Drive-By Daddy: Drive-By Daddy / Calamity Jo. Patricia Knoll

his wallet with her long, fine fingers. “No, Tom. It’s a very nice thing you want to do. But no. You’ve done enough.”

      She was right. He knew she was. At least from her point of view. But from his, knowing that he already loved Darcy, Tom wanted nothing more than to claim this baby as his own. Because if he had anything to say about it, Montana Skye would be his. “Let me, Darcy. I want to.”

      She pulled her hand back, looking earnestly into his eyes. “I know you do. And you’re a very sweet man. But you can’t do this. You’re not her father. And besides, there are about a million reasons—most of them legal—why I can’t allow you to do this. God knows, I won’t make any child support demands on you. But you just can’t. Don’t you see?”

      He did, but that sense of urgency still had Tom in its grip. “The only thing I see right now is your face, Darcy. And it clearly says this is eating at you. Let me help. Please. I promise you I’m thinking clearly.” She didn’t look convinced. Tom continued. “Look, you can tell Montana whatever you want, and I’ll abide by it. In fact, I’ll swear to you right now that I won’t ever make any claims on her, legal or otherwise. Or on you, either.” None that you won’t want me to, he added to himself, all the while holding Darcy’s gaze.

      She still didn’t budge. Tom firmed his lips together, eyed the waiting nurse—who now looked thoroughly bewildered—and turned back to Darcy. “Please. Let me. For Montana Skye’s sake.”

      “Her sake? Do you hear yourself?” Before he could answer, Darcy turned to the nurse and raised an index finger, mouthing just a minute. The nurse nodded and smiled.

      Darcy waved her thanks and then turned to Tom. “I want you to think of fifteen years from now, when she’s a troubled teenager and she comes looking for you. What will you say to her? How upset do you think she’s going to be with both of us when she discovers that you’re not her father? Or what if she’s sick and needs your blood or a kidney and hunts you down? What then?”

      Tom’s frown matched his disbelief. “Where did you come up with that stuff?”

      Darcy scrubbed her hands over her face. “From life, Tom. These things happen all the time. I’m just trying to be realistic.”

      “Realistic? Sounds more like one of those soap operas. There’re good things that could happen, too, you know.”

      Darcy planted her hands on her hips. “Like what?”

      Tom cast around…he couldn’t reveal too much about his hopes for Darcy and her daughter right now…and then he had it. “Well, like she can come spend summers with me up at my ranch, when she’s old enough.”

      “Oh, really? And what will you tell her about why we’re—you and I—not together? She’ll want to know.”

      But they would be together, he knew that. Still, in this conversation, he was losing and had to think fast. “I’ll tell her it’s because her mama is the most stubborn and argumentative woman I ever met.”

      He was proud that he could think fast in this situation…but not well, apparently.

      Darcy’s expression soured. “Oh, thanks. Now it’s all my fault. So there she is, a troubled teen, and you’re going to belittle her mother to her. That will be helpful.”

      Frustration ate at Tom. He wanted nothing more than to tell her his true feelings, but he knew that would send her scurrying off down the hall…or would, if she could scurry at this moment. “Me? You’re the one who had her for fifteen years and made her a troubled teen.”

      Darcy’s mouth dropped and she poked a finger at his chest. “I did no such thing. Do you even know how hard it is to be a single mother and have to deal with a teenaged girl who—”

      “Darcy.”

      “Don’t you Darcy me. I am not through here—”

      Tom grabbed her fingers, held on to them. “Darcy, look at me.”

      She turned. “What?”

      “Why are we fighting?”

      She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

      Amused now—especially since a skinny elderly gentleman had just shuffled by as fast as he could while holding his hospital gown closed with one hand and towing his IV stand along with the other…all while eyeing them as if he expected their argument to escalate momentarily into a duel with pistols…Tom said, “Montana is a tiny baby in a newborn nursery who needs a name and that’s all. It’s what I’m offering. Say no, if you want. But I’m still going to set up a trust fund for her because I’d decided earlier today to do that. Somehow, I feel responsible for her.”

      “A trust fund? I don’t know what to say.”

      “Then say yes. After all, think about it—I did help you bring her into the world, didn’t I? Doesn’t that make her even a little bit mine?” And you, too? You’re mine.

      Darcy’s gaze never wavered from his. But finally she exhaled and nodded. “All right. I think it’s wrong. It’s against everything I believe in—or thought I believed in. And I hope you don’t live to regret this someday, but—” She gestured in a dramatic be-my-guest manner toward the waiting, smiling nurse. “Go ahead. Make her day.”

      An unexpected thrill raced through Tom. He’d won the moment. It was a small step, but a first step. “Thank you, Darcy.” Quickly, before she could change her mind, he pulled his driver’s license from his wallet and held it against the glass, at the nurse’s eye level, so she could copy his name onto the form in front of her.

      When the nurse signaled she was done, Tom stuffed his license into his wallet and repocketed it as he, along with Darcy, watched the nurse pantomime that she was going to change the baby’s diaper. Darcy waved at her and nodded…and turned away from the window, walking slowly, stiffly back down the hall toward her room.

      Tom wondered if she’d forgotten he was here. He didn’t know what to do, what to say in the face of her silence. Suddenly his act of kindness seemed like just what it was—a rash one made on emotion. He never did things like this. Usually he was plodding and methodical, so slow to make a decision that he drew groans from his ranch hands and his family. Well, that certainly wasn’t his problem in this instance, was it? No, he’d made up his mind and had acted on it immediately. Because he was in love.

      As Tom kept pace with Darcy, but respected her silence, he decided that maybe that’s what being in love did to a man. Made him decisive. And made him do silly things. Like buy a big bunch of pink roses and a beautiful baby spray and then drive an hour to hand-deliver them…only to give a stranger’s child his name at the end of the trip. Tom looked over at Darcy, noting things now like her height, the shape of her nose, her general shapelessness under the hospital’s gown and robe. Yep. She was a stranger to him, and him to her.

      He didn’t know any of the things about her a man would normally know about a woman whose child bore his name. Things like…what it felt like to hold her, what it took to make her laugh, to make her smile. Or cry. Or to make her mad. He didn’t even know her favorite flavor of ice cream. Or her favorite TV show or book. Where she’d gone to school? How would she raise Montana Skye? Where would she raise the little girl?

      No, he didn’t have any of those answers. But he did know that he had the rest of his life…and Darcy’s…to find them out.

      BACK IN HER room, having climbed slowly, sorely back into her bed—again with Tom’s help—Darcy sat with her bottom half covered with a light blanket, her hands folded in her lap, and stared at the man who’d just…well, fathered her child, in essence. Looking away from him to the end of her bed where his white Stetson still rested, Darcy exhaled sharply.

      The sound made him glance at her. “You okay?”

      She nodded haltingly. She’d come to the decision as she’d walked back to her room that she needed to give him a way out. “Look, if you’ve already thought