The Slow Burn

by Caro Carson

  He stopped short when he saw she had company. “Sorry. I can come back.”

  “No, come in. These are my parents.” And to them, “This is my friend, Caden. He’s the one who delivered the baby.”

  He came in with a polite nod to her parents, but he was too far away, and she was too excited to see him. She kept the baby snuggled close as she reached out her hand for Caden, wiggling her fingers as if he couldn’t see it. He didn’t have much choice except to put his hand in hers. She tugged him to sit on the wheeled stool right beside her bed, then let go. She was so excited, she needed her hand to talk.

  She spoke to her parents as she gestured toward Caden, ticking off his roles on her fingers. “He was my Lamaze coach, my labor nurse. The doctor and the chauffeur. The baby catcher. The blanket provider. My personal recliner while I tried to come back down to earth and let everything sink in. He was my everything.”

  By the time she’d ended her list, she was looking at Caden, not her parents. He was leaning toward her and she was leaning toward him over the bed rail, and she could have bumped noses with him, if she’d wanted to. She felt so giddy, she was just barely adult enough not to do it.

  “You were a very calm cheerleader,” she said. “I was pretty freaked out, but we did it, didn’t we?” She tilted her head and studied him closely, this man who had been there for her.

  He looked happy. A little tired, perhaps, but the overhead lighting was harsh. It revealed his five-o’clock shadow at eight in the morning. He’d been working all night, but he was happy to see her. He’d come here just to see her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I would have hated to do it without you.”

  “I’m thanking you. I’ll always thank you.” His voice was as warm as it had been last evening. “I got to witness a miracle, up close and in person.”

  “You did have a front-row seat. Your front seat, literally. You couldn’t witness anything any closer than that.” It was a silly thing to say, but she felt too bubbly to be serious for long.

  Caden grinned at her. “Everything was good.”

  “Everything was good,” she agreed, and then they laughed, because their little inside joke was hysterical.

  Her father made a choking sound.

  Everyone looked at him.

  He coughed and choked some more, turning his back to them.

  “Dad? Are you...are you crying?”

  “I just—” He lifted his head and took a deep breath, then turned around and headed toward Caden with his hand stuck out for a handshake.

  Caden came to his feet while her dad pumped his hand up and down. She’d never seen her father so emotional. Never, not even when she’d set that world record in Singapore. Her parents had been there, halfway around the globe, although they hadn’t made any of the meets in Houston or Masterson in the ten years since then. But they were here now, and her dad was clearly losing it, which meant he loved her despite his disappointment in her.

  “Thank you. She told us her intention had been to drive herself home. I can’t stand the thought that she could have been alone, behind the wheel, stuck in traffic. God knows what could have happened. She could have passed out or crashed or any number of horrible things, but she wasn’t alone. Thank you. Thank you.”

  Caden let her father keep pumping his arm up and down. “She would have done anything she needed to do. You should have seen her. She was so focused. She was amazing.”

  Her father shuddered. “No, thank you. I’m not good when I see things like that. When she said her friend was cool, calm and collected, I didn’t expect you to be such a man’s man. A fireman. Real men pass out during childbirth, right? I did, anyway. Hit the floor. God bless you for not passing out. You must be very tough.” He pumped Caden’s hand some more.

  Caden glanced at Tana, a little helpless, a little amused. “Well, I’m a paramedic, as well, sir. Nothing medical has made me pass out yet. Certainly not a healthy new baby.”

  “God bless you for being a paramedic. God bless every paramedic. God bless you for taking care of my little girl in her time of need. Thank you.” He placed his other hand over theirs and started a two-handed sandwich handshake.

  “Dad, you’re being so sweet. Let go of him now, okay?” Tana patted the bed rail where Caden had been a moment before, wanting him to come and sit beside her again, so she could talk to him without her parents listening to every word. “Are you off work now?”

  “Not until seven tonight. I’m here on official business.” He showed her a folder of paperwork that he’d kept unwrinkled in his left hand. “I have to submit the birth certificate. I just need a few pieces of information and your signature. My team is downstairs. We’re going to deliver the paperwork to the registrar in style, in the engine. They’re claiming him as a firehouse baby, because he was born during their shift. I didn’t have the heart to point out that you and I were nowhere near the station.”

  “But you are a fireman. My dad sure is glad about that.”

  Caden leaned in closer to her and turned his head to look out the window. “Good, you can see the parking lot from here. When we leave, we’ll come around this side of the building and flash the lights. It’ll be my team’s way of saying hi to the baby.”

  “That sounds so fun.” They were cheek to cheek again. That seemed to happen one way or another, every time they were together.

  Her dad asked her mother when she wanted to get lunch. Tana hoped her dad would keep talking to her mom, so she could keep Caden all to herself.

  “I didn’t know firemen filed birth certificates.”

  Caden stopped looking out the window and looked at her, instead. “Rarely. Since I delivered him, I get the honor. The form gives me a bigger signature block than you, I’m afraid. Smack in the center. Everyone wants to give me credit. You did all the work.”

  They grinned at one another again. If this was a postpartum endorphin high, she was all for it. “So, what do you need to know for the certificate?”

  “The baby’s name, for one thing.”

  “Oh, yes.” She sat up straighter and scooted back on the bed, still holding her baby close. Just hours ago, the baby had been inside her, part of her for months. It seemed only right to continue keeping him against her now. “Dad. Mom. It’s time for the big reveal.”

  Caden looked at her parents in surprise. “She hasn’t told you the name, either?”

  “Is everyone ready for this?” Tana held out the baby bundle, just a little distance away from herself, and she pulled the blanket away from his chin so they could see him better.

  He squiggled a little bit and got his fist out of the blanket, his tiny, wrinkly, adorable fist, and set it against his own cheek. It was an amazing thing for him to do. Tana snuggled him in again, to kiss his forehead. “He’s so perfect.”

  “That’s an odd name,” Caden murmured softly, but his eyes were glued to that tiny fist, too.

  She watched him watching the baby. “His name is Sterling.”

  “Sterling?” her mother asked, but Tana only had eyes for Caden.

  His reaction was so him. No punching a victory fist in the air, no cracking a boastful joke. He simply looked at her, calmly...amazed. Could one be calmly gobsmacked? Caden was.

  “You don’t have to do that.” His voice came out all husky, almost a whisper. He cleared his throat. “You really don’t have to.”

  “It’s a perfect name for a perfect baby. Sterling Montana McKenna.”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat again. With one finger, he pulled the blanket away from the baby’s face himself. “Hey there, Sterling.”

  “That’s such an...unusual name.” Her mother managed to make her mouth smile while her eyebrows were drawn together in a frown. “Unexpected. People will wonder where you ever came up with a name like that.”

  Tana felt so clever. “If they see his birth certifi
cate, it will be pretty obvious when they see Caden Sterling’s name on it.”

  She winked at Caden. They’d done it. They’d had a baby without anyone else. It felt like such an achievement. They were superheroes.

  “Oh, thank the Lord above!” Her mother threw up her hands, then collapsed back in her chair. “You do know who the father is. ‘Sperm donor’ was so ugly. So unnatural. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Mom.”

  “Who wants to have to explain to everyone that your grandchild came from a mystery man your daughter knows nothing about? Thank God, he’s not that kind of baby, after all.”

  That kind of baby? Her mother had been sitting in this hospital room, convinced that Tana’s perfect Sterling was less than.

  Tana’s joy disappeared in an instant, a soap bubble that had been beautiful one moment and popped the next, gone as if it had never existed.

  Tana had believed, she’d hoped, that her parents had adjusted to the idea since Thanksgiving, that they were even looking forward to a grandchild. She’d been delusional. Her parents had been disappointed from the moment she’d announced her pregnancy until this moment, when they’d assumed Caden was the father and their disapproval had instantaneously lifted.

  There was nothing Tana could do right by herself. Her baby wouldn’t be good enough for them unless it had a father. Any father would do. A man they’d known for five minutes? Fine. Any man would make the baby more acceptable—better—than what Tana could do alone.

  It was humiliating to have a witness, to have Caden, of all people, see what her own family thought of her. She was the girl who’d wasted her talent. She’d blown her shot at glory. The reason they never acted like normal parents was because she was not a normal daughter. She was the biggest failure of their lives.

  Caden stood. He spoke with an unruffled authority as he clarified the legalities. “My name goes on the certificate where the doctor’s usually goes, as the birth attendant. Tana’s name goes on it as the mother who performed a miracle, and the baby’s name goes on it as the reason we’re all here. The reason we’re happy.”

  She knew he was looking down at her, but she couldn’t look up at him. She felt too heavy, sinking like lead under the facts of her life. She’d made bad decisions ten years ago, and she made bad decisions still. She’d gotten knocked up by a man who didn’t care if she existed. Her parents would think she was an even bigger failure if they knew.

  Caden set his hand on her shoulder as he stood by her side. “Texas has no requirement for a second parent to be named. No explanation is required. No explanation is given. Not now. Not ever.”

  Then he bent down to speak to her, just to her, and the bulk of his shoulders blocked out the harsh overhead light that was making her eyes sting. “So why don’t you sign this now? I’ll give you my pen, if you let me hold this miracle baby.”

  She didn’t move in any way, not even to breathe, because the only move she wanted to make was to bury her face in Caden’s shoulder and cry.

  Caden spoke so quietly, only she and the baby she was clutching like a life preserver could hear it. “Hey, Tana. Everything’s still good. I want to hold him again. He and I share a name. We’ve got things to discuss. You and your parents have a few things to discuss, too. May I?” With hands that were strong and sure, Caden took the bundled baby from the crook of her arm. He carried him over to the window and turned his back to give her some imaginary privacy with her parents.

  Tana could hear Caden talking to the baby, not what he was saying, but the way he was saying it, the voice of a man who was innately positive. The man who believed that the worst situation could only get better. The man who believed miracles could happen when people had a fierce determination to try their best.

  A fierce determination. Tana had always been able to summon it, and it came back to her now, more fierce than it had ever been before. The feeling when she’d been poised on the starting blocks, determined to break a world record? That was nothing compared to this, because she was a mother now, and Sterling was her baby, and no one, absolutely no one, not even her own parents, would ever harm him.

  She took a breath and raised her chin. “You’ve been disappointed in me for a long time, but Sterling is not a disappointment. He’s a new person, tiny and perfect in every way. I wouldn’t change a thing about him or about how he got here. I’m happy he’s here.” Or she had been, before they’d made it clear that she was still a child to be ashamed of. How natural it was for them to think her new child was someone to be ashamed of, too.

  Fierce determination. You can’t make the situation worse.

  “There is only one parent on his birth certificate, and I wouldn’t change that, either. You don’t have to understand why I am okay with it, but that’s the way I feel. So, starting today and for the rest of our lives, if anyone presses you for details that are none of their business, you can say, ‘Our daughter is single.’ That’s it. Don’t start the habit of apologizing or sighing or acting like this baby is lacking anything in his life. He won’t be a baby forever, and if you ever, ever say words like ‘mystery man’ around this little boy, you will hurt him, and I cannot let you hurt him.”

  She drew her finger across the empty line on the birth certificate form. “If this blank line is a showstopper for you when it comes to your grandchild, if you decide the relationship is not worth trying your best for, then I—I—”

  She remembered Caden’s words on a dance floor and followed his lead. “Then I’ll be pretty damned sad. I will never be your enemy, but Sterling is not going to be raised in a family that makes him feel like he isn’t quite good enough, no matter how hard he tries. Maybe he’ll screw up in the future even worse than I have, but my goal is to be the mother who loves him unconditionally, because a baby is a good thing.”

  She picked up the pen and the folder Caden had set on the bed, and she signed her name with a flourish. “My baby is the greatest thing.”

  Her parents had become two statues, locked in their poses, one seated, one standing.

  Tana felt sad, but she’d done her best. Behind her, Caden was still murmuring to her baby, and she twisted around to look at them, instead of the stony faces of her parents.

  The baby’s eyes were open as Caden spoke to him, soft and low. The expression on the baby’s face was priceless. He’d only known a dark, quiet world until a few hours ago, so now he focused on Caden in consternation. What in the world is going on? The baffled look on his tiny face made him look as calmly gobsmacked as Caden had, a few minutes ago.

  Caden thought he’d witnessed a miracle. As Tana watched him talking to that miracle, another one occurred.

  Her mother came over to the bed, took both of Tana’s hands, then sat on the stool where Caden had been. “Oh, my darling girl. You remind me so much of myself. I never wanted anything bad to happen to my baby, either. I did everything I could to make sure you had the opportunities you deserved, so when you turned your back on them, I just... I feared for you. I feared for your future. It made me angry when you took needless risks instead of doing the safe thing, so angry that I haven’t stopped being angry. But seeing you with your baby is making me miss my own precious baby. I was so worried about her, but she created her own opportunities when the ones I gave her died, and she’s doing well. She’s so happy, holding her baby, and I hate to think—I hate knowing—that the only bad thing in her life right now is me.”

  With real tears in her eyes, her mother leaned in to give her a kiss on her forehead.

  Caden had been right. There was nothing to lose by trying. Sometimes, a miracle could happen.

  Tana felt absolutely gobsmacked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I brought my suitcase, like we’d planned.”

  Caden heard Tana’s mother behind him, but there was no response from Tana.

  Her mother tried harder. “I still want to stay and help my
baby and her baby. My grandson is perfect. His mother is single, and that’s that. I’ll say that from now on. Will you give me a chance?”

  Caden heard most of it as he kept up his monologue with the baby. “That’s you, my friend. They’re talking about you.”

  So far, he’d been able to hold the baby’s interest. Caden was trying to stave off the next cry for attention. He wanted to give Tana as much time as he could.

  He’d guessed long ago that her parents weren’t very supportive. He felt badly for Tana that he’d guessed right. Since the baby was here now—Sterling was here now—there was no time like the present for Tana to set the record straight. Caden could only listen with half an ear because he needed to keep talking to the baby, but Tana had definitely laid down some ground rules, and her mother had apologized.

  “Sounds like they’re making up over you, little guy. Way to go. Not even twenty-four hours old, and you’re already making the world a better place. Pretty boss of you, Sterling. Pretty boss.”

  Sterling fussed. Not an outright cry, but it wouldn’t be much longer before Caden couldn’t keep distracting him.

  “I hope you like your name, Sterling. It’s kind of weird to call a little baby by my last name. Your mommy says everything about having a baby is weird, so there you have it. I’ll tell you a little secret, but you gotta keep it between me and you. I’ve got plans to make this more of a permanent thing between us. Me and your mom and you, right? It’s going to be pretty funny if we end up as Mr. and Mrs. Sterling, with our son, Sterling Sterling.”

  The fussing became a cry.

  “No need to get loud about it. It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

  But the cry had done its job and gotten the attention of all the other adults in the room, especially Tana. She held out her hands for the baby, and Caden set him in her arms for the second time in their lives.