Baby, I'm Yours

“Would you rather he show up with a court order and just take her away?”

Her father’s brows crashed together. “But you just said—”

“I didn’t say he didn’t want to be Pip’s father. I said he wasn’t ready. Once the dust settles, however, I have no doubt he’ll change his tune. And if he does press the issue, I can’t see where he wouldn’t be within his rights. Pip is his daughter, after all.”

“According to Robyn.”

“So we’ll do a DNA test. I doubt Kevin will object. But what did Robyn have to gain by telling us Kevin was Pippa’s father? Especially since she didn’t want him to know.” Julianne fiddled with her lettuce some more, then lifted her eyes to her father’s. “Be truthful—are you really up to a custody battle? Because I’m sure as hell not.”

“So we should just hand Pippa over without a fight?”

“I don’t want to lose her any more than you do. It’s the fighting part I’d just as soon avoid.”

Victor carefully leaned back in his padded chair; Gus the Fickle hobbled over to him, his long tail whapping Julianne’s bare knee. “What do we even know about this kid? Aside from his dragging your sister down into the pit with him, I mean. Is he working? Does he even have any way of taking care of Pip?”

Julianne pulled the baby closer as she worked to bring her breathing under control. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand where her father was coming from. Or why. Losing Robyn—first to drugs, then to death—had nearly wrecked him. And God knew how Julianne would have gotten through the last year and a half without his support. But while her dad might have been the go-to expert on mending other people’s family rifts, he could be spectacularly obtuse when it came to mending—or even acknowledging—his own.

“I’ll grant you, maybe his earlier behavior wasn’t the most mature in the world,” she said at last. “And maybe we don’t know what he’s really like now, or if he’s really changed. Or even if he is able to take care of a child. Even so, he didn’t have to come all the way out here, just to check up on Robyn. So I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if you’re not.”

She leaned forward. “But you have got to stop using Kevin as a scapegoat for what happened to Robyn. He said he tried every way he could think of to get her into rehab, but she refused. And yes, I believe him,” she said before her father could argue with her. “After all, she didn’t exactly go meekly for us, did she? And we weren’t trying to get our own heads straight at the same time. There was only so much he could do, Dad. Even you have to see that.”

A bruised shadow passed over her father’s features, followed by a sigh. Of acceptance? Resignation? Julianne had no idea.

“You always were the soft-hearted one, Julie-bird.”

“Because I don’t have it in me to keep a father and child apart? Then, yeah. Guilty as charged. In any case, the more obstacles we throw up between Kevin and Pippa, the worse it’s going to be for all of us. But if we let Kevin stay with us…” She shrugged. “It’s a win-win situation.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“Because if he’s here, we can keep an eye on him. Get to know him while he gets to know his daughter. But at the same time, maybe…”

“What?”

She turned Pippa around; pudgy, shapeless feet dug into her thighs as the baby pushed herself upright, Julianne’s hands firm on her waist. The baby had recently discovered the wonder of noses. Now, with a drooly squeal, she batted at Julianne’s, the little girl’s innocent joy jostling loose—even if only for a few precious moments—the solid, putrid ache of loss. “Maybe,” Julianne said softly, locking eyes with her niece, “if we don’t fight him, he’ll realize she’s better off with us, after all.”

Her father’s sharp silence finally brought her eyes to his. He slowly pushed himself to his feet, angrily grabbing for the cane. “I’ve already lost two people I didn’t fight for hard enough,” he said, leaning so hard on the cane Julianne worried he’d topple over. “Damned if I’m going to let the same thing happen to my granddaughter. Maybe I can’t stop Kevin from seeing Pip. But live in my house? No damn way.”

As her father lurched off, grumbling, the dog slogging beside him, Julianne found herself sorely tempted to chuck the slab of rock-hard bread at his head.

Blinking until his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Kevin stood inside Felix Padilla’s upholstery shop, thinking, Welcometo my brain.

Crammed into the narrow space like corralled sheep awaiting shearing, Victorian love seats in threadbare velvets mingled with Americana wing chairs, sets of Danish modern dining chairs with faded burnt-orange seats, camel-back sofas in worn brocades. Damn place looked like a 3-D encyclopedia of Ill-Advised Decorating Styles of the Twentieth Century. Just like it had the first time he’d seen it, more than a year ago. He followed the barely three-foot-wide walkway to Felix’s workshop in back, where the jumble disintegrated into flat-out chaos.

“Felix!” Kevin called out, his pupils cringing again at the stark daylight lurking outside the open loading-dock door. Mind-numbing eighties rock blared from a dusty boombox on one corner of the massive cutting table; tools, swatch books, industrial sewing machines, bins of welting and studs and upholstery nails littered what little space wasn’t taken up by a dozen sofas and chairs in various stages of resurrection. This was seriously the lair of a madman. A half-deaf, insanely talented madman who hadn’t been without work since 1965.

“Felix!”

“Over here! Behin’ the settee!” A bald, caramel-colored head popped up over the love seat, upended like a dead animal in an advanced stage of rigor mortis. “So,” Felix shouted over the music. “You were gone a long time. What’d you find out? An’ don’t sit on that chair, it’s jus’ finished. The las’ thing I need is a dirty butt print on it.”

Kevin pointlessly turned down the radio: half-deaf men didn’t know how to whisper. He’d met Felix through AA; he’d never forget the pride shining in the old guy’s black eyes that night when he stood and announced—loud enough for God to hear—that he’d been sober for “seven t’ousand, two hundred an’ thirty-six days.” A week later, in a huge act of faith, he’d taken Kevin on as an apprentice, until they both realized heavier-duty intervention was called for. It was Felix who knew somebody who knew somebody else who got Kevin into the facility in Denver where the tide finally turned for good.

There were other people in Albuquerque Kevin could’ve hit up for a place to crash for a few days, but Felix was the only person he could trust. Who’d understand what he was going through.

The short, barrel-chested guy now cussing out his arthritic knees as he struggled to his feet had been uncle, confidant and rock-steady support to the messed-up hombre who’d finally swallowed his pride enough to admit he needed help. Felix had known all about Robyn. Had even suggested—sorrowfully, to be sure—that maybe Robyn was one of those people who’d have to hit rock bottom before she was ready to turn her life around.

Kevin leaned his backside against the cutting table, his palms braced on either side of his hips. After an hour of aimless driving around town, the double whammy had only begun to sink in, about Robyn, about Pippa. For the hundredth time, a white-hot jolt of adrenaline shot through him.

He met Felix’s eyes. “Robyn’s dead.”

The old man sucked in a breath. “Muerta? No! Dios mio— when?”

“Three months ago.”

“What happened?”

“Swimming accident. Down in Puerto Vallarta.” Kevin could tell by Felix’s eye roll that he’d mangled the pronunciation. “According to her sister, she’d been clean for months, but—”

“Her sister?”

“An older sister. She’s staying with their father.” His throat worked. “To help take care of the baby.”

“The baby? What baby?” Another sucked-in breath preceded, “You got a kid?”

Kevin had long since stopped being spooked by Felix’s Olympicesque knack for jumping to conclusions. Actually it took some of the pressure off, not having to spell everything out. “A little girl. Nearly five months old.” He screwed a palm into his eyelid, then let it drop. The sympathy in the dark eyes in front of him made his own burn.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

The old man dragged a worn ottoman from underneath the cutting table, commanding, “Sit!” before waddling over to an ancient fridge and pulling out two Cokes. “You, my frien’,” he said, handing Kevin one of the cans, “need a plan.”

Kevin took a pull of his soda, nodding as the carbonation exploded against the roof of his mouth. “What I need is a job. And transport of some kind, since I hadn’t planned on keeping this rental for more than a few days. So I can hang around for a while until I figure out what comes next.”

“You got it,” Felix said, slapping Kevin’s knee. “Orlando, my assistant, he suddenly had to go back down to Juarez to look after his sick momma, I got work coming outta my ears. An’ I jus’ bought a new truck. You can use the old one if you want. She looks like crap, but she still runs, an’ that’s what counts, right?”

“That would be great, thanks,” Kevin said, relieved. Upholstery wasn’t his first love—he much preferred working on houses to recovering sofas—but he was good at it. And work was work. As wheels were wheels. He smiled. “Funny, you don’t look like an angel.”

A row of very bright, very straight teeth glinted from underneath a brush-roller mustache. “Are you kiddin’? You’re the one who’d be saving my ass. So maybe I see God’s hand in this, no? An’ you can stay with me an’ Lupe as long as you like. No, no, no,” he said, his head swinging as one hand shot up. “No arguments. Maybe our place is no five-star hotel, but it’s free. An’ the food is great, yes? As long as you don’ mind dodging Frannie’s little rug rats. Her husband’s done a runner on her again, the bastard.”

Kevin smiled, wondering how it was that the people with the least to give were so often the most generous. The Padillas lived in a tiny, three-bedroom adobe in the South Valley, which would have been fine if it’d just been the two of them. But invariably one or more of their grown kids—with their kids—were in residence, too. Not that Kevin had issues with sleeping on the futon in their living room, but he hadn’t planned on staying more than a night or two.

Yeah, well, he hadn’t planned on discovering he was a father, either.

Another jolt. Damn, he was beginning to feel like a rat in a science experiment, getting a shock every time he went the wrong way in the maze.

And didn’t that pretty much sum up his life?

A glance around the jumbled shop confirmed that Felix’s offer hadn’t been out of pity. “Okay, I’m in. At least until Orlando gets back.”