He realized that her mother was still holding on to his arm.
“That was very thoughtful of you,” Lorraine said, beaming.
J.T. became uncomfortably aware of the fact that the woman was looking at him as if he were the latest model sports car just off the conveyor belt and she wanted to purchase a sports car—as a gift.
He extricated himself from her grip and took a step backward.
“Well, I told you,” he said to Maddy, “so I’d better be going.” He gestured around the room. “You look like you’ve got more than enough company to keep you busy.”
As if on cue, the murmur of voices suddenly rose again, all protesting that they hadn’t realized how late it was and that they had to be leaving, going to school, to the store, or somewhere else. Anywhere but here. En masse they began to file by Maddy’s bed, kissing her cheek and then making their way out the door. All of them looked J.T. over before they retreated.
And then only her parents were left in the room.
“We have to be going, too, darling,” her mother declared. “So nice to have met you, John Thomas.” She paused beside him, placing her hand lightly on his. “I said a prayer for you last night.”
He stared at her incredulously. “Why?”
“Why, to say thank-you for being there for Maddy.” She looked back at her daughter. “She always takes too many chances. We wanted to drive her home from the party, but she insisted on going by herself. Told us we worried too much and that she was still a week and a half away from her due date.” She glanced back at her daughter. “Obviously the baby didn’t have a calendar.” Lorraine smiled up at him. “I’m glad she’s got herself a guardian angel to look out for her.”
Her husband mumbled a goodbye as he hustled her out the door, leaving J.T. standing there, stunned, with his mouth hanging open.
As the door closed behind him, J.T. slowly turned around and looked at Maddy.
Maddy grinned. “Overwhelming, isn’t she?”
He inclined his head. “That would be one word for it.”
“She means well. Why don’t you come closer?” Maddy urged. “I’d like you to meet someone, now that he’s really all cleaned up.”
For the first time, J.T. saw the glass bassinet beside her bed.
Chapter 5
As a rule, J.T. had few unguarded moments, but he’d let one slip by him now as he glanced at the baby he’d helped bring into the world.
Maddy saw the way he was looking at the infant, like someone in the presence of magic. It reflected her own feelings about her less-than-day-old son. She felt her mouth curving in a smile. The man wasn’t nearly as tough as he was trying to make the world believe he was.
“Would you like to hold him?” J.T. took an automatic step forward, then his instinct for self-preservation kicked in and he halted where he was. It would be a lot better for him if he kept his distance. He’d already felt too much for a child that wasn’t meant to be in his life. It made no sense to perpetuate something that had no future to it.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, as if to keep them from betraying him and doing something stupid. “No, that’s all right. I just stopped by to let you know about your car.”
She wasn’t listening to what he was saying—she was looking at his eyes.
“Are you sure? He’s much less slippery now than he was the first time you held him.” The nurses had bathed and powdered the newborn before they’d brought him to her. With any luck, his diaper was still dry. “Smells better, too.”
Despite his best efforts, J.T.’s mind drifted back to last evening. To what it had felt like, holding this brand-new life in his hands. Without meaning to, he dissolved the distance and came to stand over the bassinet.
“Oh, I don’t know. He smelled like a miracle to me,” J.T. said softly, looking down at the sleepy little being bundled up in white and blue, only one tiny, clenched fist peering out beside his small cheek.
He had no recollection of crossing to the bassinet. He had even less of an explanation for why he was doing exactly what he told himself not to do.
He picked the baby up anyway. His eyes closed for a moment as he drew the tiny, warm infant to him. The baby’s warmth penetrated all the layers around him, straight through his chest.
He’d expected pain. He’d gotten incredible, devastating sweetness instead. Very carefully, he stroked the shock of black hair.
“I don’t remember ever seeing one with quite so much hair,” he commented, glancing toward Maddy.
“That’s from my father’s side of the family,” she told him, mesmerized as she watched J.T. And attempted to imagine Johnny in his place. “Do you have children of your own?”
The question sliced through him like the point of a rapier. “No.” He looked up at her, his face stony. “No, I don’t.”
It was then she saw the pain, though he immediately masked it. She found herself wondering about him. “But you wanted some,” she pressed. He looked at her sharply and she backed up. She’d overstepped her ground. “I’m sorry, my mother always says I can’t leave anything alone. It’s just that you looked so sad just now—” she tried to explain. “And so natural holding Johnny.”
His brows drew together and he looked down at the infant, who continued sleeping. “Johnny?”
Maddy shifted in the bed, reaching up to adjust her son’s blanket. Her fingers brushed against J.T.’s forearm and she could feel his muscles instantly tighten. “I decided to name him after my husband—” She raised her eyes to his. “And you. That way he can grow up having two heroes.”
What could he say to that? How was he supposed to respond? Was she expecting him to remain in her life in some capacity because fate had had him at the right place at the right time and he’d delivered her baby? He wasn’t about to get his life embroiled with anyone else’s. It was bad enough that his partner and some of the men at the precinct insisted on drawing him into their circle no matter how often he fended them off. He was a loner and the position suited him.
Besides, he didn’t care for empty praise. “I don’t know about your late husband, but there’s nothing much of a hero about me. Your son would do a lot better finding someone else to admire.”
She liked modesty and thought it a highly underrated attribute.
“You came to my rescue, that makes you a hero in my book.” She hurried on before he could protest. “Besides, there’s a bond between you two now, whether you like it or not.”
The baby stirred against him, sending out fresh waves of warmth that were impossible for him to block out. “What makes you think I don’t like it?”
That was easy. He had a way about him that convinced her he declared “day” whenever someone said “night” just for the sake of not going along with the crowd.
“Oh, I don’t know. Something in your eyes tells me that on your report card your teachers used to write: Does not play well with others.”
He’d been on the receiving end of that comment more than once. It wasn’t that he wanted his own way, he just didn’t believe in joining a team for the sake of joining. He liked keeping to himself, something few of his early teachers understood.
J.T. shrugged off her insight. “I tend to be a loner, if that’s what you mean.”
She took note of the fact that he wasn’t putting the baby back down, and it pleased her. “That’s what I mean. Ever notice that the word ‘loner’ shares some of the same letters as ‘alone’?”
He didn’t care to be analyzed, no matter how well meaning she might be. Or how easy on the eyes. “Never gave it much thought.”
Yes, he did, she thought. He’d given it a great deal of thought and chosen his way. And now he was trapped in it, she judged, because he knew nothing else. “Being alone is not always a good thing.”
“It is for me.” His tone told her to back off.
Rather than back off, she merely regrouped and sought another way into the barricaded citadel. “Then there’s no Mrs. John Thomas?”
J.T. expected her to back down. Tougher people than she had when confronted by his stern countenance. But he quickly discovered that he was in for an education when it came to dealing with the likes of Madeline Rossini Reed.
“Yes,” she told him brightly. “If you’re willing to part with it.”
He laughed shortly. He’d half thought she was going to demand it as her right since they’d shared something so intimate as the birth of a child. Since she gave him a way out, he took it.
“Well, I’m not.”
Maddy cocked her head. She wondered if he realized that he was rocking the baby, who had begun to fuss just the tiniest bit. She was willing to bet that he’d make a great father, no matter how blustery he sounded.
“Why?”
The unselfconsciously voiced question caught him off guard. “I thought you were giving me a choice.”
He watched as a smile curved along her lips. The same sensation he’d felt when the baby moved against him returned. He fought it off.
“I was being polite.”
Still holding the baby, he moved toward the window and looked out on the harbor with its scattered, bobbing boats. Sailing had never held a fascination for him, but he liked looking at the various sailing vessels. There was something peaceful about it.
“And now you’re being nosy.”
If he meant to embarrass her into backing away, he failed. “I’ve been accused of being that, too.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “But it hasn’t cured you.”
“Nope.”
The question had been rhetorical. He turned back toward the harbor. If he concentrated, he could see her reflection in the pane of glass before him. J.T. took a deep breath.
“My wife died in a car accident on New Year’s Eve. We were going to try to start a family. It was our mutual New Year’s Resolution.” He turned around to look at her. “Anything else you want to know?”
Her heart went out to him. “Yes. How are you coping with it?”
He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. Mostly he tried not to think. “I manage.”
That wasn’t quite her take on the situation. “Are you sure?”
He’d stood for enough. “Lady, the only thing I’m sure of is that the sun rises the next day whether you’ve got a family or not, even if you think it shouldn’t.” Crossing back to her, he placed the infant in her arms. What had he been thinking, coming here?
Unfazed by the annoyance in his face, she took the baby. “I felt the same way when Johnny was killed.”
“And now you don’t.” Sarcasm dripped from every syllable, challenging her.
A part of her, she knew, would always go on hurting, would always miss the man who had been such an important part of her world. The man who had created a child with her and left a part of himself behind.
“No,” she replied quietly, her expression serious for the first time that day, “now I realize that he would have wanted me to go on with my life. That he loved me too much to see me immobilized by grief and unable to move ahead. I would have wanted that for him—after he cried a little bit of course,” she added with a smile. And then the mischief faded slightly. “But I would have wanted him to be happy.”
Lorna was selfless like that, too. But it didn’t matter if she was or not, or what she would have wanted for him. He was what he was, felt what he felt. Like a man walking through hell every day of his life, just marking time.
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t always work that way.”
She reached for his hand, surprising him. “It can if you want it to.”
“Maybe that’s the trouble.” He drew his hand from hers. “Maybe I don’t want it to.”
How the hell had he gotten onto this topic? She was a stranger, someone he’d stopped to help in the line of duty, nothing more. What was he doing, spilling his guts out to her, telling her how he felt? Telling him about Lorna and their plans?
Annoyed with himself, he began to back away toward the door. “Look, I’d better be going.”
She didn’t want him to leave, not like this, not when he was so obviously in pain, but there was nothing she could do.
Maddy nodded toward the infant in her arms. “Will you come back to see us?”
He had a way out now. “Aren’t they discharging you tomorrow?” As far as he remembered, hospitals generally liked sending their patients home after two days, especially if there were no complications.
“Yes.” She looked at him complacently. “You can bring us home.”
Again, she caught him completely unprepared. “Now, why would I want to do that?”
Undaunted, she answered, “Because you’re Johnny’s hero.”
Impatience flared through him. He didn’t want her thanks, her glorification, or anything that went with it. “He’s less than a day old. He doesn’t have any heroes.”
“It’s never too early to start,” she countered cheerfully, determined to bring this man into the sunlight, “and yours was the first face he saw.”
J.T. waved his hand around the room. “I just saw more people in here when I came in than at the county fair. Why can’t one of them bring you home?”
She lifted her chin and said calmly, “Because I’m asking you.”
Shaking his head, he surrendered. Anything to put an end to the onslaught of words. “You always been this pushy?”
Victory had her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Always. I was the youngest. If I didn’t push, I got lost in the shuffle.”
Something told him that Maddy never got lost in the shuffle. Any shuffle.
He sighed. What harm could it do? He’d have her home in under twenty minutes and that would be the end of it. “I brought you here, I guess I can bring you home, too.”
The funny thing was, even as he said it, he wasn’t nearly as annoyed about being cornered into doing this as he would have thought he’d be.
Chapter 6
Lorraine Rossini exchanged glances with the two sons who had accompanied her to her only daughter’s hospital room as she took in the news. With a sigh, she placed the infant seat she’d brought in preparation for her grandson’s homecoming on the brightly upholstered blue chair in the corner.
When she spoke, she didn’t bother masking her disappointment. Her voice rose a little more with each word she uttered.
“But any one of us can bring you and the baby home, Maddy. What possessed you to ask a perfect stranger to do it?”
She’d tried to call her mother last night with the news, but hadn’t been able to get through. What few relatives hadn’t piled into her room yesterday, her mother was busy notifying. Her parents were one of the few people left on the face of the earth who didn’t have Call Waiting. The message she’d left on her brother Tony’s answering machine had obviously not been picked up.
Maddy indicated her sleeping baby, silently asking her mother to lower her voice. “He’s far from perfect, Mom. And maybe that’s why I’m doing it.”
Her oldest brother ceased prowling around the room and looked at her. “Oh God,” Bill groaned. “The stray puppy syndrome strikes again.”
Unlike their childhood years, which had been spent in one-upmanship, bruised egos and skinned knuckles, today she and her brothers worked fairly harmoniously together in the family business, which was fortunate. But she knew her brothers still had a tendency to look upon her as the baby, and as such, given to foibles.
Frowning, Maddy reflexively began to protest the simplistic label her older brother had applied, then stopped. Maybe it was as simple as that. In a way. At any rate, dueling over semantics was a waste of time.
“John Thomas lost his wife a little more than two years ago,” she told her mother and saw sympathy spring instantly into her hazel eyes. Her mother had the ability to feel empathy for absolutely anyone. “And he’s gone through some of the same things I have, except that he hasn’t moved on yet.”
Standing over the baby, her youngest brother, Joe, glanced in her direction and gave her a knowing look. Only thirteen months older than she was, he, better than anyone, knew how her mind worked. “And you’re planning on moving him?”
Maddy sniffed, in no mood to put up with a lecture. The rest of her family was far too cautious. They played it safe when it came to decorating, too. She was the one who pushed for the outlandish, for the bright and cheerful infusion of colors.
“Nothing wrong with one person reaching out to another.”
Always the pragmatic one, it was Bill’s turn to frown. “As long as you don’t fall over while you’re reaching.”
She knew they all meant well and that what they said was motivated by concern. When Johnny had died they had all closed ranks around her like a huge protective coat of armor. She would have been lost without them.
“How could I do that?” Maddy asked, pointedly looking at her mother. “You’re all just a single phone call away.”
“Closer than that if you want,” Joe volunteered, clearly enamored with his new nephew. Single, he had no desire for a wife and kids in the immediate future, but doting on Maddy’s suited him just fine.
They had been wonderful, but they did have a tendency to overwhelm and she did need a little space. “I don’t need a support system right now.”
Lorraine laughed knowingly. “Say that again around the 2:00 a.m. feeding.”
“I probably won’t—” Maddy acknowledged. Her mother had volunteered to stay with her the first two weeks. Maddy had wanted to go it alone. They had compromised with her mother coming over to spend the nights. It was either agreeing to that, or having her mother camp out at her door. “And you’ll be right there to hear me not say it if I know you.”
Her mother nodded. “You know me.” She turned toward her sons, both of whom towered over her. “All right, let’s clear out before your policeman gets here and gets scared off again.” She shooed Joe away from the bassinet and both of them toward the door. “He looked like a rabbit about to bolt yesterday.”
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 13