Surprise Dad (7 page)

Mike simply nodded as they went to the car. Agreeing with her? Or not interested in what she had to say? And why should she even care? At the moment, she was along for the ride, a bizarre ride with an unprepared father to a baby warehouse.

It was so unreal that she didn’t dare analyze it. Best just to do it and examine her motives later.

On the drive to Rutland, Mike’s cell phone rang. “Steve,” he exclaimed. “Speak of the devil. I was going to call you tomorrow.” As he listened, Allie saw his face brighten. “You couldn’t have asked at a better time,” he said finally. “Send them down, the sooner the better. I’ve been saved,” he told Allie. “The Vermont culinary school needs a couple of spots for their second-year students to have hands-on experience.”

“What great luck.” He sounded so excited it made her smile. “You’ll make it, Mike,” Allie said. “You and the restaurant both will get through it with five stars.”

He fell silent for a while. Allie considered drawing
him out, but decided it was best to leave him alone. The man had been through so much in the past few days. He’d lost a friend, brought home a baby and had his right-hand man felled by a heart attack. That kind of stress would get to anyone. If the story of the friend’s bequest wasn’t true, he was under even more stress. She couldn’t believe Mike would lie, but in a situation like the one she was imagining…

Baby Heaven was a huge warehouse-type store that was guaranteed to carry everything any child could need. Mike looked shell-shocked when they got inside.

“Where do we start?” he said.

“Clothes. What’s our budget?”

“Nearly infinite,” Mike said. “If I run out of money, this kid’s rich. My friend left him a ton of money in trust. I can draw on it if I need to, but I’m planning not to need to.”

“Your friend must have been very successful in the restaurant business.”

He gave her a blank look. It only lasted a second or two before he said, “Yeah, I guess he was. Okay, let’s get going.”

There
was
more to Brian’s story than Mike had told her.

Again she felt the lump of worry growing in her stomach. It would hurt to know that Mike had fathered a child with another woman. Why it would hurt so much she wasn’t sure. But it would hurt worse to know that Mike hadn’t brought the woman home, helped her get the child off to a good start in life. It would shake her faith in a man she’d thought of as responsible, caring, even heroic.

Maybe there were other reasons. She was a wealthy
woman who didn’t want to marry a small-town restaurateur…

Baby clothes, she told herself firmly. We’re shopping, not speculating.

The clothing aisles were splashed with color. She and Mike wandered around for some time before she found what they needed. She selected a few outfits, then Mike added a few more. When she glanced at him, he shrugged. “He’s been changed twice today already. No matter how much we buy, it won’t be enough.”

When Allie laughed, Brian joined in, smiling and bouncing in the shopping-cart seat. He looked at Mike, then raised his arms, the universal sign that he wanted to be held, and Mike complied, picking up Brian and settling him on his hip.

“You know, I think Brian loves you already,” she said.

Mike stopped in his tracks. For a moment, he looked down at Brian, and then he looked at Allie. A flash of all the confusion and stress he must be feeling flitted across his face, only to disappear and be replaced by his usual smile.

“I think he just wants to see better.”

“Sure,” Allie said, and then, when Brian immediately started grabbing at all those colors, added, “Hmm. Maybe you’re right.”

Two aisles over, they found the strollers. Allie suggested one. Mike pushed it back and forth a few times and said, “Fine.”

Next they went to the crib-bedding shelves. Allie stood back and let the guys handle this one on their own. She couldn’t remember ever seeing anything as interesting as Mike and Brian picking out crib sheets.
She didn’t bother to point out to Mike that Brian was too young to understand what they were doing.

The pair gave their choices thorough consideration. When Mike held up sheets covered with fast racing cars, Brian giggled and bounced with great excitement. Allie realized the baby was reacting to the excitement in Mike’s voice and the vivid primary colors of the cars, but still, you could imagine the two of them were having a conversation.

“Yeah? These?” Mike studied the sheets, then pronounced, “Good choice, buddy.” He walked over to Allie and tossed the package of sheets into the cart. “He likes cars.”

She bit back a smile. “Was there ever a man who didn’t?”

As Mike and Brian headed down the next aisle toward bouncing, rocking baby chairs, something Mike seemed fixed on, she spied a display of stuffed animals and spent a few minutes squishing them before she picked out a rabbit she couldn’t resist and tossed it into the cart.

When she caught up with Mike and Brian, she paused just to look at them for a minute. Watching Mike with Brian was really getting to her. He was kind and patient with the baby, and she admired the way he’d taken on this responsibility.

If she wasn’t careful, Brian wasn’t the only one she was going to fall for.

Brian snoozed happily in his crib, but Mike felt unsettled. Restlessly he paced the apartment, always pausing at Brian’s open door to listen to his breathing.

He knew a glass of good wine or a simple over-the-counter pain reliever would help him relax enough to sleep, but he didn’t know if a new father was allowed to drink even one glass of wine or take even one pain reliever until his child was old enough to scream, “I have pneumonia!”

In the path of his pacing, he saw a purple folder buried in a towering stack of papers. They had once been in his office-now-Brian’s-bedroom and Allie had moved them onto a bookshelf in order to make space on his desk for the equipment Brian would need.

He pulled out the folder. It was his Abernathy file. He’d almost forgotten about his trip to New York. How could he honor the commitment he’d made to Richard Stein?

His first thought was the money Abernathy had spent in order to get him to New York: drivers, plane tickets, hotel and more. So he had to go.

His next thought was what to do about Brian. There he drew a blank.

If he called Daniel, he’d get the full You-can’t-go
routine. So he called Ian, who stayed up late, and not because he had a baby whose breathing had to be monitored.

He reached a wide-awake Ian and explained the situation. Ian’s analysis, because Ian was the analytical one of the three of them, shocked him.

“He just lost his parents—and his nanny. You’re all he has. You can’t leave him this soon.”

“He gets along great with Allie. Maybe she’d keep him—just this one time, of course.”

“You and he need to bond.”

Bond? Where had Ian learned about bonding? And what exactly did it mean?

“So to bond with him, you’d have to take him to New York,” Ian went on, “You’ve just moved him to a new place. If you take him to New York, you’re taking him to another new place, also the wrong thing to do.”

Mike was suddenly irritated, depressed, he didn’t know which. “I thought I could count on you for unbiased advice, but you’re sounding just like Daniel.”

“Because that’s the kind of thing that happened to you and Daniel and me,” Ian snapped.

His words hit Mike right in the gut. He’d never felt close to his parents. Daniel had felt only fear and loathing for his father. Ian’s mother had bonded with a liquor bottle, not with him.

“I see your point.” He heard Ian’s whoosh of breath. “I’ll cancel the trip. And, Ian, thanks.”

He left the folder on top of the stack to deal with first thing in the morning, then checked on Brian again. He’d never go to sleep now. He gave up, turned on the lamp in Brian’s bedroom—its base was a bright-red Mini Cooper—and settled into the biggest rocking chair for sale at Baby Heaven, and still not quite big enough.

Brian made him nervous. No,
nervous
was too mild a word. Brian scared him to death. He knew nothing about babies. Heck, he didn’t really know much about kids. Sure he hung around with Daniel’s foster kids, but those boys were older.

Brian couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk and, most importantly, couldn’t tell Mike when something was wrong or if he was in pain. Mike would have to figure it out all by himself.

Fortunately, he had the information at hand. He opened the baby-care book Allie had insisted he buy. “A user manual?” he’d quipped when she put it firmly into his shopping cart. In fact, it was just what he needed. The book was helping him understand more about Brian. What stage he’d reached, what he needed from Mike, and what Mike could expect in the near future.

The book had a short section on the fear new parents felt. Mike thought that part should have been much longer. He’d never been the type to give up on anything, but Brian hadn’t been one of his goals. A baby had been thrust on him, a complete surprise, a global change in his life.

He wondered again why his father had left Brian to him. Lilah’s he-trusted-you theory was pure Lilah, kind and positive, but he didn’t believe it for a second. Mike would stick with his own hypothesis, that his father had thought this day would never come, that Brian would be an adult before Evan died, that Celine would outlive him by thirty years, so he’d thought of it as a joke. A cruel joke.

Well, the day
had
come. Brian was entirely dependent on Mike. And Mike would
not
be like his father. But how? He had so much to learn.

Brian made a murmuring sound. Mike was on his
feet in an instant, adrenaline racing through his body like fire. When he leaned over the crib, Brian moaned. Mike reached out and touched his forehead.

Hot. The baby felt hot.

It was not the time to look up
fever
in the baby book. He had touched Brian only a couple of hours ago, and he’d felt cool and normal. Now he was hot, and he was waking up.

Forcing himself to stay calm, Mike went to the bathroom and got the basket of medical supplies Allie had put together. Inside was a thermometer, the kind you stuck in the baby’s ear. He went back to the room and now Brian was whimpering. “It’s okay, buddy,” he said, trying not to let his anxiety show. Carefully, he took Brian’s temperature, and then he freaked. A hundred-two.

He wrapped Brian in his comforter and went for the door, his mind on autopilot. On the way down the outside steps to his car, he grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket and called Allie. When she answered, her voice groggy with sleep, he immediately blurted out, “Something’s wrong. Brian’s sick. I’m on my way to the hospital with him.”

He didn’t wait for her answer, her calm voice, her reassurance. He couldn’t. Talking was the last thing he could do at the moment.

He was too consumed with fear.

A
LLIE PARKED
in the hospital’s parking lot near the E.R. and sprinted inside. When she reached the waiting room, she saw Mike immediately. He was holding a fussy Brian, and he looked desperate.

“Hi,” she said, sitting next to him. “How’s Brian?”

“They haven’t seen him yet.” Mike sighed. “I’m sorry I called you. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I’m glad you called me.” Allie leaned over and ran her hand gently over Brian’s forehead. Mike was right. He had a fever.

“He’ll be fine,” she said.

Mike nodded, but tension oozed from him. Brian was sitting in his lap, his head against Mike’s chest. Mike kept rubbing the baby’s back and murmuring soft words. For a man who didn’t know a thing about babies, he was doing a great job.

They waited another twenty minutes before a nurse called Brian’s name. Mike stood up, started forward, then looked back at her. He seemed surprised, but grateful, when he saw she was following him. The nurse led them into the back section of the E.R. to a small room with two chairs and a bed. Mike put Brian on the bed and held him there, and Allie stood on the other side to help if she needed to.

The nurse asked Mike what Brian’s symptoms were. Then she weighed the baby and took his temperature. Brian cried softly during the exam, settling down only when the nurse left and Mike once again held him.

“He’s even hotter than he was at home,” Mike said flatly. “I don’t know what happened.”

Allie patted his arm. “Try not to worry,” she said soothingly. “It wasn’t anything you did wrong. And I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing serious. Babies’ temperatures go up higher than adults’ when they’re sick.”

Mike didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t say anything. While they waited, Allie studied the room. It was a standard E.R. examination room. Although the hospital was fairly small, it was well-equipped.

She’d wondered if being in a hospital would make
her nostalgic for med school. Instead, she felt relieved. She wasn’t certain what path was right for her in life, but she knew in her heart she couldn’t handle a baby in pain, wasn’t meant to come into this room in a white coat or green scrubs and deliver bad news to frightened parents.

A few minutes later, the doctor walked in. She was a young woman with a wide smile. “What an angel,” she said, looking at Brian, then at Mike. “He’s the spitting image of you,” she marveled.

“He has a fever,” Mike said rapidly. “And I think he’s in pain.”

The doctor read Brian’s chart, and then examined him. It didn’t take her long to find the problem—an ear infection.

“It happens sometimes at this age,” she told them, writing in Brian’s chart. “I’ll give you a prescription, and the nurse will tell you how to bring down his fever.”

“He won’t lose his hearing?” Mike asked.

The doctor smiled. “Nope. In a couple of days, take him to his regular doctor to check his progress.”

After the doctor left, a nurse came in and handed Mike a prescription for antibiotics. Then she gave Brian a dose of acetaminophen, walked them through how to bring down the fever with lukewarm baths and sent them home.

“You two have been up all night,” she said sympathetically. “I hope you can get some rest tomorrow. Or today, I should say.”

Of course she assumed they were Brian’s parents. It made Allie feel uneasy—but, somehow, good.

When they reached the parking lot, Allie turned to Mike. “I’ll wake up Cliff Hemphill and tell him you need this prescription filled in a hurry.”

“Wake him up?”

“Happens to him all the time,” Allie said. “Either let people wake you up, or run a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. While I get the medicine, you can take Brian home and give him his lukewarm bath.”

For a minute, she thought Mike was going to protest. He looked at Brian for a moment, then said, “Okay. Thanks.” He sighed. “At least a chef knows what lukewarm water is.” He turned his gaze on her. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

She could see how rattled he was. “You did just the right thing,” she said. “I’ll see you back at your place.”

Mike gently strapped the fussing baby into the car seat. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re too good to me.” With a rueful smile, he added, “Be careful, or I might get used to it.”

She knew he was teasing, but after he’d made the statement, his smile faded and his gaze held hers.

Allie found herself holding her breath as a tingling awareness feathered across her skin. Then Brian began to cry, and the spell was broken.

“Have to get him home,” Mike said, looking away. “I’ll leave the doors unlocked.”

Allie nodded. She’d known Mike for years, but suddenly, things were changing between them. From his expression she was fairly certain Mike wasn’t too happy about the changes.

But she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t.

W
HAT COULD
possibly have made him call Allie? He couldn’t say, “made him
decide
to call Allie,” because he hadn’t even thought about it. He’d just called.

Driving slowly home, Brian snuffling in his car seat, Mike chewed his lower lip. Daniel would have come in an instant, would have driven Mike and Brian to the hospital, would have stayed until the situation was under control. He had a houseful of boys who must have gotten sick at some time or other.

Instead, he’d called Allie.

Maybe she’d been on his mind because they’d spent the afternoon cleaning out Baby Heaven. Or maybe she’d just been on his mind. That moment in the hospital parking lot—that had scared him.

In the back seat, Brian’s snuffles escalated to wails. “We’ll be home in a minute,” Mike said soothingly, feeling that he wanted to call the baby something like “sweetheart,” or “angel.”

Yep, he was losing it. Big-time.

T
HE PHARMACIST
had come cheerfully to the rescue, wearing jeans and a pajama top. Allie got back to Mike’s apartment with the medicine to find Mike holding Brian, sitting in the white rocker lulling him to sleep. He overwhelmed the rocker, looking like a man sitting in a child’s chair. His vivid eyes gazed up at her, and he whispered, “He’s stopped crying, and his temperature’s down to a hundred already.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Resting comfortably and doing as well as can be expected,” he said, twisting his mouth into a wry smile as he remembered her saying the same thing about Barney. “How about you?”

“I pulled lots of all-nighters in med school. I’m a pro. How will you get through tomorrow? Today, actually.”

“Ask me tonight.”

Allie cleared her throat. “Brian should stay up here today, not necessarily in bed, but he needs rest, not excitement.”

He looked startled by the idea. “I don’t know how I can arrange that. I have to be downstairs, and I’m sure not going to leave him alone.”

“I was thinking,” she said hesitantly, because she
had
been thinking—thinking she was about to do the wrong thing, “that if the crew could do without me, I could stay with him today. Just this once.”

“You shouldn’t be using your time that way,” Mike said.

“I’d be doing it instead of waiting tables,” she insisted. “While he naps, I’ll rest.”

“I don’t…”

“What are your options? It’s time for you to go downstairs right now. It’s too early to call babysitters. I don’t mind, really.”

Mike’s face was a study in conflicting feelings. “It’s very kind of you to offer,” he said, “and you’re right, I need help immediately. I might be able to find somebody else by noon…”

“Don’t worry about that yet,” Allie told him. Her own insides were full of conflicting feelings. “Let’s give him his first dose of medicine, then you get ready for work. We’ll be fine.”

While they gave Brian his medicine, Mike’s hands occasionally brushed hers, and each time she felt a spark of new life in her tired body. She had to concentrate on Brian, keep her mind off her surprising reaction to Mike’s slightest touch.

“Look at him,” Allie said, smoothing Brian’s damp, curly hair back from his forehead. “He’s sound asleep.”

He was, his head buried under Mike’s chin, his fingers clutching Mike’s collar, his knees drawn up with Mike’s arm around them to keep him close. The image of the two of them touched her somewhere down deep in a place she was afraid to go.

“Think I could get him into bed without waking him up?”

“If you can turn a turkey on its side in a hot oven, you can get him into bed.” She smiled at him, and it seemed to increase his confidence.