Valentine Baby

by Gina Wilkins

  The gumbo was perfect. Thick with small, tender okra, shrimp, scallops, tomatoes, onions and peppers. Spicy enough to wake up all Tom’s taste buds. He slathered butter on a corn-bread muffin and sighed. “Man, this is good.”

  Leslie seemed pleased by the sincere compliment. “I’m glad you like it. I got this recipe from a college friend who grew up in Baton Rouge. Kenny and I made a grocery run this afternoon, and since it was such a damp, cool day, hot soup sounded good for tonight.”

  “Great idea.” Then Tom frowned. “You bought groceries today?”

  She nodded and helped Kenny, who was lying in his infant seat at one end of the table, retrieve his fallen pacifier. “We were getting low on quite a few things.”

  “How did you pay for them?”

  Her left eyebrow rose. “I wrote a check.”

  “From your own checking account?”

  “The store clerks tend to frown when I write a check on anyone else’s account. Forget it, Tom. I had enough to cover a few groceries.”

  He shook his head. “We’ll have to go to the bank this week and get your name put on my accounts. I hadn’t even thought about it before now.”

  Her cheeks were red, and she looked very uncomfortable. Leslie was a woman who was accustomed to paying her own way, being dependent on no one. Tom knew she didn’t like the idea of being supported by him, and he wished he could convince her that he didn’t mind at all. In fact, there was an old-fashioned, probably chauvinistic side of him that rather liked the idea.

  “We’ll talk about finances later,” she muttered around a bite of corn bread. She swallowed, took another sip of her tea, then said, “I got a call from Leo Weiss today.”

  Tom looked up from his meal in surprise. Leo Weiss was a longtime attorney in the area who had been Leslie’s boss before she’d accepted the position in Chicago. “How did Leo find out you were here?”

  She shrugged. “You know Leo. He seems to find out everything that goes on in this part of the state. Someone apparently told him that I was back in town and that you and I were married. He said he wanted to offer his congratulations—and to ask if I’d be interested in working for him again.”

  The taste of gumbo went suddenly flat on Tom’s tongue. He set down his spoon. “He offered you a job?”

  She nodded. “He said I was the best legal researcher he’d ever worked with. He told me I could work as many or as few hours as I wanted. At home or at the office or the university law library, as needed. Whoever told him about us also told him about the baby, I guess.”

  “He’s being very accommodating.” Tom knew he should probably sound a bit more enthusiastic. Leo had made a very generous offer, and Tom should be pleased for Leslie’s sake. Not so selfishly worried on his own behalf.

  “Yes.”

  Tom crumbled the last quarter of his muffin onto his bread plate. “So, what did you say?”

  “First I asked him if he’d heard that I was fired from the firm in Chicago.”

  Tom wasn’t surprised. Leslie was nothing if not honest. “Did he know?”

  “He knew. He said he didn’t care. He wants me on his team, and he’s willing to work around my responsibilities to have me there.” A slight crack in her voice illustrated how much her blunt-spoken, no-nonsense former employer’s confidence meant to her.

  Tom knew the answer even before he asked, “Are you going to do it?”

  “Of course,” she answered simply. “I worked too hard to get my education not to put it to use. As long as Leo is willing to be flexible so that I can be available whenever Kenny needs me, there’s no reason for me not to work and pay my own way here. I told Leo I would start interviewing nannies and day-care centers and I’d get back to him as soon as I made arrangements for Kenny. I said it shouldn’t take longer than a couple of weeks.”

  “Well.” Tom used his thumb to shift his empty bowl away from him. “This is good news, Les. I knew you’d want to get back to work soon, and you always seemed happy with Leo and his associates.”

  “I was happy,” she admitted. “I was such an idiot to walk away from...from everything I had here.”

  “You thought it was the right move at the time.”

  “I was wrong.”

  He didn’t want to argue anymore about that. Probably because he secretly agreed with her. “I’ll help you ask around about child care,” he offered. “We’ll want a lot of recommendations, of course.”

  She nodded. “I want the best for Kenny. I’ll try to minimize the time I spend away from him, but when it’s necessary for me to leave him in someone else’s care, I want to be certain it’s someone who loves children and is very experienced at taking care of them.”

  “Maybe Mom will know someone. I’ll ask her next time I talk to her.”

  “She called this afternoon, by the way.”

  “She called you?” As far as Tom knew, Nina hadn’t tried to phone him at the office.

  “Yes. She said she just wanted to see how things were going, and to ask about Kenny. She said she wanted to have us over for dinner again soon.”

  Tom nodded and, knowing he was being petty, hoped that Steve Pendleton wouldn’t be included.

  “She asked if we’d started adoption proceedings yet,” Leslie added. “She said she wanted to start bragging about her grandchild soon. And she said she wanted photographs to bore her friends with.”

  Tom forced a smile. “Mom’s always loved babies. We’ll have to watch her or she’ll spoil Kenny rotten. But, then, that’s what grandmothers are for, right?”

  “Tom, were you really serious about wanting to adopt Kenny?” Leslie asked the question tentatively, concealing her own feelings. It was the first time they’d mentioned adoption since Steve had brought the subject up on Saturday.

  “I was very serious. I definitely think I should be included on the adoption papers. For one thing, everyone—especially Pendleton—would wonder why if I wasn’t. And I want to do it. It’s for Kenny’s own protection. If anything happens to me, he’ll be legally included in my insurance and estate and whatever. Or—God forbid—if anything happens to you, I would still have a right to keep him. I wouldn’t want his future left unsettled again. You, er, would trust me to raise him, wouldn’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t have come to you for help with him if I hadn’t thought you’d make a wonderful father,” Leslie answered simply, and to Tom’s relief. “If anything should happen to me, there’s no one else I would rather entrust Kenny to. It’s just—well, adoption is a lifelong commitment, Tom. No different from having a child of your own. Even if you and I...if something changes between us—”

  “I would still consider myself Kenny’s father,” he interrupted flatly. While he understood why she needed to bring it up, he hated Leslie’s implication that their marriage might not last. The thought of being without her again created a painful hole in his chest. “I know exactly what I’m taking on, Leslie. And I want it.”

  He glanced at the baby. Kenny was working his pacifier and staring back at Tom as if paying close attention to this important conversation. Tom reached out to touch the baby’s cheek, and Kenny smiled around the pacifier.

  “I want this, Leslie,” Tom repeated. “I’m not trying to take him away from you. I’ll never threaten you the way Steve did. I only want you to include me in Kenny’s life. I never had a dad, and I don’t want Kenny to grow up as aware of that lack as I was.”

  She drew a deep breath. “You’ve never really told me how you felt about not having had a father.”

  He shrugged, self-conscious as always at revealing his most private feelings. “It wasn’t all that bad,” he assured her. “My mom and I were always so close that I hardly felt abandoned or anything. And Zach’s dad was a part of my life from the time I was just a little kid. He took us fishing, taught us both how to throw and catch, gave us those stern talks men have with their teenage boys, just as if I were Zach’s brother. It was just...I would have liked a father of my own. And I want Kenny
to have someone like that in his life. I want it to be me.”

  “We’ll talk to Leo,” Leslie said, seeming to reach a decision. “I’m sure he’ll start the proceedings for us.”

  Tom nodded, unable to find the words to express his emotions. He was deeply gratified, of course, that Leslie trusted him to become such a vital part of this child’s life. He knew it wasn’t easy for her to share the baby she had raised as her own from the day he was born. But he also knew that Leslie would never want to deny Kenny anything, including a devoted, willingly responsible father.

  He wanted to tell her how much her faith in him meant to him. How much she meant to him. He wanted to ask her to promise she would never leave him again. He wanted to know that his wasn’t the only heart at risk in their relationship. That their marriage was as real and as important to her as it was to him.

  He wanted to tell her that he loved her. That he always had.

  But that emotional wall he’d constructed kept him imprisoned as surely as it locked others out. The words remained trapped inside him.

  And then Leslie spoke, and the moment was gone. “I have raspberry sorbet for dessert. It seemed appropriate today, for some reason,” she added wryly, with a smiling glance at Kenny.

  Tom managed to chuckle in response to her quip. “Let me help you clear these dishes away first, and we’ll have our sorbet afterward.”

  Leslie didn’t argue with that plan.

  Zach telephoned later that evening. “The weatherman’s calling for a nice weekend, highs in the low sixties,” he said. “Want to go fishing Saturday morning?”

  Tom was surprised. “Fishing?” he repeated blankly.

  “Sure. It’s been forever since we got out on the lake. Still remember how to cast?”

  “I think I could handle it if I put my mind to it,” Tom drawled.

  “So, how about it? Or do you need to ask the little woman’s permission first?”

  Tom could hear the grin in Zach’s voice. “Maybe you’d like to repeat that question—in just those words—to my wife,” he suggested.

  Zach laughed. “No, thanks. Lawyer Leslie would have me for a snack and go lookin’ for lunch. She always did scare me, you know.”

  “She scares the hell out of me, too.” Tom hoped Zach took the words as a joke. Tom wasn’t so sure they were.

  “So are we on? Saturday morning?”

  “What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at six. We’ll catch the fish while they’re still too sleepy to be smarter than we are.”

  Tom chuckled. “I don’t know. Combined, we might have the IQ of the average fish. But we’ll try to outsmart a couple of them, anyway. See you Saturday.”

  Sounding pleased, Zach completed the call quickly.

  Sitting on the couch playing pat-a-cake with Kenny, Leslie looked up. “Was that Zach?”

  “Yeah. He called you ‘the little woman.’ But he told me not to tell you because he was afraid you’d hurt him.”

  “And so he should be,” Leslie said with a ferocious scowl.

  “He, um, asked me if I wanted to go fishing early Saturday morning.”

  “Did he?” Leslie made a face at the baby, though she directed her words at Tom. “You’d better dress in layers. The mornings are still very cool.”

  Tom frowned at how easily she accepted his words. “Did you have something to do with this?”

  She looked up at him then. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you say something to Zach? Maybe suggest that he ask me to go fishing?”

  “Of course not. I haven’t spoken to Zach privately since the party.”

  “What did you say to Kim and Sami the other night?”

  “Back to that again?” She sighed. “Tom, I had nothing to do with Zach’s calling you. What’s the big deal? You two used to go fishing all the time.”

  “We haven’t fished together since the accident.” Tom’s words hung starkly in the air, expressing much more than he’d actually said.

  “Then it’s past time for you to go again, isn’t it?”

  He spoke through clenched teeth. “I don’t want Zach taking me on some sort of pity outing.”

  “Quit being an idiot, Goose.”

  He blinked in response to her blunt comment.

  She held his gaze firmly with her own. “Zach loves you. You were raised as brothers, and he still sees you as one. Just as you still feel the same way about him. Whatever it is that has come between you, you have to talk about it. And sitting in a fishing boat on a quiet, peaceful lake seems like a good time to start.”

  Tom frowned. “We’re going fishing, not having a touchy-feely therapy session.” Zach, he knew, was no more likely to have that kind of encounter in mind than Tom was. Even when their relationship was closest, they hadn’t needed to use words to understand what the other was feeling.

  She shook her head. “No one’s asking you to bare your soul, Tom. We know better than to expect that from you.”

  He was taken aback by the touch of bitterness in her voice and by her use of the word “we,” but she went on before he could speak.

  “Just go fishing with him,” she said a bit wearily. “If you want to talk, talk. If you don’t, fish. But don’t give up on a relationship that has lasted twenty-five years just because you’ve hit a little rocky spell.”

  “Pb-b-b-bt.”

  “I think Kenny’s telling me he’s hungry again,” she said, standing with the baby on her hip. “We really should start thinking about solid food soon, I guess. He seems to be hungry all the time now.”

  “Speaking of which,” Tom said, deliberately pushing thoughts of Zach and the fishing trip to the back of his. mind, “were there any of those cookies left that you made last night?”

  Leslie rolled her eyes, then smiled at Kenny. “Like father, like son,” she murmured.

  And this time Tom knew her choice of words was deliberate.

  It was with decidedly mixed emotions that he followed her to the kitchen in search of chocolate.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ignoring the usual noisy bustle of the popular deli, Nina smiled at her son, who sat on the other side of the tiny corner table. “I’m so glad you were free to have lunch with me today,” she said. “It seems like a long time since we were alone together.”

  “It’s been a busy couple of weeks,” Tom replied, looking up from the daily menu.

  Two weeks, Nina mused. It had been only two weeks today since Leslie Harden had come back into Tom’s life. And look how much had changed—for all of them—in such a short time. “It certainly has been busy,” she murmured.

  Tom set his menu aside. “How’s business?”

  She shrugged. “A bit slow this week. It usually is for a couple of weeks after Valentine’s Day, but it will pick up again soon for Easter and proms and spring weddings.”

  “How’s your very pregnant assistant? She looked ready to pop last time I saw her.”

  “Due any day. And still at the shop every morning at the usual time. Lisa says she couldn’t bear to sit at home and wait for a labor pain, so she would just as soon be working. Her doctor says it’s okay, as long as she doesn’t overtire herself, but I can’t help fussing over her. I have this continuing nightmare that the baby’s going to be born right there behind the sales counter.”

  “Not the type of delivery your shop usually advertises, right?”

  “Hardly.” She was pleased that Tom had made a joke, however lame. He’d looked a bit somber when he’d arrived, making her worry that their lunch would be awkward. “And how are things in your household?”

  “Pretty good,” he answered, reaching for the iced water the server had brought with the menus. “Different, of course. After living alone for so long, it feels strange—but nice—to be sharing the house with two other people.”

  Nina smiled. “That sounds very promising.”

  He looked into his water glass. “We’re making arrangements to have Leslie’s things from Chicago deliv
ered. She’s been busily organizing the house so there will be room for everything she wants to keep. She says she didn’t keep all that much, but she has a lot of legal books in storage there. As well as a computer and a fax machine and some other equipment. We’ll have to find room for it all.”

  “That shouldn’t be so hard.”

  “Yeah, I know. I told Leslie to do whatever she wants to the house. She can paint it orange, if she wants to. As far as I’m concerned, it’s as much her home as it is mine now. It annoys me when she acts like a guest there.”

  “Give her time. It’s an adjustment for both of you.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  But Tom still looked troubled, she noticed. Since he had always talked to her about his problems, she asked carefully, “Is something wrong, dear? You are happy that you married Leslie, aren’t you?”

  His answer was succinct, and apparently sincere.

  “I have no regrets about marrying Leslie.”

  “No regrets about taking on responsibility for the baby she brought with her into your marriage?” Nina suspected she already knew that answer.

  Tom’s eyes warmed and his expression softened, giving her his response before he said the words. “No regrets about that, either. Kenny’s a great kid.”

  It was obvious that Tom had fallen head over heels in love with little Kenny, and Nina couldn’t be happier about that. She suspected that his feelings for Leslie were more complicated, but no less intense.

  “What about Leslie?” she asked, still choosing her words with care. “Do you think she has regrets?”

  Tom was given a temporary reprieve from answering when the server approached to take their orders. After they’d made their selections and were alone again, he said, “I think Leslie’s still convinced she made the right decision under the circumstances.”

  Nina frowned. “That sounds a bit bland. As if she’d had no other choice.”

  “She didn’t think there was another easy choice. When she arrived, Steve seemed determined to take Kenny away from her. After we announced our marriage, he backed off. She accomplished what she wanted.”