Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, leaning over, “this isn’t nuclear physics….”

      After several seconds of fussing and adjusting, the child was finally seated on his lap to her satisfaction. Then she leaned back, squinting. “So if there’s a good chance the baby isn’t yours,” she said, more calmly, “why are you here?”

      “Because I don’t feel right about leaving Dana to shoulder the burden alone.”

      “I see. And if it turns out he isn’t?”

      At that moment, the baby grabbed one of C.J.’s hands, doubling over to gnaw on his knuckle. Without thinking, C.J. shifted to keep the little guy from falling on his noggin, then lifted his eyes to Mrs. Malone’s. “Guess I’ll deal with that moment when it comes.”

      Faye gave him a strange, inscrutable look, then shook her head. “I cannot believe that girl just left the baby. Then again,” she said on a sigh, “knowing Trish, I can. Well …” She slapped her hands on her thighs. “I guess, for once, they’ll have to do without me at church.”

      With that, she sprang from the couch, then began picking up and straightening out as if being timed, only to stop suddenly in front of the balcony door, hugging her elbows. “I owe you an apology, Mr. Turner,” she said, her voice tight with humiliation and frustration. “It’s not you I’m mad at. My niece has always been headstrong. Always determined to do whatever she wanted and damn the consequences. Even her own mama finally gave up on her, when she was fourteen, sent her to Dana’s daddy and me to see what we could do with her.”

      She turned to him, her mouth set, her eyes hidden behind the window’s reflection in her glasses. “Obviously, it wasn’t enough. But it’s true. By this age, Trish is nobody’s responsibility but her own. Whatever the outcome, it’s a little late to be accusing anybody of leading my niece down the primrose path. Heaven knows, if she walked in here right now?” Her hair, darker than Dana’s, tangled in her collar as she shook her head. “I’d be tempted to throttle the living daylights out of her. Dumping her baby on Dana like that, not having the decency to even tell you about the child … nobody in this family has ever done anything like this.”

      She snatched an empty baby bottle and a rolled-up diaper off the coffee table. “But this family sticks together, Mr. Turner,” she said, wagging the bottle for emphasis. “That child’s gonna know he belongs, that he has kin that care about him, no matter what his scatterbrained mama might have done.”

      “I couldn’t agree more,” C.J. said. “Which is why, if Ethan really is mine, I want him to come live with me.”

      Three feet from the living room, Dana froze in her tracks.

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