Tara Quinn - Somebody's Baby

With butterflies swarming in her stomach, she made the last turn into the university parking lot. Large old buildings lay before her amid a breathtaking expanse of perfectly green lawns broken up with the occasional cement table and bench. While the place was currently deserted, she could envision students sitting at those tables, enjoying the sunshine while they grabbed a quick lunch or studied. She imagined couples huddled together on the benches, having private conversations. She counted at least three cement-mounted swings on white latticework gazebos—a far cry from the splintery version that hung on her porch at home.

It was only the second week in January, still the semester break, so there was little chance that her sister was anywhere in the vicinity. But as she filled out the necessary papers, retrieved required signatures, met with the proper people to register for her college classes, Caroline strained for a glimpse of a not too tall, fairly thin redhead with green eyes and an opal on her finger.

“Here you go, ma’am—this is your copy.” The skinny young dark-haired man behind the counter at the registrar’s office smiled almost condescendingly as he handed Caroline a copy of her first-ever college schedule.

“Classes start on the nineteenth. A week from Wednesday.”

“Thank you.” She smiled back, not because she appreciated his making her feel like an incompetent dinosaur, but because she’d seen the schedule. Relaxing for the first time in months, she almost skipped out into the Shelter Valley, fifty-degree sunshine. Right there on the first line, it guaranteed that she’d meet her sister. Along with a couple of required freshman courses and two English classes, Caroline had been admitted to Phyllis’s Introduction to Psychology.

CAROLINE HAD BEEN in town three days. She’d spent much of the past twenty-four hours staring at her meager wardrobe, hot with humiliation at the prospect of sitting in class with eighteen-year-olds, looking like a bumpkin off the farm. But she’d need most of the cattle money for rent, and panicked at the thought of spending any more of her little nest egg from Randy’s life insurance than she had to—even at a secondhand store. She had no idea how long that money would have to last.

And there was a baby to think about….

For once the Internet produced no solution. Tuesday afternoon, sitting at her desk in a room that was spotlessly tidy in spite of the cramped quarters, with paper stacked neatly on the floor beneath the desk, and all the other supplies she’d brought from home beside her, Caroline didn’t know whether to cry or get angry. Web site after Web site was only confirming what she already knew. Her appearance was wildly out-of-date. She could pull her hair up into a ponytail—a fashionable clip would cost a couple of dollars—but after that…

Even if she was lucky enough to find more fashionable clothes at a secondhand store, she’d have to spend fifty dollars or more to update herself, and that fifty dollars could go toward the coming doctor’s bills.

A tinny rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth sounded and she jumped, looking around to figure out where the sound was coming from. Then she remembered the cell phone in the drawstring bag she’d made out of one of Randy’s old shirts a couple of years before.

Only three people had that number. Her mother. Her son. And John Strickland.

Scrambling for the phone, her fingers tangled in the rope threaded through a casing at the top of the purse, holding it closed. If it was Jesse, she didn’t want to miss his call. Talking to her son made her happier than anything else on earth.

And if it was her mom—if there were more problems with her dad…

The number on the display had a Shelter Valley area code.

She answered it anyway.

“Caroline? This is John Strickland.” Even on the phone, his voice sounded just as she remembered it.

“Oh. Hi.”

“Am I bothering you?”

Her hands were shaking, her stomach queasy. Did that count? “No.”

“I’d like to see you.”

Glancing around her room with desperate eyes, Caroline said, “Why?”

“To talk.”

She didn’t want to talk to him. She’d done her duty where he was concerned. He made her uncomfortable. Unsure of herself. Around John Strickland, pregnant Caroline Prater felt like an idiot.

She heard herself saying, “Okay.”

“Would you like to go for dinner? We could drive down to Phoenix.”

She’d driven through Phoenix on her way to Shelter Valley. She’d told herself she’d go back to explore as soon as she could afford the gas. Which wouldn’t be until she had a better idea of how much having this baby was going to cost.

Growing warm with embarrassment, Caroline said. “I was planning to eat here.” Board was included with the room.

“Can’t you let me take you out? I’d like to. My treat.”

She opened her mouth to deliver an adamant no, turned away from the bed where she’d dropped her bag and caught the trapped look in her eyes in the mirror attached to the dresser across from her.

“You don’t owe me anything,” she said.

“I know you really believe that, and maybe that’s why I really want to.”

Hot again, she sat down. “I’m not…um…that woman you were with in December. She was just…” Caroline swallowed. Silence hung on the line. “I was—it was my first Christmas without Randy…um, my husband…and, well I don’t usually act like that.”

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.”

“I’m not interested in you—like that.” Her palms were sweaty with the effort of asserting herself. This was all so new to Caroline, a woman who’d spent the first thirty-four years of her life trying to fit in by giving in. Who’d grown up in a small town where people still defined a woman’s worth by how happy she made her husband.

He didn’t say anything, and Caroline half hoped he’d decided against dinner. Or ever talking to her again. Except that might be difficult considering the circumstances.

“I can’t go on a date.”

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.