The Bachelor's Baby Dilemma (Family Renewal)

by Sheri WhiteFeather

  “You chose well,” he said. She’d donned a modest dress and flat shoes. Her makeup was minimal, and she was devoid of jewelry.

  “Thank you.” She smiled at Ivy, whom he was holding on his lap. “Did you bathe her?”

  “Yep. She’s all clean. But we need to put her in something cute.” For now all the kid was wearing was a diaper.

  She went over to the baby’s closet and looked through it. “How about this?” She held up a lace-trimmed romper. “Or this?” A purple dress that looked like a tutu. “Or we can put her in something a bit more casual.” She directed his attention to a bodysuit with bumblebees on it.

  “I don’t know. What do you think?” He wasn’t confident in making the decision. Children’s fashion wasn’t his forte. But he wanted Ivy to look spiffy when she saw her mama. Ivy was his little star, his perfect princess, and he wanted her to shine.

  “Let’s do the romper,” Candy said. “It’s sweet and girlie, but not too fussy. We’re only allowed to pack one extra change of clothes for her. So I think we should go for the jumpsuit as our backup, just to keep it simple.”

  While she gathered the outfits, he rocked Ivy on his lap. He was getting so used to rocking the baby, sometimes he swayed back and forth, even when he didn’t have her in his arms. He’d seen Candy do that sometimes, too. He figured it was a parental reflex, which was troubling in and of itself. Things like that made him feel like Ivy’s daddy instead of her guardian, which put Candy in the mommy role, too.

  “Did I tell you that Meagan tried to postpone this visit?” he asked.

  She turned to face him, a frown marring her pretty features. “No, you didn’t mention that. What made her change her mind?”

  “I insisted that we were coming, and she caved in and accepted it.”

  “Maybe that’s a good sign, rather than her fighting you on it.”

  He hoped so, but there were no guarantees. He didn’t know what to expect when it came to his sister.

  While he fell silent, Candy began packing the diaper bag for their trip, making sure she followed the guidelines of what they were permitted to carry with them.

  Even the rules about the bag itself were specific. This one was clear plastic, like the purse Candy had to use.

  Tanner watched as she selected the permissible items: one transparent pacifier, one burp cloth, six disposable diapers, one small blanket and a sealed package of wipes.

  As for the baby’s food, they would be bringing two clear bottles filled with premade formula.

  She looked up and said, “I’m going to grab some extra diapers and leave them in the truck. It’s too long a trip to be caught with such minimal supplies.” She then asked, “So what’s it going to be like when we first get there?”

  “You mean the security stuff?”

  She nodded.

  He replied, “Sometimes the initial processing takes a while, depending on how many visitors are there. Once we get into the building, we’ll have to fill out our passes, with Meagan’s name and CDCR number, along with our names, addresses, signatures and relationship to her. I’m her brother, of course, and you’d be considered a friend.”

  “Will Ivy need a pass?”

  “Yes. I’ll be filling hers out. I have to bring her birth certificate and my guardianship papers, too.” He added, “Once our passes are approved, we’ll be searched in a method that’s similar to airport security, with a conveyor belt and metal detectors.”

  “Will Ivy be exposed to the detector?”

  “Yes, but since she’s too young to walk through it, I’ll be instructed to carry her.” On previous visits, he’d seen other guardians and parents taking their babies and toddlers through. “After that, we’ll go to the visiting room or area that’s been assigned to us, show the staff on duty our passes and wait for Meagan to arrive. Sometimes Meagan and I sit outside on the patio, when it’s available, but I think we should stay indoors with Ivy. Either way, everything will be under surveillance, manned by correctional officers and camera equipment.”

  Candy sighed. “No wonder your sister is so reluctant to have us bring Ivy there.”

  “It’s not going to be easy. But it’s important for Meagan to see Ivy.” He shifted his niece on his lap. She was kicking her feet in that infant way of hers. She was flapping her arms, too, like a fledging struggling to take flight. “I can’t wait for her to smile.”

  “Meagan?”

  “Actually, I was talking about Ivy. I know what Meagan looks like when she smiles. But not this little one.” He poked her rounded belly. “I’m anxious to see how it transforms her.”

  “Most babies smile between six and eight weeks old, but sometimes it can happen sooner.”

  “When did Jude first smile?”

  “At about six weeks. It was a thrill every time it happened. And now he smiles and laughs all the time.”

  He didn’t recall Ella’s first smile, but he did remember how cute she looked when she grinned, reacting to the funny faces he used to make at her. “When Ivy first does it, it’s probably going to melt the hell out of my heart.”

  “Mine, too.” She already seemed a little dreamy. “Plus all of the other milestones like sitting up by herself, crawling, waving bye-bye, eating finger foods, standing, walking and saying her first word.”

  “What do you think her first word will be?”

  “Usually it’s mama or dada.”

  He frowned, concerned about where those words might lead. “We can’t let her call us by those names. That wouldn’t be right.”

  “We won’t.” She blew out a choppy breath, recovering from her dreaminess, from the maternal aura that had been surrounding her. “We’ll help her come up with something else for us. Maybe Canny and Tanny, like Jude does.”

  “That will work.” He could still feel himself frowning. “We can’t steal Meagan’s child from her. Even with how messed up my sister is right now, it doesn’t change the fact that Ivy belongs to her.”

  “I know.” She reached for the baby, preparing to dress her for the prison. “Believe me, I know.”

  * * *

  Candy noticed how distant Meagan was, barely interacting with the baby. Even though Meagan was permitted a contact visit, giving her the right to hold her child, the most she’d done was touch Ivy’s hand.

  “She hardly ever cries,” Tanner said.

  “That’s good,” Meagan replied in a sad voice.

  “I tell her every day that you love her,” Candy put in.

  Meagan glanced up, her eyes dark with pain. “I do love her. But she’s not going to know me as her mother.” She studied Candy. “You’re going to be more like her mom. You’re the one who will be there every day.”

  “I’m the nanny,” Candy quickly responded. “And you’re her mom. You being in here doesn’t change that.”

  “Yes, it does. I don’t want my daughter to keep coming here, seeing me like this. It’ll be better for her to have a normal life with you and Tanner and just leave me out of it.”

  Her brother spoke up. “There’s no way we’re doing that. Candy and I aren’t a couple, and we’re not becoming Ivy’s parents. We were just saying that right before we came here. We’re not stealing your child from you.”

  “You wouldn’t be stealing her. I’d be letting you have her.” She divided her gaze between them. “And you seem like a couple to me.”

  He shook his head. “Well, we aren’t.”

  “Maybe you should be.” She gave her brother a pointed look. “I can tell you’re into each other.”

  “Don’t you dare try to play matchmaker. You know darned well I’m not the commitment type.” He fidgeted in his seat. “Candy wants to settle down at some point, and someday she will. She’ll find another guy and marry him and have kids of her own. But Ivy is your baby, Meagan
. Yours.”

  Candy interjected. How could she not, with everything Tanner had just said? “He’s right, honey. She’s your daughter.”

  Meagan didn’t reply. She just sat there, looking despondent in her stiff uniform and barely combed hair. Such a far cry from the bouncy eight-year-old Candy remembered.

  The discomfort was thick enough to cut with a machete. Between the three of them, no one seemed to know what to do or what to say.

  Then Tanner asked his sister, “How is your treatment going?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not going to change me being in here and Ivy being out there.”

  Candy said, “No, it won’t. But once you start feeling better, it will change how you react to your situation.”

  “I’d feel better if you guys became a couple and agreed to keep Ivy.” She gazed at her daughter. “I can tell how attached she is to both of you already. And you even look like you could be her parents.”

  “Stop saying that kind of stuff.” Tanner’s frustration mounted. “We’re not claiming Ivy as our own. Our focus is for you to get well.” He softened his voice. “Your baby girl needs you, sis.”

  “But I’m such a screwup.”

  “Lots of people make mistakes.” He took her hand. “I want for you to prove to me that you can be strong and get well for your daughter. Please, Meagan. Don’t cop out. At least accept the help they’re giving you.”

  Her voice hitched. “I’ll try to feel better. But it’s just so hard, being an absentee parent.”

  “Lots of other moms are in here, too.” Tanner gestured to the families who surrounded them. “And in two years, you’ll be home with your daughter. This isn’t going to be forever.”

  Ivy started to fuss and Candy reached into the diaper bag for the pacifier and popped it into her mouth, calming her right down. “Do you want to hold her?” she asked Meagan. “Just for a minute?”

  The reluctant mother shook her head. “Maybe next time.”

  “We can bring her back next week,” Tanner said.

  “That’s too soon. I need more time.” She looked at Candy. “Just be her mom for now, okay?”

  Candy’s heart clenched. “How about if I just be her really good, really loving nanny?”

  “I’m still going to think of you as her mom.” She turned to Tanner. “And you as her dad. Tshe-hestovestse.”

  She repeated the Cheyenne word that meant both father and uncle.

  And that was where the visit came to an end. Their time had run out, with Meagan foisting parenthood on them. Then, just as quickly, she was escorted away with the rest of the lost and lonely inmates.

  * * *

  In the evening, Tanner did his damnedest to decompress. He and Candy had gotten Chinese takeout for dinner, and he’d already set the food up on the coffee table in front of the TV. But for now, they were putting the baby down for the night. They took turns kissing her forehead, and then he placed her in the crib.

  Candy turned on the mobile, which began playing the lullaby. “She’s wiped out.”

  “It’s been an exhausting day. Truthfully, I don’t think I could handle taking her to the prison every week. What an ordeal that was. Can you believe that stuff Meagan said?”

  “She’s just having a tough time.”

  “I understand how mixed-up she is. But we don’t need her trying to push us into becoming parents.” It was bad enough that he’d been stressing about him and Candy seeming like a couple without his sister making a big issue out of it.

  “That was uncomfortable for me, too.”

  “I know. I could tell.” He moved away from the crib and glanced back at Ivy. “At least the baby is too young to understand. I’d hate for her to be knowingly caught up in all of this.”

  Candy turned down the light, and they left the room, taking a portable receiver with them so the activity from the nursery would be within earshot.

  He sat on sofa, and she joined him, with the food in front of them. Lobster lo mein for him and steamed vegetables for her.

  He tore open the wrapper the disposable chopsticks came in, then broke the wooden utensils apart, preparing to eat his lo mein. “I wonder what our fortune cookies are going to say. Something good, I hope. I really need some positive news.”

  “We can read them after we finish our meals. It would be cheating to look at them ahead of time.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that we sneak a peek.” Not that it mattered anyway. He didn’t believe that a little slip of paper, with a factory-printed fortune, was going to change his life.

  She turned on the TV. “What do you want to watch?”

  “You can choose something.” He was already busy chopsticking his meal. He’d always thought that part of the fun of Asian cuisine was the clumsiness that went with not using a fork. Or the finesse, if you were good at it.

  “Why don’t we stream a movie?”

  “That’s fine. I don’t care what it is, as long as it doesn’t involve any prison scenes.”

  She shot him a goofy smile. “So that leaves out The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile or Escape from Alcatraz?”

  He laughed. He appreciated that she was making a joke. Humor always made things easier for him. “Don’t forget about The Rock.”

  She lifted the lid on her food container. “Or Jailhouse Rock.”

  Impressed with her clever segue, he leaned over and bumped her shoulder. “Good call. Elvis was the man.” He paused, taking his turn. “How about The Longest Yard? The original and the remake?”

  “Oh, I like those movies.” She reached for the plastic fork he’d rejected. “What about Dead Man Walking?”

  “I’d rather forget that one.” As good as it was, the subject matter was too serious for him. He fell silent for a few seconds, his mind going blank. “I can’t think of any more offhand, can you?”

  “No, I’m sure there are tons of them that we missed.”

  “Not to mention TV shows.”

  “Like Prison Break?” she asked. “Or Orange Is the New Black?”

  “Yeah, smarty. Like those.” Orange was one of the colors they weren’t allowed to wear when they visited the prison. “You still need to pick something that we’re actually going to watch.”

  “How about a classic?” She bumped his arm, the way he’d done to her. “Something from before our time.”

  “A sappy old movie? What did I get myself into?”

  “They weren’t all sappy. And I love old movies. They’re so big and sweeping and larger-than-life.”

  “So unrealistic, you mean?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a spoilsport. You told me I could choose, and after the day we had, I’m in the mood for something old-fashioned.”

  “Okay. Then go for it.” He would be all right with a war picture or a maybe a Western, if it didn’t have singing cowboys or fake Indians in bad wigs and Hollywood war paint.

  While she scanned the classics list, he focused on his chopstick skills.

  “Here’s one with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr,” she said. “It says it’s supposed to be one of the most romantic films of all time.”

  He stalled in midbite. “A chick flick?” That didn’t sound the least bit appealing to him.

  “They weren’t called chick flicks in those days, and it has a five-star rating.”

  “What’s it about, exactly?” He was only vaguely familiar with Cary Grant, let alone Deborah What’s-Her-Name.

  She checked the synopsis. “The hero and heroine meet on an ocean liner and fall deeply in love. But they’re tempting fate because they’re both engaged to other people. They agree to meet at the Empire State Building six months later to see if they still feel the same way, but a tragic accident prevents their rendezvous, and their lives take an uncertain turn.”


  “That sounds kind of heavy.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” She put down the remote. “It’s okay if we don’t watch it. It was just the title that caught my eye.”

  He hadn’t paid attention to the title. He hadn’t looked at the screen. So he glanced up and saw that it was called An Affair to Remember. “Now you’re just plain confusing me. Why would a title like that interest you?”

  “Because I’ve been thinking about something.”

  “Something?”

  “About us changing the dynamics of our friendship and having an affair.” She sucked in her breath. “I want to explore a new side of myself, and I want you to be part of the new me. I already talked to Dana about it because I needed to get it off my chest before I discussed it with you. Dana agreed that I should wait to tell you until after you and I saw Meagan, and—”

  “Hold on.” He didn’t want to hear the anxious details, not until he understood precisely what she meant. “What do you mean you want to explore a new side of yourself?”

  “I want to know what it’s like to stop being so traditional. So marriage-minded. So innocent.”

  “But that’s who you are, Candy.”

  “But I don’t want to be that girl when I’m with you.”

  He searched her gaze, scanning the depths of her eyes and the naturally spiky lashes that framed them. “You don’t have to change who you are because of me.” He wasn’t even sure if she could. “Maybe you better rethink this a bit.”

  “I don’t want to rethink it. I want to act on my attraction to you without feeling like your wife.”

  So she could go off and marry someone else later? “I’m not trying to talk you out of it.” Not when she was offering herself to him in such an open and honest way. “But you need to be sure that you’re making the right decision.”

  “I am sure.” She kept her gaze riveted to his. “Honestly, I think that this will help me to not fall for you. Besides, we need to try to tackle the heat, the palpable tension of wanting each other. Even your sister noticed it.”

  “Yeah, and with her trying to turn us into a couple. Are you sure that’s not what you’re trying to do, not even subconsciously?” He had to be absolutely certain of her motives. “Because you know that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. That it would freak me out.”