Cara Lockwood - Practicing Parenthood

CHAPTER THREE

COLLIN BAPTISTA WAS HERE.

Madison paced her uncle’s third-story deck in a panic. She bit her thumb as she glanced out over the treetops toward the ocean, which sparkled blue in the distance. Collin had found her. How? Did he know she was pregnant? God, she hoped not. Then again, she remembered that her uncle had spilled the beans to Yvana. Was he trying to play matchmaker with Collin, too?

No. He couldn’t do that. She hadn’t told him who the father was, after all.

Would Collin have been able to find out some other way?

She’d steadfastly refused his calls. Surely, he would’ve gotten the message that she wasn’t interested. Besides, why was he even interested? And why now? He’d been more than clear that he didn’t want a relationship. I don’t date defense attorneys. Wasn’t that what he’d said? No, he doesn’t date them. Just sleeps with them, that’s all, she thought bitterly. And then dumps them like garbage the very next day. She remembered how coldly he’d treated her. She got that it had been one night, but she had assumed he’d enjoyed it as much as she had. Obviously, that hadn’t been the case. She’d thought the sex had been...exceptional, and yet he’d treated her as if it had been the worst night of his life. Maybe it had been. That idea was painful. He hadn’t felt the connection, the spark that she had.

She ought to see him, but part of her felt scared. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep the baby a secret, and the anxiety of seeing him roiled her stomach so that her morning—now officially afternoon sickness—had returned. She told Yvana to stall him while she figured out what to do. She couldn’t flee; the next ferry wasn’t for an hour at least, and she’d have to walk right past him to get on it. She could hope he’d get tired and leave, but what she knew of Collin told her he was a tenacious fighter who wouldn’t give up easily.

What was he doing here?

Calm down, she told herself. Just calm down and think. A million different thoughts flooded her mind.

He knew. He had to know about the baby. Was he here to tell her to get an abortion?

She clenched her teeth at that possibility. She wasn’t going to do it.

What to do?

Her brain suddenly didn’t want to work. Ever since she’d stared at those two pink lines on the pregnancy test, she’d felt that her brain had gone into slow-mo mode, and she’d lost all ability to make a decision. Now, faced with Collin here, on North Captiva, she’d need to decide. If she told Yvana to get rid of him, she would. But was that what she really wanted? She wasn’t sure.

What she did know was that she still wasn’t over the sting of rejection she’d felt when he failed to call her the morning after their drunken tryst. She’d texted him—twice—and he hadn’t bothered to respond. The curt nod she’d gotten in the courthouse the next morning had told her all she needed to know—she was a one-night stand, a mistake he didn’t intend to repeat. She should’ve seen it coming. I don’t date defense attorneys, he’d warned her over drinks. It’d be a bad career move.

She ought to have walked away from him right then and there. Yet, she hadn’t. It was his green eyes, she thought, almost gray, striking with his tanned complexion, set off by his jet-black hair. He wore it longish and wavy on top, short at the sides. He was shrewd, but that wasn’t what had made her stay for a drink. It was his surprising show of empathy that day.

“Nobody said this job was easy,” he’d murmured as he sidled up to her at the bar at Pete’s, down the street from the courthouse in Fort Myers. “I know you had a rough week. Buy you a drink?”

Rough didn’t begin to cover it. Two days ago, she’d had to tell the mother of a nineteen-year-old that he was going to prison for seven years. He stole a car because someone had left it running with the keys in it. A crime of opportunity. But he’d messed up badly—because the car had had a baby in the back seat. That automatically made it a felony.

The teenager wasn’t a bad kid, just rudderless; he’d spent his life in an impoverished neighborhood. Nevertheless, his carelessness had left a mother in a panic, and worse, he’d abandoned the car with the baby still inside. Thankfully, a cop had spotted it, but if that hadn’t happened...the baby could’ve overheated, could’ve died. Poor decision-making and bad luck meant he was going away for seven years, and he’d come out harder. Maybe even more violent. There was nothing reforming about the prison system.

And then, in the afternoon, she’d had to represent a white supremacist—her! Madison was about as brown as a person could get. But Jimmy Reese was a KKK member who’d tried to shoot a black man and hit a white twelve-year-old instead. She couldn’t imagine getting a worse case. She’d lost the one case and then gotten another that she hoped very much to lose.

“You planning to cut a deal for Jimmy?” he’d asked her.

She slowly shook her head. Jimmy had made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to cop a plea. “No, he wants to tell the whole court how patriotic he is for trying to kill anybody who isn’t white.”

Collin just rolled his eyes. “You gonna defend that?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head again. “It’s indefensible.”

“I say we both need a drink,” he said. “Come on, let me buy you one. A drink can make you feel better,” he promised. “Or it’ll make you feel much, much worse. Either way, you won’t be where you are right now.”

She’d had to laugh at that.

That was why she’d accepted Collin’s offer of a drink. And the second. And the third.

And that led to...a night she wouldn’t forget. Boy, the man had skills. He was gorgeous and he possessed a magical touch. It almost wasn’t fair.

Her phone rang. She picked it up.

“You still want me to stall this guy?” Yvana asked. How long had it been since she’d called the first time? Half an hour?

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

“Well, this Collin guy has been in here twice, asking me when his ride is coming, but you and I both know there ain’t no ride. Not unless you say so.”

“Where is he now?” Madison bit her lip. She didn’t want to see him, and yet how long could she really stall?

“Waiting on that bench, but he’s going to start walking soon, and you know how this island is for newbies... He’ll be wandering around for days trying to find your house.” Yvana clucked her tongue.

“I know, I just...” Madison hesitated. Her mind whirled like an old computer with long outdated software. She couldn’t decide. Talk to him and get it over with? Should she do that?

“He’s cute. You didn’t mention that.”

Madison felt a blush creep up her cheek. She knew he was and that women noticed him, but hearing it confirmed didn’t help.

“I mean, I can see why you knocked boots. He’s got muscles that go on...forever.”

“Yvana!” Madison cried. Yvana cackled her delight into the phone.

“Just stating the obvious,” Yvana said. “Don’t worry, sugar. He’s far too young for me. So, it’s not his looks that are keeping you away. Why not let this fine man—the father of your baby, I assume—come see you? What’s wrong with him? Aside from the fact that you could bounce quarters off those abs. Which isn’t a problem unless you want a softer man to snuggle with.”

Madison laughed. “He doesn’t know. About the baby.”

“You sure about that, honey?” Yvana sounded suddenly very skeptical.

“Thought I was. I didn’t tell him.”

“Well, he sure is anxious to see you, and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with asking you out for drinks.”

Madison considered this. She glanced out her uncle’s kitchen window. Since the house stood on stilts, even the first floor was raised. She could see the tops of some shorter palm trees swaying in the breeze outside. “I just... He wasn’t very nice to me.” Ignoring her wasn’t nice. Not nice at all. And now, he’d shown up out of the blue... He had to know about the pregnancy. There could be no other explanation. “And there’s no way he’s ready to be a parent.” She remembered how easily he’d fought to have a nineteen-year-old put behind bars. What kind of father would he make? A heartless one, probably. “He’s full of himself, so how can he even focus on a baby?”