LITMIR.BIZ

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was knocking on the door. He peered into the room just as she said, “Come in.”

      Some of C.J.’s color was returning, he noted. She was beginning to look like her old self again. Feisty and contrary. He felt relieved. “Got some people out here who for reasons beyond me seem to be awfully anxious to see you. Can they come in?”

      As independent of ties as she liked to pretend to be, C.J. had to admit that it felt good to know that she had family close by who cared about her. “I guess we can’t keep them out, can we?”

      “You just try, sweetheart,” her father said, pushing past Warrick as he sailed into the room. Nodding at the nurse who was a shade taller than he was, James Jones elbowed his way next to the bed and took one of his daughter’s hands into both of his. His blue eyes crinkled, barely disguising the concern etched on his face. “How are you, darlin’?”

      “Tired.” C.J. tried to rally, summoning what energy she could. Her brothers surrounded her bed, leaving a space for her mother directly opposite her father. “How did you all manage to get here so fast?”

      “Dad broke a few speed limits,” Diane told her, attempting to look annoyed but not quite pulling it off. “What are you doing, having this baby without me? I thought I was supposed to be your coach.”

      C.J. glanced at Warrick who was standing at the foot of her bed behind one of her brothers. “I had to settle for second best.”

      Diane turned her attention to the man she had taken aside and charged with her daughter’s care the very first time she’d met him. “Thank God you were there to help her, Byron.”

      C.J.’s eyes shifted toward her partner. As ever, the use of his given name didn’t seem to faze him when her mother called him by it. It still amazed her. She supposed he more or less considered her family to be his own. Her brothers were his friends, and her mother and father were like a second set of parents to him.

      Or maybe even a first set from the little she’d managed to get out of him about his childhood. Warrick had been an only child. An accident of nature was the way he had put it once. His parents had kept him, much the way a customer keeps an item they’d accidentally broken in a shop and were forced to pay for. The relationship was that sterile.

      There was no mention of love, of affection existing in his past, even remotely. He rarely spoke about them, even when she asked him direct questions. His father had died some years back and his mother had remarried and was living out of the country. Even that had not come firsthand to her. Warrick had told her mother one rainy Sunday afternoon after watching a football game on TV with the male contingent of her family.

      It amazed C.J. how much information her mother could get out of her closemouthed partner. There were times when she honestly thought her mother had missed her calling, although, to hear Diane Jones tell it, being the wife of a prominent criminal lawyer and the mother of three more, plus another potential up-and-coming barrister as well as an FBI agent, was more than satisfying enough for her.

      That her mother added her as an addendum was just a trademark of her sense of humor. C.J. knew that her mother doted so much on her that it was difficult for the woman not to show it.

      Warrick shrugged carelessly at her mother’s comment. “C.J. did most of the work.”

      “Most of it?” C.J. hooted. “Ha! I did all of it.”

      “Knowing C.J., you’re lucky to have come out of the ordeal alive,” Brian, her oldest brother, said to Warrick.

      Warrick poked his tongue into his cheek. “She did get a little testy.”

      “Spoken like a typical man,” C.J. countered. “You try pushing out an elephant through a keyhole, see how cheerful you stay.”

      Ever the referee even after her children were grown, Diane held up her hands, waving all involved parties into silence.

      “Enough. The bottom line is that the baby’s here, Chris is all right, and we’re all together.” She laced her arm through her husband’s, glowing with contentment. “So, have you decided what my new granddaughter’s name is?”

      C.J. shook her head. Ever mindful of the possibility that something might go wrong, she had refused to think of any names for either sex while she was pregnant. “No, not yet.”

      Her father looked at her, his disappointment apparent. “Not even one name? Oh, Christmas, you even put that off?”

      C.J. shut her eyes. Christmas Morgan were her official given names, laid on her by an act of whimsy on her father’s part because she’d been born on Christmas morning.

      When she opened her eyes again, it was to look at the guilty party. “Well, when I do come up with a name, it’s going to be a hell of a lot better than ‘Christmas,’ I can promise you that.”

      Warrick grinned. He knew this was a really sensitive topic for her. “What’s the matter with being called Christmas? Although I have to admit, it doesn’t exactly suit you.”

      “And just exactly what is that supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.

      Ethan nudged Jamie, the baby of the family. “Nice to see that the miracle of birth hasn’t changed you any, Chris.”

      She was feeling better already. Having her family here was the best medicine of all. “Maybe growing up in a houseful of boys had something to do with that,” she pointed out. “I had to be twice as good as each of you just to hold my own.”

      “Your own what?” Jamie cracked. As the youngest, he was forever struggling to find his own place in a family of overachievers. The fact that at six-five, he towered over all of them helped to help balance things out.

      “Her own everything,” Wayne said. With two brothers born before him and a sister and brother born after, Wayne was the most even tempered of the family, given to thinking twice before speaking once. It was a trait his mother often wished out loud had been spread out amid her other children. Moving forward, Wayne brushed a kiss on his sister’s forehead. “Get some rest, kid. You look like hell.”

      “Thanks.” Her eyes met her brother’s. “You always did know what to say to perk a girl right up.”

      “Why don’t we all leave and let Chris get some well-deserved rest?” Diane suggested.

      “Which way’s the nursery?” Brian wanted to know.

      “Can we see the baby?” Ethan chimed in.

      “Do they have her in an incubator?” Jamie wanted to know.

      “No.” C.J. finally managed to get in a word. “She weighed in just over five pounds. The doctor said she’s strong and healthy.

      “Of course she is,” her father said. “She’s my granddaughter.”

      “Yes, dear,” Diane patted his face. “You deserve all the credit here.” Turning her head, she winked at her daughter.

      One by one her family filed by, kissing her and taking their leave. Diane waited for them at the door, making sure her brood made it into the hallway. But when Warrick moved to follow, she shook her head.

      “Why don’t you stick around a little while longer, Byron? She might like the company. Maybe even get around to apologizing for being so testy with you earlier as you put it.”

      Warrick glanced over his shoulder toward C.J. She nodded. “Okay, just for a few more minutes.”

      Diane paused at the door, the men in her life waiting for her to join them in the hall. Placing a hand on Warrick’s shoulder, she raised herself up on her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you for being there for her.”

      His smile was almost shy. “Just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.”

      “I’m glad it was you.” She turned toward her daughter, beaming. Her baby had had a baby. “You did good, honey. I’ll see you in the morning.

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