Shotgun Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I would think the state would have its work cut out trying to convince the court why a son should not be with his biological father,” Robbie jumped in. “Especially when that father is not only law-abiding, but law-enforcing. A man who’s given his life to making the world a safer place for his son to grow up. And one who, I might add, is financially more than capable to provide for a child,” Robbie finished, glaring at the woman.

  As much as he appreciated her spirited defense, Con hated being talked about as if he wasn’t there. And he preferred to fight his own battles.

  “I’m sure we all recognize the importance of Mr. Randolph’s job,” Sandra Muldoon said. “But that doesn’t take away the threat of danger his job poses to the child. And a child needs far more than financial support.” Her tone continued to be as prudish as it had been the day before.

  “You’re talking about love, ma’am,” Robbie said, leaning closer to the woman, “and how can you possibly measure the love a father has for his son?”

  “What’s his name?” Con blurted out. He didn’t do love. And he still needed a cigarette.

  “His mother called him Joey.” The woman’s lips pursed disapprovingly. “His adoptive family will probably rename him when he goes to live with them.”

  “Rename him?” Con was taken aback. “We’re talking about my son here, not a possession. You don’t rename people.”

  “Nonetheless an adoptive family has the right to change the child’s name. In the case of babies, most do.”

  “I like ‘Joey,’” Con said.

  She ignored that. “I’ve set up an appointment for the baby to have a blood test tomorrow morning. I suggest you do the same for yourself.”

  “Fine.”

  She slipped her papers back into the folder. “That’s it, then.”

  “When can I see him?”

  “You must understand, Mr. Randolph, things don’t look very promising for you. The boy’s mother swears you abandoned him. If she hadn’t put your name on his birth certificate, we wouldn’t have contacted you at all. You’re a bachelor, and I gather, from what you and Ms. Blair have told me, you’re not dating anyone seriously. You don’t even have a mother you can turn to. And your way of life is in no way conducive to raising a child. There doesn’t seem to be much point in dragging this out any further. For anyone.”

  Con’s jaw tightened as he struggled for control. “When can I see him?” he repeated, enunciating each word.

  The woman stood, her ever-present manila folder clutched to her chest. “I would at least suggest waiting until after the blood work comes back. There’s no point in upsetting the child’s schedule until we know for sure.”

  Robbie stood, too, ready to do battle. Con read the determination in her eyes.

  “It’s okay, Robbie,” he said, moving to stand beside her. “I disagree,” he told the social worker. “There’s every point. Since the United States government trusts me with their highest security clearance, I think your court can find me worthy of a visit to my son.”

  “But—”

  “You’ve questioned me, seen my home. Now I want to meet my son.”

  “Very well.” Sandra Muldoon’s face puckered with displeasure. “I’ll check with his foster mother and see when a visit can be arranged.”

  “What about right now?” Robbie asked. “We have the rest of the day free, and most babies are up from their naps by late afternoon. Wouldn’t this be as good a time as any?”

  The social worker frowned. “I don’t know what the foster mother’s plans are for the day, and we have no right to disrupt her schedule.”

  Con didn’t see it that way. As the boy’s father, he had every right. He had a son to meet.

  “I was under the impression that arrangements would already have been made, that this initial interview is only a formality preceding the visit.”

  “In normal cases, yes…”

  “So it wouldn’t hurt to call her and ask, would it?” Robbie piped up.

  “Well, I…”

  Robbie grabbed the telephone from the coffee table. “Here, you can use Con’s phone and see if she’d mind just a short visit.”

  “He can’t go to her house. For the baby’s safety the foster identity is confidential.”

  “I solve crimes. I don’t commit them.” Con kept his rising temper in check, a result of years of training. It was a responsibility that came with being a man his size.

  “Then you can bring the baby here, or we’ll meet you somewhere else,” Robbie said hurriedly, glancing at Con. “That won’t be a problem. Con just wants to see his son, Mrs. Muldoon. Surely you can under-stand that.”

  “All right. I’ll call, but I still don’t think we’ll be able to do it today.”

  The woman dialed, hanging up the phone almost immediately. “The line’s busy. I’ll try again tomorrow.” She began to leave.

  Con wasn’t going to get this close and give up. He wanted, needed to see the boy.

  “Why not wait right here and try again in a few minutes?” he asked, stepping between the woman and his front door.

  Before she had a chance to reply, Robbie joined him. “Can I get you something to drink while you’re waiting? Iced tea, maybe?”

  “Just what exactly is your relationship with Mr. Randolph?” the social worker asked her, then looked from one to the other.

  “Like Con told you, we’re childhood friends,” she said.

  “Too bad,” Mrs. Muldoon sniffed. “He’d at least have a chance of convincing the courts to take him seriously if he got married.”

  Robbie’s gaze flew to Con’s face, and he couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling him. She’d been trying to bail him out since the first day they met, when she was eight and he was ten, but surely even Robbie wouldn’t go as far as to tie herself to a love-less marriage just to help him out. As for him…marriage? To Robbie? There was no way. She was his best friend. His only friend.

  He wasn’t even aware that she’d moved away from him until he heard her speaking to Mrs. Muldoon.

  “So can I get you that glass of tea?”

  Marry Robbie? No way in hell.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS GOING to have to be the woman. He’d been watching Randolph’s house for more than a month now, and the only person who’d come over was the woman with the short blond hair, and an old saleslady or something, who didn’t count. He was kind of disappointed. It wouldn’t work unless Randolph really cared about the woman, and the two of them didn’t seem close like a guy and girl should be close. They hung out together a lot, but Randolph never touched her or even looked at her as if he wanted to touch her.

  He would have liked it a lot better if Randolph was getting into her pants.

  But she was going to have to do. He couldn’t wait any longer. A plan was formulating in his head, occupying the space that was too filled with bitterness to let him sleep nights. Yeah. It was time.

  THE SKY WAS A BLUE SO vivid it made your eyes water. Sunshine splashed on the rocks in Con’s front yard, turning them into nuggets of gold. A day this perfect was meant for good things. Except that practically every day in Phoenix was this beautiful, and bad things happened all the time. And the June temperatures made those golden rocks hot enough to fry eggs.

  Con was sitting in his car waiting for Robbie to get off her truck phone and join him. He was sweating like a pig. He probably could have gotten away with something a little less formal than a suit, but he always felt more in control in his standard agent attire. They’ll probably take one whiff of me and call the health department.

  He honked his horn impatiently, then cranked up the air-conditioning, turning the vents so they all faced him. He was tempted to go without Robbie. Except that he was strangely reluctant to leave her behind. After all, it wasn’t every day a man met his kid for the first time.

  He saw Robbie’s head bob and her free hand gesture wildly in the air. She was getting pretty adamant about what she was saying. Con felt
a little sorry for the poor bastard on the other end of the line, whoever he was, but only briefly. Why didn’t the guy just hurry up and give in to her so they could go?

  The Muldoon woman had tried for almost an hour the day before to reach Joey’s foster mother, but to no avail. The woman either had the phone off the hook or spent way too much time gabbing to be caring for an infant. Con had extracted a promise from the social worker that she’d keep trying the woman periodically throughout the evening. And true to her word, Sandra Muldoon had called just as he and Robbie were starting in on the pizza they’d ordered to say that he could meet his son this morning.

  He honked the horn again, twice this time for good measure. Robbie had parked her truck in its usual place in front of his house, and now she glared at him through the windshield, flashed him the finger and went right on talking.

  Thrumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he glanced at his watch and thrummed some more. He’d told Robbie to be here at nine o’clock sharp. Technically she had five more minutes. And then he was leaving. With or without her.

  He pulled a cigarette from the fresh pack on his console, lit it and took a long satisfying drag. He’d give her until the end of his cigarette, and then he was leaving. It was 110 degrees outside. His engine was going to overheat if he sat there much longer.

  He took another puff, holding the smoke in his lungs until they felt as if they might burst, and then slowly exhaled. The neighborhood was quiet as usual. Rows of white stucco homes with tile roofs, expen-sively landscaped yards, mostly desert, though there were a few diehards who paid heavily for the water it took each week to keep a patch of green grass.

  Con flicked the ashes off his cigarette and took another long drag.

  A couple of yards down from him a kid was raking gravel. The boy had been around for a while now, doing odd jobs for anyone who’d pay him, and from what Con could see, he did a pretty good job. The kid had knocked on Con’s door several weeks back, offering to trim his bushes; but working in his yard was something Con enjoyed, took pride in. Still, he was glad to see the kid had found some customers.

  “Sorry. That was Rick,” Robbie said, climbing into the car. “He wants me to have another shot at Cameron Blackwell.” She was wearing a denim skirt with some pink top he’d never seen before. He hadn’t even known she owned a skirt.

  “When is Hastings going to figure out that Black-well wants to be left alone?”

  She buckled her seat belt and reached for Con’s cigarette. “Not as long as Blackwell’s living here. Can you just imagine what a coup it would be to get the nation’s most talked-about recluse cartoonist to actually give an interview? We’d be picked up by all the wires.”

  “How you gonna get to him to even ask for an interview?” Con maneuvered his way out of his neighborhood and turned south on Hayden. It was a twenty-minute drive to the social-services office where his son would be waiting for him. Twenty minutes to keep his mind off the upcoming meeting. He wished Robbie hadn’t finished the damn cigarette. He’d promised himself it would be his last until after he saw the kid.

  She shrugged. “I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’ll come up with something.”

  “You’ve been after him for more than a year.”

  “So, I’ll keep after him for another ten if that’s what it takes. All I want to do is talk to the guy. He’s got a lot of fans and has gotten mighty rich because of it. People want to know more about him.”

  “They paid for comics. They got comics. Can’t they be satisfied with that?”

  She reached for his cigarettes, helping herself to one. “Honestly, Con, aren’t you the least bit curious about Blackwell?”

  He might have been if he wasn’t so sympathetic with the cartoonist’s desire for privacy. “Nope. And why don’t you buy yourself a pack of cigarettes, for God’s sake, and leave mine the hell alone?”

  She grinned at him. “I can’t. I quit.”

  He grunted, applying the brake as the light up ahead turned yellow. He could wait for the red light. Now that he was finally on his way, he was in no hurry to get there. What if he made the kid cry? Or, God forbid, what if they handed the boy to him? Expected Con to hold him? He couldn’t do that. Not in front of them. He’d just have to make sure Robbie was the one they handed him to.

  “Did you get downtown for your blood test?” she asked, taking her time about enjoying his cigarette.

  “Yeah.” He’d been at the forensic lab at six o’clock that morning.

  She was oddly quiet as he sailed through green lights at the next couple of intersections. At this rate he’d be there five minutes sooner than he needed to be. Where were red lights when he needed them? Or Robbie’s chatter, for that matter?

  She continued to puff on his cigarette. He was going to buy her a damn case of them for her birthday. Exhaling, she lifted the cigarette to his lips.

  “I’m going to say something here,” she began, “and I don’t want you to answer or argue. Just listen, OK?”

  Con nodded, fortifying himself on nicotine.

  She stared at the road in front of them, a frown on her face, and he braced himself. She was powering up for something, but if she thought he was going to move that damn water bed for her one more time, she could think again. He’d told her the last time that she’d better make up her mind once and for all whether or not she wanted to sleep beneath the window or across from it, because he wasn’t tearing down the bed again.

  “I just want you to know,” she said at last, “that if it comes to it, if they really push you about being married, you can say we’re engaged.”

  He almost dropped the cigarette.

  “You hungry?” he asked. “I’m driving through for a burger.”

  “I mean it, Con.”

  “You hungry?”

  She shook her head. “I ate breakfast before I left. So you’ll tell them? If you have to?”

  Con looked around for a burger joint. He needed something to sink his teeth into. And while he was at it, he kept his eye open for a bank robbery, a shootout, a gang war. Something he knew he could handle.

  “Answer me, Con.”

  “You told me not to.”

  “Okay, I’m untelling you.”

  “You’re crazy.” There wasn’t a burger joint on this part of Hayden, so why the hell was he looking?

  “I knew you’d say that, which is why I told you not to say anything. It’s not crazy, Con. According to old sourpuss Muldoon, it may be the only way you can get little Joey.”

  “He’s my son. I’ll get him.”

  “He’s a ward of the state, Con. You know how sticky the rules get sometimes.”

  He wasn’t going to think about those years. Not now. “Right. Like they’d believe an engagement without the wedding.”

  “I don’t have a problem with a wedding.”

  Con swore. Why in hell had he wanted her to come with him? He knew she never shut up. “But you’d sure as hell have a problem with what comes after-ward.”

  “I would not.”

  “You’re crazy,” he said again.

  Her blue eyes flashed. “I’m perfectly sane, Connor Randolph. And obviously the only one of us here who is. There’s a little boy waiting whose whole life could depend on your being married. I’m not involved with anyone. You don’t date any women long enough to be involved. We get along OK most of the time. There’s no reason we couldn’t cohabitate.”

  “You’re outta your mind.”

  “I’m tired, Con.” The depressed tone in her voice grabbed him. Robbie never got depressed, she just got tougher. “I’m tired of putting up with crap from the guys. Tired of being the odd one out all the time. Tired of being alone. I’m thirty-three years old and there’s still no knight in shining armor coming around to sweep me off my feet.” She paused, took a deep breath. “I want to be a mother, Con. If I marry you, I get Joey, too.”

  He felt like he was coming unglued. He’d never heard her talk this way before. He had to s
hut her up. Fast. “You can mother the boy all you want, Robbie, but there’s no chance in hell of our getting married.”

  “Why not, if it’s the only way to get Joey?”

  “It won’t be.”

  “But what if it is?”

  He refused to answer. He should definitely have done this without her.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  Her words were nothing but challenge. He knew that. And had it been anyone else but Robbie issuing them, he’d have let them go. “Nothing. I’m afraid of nothing.” But he knew it wasn’t true. He was scared that they weren’t going to let him have his son.

  “Then what’s the problem? You got some hot broad I don’t know about?”

  He was silent. She knew he didn’t.

  He always told her about the women he dated, if for no other reason than to allow her common sense to keep him from finding himself making do, getting trapped in a loveless relationship. Because as far as he was concerned, that was the only kind there was.

  “Once we’re married, the courts would be out of it, Con,” she said, talking like it was a done deal. “They wouldn’t have any say in how we conduct the marriage. We could carry on just like we are except I’d give up my apartment and rent one of the empty rooms in that big house of yours. I’d probably help with the dishes a little more, and if you’re nice, you might even be able to talk me into going to the grocery store for you.”

  “No,” he said flatly. If she thought she was going to bulldoze her way through this one, she was wrong.

  “I’ve thought about this all night, Con. It can work.”

  “Enough.” Marriage with Robbie? No way in hell.

  They’d arrived. Con stubbed out his cigarette and pulled into a parking place by the entrance. He’d say one thing for Robbie. She’d certainly managed to distract him from the job at hand.

  “Just remember,” she said softly, walking beside him to the door of the social-services office. “They give you any flak, you tell them we’re engaged.”

  As they entered the building, Con broke out in a cold sweat.