by Quinn, Taryn
So many women tried to have babies and could not, and here I was, easily pregnant—so freaking easily—and not tossing confetti.
I was just…numb. Shocked. Scared witless even through my paralysis.
“I was a virgin until New Year’s. It was only one night.” I swallowed hard, shoving down all the babbling I could barely contain.
I don’t know how to be a mother. I don’t even fully know how to take care of myself.
How can I? I don’t have my own mother anymore.
I had no one to go to. No one to counsel me. My sisters were more experienced than I was, but not when it came to this situation—and Lord, I hoped that remained true for a good long time.
My bestie Gabriela would definitely have no idea what to do about something like this. She was a good time girl who didn’t get slowed down by much. Clearly, she employed better birth control than I’d used.
Or else Asher had super active sperm to go along with his workaholic tendencies. Perhaps that was why he never spoke of Lily’s mom. Considering the situation with me, it was probably a little awkward, but even so. He’d made a baby with her, so you’d think he would find it hard not to mention her loss, even in passing.
Unless it was the same situation as it was with us. Maybe he’d driven by and implanted a baby in her without knowing much about her. If so, he really shouldn’t be going around with that weapon out of its holster.
Like…ever.
“What method of birth control did you use?”
I didn’t flush, but it was a close thing. “Condoms. Multiple.”
Because we hadn’t stopped at one time. Of course not. Had to make sure he hit the baby-shaped bull’s eye.
Dr. Ellis’s eyes widened. “Not at one time.”
I let out a quick laugh before panic strangled it in my chest. “No. I was a virgin, but I wasn’t clueless. Anyway, Asher knew plenty.”
She tried to keep her expression emotionless, but she didn’t succeed. She knew that name.
If you gotta get knocked up, might as well do it by a super rich dude who is known throughout the town, right?
I covered my face with my hands. “Look, don’t tell anyone, okay? Please.”
“Hannah, you know whatever we discuss is confidential. You don’t have to worry.”
“But you know him. That much is obvious. Or you know of him.”
She slipped her hands into the pockets of her white coat. “I apologize for not tempering my reaction. But yes, I know of Asher. ” She sighed. “Such a hard situation.”
“Yes.” I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t feel right about discussing Asher’s life with someone else. Not that I knew much. Dr. Ellis probably knew more than I did.
The whole town most likely did too.
My doctor’s office wasn’t in Crescent Cove itself, but it was just beyond the outskirts. Close enough for Dr. Ellis to hear scuttlebutt for sure. She probably knew the players in a way I did not, living in my own minuscule town nearby with my head buried in pots and pans and now cleaning up doggie poop. Even my jobs in Crescent Cove were new enough that I wasn’t yet familiar with many of the townspeople, although I was learning.
Just not fast enough.
“He really stepped up for Billy and Lily. So, forgive me for speaking out of turn here, but if one of your concerns is that Asher isn’t father material, duty is his middle name.” She smiled and reached for the folder—my folder—behind her while my brain spun on hyper-speed. “Let me write you that vitamin script, and you can be on your way.”
“Dr. Ellis, who’s Billy? I know Lily. Know of her, I mean, since I was actually just hired to be her nanny. Ironic, right?” I let out an uneasy little laugh. “I know her mother died in childbirth. But Asher never mentions her, and he’s definitely never mentioned Billy. Who is he?”
Dr. Ellis stopped writing in mid-sentence and looked up at me. “It isn’t my place to say. I shouldn’t have even acknowledged being familiar with Asher’s situation in the first place. But I’ve known you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, Hannah, and you’ve dealt with so much recently on your own. But I don’t think you’ll be on your own in this.”
“Please tell me what you know. He hasn’t told me anything.”
She frowned. “He hired you as his nanny and didn’t tell you the particulars?”
“He told me about Lily’s mother dying. That’s it. And he didn’t really hire me in the first place. It was his grandmother who wanted me to be Lily’s nanny. We didn’t realize at first who the other was.” I drove my hands through my hair, ripping apart my braid. “I just want to hide and make all of this go away, and I can’t. I have to be an adult and God, I’m not ready. I still feel like a little girl myself, with no mother to hold me and tell me everything is going to be all right.” My voice cracked and I was horrified at the hot rush of tears burning behind my eyes.
I wasn’t a crier. I wasn’t.
Dr. Ellis studied me with compassionate eyes. “Billy died in a construction accident last fall. He was a single father to a baby girl. Asher was Lily’s godfather.” She released a long breath. “I’m friends with Billy’s neighbor. The whole neighborhood chipped in to start an education fund for that little girl, which turned out to be unnecessary considering, well, who Asher is. But we wanted to help somehow.” Dr. Ellis finished writing on her little pad and set down my folder before coming closer to wrap me in a brief hug.
I clung to her like I was drowning. Between what I’d just learned about Asher and Lily and my own baby—
God, how was I going to figure all of this out?
How were we?
Ten
Hannah was late.
First day of work, and she was a no-show. Great sign.
Thanks, Gran.
Technically, this wasn’t her first day. My grandmother wasn’t leaving until tomorrow, so that would be Hannah’s official first day with Lily.
I’d been able to shuffle some of my meetings at the expo, and Vincent was stepping up so I could come home earlier and help out. I wasn’t planning on monitoring Hannah, and God knows, I was no expert myself, but maybe between us, we could figure some of this out.
I wished I could bottle whatever innate kid smarts my grandmother possessed, but alas, no. It probably also had helped that she’d raised her own daughter then partially raised me when my own parents had been lackadaisical at best. Not neglectful exactly. They’d just found much more interesting things to do with their lives than being good parents.
My father was on the west coast now with his new wife and his stepchildren, whom he seemed to have a better rapport with than me. I truly wasn’t bitter. Sometimes the fit wasn’t right, even when the people in question were related. My father and I were opposites in every possible way.
As for my mother, she lived in Rhode Island, and I saw her now and then. We also weren’t close. We weren’t distant either exactly, just more like acquaintances who shared a last name than mother and son.
Thank God for Gran and my grandfather. Because of them and their influence, I’d once believed I had a chance of doing right by my own kids someday. Assuming I was blessed with any. I’d never thought much about the possibility.
That was for someday, along with considering marriage. Dating was one thing, at least occasionally. But serious relationships were on the distant horizon. Possibly after retirement once I wasn’t working day and night.
Then there was Lily. My plans had flown out the highest window, and I was still trying to catch them before they hit the ground.
I couldn’t expect my grandmother to give up her life for me and my responsibility. She’d already done so much. Hannah would be a huge help to fill in the gaps.
If she ever arrived.
As Lily started to cry, I crossed the living room to turn her swing on a higher setting. I’d had it on the lowest one, but she seemed to enjoy more motion. A flick of a button and a piped-in kiddie tune filled the room. She only cried harder.
This wa
s going well so far.
I scratched the back of my neck before crouching to rummage through the baby bag my grandmother had packed for me in case we needed to go out. She’d put together several of them, as if I couldn’t possibly assemble the needed items in a hurry without help.
She wasn’t completely wrong.
After four months plus, I should’ve been better at all of this. If I hadn’t immediately thrown myself even harder into the newspaper, I might have been.
But I understood how to balance profit and loss sheets. I grasped how to make up shortfalls in advertising revenue, even if I hadn’t yet deciphered how to plug all the holes. I knew how to innovate when the tried and true no longer got the job done.
I did not know how to cuddle and soothe and sing lullabies.
For one, my singing voice sucked.
I also wasn’t a cuddler. I wasn’t even much of a hugger, despite what my grandmother insisted on calling me. What I’d done when I was seven didn’t have a ton of bearing on my personality at thirty-two.
Christ, thirty-two with an eight-month old and I still didn’t have one clue what I was doing. And worst of all? Those knowing brown eyes, so like my best friend’s, didn’t hesitate to accuse.
Anyone else could do this right. Not you. You’re just a glorified pencil pusher.
Fine, she probably wasn’t thinking that in those exact words. Billy wouldn’t have been either. He just would’ve grinned and said he’d given me ample opportunities to hold her, but I’d always begged off.
No begging off now.
I glanced up at the ceiling.
Bet you’re laughing at me up there, buddy. I can practically hear it.
Lily continued to cry, pumping her chubby bare feet. She wouldn’t keep on socks or shoes, no matter how hard we tried. Almost as soon as we put them on her, she was wrestling them off.
Stubborn like her father.
Both of them.
I sighed and dug out a banana-flavored applesauce pouch. “How about this? You like this, don’t you? Gran said you always grab for it right away.”
Sure enough, her tears dried in a flash. She stuck out her hands, whining a little until I handed over the goods. She frowned at the twist top and tried to stick it in her mouth before I took it back, once again unleashing more tears.
Short-lived this time, thank God. They stopped as soon as I undid the top and pushed the applesauce pouch at her puckered mouth. She grabbed it and started to suck eagerly.
I exhaled. See, I could do this parenting thing.
Good thing, since Hannah was still MIA.
Rising, I pulled out my phone. Almost an hour late. She wasn’t making the best impression, that was for damn sure.
I glanced back at Lily, blissfully sucking on her applesauce and swinging back and forth to some inane children’s song. Then again, what options did I have? My grandmother was leaving for a few days, and I shouldn’t lean on her so much anyway. It wasn’t fair.
Today, I might have no choice.
I’d just tapped the speed dial button for my grandmother when the doorbell rung. A quick glance out the front window indicated Hannah had arrived.
Finally.
I tugged open the door. “You’re late.”
Hannah was facing away from the door, her long dark sweater pulled tight around her in deference to the clear cold day. Later, snow would come, but for now, everything was calm, and the sky was streaked with the faint colors of a growing sunset. Pinks and golds and blues that washed over her face as she shifted toward me and I locked in on her red-rimmed eyes.
My chest seized. “You’ve been crying? Why? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t bat a single dark eyelash. “Why didn’t you tell me you lived in a mansion?”
“It’s hardly a mansion, and even if it was, that isn’t why you’ve been crying.”
“You’re right.” She rubbed her thumb over the corner of her mouth. “Did you hear Supernatural is ending?”
“What’s Supernatural?”
She rolled her eyes and brushed past me to enter my mansion—uh, house.
I’d barely had a chance to shut the door behind her and flip the locks before the excited squeals and giggling began. I stepped into the living room in time to see Lily fling her applesauce pouch like a projectile and thrust her arms out toward Hannah, who was already acting a hell of a lot happier to see the baby than she’d been to see me. Hannah wasn’t smiling, not quite, but she was talking in that cooing voice that most seemed to employ when speaking to small humans.
She unstrapped Lily from her swing and scooped her up into her arms before bending to retrieve the applesauce pouch. At least it hadn’t spilled. “Some aim you have on you, little girl. You gonna play baseball and put up your dad in a fancy nursing home someday?”
Lily laughed while I frowned. “I’m nowhere near needing a nursing home, thank you.”
“Good to know.” Hannah’s gaze swept over me in a way that didn’t match how she was cradling Lily.
What had gotten into her? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she was acting different. Weird. How I could tell that just from our few moments of interaction, I didn’t know. It wasn’t as if I knew her very well. Or at all, really.
Except biblically. I remembered every minute of that particular night.
“But if that’s a crack about our age difference, I’ll remind you I have no trouble telling time. You, on the other hand—”
“Why don’t you have any furniture?”
I glanced around the room. I barely noticed how little it contained because I didn’t spend much time here. I’d just moved in. As it were. I probably should hire some decorators.
Then again, why bother? Who did I have over besides my grandmother? Lily surely didn’t mind.
Hannah, however, didn’t seem too impressed.
“I just moved in.”
“How just?”
“Recently,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry if the place isn’t to your liking.”
“It isn’t that. It’s just unexpected. You have this huge place—so much house for a man and his daughter. Then you come in here and it’s virtually empty.”
She walked around the perimeter of the room, pausing by the enormous fireplace that had been one of the selling points of the house. There were a few of them, but this one and the one in the master bedroom were the largest. Perfect for cozying up on a winter’s night.
Alone. As I did much else. But I liked my solitary existence. At least I had, not all that long ago.
“I’ve been working.” The excuse seemed flimsy even to me. “I suppose I should hire someone. Maybe a whole team, get it done faster.”
Hannah turned with Lily in her arms, who was looking up at her adoringly, and my heart clenched like a fist. Like my fists, currently tucked in my pockets. “You can’t do that. A house should reflect you. Your choices, your sweat and hard work. You can’t pay for someone else to pretend to be you.”
“You can pay others for just about anything.”
“Said like a rich, entitled man.” Her tone was light, but the jab still struck its intended mark.
She was already on the move, crossing through the dining room, lifting her brows at the long table with enough place settings for a crowd. It had belonged to my grandparents and my grandmother harbored no illusions about holding formal dinners “at that old thing” anymore. It was a priceless antique and a family relic to boot, so I’d kept it in storage until I found my house. There was also the huge ornate china cabinet that went with it, standing mostly empty except for a single set of fancy dishes that my grandmother had passed down to me.
“At least you have things to eat on.”
I didn’t tell her I never ate on that china, because I was sure she would’ve deducted points. When it was just me, I ate on paper plates. Why make a mess for just one? I ate out a lot too, usually rushing between meetings or on my way home. Or I ate at my grandmother’s, when the silence and shadows gre
w too deep.
In the old days, I’d caught a lot of my meals with Billy. We’d spent a lot of time together, both before and after he’d had Lily. I hadn’t really had time for other friends with work, so I hadn’t made them.
Now I didn’t know what I’d do with a friend. I wasn’t sure I even remembered how to be one.
I followed Hannah and Lily into the spacious, bright kitchen, watching silently as she opened the double oven before doing the same to almost all of the cupboards, above and below. The scarcity of food got a raised eyebrow, as it did when she opened the refrigerator and found it nearly empty minus sandwich makings, formula, and a few premixed snacks for Lily. She was still more interested in her bottle than actual food, but we kept trying.
“I didn’t figure you for the usual bachelor with just a head of lettuce and beer in his refrigerator, but you’re scarily close.” She shut the refrigerator and turned to me, setting the baby on her hip. “You can’t live like this with a child.”
“Lily has everything she needs.” There was no helping the defensive tone in my voice. “You haven’t seen her nursery yet.”
“I don’t mean just what she needs. You hardly have the makings for a balanced diet in there. Where do you eat, if not here?”
“Out.”
She sighed. “I’m assuming your grandmother makes sure you’re fed now and then at least.”
“I’m a grown man. I don’t need anyone taking care of me.”
“Oh, really? And where’s your proof of that?” She gestured behind her and Lily reached out for Hannah’s arm, nearly toppling from her perch on Hannah’s hip. Lily’s little face reddened, a sure sign tears would follow, but Hannah just scooped her up securely again and continued on her house tour.
She clucked under her breath at the nearly empty basement-slash-family room, sniffed at the generic brand of detergent in the laundry area, and let out a long sigh at the pile of mail and magazines stacked in the foyer. But when she entered the den, she let out a soft sound of pure pleasure at the shelves of books. They extended all the way up the walls, high enough that there was a rolling stair ladder like in the bookstores to accommodate the uppermost rows. Plush cushioned seats stretched under the windows that framed the room, showing a view of the driveway and the big side yard.