“Her,” Ted said. “Girls are referred to as ‘her,’ Jillian.”
“Attention, attention,” Robert MacAllister said suddenly. “It’s time to do the deed. The rules are the same as every year. If you draw your own name, or your husband’s, wife’s—” he smiled at Hannah and Ted “—or significant other, put it back in the bowl and pull out another slip of paper.”
“We should change that rule,” Andrea said. “I’d love to buy myself a super Christmas present.”
“You do,” said her husband, John. “You even wrap it and put a tag on it that says, To Andrea from Santa Claus.”
“I know,” she said, laughing. “But if I picked my own name, I could do it legally.”
“Nope,” Robert said, “the rules stand. You can’t have your important person’s name, either, because it goes without saying that you’d better buy them a gift if you want to live long enough to see Hannah’s son born on January fifth.”
“Oh,” Jillian said with a moan. “Please don’t bring up the subject of The Baby Bet again. Forrest is getting hard to live with.”
“You’re just figuring that out?” Michael said. “You’re a tad slow on the uptake, Jillian. Forrest has been a pain in the tush since the day he was born.”
“Children,” Margaret said, smiling at their nonsense, “your father is speaking. Behave yourselves.”
“Thank you, Margaret,” Robert said. “This is serious business. There are only three weeks until Christmas. Prepare to shop, people.” He picked up the bowl. “Let the ceremony begin.”
Robert moved around the table, bowing as he presented the bowl to each participant. Everyone was soon laughing, talking and making grand performances of hiding the name on their slip of paper.
Hannah drew Andrea’s name, then turned to Ted.
“Who did you get?” she asked him.
“My lips are sealed.”
“You won’t even tell me? We’re going Christmas shopping together.”
“Only to a point, Ms. Doodle,” he said, grinning. “You won’t be around when I buy a gift for the person on this slip of paper, or when I shop for you.”
“Phooey on you,” Hannah said, poking her nose in the air.
“Well said,” Deedee said.
“I’m macho and tough,” Ted said. “I can handle ‘phooey on you.’”
Just then, the telephone rang and Forrest went to answer it. A few moments later, he yelled from the kitchen. “Hey, Ryan, Ted, one of you guys come take this call.”
“Uh-oh,” Ryan said, getting to his feet.
“Oh, boy,” Ted said, shaking his head.
Hannah looked at him. “Do you think you’re being told to come back on duty?”
“Guaranteed. We’re all on standby until after New Year’s. We have to leave a number where we can be reached twenty-four hours a day. It’s not just the season to be jolly.”
Ryan strode back into the room. “Let’s roll, partner. We’ve got a dozen cars or more in a pileup. They need traffic and crowd control, and reports written.”
“Oh, joy and rapture,” Ted said. He gave Hannah a quick kiss, then swept his eyes over the group. “Someone take Hannah home, okay? All the way home. Don’t just drop her off at the complex. See her safely inside her apartment, and listen for the lock to snap into place.”
“Yes, sir,” Forrest said, saluting. “I understand, sir.”
Ryan kissed Deedee, then Ryan and Ted hurried from the room.
“Ah, the perks of being a police officer’s wife,” Deedee said. “Guess what, Hannah? You don’t get used to this, or the worry that goes with the title, either. You just deal with it the best you can.”
Hannah nodded absently, then conversation resumed around the table.
Oh, she was learning to ‘deal with it,’ Hannah thought. But the glaring difference between herself and Deedee, was that Hannah Johnson was not a police officer’s wife.
Late the next afternoon, an exhausted Ted entered his apartment. He and Ryan had been kept busy through the night, then had stayed on duty for their assigned day shift. He’d telephoned Hannah before leaving the station, saying he was dead tired but fine, and would see her late that evening after he’d slept for an hour or two.
He’d no sooner crawled naked between the cool sheets on his bed and lowered his head to the inviting pillow, when the telephone rang.
“Hell,” he muttered.
He snatched up the receiver from the telephone on the nightstand.
“What!” he said, his head still burrowed deep in the pillow.
“Oh, dear,” a woman said, “I woke you. I’m terribly sorry. Shall I call later?”
“Mom?” Ted said, jerking upward to a sitting position.
“Yes, it’s your mother,” Susan Sharpe said, laughing softly, “who knows from experience that a wise person never wakes a sleeping baby. Tell me what time I should call you back.”
“No, no, I’m awake. I just got off a double shift and hit the sheets, but I wasn’t asleep yet. What’s doin’?”
“I’ll make this quick so you can get your rest. Your father and I have decided to come over there in the motor home after Christmas.
“We’d love to spend the actual holiday with you, but your aunt and uncle are joining us here on Christmas Day. We’ll celebrate with you a couple of days late.”
Holy hell, Ted thought, his mind racing. His parents couldn’t come for a visit. Hannah was here!
“We’ll stay at that nice park that we discovered last time we visited you,” Susan went on. “We can hook up the motor home to electricity, they have lovely shower facilities, shuffleboard, all kinds of goodies. We’ll entertain ourselves and connect with you when you’re off duty. How does all this sound to you, Ted?”
“It sounds…um,” he started. Terrible. It was a disaster in the making. Oh, man, what a mess. “Great, just great.”
Susan laughed. “I’ll chalk up your lack of enthusiasm to the fact that you’re tired. Well, get some sleep, my darling. I’ll give you more details about when we’re arriving after we’ve figured everything out. Your father and I are looking forward to seeing you.”
“Oh, I’m…I’m eager to see you both, too. Yup. You bet, Mom.”
“Goodbye for now, dear.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
Ted replaced the receiver, then sank back onto the pillow with a groan.
“Oh, man,” he said, dragging his hands down his face. He dropped his arms to the bed with a thud.
“Mom, Dad,” he said aloud, “this is Hannah, also known as Ms. Doodle. That cute lump is her baby. I love this woman and child, but don’t get excited about it, because I’m walking out of Hannah’s life right after the baby has arrived safely.
“Why? Because I can’t give her another baby in the future. That’s not fair to her. Get it? So, say hello, Hannah, then goodbye, Hannah, and be done with it.”
Ted closed his eyes and moaned again.
“I don’t believe this. What in the hell am I going to do?”
* * *
The next day, as Ted and Ryan were cruising in the patrol car through the parking lot of a large shopping mall, Ted sighed.
“Okay, Sharpe,” Ryan said, “that’s ten.”
Ted looked over at Ryan, obviously confused. “Ten what?”
“Ten sighs, moans, whatever you want to call them. What’s on your mind?”
Ted sighed.
“Eleven.”
“Yeah, okay, okay. My folks are coming to visit right after Christmas.”
“Oh? That’s nice. They’re good people, fun to be with. All the MacAllisters like them a lot. So far, I’m missing the problem here.”
“Damn it, Ryan, how am I going to keep them from seeing and meeting Hannah?”
Ryan frowned. “Why would you want to?”
“Because…Oh, hell, forget it.”
“Is there some reason that you think they wouldn’t like or accept Hannah? And the baby?”
“No, they’d
love her on sight. And the baby? My mom would be ecstatic. She’d run, not walk, to the nearest store for yarn so she could knit the baby something. It wouldn’t matter to them if I was the father of that child or not. They’d be thrilled out of their socks that I was involved with Hannah. In fact, they’d know that I wasn’t the…” His voice trailed off.
“Wasn’t the what?”
“Nothing.”
“The father of the baby?” Ryan said. “Come on, Ted, I know your folks. They’re very together. They don’t think for one minute that you’re living like a monk. They might wonder why you haven’t married Hannah, but. Okay, I’m going for it. Ted, every one in the family can’t figure out why you haven’t married Hannah.”
“Yeah, well, I go around with a twenty-four-hour-a-day knot in my gut because I have a feeling that Hannah is wondering the same thing. She’s just too classy to come right out and ask me what the holdup is.”
“I’m not that classy. Sharpe, why haven’t you married Hannah?”
Ted shifted his gaze out the side window of the vehicle.
“I can’t,” he said quietly.
Ryan glanced over at him quickly, then redirected his attention to his driving. He left the parking lot and drove into a residential area. The heavy silence in the car was broken only by an occasional exchange over the radio.
“Want to talk about it?” Ryan said finally.
“No.” Ted paused, then looked at Ryan. “Yeah, I think maybe I would like to talk about it. It’s been bottled up inside of me for so damn long, buried where I didn’t have to deal with it. Now, because of Hannah, I have to face it head-on and it’s ripping me up.
“The thing is, Ryan, I realize that you and Deedee share everything. I couldn’t handle her knowing about this. It’s going to be tough enough telling you.”
“I give you my word that whatever you say is just between the two of us. Deedee would understand and respect that. You’re hurtin’, buddy. I can hear it in your voice. You’ve seen me through some really bad times, Lord knows. I’m here, I’ll listen, if you want to talk.”
Ted drew a shuddering breath.
“Ryan, I love Hannah so much. And that baby? I love her like she was my own. She is mine, in my heart, my mind. I can hardly wait to see her, hold her. She’s a miracle. I feel her move, dance a jig inside Hannah, and I choke up. I’m awed by the wonder of her.”
Ryan nodded but didn’t speak.
“Sometimes,” Ted went on, his voice raspy, “I allow myself to fantasize about marrying Hannah, the two of us raising the baby together in a nice house filled with love, laughter, daffodils and daisies. Man, what a beautiful picture that scenario is in my mind. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Until…” He shook his head.
Ryan waited silently.
“Until,” Ted continued, “it’s time to consider having another baby. Then the dream vanishes, destroyed by the truth. Ryan, I’m… I’m sterile. I had the mumps when I was sixteen and it left me…I’m not a whole man. I can’t give Hannah a baby, not ever. Now do you understand why I haven’t asked her to marry me? Why I won’t ever ask her?”
Ryan released a pent-up breath. “No.”
“Hell. You can’t possibly relate to how I feel. You fathered Teddy. You’ll click off another kid when you decide you want one. Forget it. Theres no sense in talking to you about this.”
“Hold it, buddy. I listened and now I have the right to speak. Where is this ‘I’m not a whole man’ stuff coming from? Ted, a guy isn’t measured by his sperm count!
“So, okay, you had the mumps and you’re sterile because you did. It happens. That doesn’t make you less of a man, not in the things that matter. I can’t believe you have the attitude you do. What… or maybe it’s who…made you come to this conclusion?”
“My father!”
“Dean Sharpe?” Ryan said, shock evident on his face and in his voice. “Your dad? I’ve known him for years and I can’t… He said to your face that you weren’t a whole man because you can’t father a child?”
“No. No, I overheard him talking to my mom after the doctor called with the test results,” Ted said, suddenly weary, totally exhausted. “I ran out of the house, ran as fast and as far as I could. My folks didn’t know I was there when they were discussing it. Later, when they told me, I blew it off, said it was no big deal.
“My dad put his arm around me, said there were babies all over the world who needed homes, people to love them. I could get married and adopt kids. But I knew how he really felt about me. His precious son wasn’t a whole man, never would be.”
“You were sixteen years old. You could have misinterpreted what your father said to your mother. Didn’t you ever sit down with your dad and clear the air?”
“No. There was nothing more to say. Ever since then, there’s been something missing between me and my father. Things were never quite the same after that.”
“Oh, man,” Ryan said, shaking his head.
“Time passed, I became a cop, a swinging-single bachelor to the max, then a Professional Uncle to the MacAllister kids. But then…”
“Hannah.”
Ted nodded. “Hannah, my beautiful Ms. Doodle, and Patricia Elizabeth, the baby girl I’d sell my soul to hear call me Daddy.”
“Ted, don’t you think Hannah has the right to make her own decision about this? You’re deciding that you’re not good enough for her. She has a mind, you know. Even more, she has a heart. She loves you, Ted.
“Tell her the truth. See how she feels about adopting, or just raising the one baby that’s on the way. She’s the other half of this scenario. She has the right to have a voice in this.”
“No. I can’t tell her. I’ve left it too late. She’s come to believe in me and trust in me. But I’ve lied to her with my silence. I’m no better than the other jerks who hurt her in the past.
“After the baby is born, I’m leaving. I’m getting out of her life so she can have what she deserves in a man. She’ll find someone who can give her another baby.”
“Damn it, Ted, don’t do this. You’re making a terrible mistake. Go to Hannah, talk to her, tell her the truth.”
“No!”
“Why in the hell not?” Ryan yelled.
“Because she loves me!’’
Ryan opened his mouth, shut it again, then gave his head a sharp shake as though attempting to clear a sudden fog that had dropped over his brain.
“Did that make sense?” Ryan said. “No, it definitely did not. Want to run that by me again, Sharpe?”
“Not really, but I will. Look, Ryan, suppose, just suppose, that Hannah forgave me for withholding the truth from her. I doubt that she would, but let’s pretend she did. The issue at the moment is truth, trust, not the subject matter of what I was withholding.”
“Check.”
“Then suppose she forgave me for not telling her when I should have. I never told her I wasn’t a whole man, normal, capable of fathering children. But we’ll suppose for now that she forgave me for my false front.”
“The ‘not a whole man’ bit is still a crock, but for the sake of whatever point you’re trying to make here…check.”
“Okay. Now. Hannah loves me and because she does, she’d probably say that it was all right that I can’t make babies. She’d agree to marry me and off we’d ride into the sunset with Patricia Elizabeth.”
“Check.”
“No, damn it, that’s the glitch, not a check. Later, Ryan, down the road, when Patty is a little girl, no longer a baby, Hannah would feel robbed, unfulfilled, because she’d yearn for another baby. She’d smile, laugh, be sunny Ms. Doodle embracing daffodils-and-daisies days, but inside she’d be crying. She’d be crying, MacAllister, and I’d be the cause of that pain.”
“No matter what she said to you,” Ryan said, “you’d be certain that she was miserable.”
“Yes.”
“Check.”
“There’s no way for me to win here, Ryan, no matter what I do. I’m selfish enough
to want to wait until the baby is born, to see her and hold her, then I know I’ll have to leave. I don’t have any other choice.”
“You’re right.”
Ted blinked. “I am?”
“Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. Want to know why? Don’t answer that, because I’m going to tell you whether you want to know or not.
“Hannah Johnson loves you. You love Hannah Johnson. The big difference is, she knows how to love. She trusts you, believes in you, all that-good jazz.
“But you, Ted? You love Hannah, but you really don’t know how to go about it. If you did, you’d tell her straight up that you’re sterile, then discuss whether to raise Patty as an only child, or adopt.
“Yeah, Hannah trusts and believes in you. But guess what? You don’t trust her to tell you what’s really in her heart about this situation.
“So, I agree with you that you should leave her. Not because you can’t father a child, but because you don’t deserve the kind of love she’s offering you. You, Sharpe, aren’t giving her that same kind of love, that depth, in return.”
“But—”
“So, yes, you’re right, buddy,” Ryan said, nodding. “As soon as that baby is born, you should hit the road.”
Chapter Twelve
Ted lay stretched out on his back on Hannah’s living-room floor, his hands beneath his head, eyes closed.
Daisy was curled on his chest, lulled into blissful sleep by the steady rise and fall of Ted’s breathing.
Hannah was playing Christmas carols on the piano in the glow of the multicolored lights of the tree they’d decorated that evening.
This was, Ted mused, one of the most peaceful moments he’d had since his disturbing conversation with Ryan a week ago. The only reason he was completely relaxed and thoroughly enjoying the music was that he’d actually managed to shut down his mind and not think.
And he was not going to think for the remainder of the evening.
Got that, Sharpe? he asked himself. He’d been over the facts concerning his relationship with Hannah a thousand times, accomplishing nothing more than becoming extremely proficient at chasing around his own thoughts in a maddening circle.
The Father of Her Child (The Baby Bet #3) Page 14