Somebody's Baby

John sighed—which sounded as if it was accompanied by a slight chuckle. “Caroline, you are unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”

Was that a good or bad thing?

“We need to talk. I need to eat. You’ve already spent at least some money on a test to diagnose a condition for which I am half-responsible. I can pay back my half with tonight’s meal. From there on, hopefully, we’ll have reached some other arrangement.”

“I told you, I don’t want anything from you. This is my…situation. I’ll deal with it.”

“The child is mine.” There was a certain hardness to his voice now. “I will share in the responsibility.”

Caroline sighed, too. She didn’t mean to—at least not out loud. But he was right; there was no way of avoiding a conversation between the two of them.

God, what a mess.

“Okay, do you want me to meet you somewhere? Or I can drive to your house.”

“Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather pick you up.” John’s deep voice brought peace even while his words frightened her. “What’s your address?”

She didn’t want to give it to him. Didn’t want to give anyone more information about her than necessary. She had too many secrets.

In a voice that was thick with tangled emotions, Caroline gave John her address.

“I’VE DONE A LOT of thinking in the past couple of days.”

They were having dinner at a somewhat dark restaurant off the I-10 freeway in Ahwautukee, a suburb, John had explained, in south Phoenix. This was the first bit of personal conversation he’d offered.

“I can imagine,” she told him, studying the dinner salad she’d ordered and had only picked at. Across from her in the maroon leather booth, he was finishing off a cup of potato soup. He’d dressed casually, in jeans and a beige pullover with slip-on casual leather shoes.

She’d never been out with a man with slip-on casual leather shoes.

At least in Phoenix, with all the Old West cowboy overtones, she didn’t feel so out of place in her boots. And her blue jeans, faded flower blouse and brown cardigan were clean.

He glanced over. “Would you like to wait until after dinner to talk?”

The drive had been spent on a horticulture lesson about desert cacti and other flowering plants—much more information than she’d already learned from the Internet.

“No, this is fine.” Anything not to prolong the evening.

Nodding, he set down his spoon. “It occurred to me that I need to tell you some things about myself so you can understand what I have to say.”

Caroline took a bite of lettuce and cucumber. The baby that had yet to make itself physically known in any way other than through a little queasiness and two solid lines on a home pregnancy test, needed sustenance.

There were quite a few patrons in the restaurant, which, she’d been glad to note, had a varied but not too expensive menu. And the booths were far enough apart, private enough with pillars and high backs between them, to allow for intimate conversation.

Still, she would’ve been more comfortable in a fast-food hamburger joint.

“Other than determining that we were both unattached in December—and because of that, lonely going into the holidays—we never broached any information about our romantic lives.”

Glancing up at him, Caroline nodded, uncomfortable with the direction he seemed to be taking. His dark eyes were open and sincere.

Would her baby’s eyes be that brown? Jesse had green eyes like hers.

“I’m a widower.”

“Oh.” And when surprise didn’t seem an appropriate response, she said, “I’m sorry.” She paused, then added, “So am I. A widow, I mean.” Her fork hung suspended in midair, clasped in fingers that were holding it so tightly the metal was leaving indentations in her skin.

Her widowhood certainly wasn’t a secret. She just felt so vulnerable, talking about it.

Forearms resting on the table, he toyed with his fork. “How long’s it been for you?”

“Six months.” And she hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time since.

“Six years here.”

She wanted to ask him if it got any easier, but couldn’t get that intimate.

“Sometimes it feels like it’s only been six months,” he continued, staring down at the fork he still fingered.

The man’s lost look drew Caroline’s sympathy. “What happened?”

He raised his head and then lowered it again. “Car accident.”

“Was she alone?” Randy had been. And visions of him lying there hurt, frightened, needing her, haunted her daily.

He shook his head, dark brown hair falling over his forehead as his gaze met hers. “We were in a cab in New York, coming from a Broadway show.”

Oh, God. She’d never been to New York. Or to a play, for that matter, if you didn’t include the elementary-school variety. But she could imagine being on vacation, having fun, completely unsuspecting of the tragedy that would occur.

“She lived for a couple of hours,” he continued. The food was taking too long to get there. Caroline wanted the interruption more for him than for herself.

“I begged her to hold on. All the time we were in the ambulance, trying to maneuver through Manhattan traffic, I pleaded with her to breathe.”

Caroline had a feeling the woman would have done everything in her power to honor this man’s request.

“What was her name?”

“Meredith.” His eyes grew vacant, and Caroline had a pretty good idea he’d fallen into what she’d come to know as the dark abyss. A place where lost lives and broken dreams waited to taunt those left behind.

“My husband’s name was Randy.”

He blinked, an expression of compassion and understanding replacing the emptiness. “Was he sick?”

She shook her head. Not unless you counted a lack of self-esteem and the resultant relationship with a bottle. “Tractor accident on our farm.”

“How old was he?”

“Same as me. Thirty-four.”

“Meredith was thirty-one. We were planning to have kids,” he said, more to himself than to her. “She was an investment broker and wanted to build a clientele so she could work from home and be able to stay with the babies.”