Who's Your Daddy? (42 page)

“Of course it is. I was hoping you would.”

“Cool. I’ll be up there around three, then.”

“I’ll see you then,” I said. “And I’ll text you when I hear something.”

“Okay.” He paused. “Love you, Dad.”

“Love you too.”

After I’d hung up, I looked at the time on my phone. Seven twenty-eight in the morning. We’d been here for almost thirty-six hours. Carmen had gone into the delivery room in the last hour or so. Since hospital policy only allowed one person with her, Isaac had gone. I’d wanted to be there with her, but since I was in the room when Ryan was born, I bowed out to let Isaac be there this time.

And now I waited.

The last few months had had their ups and downs, and they all came down to right now. One dad in the delivery room. One pacing in the waiting room.

Carmen’s pregnancy had gone smoothly, thank God. The stress, not to mention her understandable and expected hormone-induced mood swings, had ensured that settling into this three-way relationship was challenging, but we’d gotten the hang of it.

Isaac’s mother and Carmen got along famously, which had softened the blow of Carmen’s own mother’s chilly silence. Even her parents were slowly coming around, though. Rose had played mediator, and in recent weeks, Carmen and her folks had managed to sit down and have a few civil conversations. About two weeks ago, her mother had even dropped her disapproval long enough to feel the baby kick, and that had melted a great deal of the remaining ice. They had a long way to go, but they were getting there.

My brother had attempted the same type of mediation with my father and me, with decidedly less encouraging results. After two or three tries at talking, I’d asked them to let it go and let me walk away. Maybe someday my father and I could reconcile, but life was too short to piss away trying to find a compromise between who I was and who he thought I should be. I wasn’t thrilled with that realization, but I’d made peace with it.

Things were better with Ryan. We’d started going to a family counselor, and that had helped a lot. Carmen and Isaac had both been to a few sessions, as had Julia. She and I had even gone to a few together without Ryan to try to get on the same page where our co-parenting was concerned. It was a slow process on all fronts, but at least things were getting on the right track between my son and me. His resentment about the baby had eased. He’d even contributed a few name suggestions, including the one we’d ultimately settled on. The two of us did a lot more talking and a lot less arguing. We still butted heads sometimes, but I was pretty sure we’d both survive long enough for him to graduate.

The night at the Temple had spooked Kristy, and she hadn’t objected when her parents put her in treatment to get a grip on her substance-abuse issues. After a few long talks with her and Ryan, I was more comfortable with them seeing each other. I didn’t know if they were still sleeping together—I didn’t ask, they didn’t say—but I made them promise me that if they did, they’d be careful. Between my situation and the night I’d picked them up at the club, it was a safe bet they took me at my word that I wasn’t just trying to keep them from having a good time.

Through it all, we’d eagerly—and nervously—awaited the baby’s arrival, and now, here we were.

I was used to crazy hours, pushing myself physically even when I was desperate for sleep, but this was just as exhausting as it had been when Ryan was born.

Isaac and I had made it this far on coffee and catnaps. All day yesterday and all night long, we’d walked the halls with Carmen, rubbed her back when the pain was too much, and tried to keep our own nerves and fatigue out of her sight. When she fell asleep for an hour or so last night, we both crashed too. My back still hadn’t forgiven me for sleeping in that particular chair, but I couldn’t complain. My knees ached from walking, my hand still smarted a little from when she’d gripped it during a particularly intense contraction, but if she could go through what she was going through, I could tolerate some aches and pains without bitching.

Now that I was in the waiting room, I should have fallen asleep long ago, but the pins and needles kept me awake. Was Carmen doing okay? Was the baby okay? How was Isaac holding up? Had anything gone wrong?

I rubbed the back of my neck and told myself for the hundredth time everything was probably fine.

The foot traffic in and out of this room had been almost constant, but one set of footsteps raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I turned around to see Isaac coming into the room.

He looked as exhausted as I felt. Neither of us had shaved in a good forty-eight hours. The circles under my eyes were probably as dark as the ones under his.

And the smile on his face sent the pins and needles packing.

As he came closer, I realized his eyes were red, and I had to force back the flood of emotion that wanted to come to the surface. This was real. The baby was really here.

Isaac threw his arms around me and whispered, “Oh my God, Don, she’s beautiful.”

I sniffed sharply. “With her genes? What did you expect?”

He laughed. Then he broke the embrace, and we both wiped our eyes.

“I guess this is where I’m supposed to tell you it’s a girl,” he said with a grin. “But you already knew that.”

I laughed. “How’s Carmen?”

He smiled. “She’s fine.” He held up his hand and flexed it gingerly. “Damn near broke my hand, though.”

“That happens. So, they’re both okay?”

Isaac nodded. “They’re both fine. Baby’s seven pounds, eight ounces.”

“How are you doing?” I asked.

He blew out a breath. “I think I’m going to sleep for about a week.”

I chuckled. “You wish.”

Gesturing over his shoulder, he said, “I assume you want to see them?”

“Nah.” I shrugged. “I think I’ll just go get lunch. Of course I want to see them.”

Hand in hand, we left the waiting area and headed back up the hallway that was all too familiar now. We must have made a hundred laps apiece through here over the last day and a half.

Two hundred
, said my aching lower back and throbbing knee.

A couple of nurses glanced at us, eyeing our joined hands, and scowled, but I ignored them just like I ignored my knee and my back. Minor annoyances that were not, no matter how hard they tried, going to put a damper on my mood.

We reached Carmen’s room, and Isaac gestured for me to go in ahead of him.

“I’m going to get some coffee,” he said. “You want anything?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He kissed my cheek and left to go find coffee.

Heart racing and stomach fluttering with nerves, excitement and God only knew what else, I stepped through the door.

Reclining in the hospital bed, an IV in her hand and the blanket-wrapped baby in her arms, she was disheveled and sweaty, looking exhausted as all hell, and I don’t think she’d ever been quite so beautiful. I paused in the doorway just to take in the sight of her, and maybe just a little to convince myself I was really about to meet either my daughter or stepdaughter.

Carmen looked at me, and I quickly grinned to hide what a sentimental softy I was.

“Ready to go out and run a mile?” I asked as I started toward her.

She looked at me and smirked. “Sure. Just as soon as I finish strangling you with my IV line.”

I laughed and leaned down to kiss her forehead. Then I turned, and…

Oh my God, I was in love.

The baby was every bit the blotchy, scrunched, squinting newborn that looked nothing like the babies they show on television, and she was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen.

She looked up at me with that classic newborn frown, the expression that demanded to know just who the fuck I thought I was, wandering into this unfamiliar, noisy, brightly lit world that had already confused the hell out of her.

I grinned down at her. “So you’re the one who’s caused all this trouble.”

Carmen laughed. “Think that’s a sign that she’ll be a handful as she grows up?”

I chuckled. “With her genes? I don’t think we need a sign.”

“Good point,” Carmen muttered. She looked up at me. “You want to hold her?”

“I do,” I said. “But there’s one thing I want to do first.” I pulled out my cell phone and took a grainy picture. I kissed Carmen’s forehead again. “I’ll be right back.”

Phone in hand, I stepped out and went back into the waiting area where cell phone use was allowed. I sent the picture to Ryan along with a brief text:

8:02 am. 7 lb, 8 oz. Room 389. Love, Dad
.

Then I went back to the room, just in time to meet Isaac and a cup of tasteless, muddy hospital coffee that would keep me conscious for the next few hours.

On the other hand, as I carefully lifted the baby from Carmen’s arms, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be sleeping any time soon. I was beyond exhausted, but how could I sleep now?

I cradled the baby on my elbow, and even then, my heart pounded. Just like the first time I held Ryan, the weight of the world condensed itself into the seven-and-a-half-pound bundle in my arms.

“
There’s no reason we can’t be happy about this
,” I’d said to Isaac and Carmen a lifetime ago. What an understatement.

“We’re still in agreement on her name?” Isaac asked.

“I am,” Carmen said. “Don?”

I ran my fingertip across the baby’s soft cheek. “I don’t know. What do you think, Melissa?”

She just frowned at me.

Carmen laughed. “I don’t hear any objections.”

“Nope, none over here,” I said.

Isaac put his arm around my waist. “Melissa Hadley it is, then.”

“Melissa Hadley.” I smiled. “Yeah, I think it fits.” I looked at Isaac. He kissed me gently, and we let it linger for a moment.

When I shifted my gaze back to Melissa, she stared up at us with that intense newborn frown.

Isaac snorted. “Less than an hour old, and she’s already been exposed to
the gay
.”

I chuckled, adjusting her tiny weight on my arm. “Sorry, kid. It just gets weirder from here on out.”

“Are you two corrupting that baby already?” Carmen asked.

“Maybe,” we said in unison.

“Great.” She eyed us. “And by the way, in case I haven’t mentioned it already, when I find out which of the two of you did this to me, he’s a dead man.”

“Uh-oh.” I glanced at Isaac. We both laughed and turned our attention back to the little girl in my arms.

We’d know soon enough who her biological father was, but holding her like this now, it just didn’t matter. The DNA would decide whose name went on her birth certificate. It might give us a hint about whether she might have my dark hair or if her blue eyes would change to hazel like Isaac’s, but it didn’t decide who her dad would be. She had Isaac, she had me, and no test would change that.

I couldn’t pretend everything would be easy for the next eighteen years and beyond. There would be bumps in the road. Melissa’s existence wouldn’t make everything into sunshine and roses.

But we’d made it this far, and we’d landed on solid ground.

We’d do our best. We’d see this through, no matter how many bumps and curves there were in the road ahead.

It wouldn’t be perfect, but one way or the other, we were going to be okay.

All of us.

About the Author

Lauren Gallagher is an abnormal romance writer who has spent the last three years on Okinawa, but is being sent to Omaha, Nebraska for the next three. Her cover story is that she, her husband, their two cats, and their fluorescent green hedgehog are being transferred because of the Navy. Skeptics say this is actually a strategic move to get closer to her arch nemesis, M/M erotic romance author L. A. Witt.

Look for these titles by Lauren Gallagher

Now Available:

Lauren Gallagher Writing as L. A. Witt

Nine-tenths of the Law

The Distance Between Us

A.J.’s Angel

Out of Focus

The Closer You Get

Tooth & Claw

The Given & the Taken

The Healing & the Dying

Coming Soon:

Conduct Unbecoming

One three-alarm night ignites a firestorm of complications…

Erica’s Choice

© 2012 Sami Lee

High school teacher Erica Shannon isn’t a one-night stand kind of girl. Pair that with an aversion to relationships, and she’s resigned to no love life at all. Then one horrifying discovery propels her off her take-no-risks path, and into the arms of the stars of her midnight fantasies.

When his friend and fellow firefighter threatens to make a move on Erica, Corey figures he’d better get over the notion that she’s way out of his league—fast—before he has to stand in line.