Janice Kay - Whose Baby?

There she was in another photo, on Santa’s lap, not crying, but not entirely happy, either. And younger yet, a swimsuit over her diaper, the photograph taken as she stood knee-deep in a small backyard pool filled by a hose. Why wasn’t she smiling more often? Was she truly happy?

Lynn looked through the pictures over and over again, beginning to resent the meager number, hungering for more. What was she really like, this little girl who had once been part of her? What made her sad? What did she think was funny? Did she suck her thumb? Have nightmares? Wish she had a mommy?

At last, at last, she looked up, aware that tears were raining down her cheeks, that Adam Landry had made a sound. Like a blind man, he was touching one of the photographs she’d given him. His fingers shook as he traced, so delicately, her daughter’s face.

She saw him swallow, saw the emotions akin to hers ravage his features.

“Jenny,” he whispered.

“Does she look like your wife?”

His hand curled into a fist. “It’s…uncanny.”

For the first time, Lynn understood. “This must be almost worse for you, with your wife dead.”

He looked up, but his eyes didn’t focus; he might have been blind, or seeing something else. “Our daughter was all I had left.”

She couldn’t draw a breath, only sat paralyzed. He saw the wife he’d loved and lost in Shelly’s face. He would want her. She could even sympathize with how he must feel. She had to meet Jenny Rose, answer the questions the photographs didn’t, hold her, hug her, hear her voice, her laugh, feel her warm breath. She had to be part of her life.

As he would, somehow, have to be part of Shelly’s life.

“I want to see her,” he said, a demand not a request. “Where do you live?”

Her sympathy evaporated at his assumption that he could bulldoze her. She wanted suddenly to lie, or refuse to answer, or…but what was the point? People were easy to find, particularly one who hadn’t been trying to hide. A few phone calls and he could be knocking on her door.

“Otter Beach. Over on the coast. I own a bookstore.”

“Did you bring her with you?”

“No. She’s…she’s home. With a baby-sitter.” Lynn lifted her chin. “What about Jenny Rose? Where’s she?”

As impassive as his face was, still Lynn saw his initial reluctance give way to the same begrudging acceptance. “She goes to a preschool Monday through Friday. While I’m working.”

“You don’t have a nanny, or someone like that?”

“No.” He caught on, and a flush traveled across his cheekbones. “Is that what I look like? A man who takes care of his personal life by writing a check?”

Yes. Oh, yes, that’s exactly what he looked like.

But she couldn’t say so, of course. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a stockbroker.”

“It’s just that it’s hard to be a single parent. Most of us do everything because we have to. You don’t.”

“You assume I’m wealthy.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you?”

“I make a decent living.”

Ten or twenty times the one she made, if Lynn was any judge.

“Couldn’t you afford a nanny?”

“I don’t want someone else raising my child.” He said it in a hard voice.

The words sliced like a switchblade between the ribs. She was someone else.

He swore. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

“No?”

“When you contacted the hospital, what did you have in mind? That we trade kids?”

Trade kids? Lynn stared at him in shock. Was that what he had in mind?

“You don’t love your—” she corrected herself “—my daughter at all, do you?”

Neither his voice nor his expression softened an iota. “I wasn’t talking about me. You’re the one who started this. I’m asking what you thought you’d get out of it.”

She squeezed her fingers on her lap. “What I’d get out of it? You think I’m using this mix-up to gain something?”

“Why not?” He sounded grim. “You know the hospital is prepared to pay a fortune to shut us up.”

“I don’t want money.” Shaking, she gathered the pictures of the daughter she’d never met and pushed them heedlessly into her purse, then snatched it up and stood. “I told you what I wanted. That’s all I have to say. My attorney will be contacting you about visitation rights.”

“Stop,” he snapped. “Sit down.”

“Why?”

“We have to talk.” He shut his eyes again for a moment, then opened them and let out a ragged breath. “Please.”

Lynn bit her lip, then slowly sat again. “What is there to say?”

“I don’t know, but these are our kids. Do we want the courts mandating their futures?”

“No.” Lynn sagged. “I didn’t bring a lawyer today. I hoped…”

“I hoped, too.” After a long silence he sighed. “Where do you suggest we go from here?”

“I’d like to meet her. Jenny Rose. And I expect you’d like to meet Shelly.” When he nodded, Lynn said fiercely, “You can’t have her, you know. She’s my daughter. I love her. I’m her world.”

Adam Landry’s hard mouth twisted. “It would seem we have something in common. I’d fight to the death for Rose. Nobody is taking her. So you can put that right out of your mind.”

Had she imagined raising both girls? “Then what?” she asked in a low voice.

He shook his head. “Visitation. We can take it slow.”

“Have you told Rose about me?” Lynn asked curiously. “About what happened?”

“No. You?”

“No.” She made a face. “It’s a hard thing to explain to a three-year-old.”

“On Rose’s nightstand is a picture of her mommy, who she knows is in heaven. How the hell do I introduce you?” Bafflement and anger filled his dark eyes, so like Shelly’s.

“All we can do is our best.” How prissy she sounded, Lynn thought in distaste.

He didn’t react to her sugar pill, continuing as if she’d said nothing, “It’s going to scare the hell out of her if I suddenly announce she isn’t my daughter at all. And, oh yeah, here’s your real mommy.”

Lynn had imagined the same conversation a million times. To a child this age, parents were the only security. They were the anchor that made exploring the world possible.

“Maybe we should meet first,” she suggested. “Would it be less scary once they know us?”

“Maybe.” He made a rough sound in his throat. “Yeah. All right. We’ll all just be buddies at first.”

She let his irony pass, giving a small nod. When he said nothing more, Lynn clutched her purse in her lap. “Shall I bring Shelly to Portland one day?”

“Why don’t I come there instead? Rosebud would enjoy a day at the beach. It might seem more natural.”

Rosebud. She liked that. She liked, too, what the gentle nickname suggested about this man. Perhaps he wasn’t as tough as he seemed.

“Fine. Saturday?”

They agreed. He wrote down her address and phone number, then gave her a business card with his. It all felt so…mundane, a mere appointment, not the clock set ticking for an earthshaking event.

He escorted her out of the conference room and, with his hand on her elbow, hustled her past the cluster of lawyers and administrators lying in wait.

Over his shoulder, he told them brusquely, “We’ll be in touch once we figure this out.”

Lynn imagined the consternation brewing at their abrupt departure. Together.

She and Adam Landry rode down silently in the elevator, Lynn painfully conscious of his physical presence. She caught him glancing at her once or twice, but each time he looked quickly away, frowning at the lighted numbers over the door. Of course, he couldn’t help being so imposing at his height, with broad shoulders and the build of a natural athlete. Nor could he help that face, with Slavic cheekbones and bullish jaw and high forehead that together made him handsome enough to displace Mel Gibson in a woman’s fantasies.