Kathryn Shay - Be My Babies

She didn’t look it. She was thin, and her complexion was pale. Her makeup was perfect, however, and her dark hair was stylishly cut. Yet, despite the sophisticated exterior, there was a vulnerability about her that tugged at his heart.

“Twins don’t always go full-term, but I’m going to make sure mine do.”

“You didn’t answer my question about the father.”

“He’s in no condition to help us now.” She drew in a deep breath. “So I came to you.”

Why she’d even ask him after what he did—or didn’t do—for her mother was beyond Gil. But maybe, in some convoluted way, Lily Wakefield showing up here was a chance for Gil to make up for having let his daughter down when she was having a child. “I can and I will,” he said instinctively. “I’ll do whatever you want. Is it money?”

“No! I didn’t come for a handout.”

He recoiled. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t snap at you.”

He drank his coffee and measured his words. She should be doing more than snapping at him. “Then what do you need from me, Lily? What can I do for you?”

“For now, a place to live, until I can find a job. I’d like to look for one in Fairview, if you wouldn’t mind my staying in town.”

“I’d love to have you in Fairview—and in my home, for as long as you want. But should you be working?”

“Pregnant women have been working for centuries.”

Stalling for time, he got up and poured himself more coffee, let its strong scent waft up to him. “I don’t want to rush you. I’m in foreign waters here. You’ll have to tell me what’s best for you.”

“That’s a switch.”

He pivoted to face her. “What?”

“In the situation I came from, nobody cared much about what I wanted.”

“Do you want to tell me about that first?”

Her slate-blue eyes grew shadowed. “No, not yet.”

“All right. Will you tell me about Cami and your life together? I never knew how she fared.”

“Nobody called her Cami.”

“No? I guess it was only my pet name for her.”

Lily shook her head. “You talk about her so…warmly, but I know she was kicked out of her home when she got pregnant.”

“That’s not exactly what happened.”

“It’s what she told me.”

“We sent her away to have the baby at a place for unmarried girls who were pregnant.”

“She saw that as the same thing. In any case, she didn’t blame you— just her mother. She talked about you in a kind way, too, which is why I felt I could come here.”

“Where did she go when she left Fairview?”

Lily fidgeted. Shifted in her seat. “Downstate. I grew up in New York City. She worked there as a waitress. She died in a bus accident.”

With his newsman’s instinct, Gil read Lily easily. Either what she said wasn’t true or it wasn’t the whole story. “I have no information at all on her life after she left us.”

“She wanted it that way.” Lily yawned. “I’m sorry—it’s been a long day. Would you mind if I rested a bit?”

“The house has several bedrooms. You can take your pick.”

Now those eyes, so much like his daughter’s that it made his heart ache, clouded over. “Would the one where my mother stayed be okay?”

“More than okay.” He smiled, but he felt as if somebody had kicked him in the gut. “It’s been redone.” Alice had said it was better that way. “But I saved Cami’s things.”

“I—I didn’t expect that.” She yawned again. “Oh, excuse me.”

Standing, he set his empty mug in the sink and rinsed it. “Give me a minute to go tidy up the room. Put on sheets, air it out a bit.”

“I can do that myself.”

“Please, Lily. Let me.”

“All right.” Gil had crossed to the doorway, when she said, “I don’t know what to call you.”

Grandpa. Please, call me Grandpa. He smiled over his shoulder. “Whatever’s comfortable for you.”

She nodded. “Thanks for not pushing—about that or what’s happened to me.”

“You’re welcome. I meant what I said about being given a gift.”

This time around, he planned to embrace it.

“WHY’S SHE HERE, DAD?”

Ah, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “I don’t know, honey, except for what Gil told me when he called.”

At the long counter, Jenna was tearing lettuce to make a salad while Simon put rigatoni into boiling water at the stove. The scent of the meat sauce his daughter had made over the weekend spiced up the whole sunny kitchen.

Jenna’s thick braid swung back and forth as she shook her head. “It must be scary, being pregnant and having no place to go.” She frowned. “Why didn’t Grandpa Gil ever know about Lily?”

Though she was still young and innocent by today’s standards for a teenage girl, Jenna was sixteen. Old enough to know the truth and learn about the foibles of people she loved and admired. He was chagrined to think that she didn’t know about his own. Turning the heat down on the pasta, he crossed to the bar that jutted out from the counter. “Sit a minute, honey.”

They took stools opposite each other. “Gil’s daughter left home when she was sixteen.”

“No way. Dad, that’s my age.”

“I know. What’s more, she was pregnant.”

“With Lily? Then, why didn’t Grandpa know about her?”

He explained about Alice and Gil’s decision. “Actually, Cameron never went to the home. She ran away.”

“Grandpa Gil did that? ”

“It was more his wife’s decision. You didn’t know Alice.”

“Did you?”

“Only after Cameron left. She was a stern woman—a strong believer in propriety and paying for your sins.”

“She sent her own kid away to punish her?” Jenna said the words as if she couldn’t quite grasp the concept. As her father, Simon was glad Jenna found the behavior incomprehensible.

“I’ve always thought so. And to avoid scandal. Her parents, the Caldwells, were well-known in Fairview. You know the term pillars of the community? ”

Jenna nodded.

“That’s what her family was.”

“Yours, too, Dad. Everybody in town still talks about how great your mom and dad were.”

Simon smiled. He’d adored his mother, Catherine, who’d been a teacher, and his guidance counselor father, Patrick, had been his best friend. When they were killed in a boating accident, Simon had been twenty and he’d walked around in a daze for months, mourned them for years. He’d always vowed to be as good a father as his own had been.

“My parents were well loved, but they didn’t have the clout of the Caldwells. They had a lot of money. They owned the Sentinel, as well as some stores in the area. Gil said Alice was trying to avoid embarrassing the family, so they told everybody Cameron was going away to a private school.”

“What happened when she never came back?”

“The real story seeped out. People got wind of the pregnancy. Ironically, it wasn’t a big deal to anyone but Alice, and gossip died quickly. Her parents survived just fine. But Alice went a little crazy.”

“She doesn’t sound like the kind of person Grandpa Gil would marry.”

“She had her good traits. She did a lot of charitable work in her church. But she grew more severe as she got older.”

“Huh.”

“Between trying to run the paper and deal with his wife, Gil was a wreck.”

Jenna’s brows furrowed. “He should have stood up for his daughter, Dad. It sucks that he didn’t.”

“I think it’s best not to judge people, Jen.” Especially not their marriages. “We know the broad strokes, but not all of what happened.”

His daughter studied him.