Of course, if it hadn't been for the baby, he wouldn't have been calling her in the first place, would he?
And because he was obviously in major masochistic mode, instead of going straight to the barn, he made a detour to the freestanding workshop Hank, Sr., had built before Cal was born. His father had been a mean woodworker in his time. Taught all his boys the basics, too. Not that it had ever taken with Ryan, who could set a bone so you couldn't tell it had ever been broken but whose only use for a saw was to remove the cast later. And while Hank had more or less single-handedly replaced every shingle and rotten porch floorboard at the Double Arrow, the finer points of carpentry were lost on him, too. Cal, however, got a kick out of building the occasional table or cabinet, of fitting the pieces together, of taking pride in every detail, right down to the hand-rubbed finish.
Or, in this case, refinishing.
Breathing in the comforting tang of raw wood and oil stain, he crouched in the sawdust by the solid maple cradle, which he'd stripped last week and was just waiting for a spare hour or so to restain it. He skimmed one hand over the smooth edge, trying without much luck to banish either the tightness in his chest or the image of the toothless baby smile that came to mind every time he looked at the piece. However, the cradle belonged to the baby, not to Cal. And it wouldn't do the baby any good if the baby wasn't here.
And it didn't do Cal any good wishing for things that simply weren't going to happen.
Mooner came up beside him, sticking his snout into the cradle, then nosing Cal's arm to get petted.
"You should've heard her, boy," he said, roughly scratching the mutt between his shoulder blades. "The way she suddenly perked up when I suggested a way she could stay there…" He frowned at the cradle. "Wonder how much it'd cost to ship this to New York?"
The dog's only reply was to wriggle around so Cal would scratch his rump.
* * *
"Okay," Dawn announced the next morning when she walked into Gloria's office fifteen minutes before the clinic opened. "I've got good news and bad news. Good news first." She removed her swing coat and flopped it over the back of an extra chair. "If you still want me, there's no longer any impediment to my working here full-time."
The folder in Gloria's hand smacked onto her desk. "Damn. You didn't make partner?"
"Okay, that was the bad news. But you wanna know why I didn't make partner? Because, according to the man who signed my checks for four years, my loyalties were divided. And you know what? He was right. That's not what I want to do. This is. Only it took Cal's smacking me in the face with that fact to realize it."
Eyebrows lifted. "Cal?"
Damn. "He…kinda gave me a pep talk. When he called." Eyebrows went higher. "About how my work here wasn't done yet and how I couldn't give up, and had I thought about a full-time job at the clinic. Anyway…" Before the woman's eyebrows flew clean off her head, Dawn hooked one foot around the leg of the chair in front of Gloria's desk and yanked it underneath her so she could sit, leaning on the edge of the desk. "So whaddya think? Remember how you said you might even be able to swing a grant or something for my salary? I mean, I certainly don't expect anything near what I was making at Reynolds. I know that. But it's not as if I'm making payments on a Beemer or anything. I can manage on a lot less—"
"That's not it, baby."
Dawn sat back in her chair, not liking the pained expression on Gloria's face. At all. "Don't tell me you were just blowing up my skirt all this time."
"And if you think that," Gloria snapped, "you need to have your head examined! I'd kill to have you full-time, you know I would."
"Then what's the problem?"
"The problem is…" Brows drawn, she blew out a harsh sigh. "The problem is, they're closing this office down at the end of the month."
"What? Why?"
"Because they can. And because, as you well know, money's tight. They figure they can save a few bucks by consolidating this office with the one up on 135th Street. I'd known this was in the works for a month, but I didn't hear definitely until yesterday. And I didn't say anything because…oh, hell. I figured you'd get that partnership and working here would be a moot point. That you'd go on to bigger and better—and far more lucrative—things."
"Oh. Well. I didn't. Go on to bigger and better things."
"I'm so sorry, baby."
Dawn sucked in a breath. "Oh, God, Glory—you're not losing your job, are you?"
Gloria tapped her long, red fingernails on her blotter for a moment, then shook her head. "Actually, they want me to run the 135th Street office, since that manager's retiring, anyway. But…I can't take anybody from here."
In a daze, Dawn somehow got to her feet and made her way back to her own office, still piled high with case folders. She looked at them, shaking her head. Gloria came up and slipped an arm around her shoulders.
"You have any idea what you're going to do?"
"Set up a little cardboard booth in Penn Station? You know, like Lucy in A Charlie Brown Christmas? 'Legal advice, five cents.'"
"Hey, with inflation, you could probably charge a whole buck."
"I doubt it, considering the competition I'd have from the roughly five million other recently jettisoned attorneys who'll be right there with me." She picked up Valerie Abernathy's folder, picturing the earnest young woman and her four children. "How can I leave here, Glory? Leave these people?"
"Baby, I don't mean to sound callous…but these people were here before you came, and for damn sure they'll be here after you leave. And don't take this the wrong way, but you aren't exactly a unique species, either. As long as there are PR-conscious law firms in this town, there's no danger of the supply drying up of bright-eyed pups determined to make a difference."
"I jeopardized my career for this, Glory," Dawn said quietly. "Not that I realized it at the time, but still. That hardly puts me in the same league as some junior who can't wait for her six-month pro-bono stint to be up."
"I know that. But I also get a real strong feeling you drown yourself in work to avoid facing reality."
Hearing her own revelation bounced back at her brought a wry smile to her lips. But she said, "Oh, yeah? Then what does that say about you?"
"All right. Let's look at that. Or better yet, look around you. This is my life, baby. Has been for nearly twenty-five years. I make bupkes, have lost two husbands because of it, and frankly, I'm not even sure how much good I've done."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Because I can't think of a single other thing I'd rather be doing."
"Then why should I be any different?"
"Because you are different. Because you're pregnant by some guy who actually wants the kid—a guy, by the way, who obviously cares enough about you to help you figure out how to salvage your life here—and because, dammit, you owe it to yourself, and to him, and to this child, to try to make things work. Together. Not with him one place and you another."
"Hold on—how'd this get to be about me and Cal and the baby?"
"Because like it or not, that's what your life is about right now. I know wanting to help people comes as naturally to you as breathing. And our clients know it, too. But God knows, New York isn't the only place on earth where you can do that, you know? You really want to make a difference, you go back home, and you make your peace with this child's father, and with being a mother, and with whatever drove you here to begin with. And you let your light shine every bit as bright as it has here. But hiding out halfway across the country, instead of facing whatever it is you need to face, makes you just as much of a victim as any one of those people who walk through our door."
"I am not a victim!"
"Then quit acting like one. Look—if this office weren't closing, you'd better believe I'd've done everything short of selling my soul to the devil to have gotten you on full-time. But that would have been selfish. So God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, decided to remove the temptation, okay? For both of us."
Daw
n looked down at her desk again, fingering the Abernathy file. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
"And maybe it was, chica." She gave her another hug. "Maybe it was."
* * *
A month to the day after he'd last seen Dawn, Cal stood with his arms crossed over his denim jacket, watching the stream of passengers come through the security checkpoint. She'd be expecting Ivy, but the midwife had called him an hour ago to tell him one of her mothers had gone into labor, she might not make it back in time to meet Dawn's evening flight so did he mind picking her up at the airport?
Did he mind? No. What Dawn's reaction might be was something else again.
Then he saw her, her face drawn, no makeup, her braided hair coiled around her head.
Her belly, pushing slightly against a plain gray sweatshirt.
She spotted him. Shifted her carry-on higher onto her shoulder as he walked toward her, unsmiling, unsure. His breath left his lungs as it hit him just how badly he'd wanted her to come home.
But not like this. Not because she'd had no choice.
He was close enough now to see the exhausted defeat in her eyes, as unfamiliar and out of place as snow in August. And he realized he would give anything, do anything, to be able to restore to her what she'd lost.
Cal opened his arms…and with a sad smile, the woman he could no longer deny he loved walked into them.
Chapter 6
"When'd you get this?" Cal said to Ivy, skimming a hand down the handle of the sparkling white, brand-spanking-new, double-door refrigerator in Ivy's kitchen. Dawn had gone to her room to freshen up and unpack; they'd all gotten to Ivy's at the same time, the delivery having gone without a hitch, Ivy said, although she needed to go back to check up on mama and baby in a little bit.
"Isn't it pretty? Dawn apparently ordered it off the Internet and had it delivered as a surprise a couple of weeks ago. Sure is quieter, for one thing. Not to mention it's nice not to have half-frozen cucumbers when I go to make a salad." The midwife glanced toward the door, then whispered, "How'd she seem?"
"Resigned," Cal said, sitting at the table and leaning back in the kitchen chair, scowling at his glass of iced tea. "It's like an alien took over her body."
"Huh," was all Ivy said, bringing her own tea to the table.
"She say anything, though? About her plans?"
"Not much. Just that she decided she didn't want to put herself through the stress of job hunting right now, so she may as well stay here until after the baby comes. She sublet her apartment for the time being, but the rest of her clothes and what-all should be here next week sometime, she said."
"Well, at least we know the baby'll be born here now." At his shrug, she added, "I would've thought you'd be happy about that."
His gaze shot to Ivy's. "Why would I be happy about something that makes Dawn miserable?"
Ivy looked at him steadily for a moment, then said, "I know she's down, and it's killin' me to see her like this, feeling like her dreams've gone up in smoke. But I also know moping's not her style. She'll land on her feet, you'll see."
"I don't doubt it for a minute. But I'm not so much of a fool as to think she'll stick around, either—"
"The subject of the conversation is now entering the official eavesdropping zone," Dawn announced as she entered the kitchen, now wearing a pair of jeans and a baggy, dark-green sweater with one of those big floppy collars that never stayed in one place. "And to avoid rampant speculation—" she poured herself a glass of milk from the fridge, slamming shut the door with her hip "—I guess I might as well let you in on what I'm thinking."
She sat at the table between them, dispatched half the glass of milk, then took her mother's hand. "First off, I decided I want you to deliver the baby."
Ivy gasped. Then beamed. "You sure?"
"Wouldn't have it any other way. And secondly…" She studied her glass for a good long time, then said, "At some point, the economy's bound to turn. I've got enough saved up to live on for probably a year or so, especially if I stay here. So I thought maybe I'd start sending out résumés around my eighth month or so, and we'll see what happens."
Cal and Ivy exchanged a lightning-fast glance. "You think you'll go back to New York?" she said.
"Maybe." Cal watched Dawn's slender fingers worry the corners of the cloth placemat. "And even if I'm not…aggressive enough for Manhattan, God knows there are plenty of other firms, in plenty of other towns. Until then, I guess I get to sit around and wait for my belly button to pop like a turkey timer."
"Speaking of turkey timers," Ivy said, "Maddie invited us for Thanksgiving. So you can fit it into your social calendar."
"Already? Isn't it like six weeks away?"
"Five. It's early this year. And with Hank and Jenna's wedding coming up right after, Maddie wanted to get everything squared away early…Oh, for heaven's sake," she said as her pager buzzed. "Who could that be?" She checked the number, then got up to go to the phone in the living room, muttering something about first-time mothers thinking every twinge meant they were going into labor.
After Ivy left, Dawn kept up her infernal twiddling with the damn place mat until Cal grabbed her hand. Her eyes flashed to his. "That's making me nuts," he said.
She mumbled, "Sorry," and tucked both hands under her arms.
"I'm really sorry it didn't work out," he said. "You getting to stay in New York, I mean."
That got an amused glance. "You are such a bad liar."
Cal was quiet for a couple seconds, then said, "I don't lie, Dawn. You being here when you don't want to be isn't likely to be much fun for anybody."
She started messing with the place mat again. "But that's just it. I do want to be here."
"Now who's lying?"
"No, I mean it. There're some things I need to settle in my head. And this is the only place I can do that." Her forehead crinkled. "For one thing, I want to find out who my father is. And…I was wondering if you'd help me."
"Me? Wouldn't it make more sense to ask Ivy?"
"I have. She says she can't tell me."
"Then maybe there's a reason for that."
"What? That he's a despotic dictator? A drug lord? A midget with the circus? Since I'm nearly five-eight, I doubt the third one's a possibility. And one doesn't tend to run into too many drug lords or despotic dictators in northeastern Oklahoma."
"True," Cal said with a smile. "But why? And why now?"
Her shoulders bumped. "Just something I need to do, a gap I need to fill in. I mean, haven't you ever felt you had to do something that didn't even make sense, but you know you'd go nuts if you didn't at least try?"
He looked at her for a good long time. "Yeah. And sometimes the results are disastrous."
It took her a moment before the blush raced up her throat and stained her cheeks. "Point taken," she said.
"And anyway," Cal said, "why do you think I'd be any help?"
"Because people talk to you. Trust you." She paused.
"Whereas a lot of folks probably aren't real inclined to talk to me."
"That's nuts—"
"There's a reason Charmaine acted like I was a disease carrier, Cal. I was a snot in high school. I didn't mean to be, but that's the way I came off, I know it. Except to you and Faith and maybe a couple others. But I was so convinced I didn't have anything in common with most of the kids my age, I didn't bother finding out if maybe I did."
His arms still crossed, Cal tipped the chair on its back legs. "You think you've got something to atone for?"
"I think I need to make peace with this town. For our baby's sake, if nothing else. And I need—" her breath left her lungs in a sharp burst "—and I need to make peace with you."
The chair legs slammed back to the floor. "Come again?"
Her mouth pulled up to one side. "I didn't have time to make many friends in New York. Or to keep up with the ones I made in college. And I was basically okay with that. Then you started calling me every day, and…I suddenly realized how
much I looked forward to those calls." She smiled, and Cal thought his heart was going to pound clean out of his chest. "You're the only person I know who's not afraid to tick me off, who refuses to let me take myself too seriously. Who can make me laugh when that's the last thing I feel like doing. Then when you called that night after I lost the partnership…"
Her expression earnest, she leaned forward, wrapping her hand around his and sending his hormones into a tizwaz. "That's when I realized how much I missed what we had as kids. And how much I want us to be friends, real friends, again—"
"Well," Ivy said, bursting back into the room in a flurry of agitation, "looks like this isn't a false alarm after all, seeing's how her water just broke. So I guess I'm off again." She stopped just long enough to take in Dawn's hand still linked with Cal's, then skedaddled out the back door.
Cal dropped Dawn's hand and stood, agitation simmering in his gut. "I need to get going, too," he said, grabbing his hat from the rack by the back door. "Need to check on the mares one last time for the night." But before he let himself out, he turned back to Dawn and said, "You really mean that? About wanting us to be friends again?"
She looked puzzled. "Of course I do."
"Well, darlin'—" he rammed his hat on his head and yanked open Ivy's back door "—if you want my friendship, it's all yours. Hell, it always was, even if you didn't always seem to want it. But if you think I'm gonna settle for just friendship, you are seriously barking up the wrong tree. For twenty-five years, I've been watching you push and pull and tug things to make everything go your way. So I'm thinking maybe it's time things started going mine."
He pulled the door shut behind him and stomped around the house to his truck, feeling better about things than he had in a long, long time.
* * *
Oh, dear. That hadn't gone exactly the way she'd planned, had it?
Staking His Claim Page 9