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

rate. This just was not good timing. So, she raised an eyebrow, trying for skeptical. “You look to me like you are.”

      “And how’s that?”

      She looked him up and down. The man was perfect. “Well, you’re a little pale under your tan,” she lied.

      His gaze shifted away from her, to the roses he’d brought. Then he resettled his gaze on her. “Look, I admit that what I did back there is a big thing. Huge. But it doesn’t scare me, Darcy. I won’t run. And I won’t change my mind. I did it, and I’m glad.”

      Pricked to her very core—could this man see all the way into her frightened soul?—Darcy stuck to her guns. She couldn’t afford to like him any more than she already did. Her first priority now was her daughter. She just didn’t need to keep thinking of him as good and noble and fine. But most of all, she didn’t want to let him hurt her first. And that, regrettably, gave her only one course of action. “Fine.” The one word sat him up in his chair. She snatched up the nurse-call button.

      “What are you doing?”

      “I’m going to call the nurse.”

      Concern edged his sky-blue eyes. “You hurting somewhere?”

      “Not anywhere it shows.”

      Tom slumped back against the chair. “Then let me guess. You’re going to change the birth certificate, aren’t you?”

      Darcy shrugged, adopting a bravado that hid her pain for her child’s sake. Montana Skye was about to lose another father. “If I can. There might be a law or something that says I can’t.”

      “But you’re sure going to try, right?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, pressing wrinkles into his crisply ironed white shirt.

      Well, she’d done it now…he was angry. Still, believing she was doing the right thing, Darcy looked him up and down, trying desperately to find fault with him. “Is white the only color you wear? I mean, are you really all that good all the time?”

      His eyes narrowed. “You trying to pick a fight with me, Darcy? You think that’ll make me go away?”

      Here was the opening she needed. She stabbed a pointing finger at him. “See? That’s what I don’t get. Make you go away? Tom, we don’t have a relationship. We’re essentially strangers. I shouldn’t have to make you go away—because you shouldn’t even be here. I mean, I’m thankful and all for everything you’ve done for me.” Her heart cried out for her not to continue, but as always, she didn’t listen to it. “But your work here is done, Lone Ranger.”

      There. She’d done it…given him nowhere to go. No way to argue. A heavy silence filled the air between them. As she held his gaze, Darcy felt triumphant…and about ready to burst into tears. Why had she been so hateful? What was wrong with her?

      Tom stood up slowly. Darcy figured she was about to find out exactly what was wrong with him. “All right. You’ve made your point. I’ll go.” He walked over to the foot of her bed and snatched up his Stetson, which he carefully fitted to his head, tugging it low over his brow. Then he looked her in the eye. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

      Darcy didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She raised her chin a notch and tried to swallow past the knotted emotion in her throat. Her heart screamed for her to stop him…but she refused to open her mouth. And so, he turned and walked out of her room. And out of her life.

      He was gone. Darcy sat staring at the opened doorway to her hospital room…and listened to his every booted footfall out in the hallway until they faded. She sniffed and looked all around her at the flowers and the balloons and the cards that congratulated her and wished her well. They suddenly blurred. Darcy blinked back the tears. She’d never felt more alone.

      Just then, the air-conditioning came on, blowing cold air from the vent directly onto her. As if that were the final insult, Darcy’s chin dimpled and quivered. Releasing the nurse-call button, she slid down a bit in the bed and turned on her side, away from the door, drawing her knees up as much as her soreness would allow. Pulling her covers close around her, clutching a twist of the blanket in her hand, she put her other fisted hand to her mouth and bit down on a knuckle…so no one would hear her cry.

      5

      “WELL, HERE WE ARE, Darcy Jean, you and baby Montana home all safe and sound. Just be careful there, honey. Watch that threshold. Don’t trip. I’d hate for you to drop that two-day-old baby.”

      “Why? Don’t they bounce?”

      Everyone already in the living room, as well as those people crowding in behind Darcy, froze in place and got quiet. “Good Lord, don’t say things like that, Darcy,” her mother scolded.

      Yeah, well…she was tired. It’d been a long convoy home with the Buckeye Bridge Beauties following in their cars, all of them loaded down with the flowers and plants from Darcy’s hospital room. “Well, what did you want me to say, Mother? I have no intention of dropping my baby. I would die first.”

      “Well, thank heavens, it’s not required. I’m just nervous for you, that’s all. So don’t be testy. Just sit here. Freda, move that pillow for her, will you? Yes, that one. Good.” Then, over her shoulder, “Close that door, can you, Barb? We’ll get the flowers inside in a minute. Thanks. I know, but Darcy insisted on wearing these old maternity shorts—I just hate them—and I don’t want her to catch cold.”

      Forget the shorts. Darcy hated being talked about like she wasn’t in the room. “A cold, Mother? In Arizona? In May?”

      Her cheerfully oblivious and proud mother obviously chose to ignore Darcy’s questions in favor of overseeing her…with Montana in her arms…being lowered into the big, soft and overstuffed recliner—one Darcy stood no chance of getting out of without the able assistance of a construction-grade crane. “Thanks for helping, Barb,” Margie Alcott said. Then she straightened up and beamed at Darcy. “There, baby. All settled. Is there anything I can get—Jeanette, hand me that afghan to put over Darcy’s legs.”

      “I don’t want the afghan—”

      Jeanette Tomlinson bunched the knitted blanket around Darcy’s legs. “I just love this afghan,” the older woman said, a good-natured twinkle lighting her blue eyes. “I’ve told your mama that one day I’m just going to steal it from her.”

      “Make that day today, will you?” Darcy coupled her words with a smile, but it was forced. Mrs. Tomlinson’s eyebrows rose. And Darcy felt sorry for herself. All she wanted was to be left alone for just a bit to get to know her daughter.

      But just then, Barb Fredericks leaned over Darcy and gently tugged the baby’s blanket back. “Oh, she’s the prettiest black-haired little girl, Darcy. Now, what state did you name her after, honey? It was something with an M, wasn’t it? Missouri, maybe?”

      Darcy stared soberly at the short, dark-haired woman whose only child was Vernon, the 50-year-old editor of The Buckeye Bugle. He still lived at home with her. “No. Not Missouri,” Darcy corrected. “But close. Michigan.”

      “Darcy,” came her mother’s warning. “It’s Montana, Barb. Montana Skye. With an E.”

      Barb turned to her friend Margie. “With a knee? What’s wrong with her knee?”

      Not believing any of this, Darcy put her free hand to her forehead and rubbed. But before the ladies could get going on that tangent, a voice came from near the sofa. “Well, will you look at this. Isn’t it the cutest thing?”

      They all looked. Freda Smith—sitting on the over-stuffed leather sofa and rooting through the big bag of helpful gifts the hospital had bestowed on Darcy—was holding up a typical, ordinary, everyday four-ounce glass baby bottle for all to see. Looking grave and judgmental, she glanced Darcy’s way. “We didn’t have these when Johnny was a baby 48 years ago. All we had to use were breasts.”