First Came Baby. Kris Fletcher

approached the door leading from the secure area of the Ottawa airport to the public space. Once he stepped through that door, everything was going to change.

      God, he hoped he was ready.

      His head knew that the real change had happened months ago, when Jamie was born. Or when he and Kate had decided to get married so her grandmother—set in her ways until the end, as Kate had said—could die in peace, knowing her first great-grandchild wouldn’t be born out of wedlock.

      Though really, everything had changed when he’d opted to leave his work in Peru for a few months to do some advanced study in nonprofit leadership in Ottawa. Or, more accurately, when he’d let a classmate drag him to a Star Wars fan gathering and he’d spied Kate across the crowded convention hall. One look at the purple streaks in her Princess Leia hair and his entire world had shifted.

      Still, that had all been fun and games and some of the best times he had ever known. This, though. This was his kid. His son.

      Boone had been a lot of things in his life. Student. Builder. Foster kid. The relative that had to be taken in. But in all his life, he had never really felt like a son. And he had no idea how he was supposed to be a father.

      Think about Kate, he ordered himself yet again. You’re here to make things easier for her. That’s what matters.

      Right. As long as he came out of this having helped Kate in whatever way he could, the rest would fall into line.

      With that in mind, he hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder, braced himself and walked through the doors.

      It took him a moment to find her in the crowd. He scanned the faces in front of him, looking for the thick brown hair and the glowing smile that had first drawn him to her. Winding his way through the reunions taking place on either side, he peered, ducked and—

      There. She was over by the window, sitting on a bench tucked into an alcove.

      Heat raced through him. They had talked regularly these past months, Skyping at least once a week, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her since he left. He knew that she had cut her hair, and that the purple streaks were long gone. He had watched her jiggle little Jamie and pat his back and rock back and forth—probably without even knowing what she was doing, because if they gave out extra years for instinctive nurturing, Kate would have a lifespan stretching into the triple digits.

      But it was one thing to watch all that happen from thousands of miles away and the safety of a computer screen. It was another to know that she was in front of him, to drink in the sight of her while voices bounced off the high ceilings and people laughed and cried on either side and folks brushed past him as they headed for the baggage area.

      She hadn’t spied him yet. She was curled over—well, he assumed it was Jamie. From this angle, all he could see was a gray lump, a pack of some sort, from which dangled a miniature leg and an impossibly tiny foot, wiggling back and forth like it was waving hello to him.

      I helped make that foot.

      His mother, during the rare times he had spent with her, had assured him regularly that he wasn’t the type to have any success at making things. But as Boone stared at that tiny foot holding his attention as securely as if it were a hypnotist’s watch, he knew that in this, at least, his mother had been dead wrong.

      Kate finished fussing with the pack, gave a little pat to the front of it, and kissed the top of Jamie’s head. The foot swung faster.

      A loud wail pierced the roar of voices. Boone flinched and hurried forward. He’d heard Jamie cry over the phone many times. Intellectually, he understood when Kate laughed it off and assured him that cries were simply the way babies communicated, and that while there was always a reason, the reason was rarely the end of the world.

      But this sounded different. More demanding. Maybe it was simply because it wasn’t coming to him via satellite or whatever, but this cry went straight to Boone’s gut.

      Mierda.

      Kate stood, her arms below the pack, swaying and jiggling. She raised her head and scanned the area, her hazel eyes squinting, then widening as she spotted him.

      He wasn’t sure what kind of welcome he had expected. A hug? Maybe. A kiss? No. Kate had made things very clear when they’d last talked. Their marriage was over, exactly as they’d planned. No hard feelings. They were both adults. They both knew this had been only temporary, and now that her grandmother was dead, well... But since they weren’t planning a future together, she felt it was best if they kept things platonic while he was in town. Easier on everybody, she had said. And since the one thing Boone wanted most in this visit was to give Kate what she needed, he had agreed. He understood.

      That didn’t mean he liked it.

      Whatever reunion he might have hoped for, it was washed away by Jamie’s cries, which were becoming both stronger and more panicked. Kate hurried toward him and stopped a few inches away.

      “Hey.” Her smile was tired and strained, but he caught a hint of the glow that had first washed over him all those months ago. She raised a hand, and for a second he let himself think it was the prelude to an awkward hug, a quick brush of her lips to his cheek or mouth, but no. She simply cupped his cheek and patted it. The way she would one of the kids in the day care she would return to directing once her maternity leave ended.

      He hadn’t realized how much he’d been hoping she didn’t mean the whole platonic thing until that moment.

      “Hi.” His voice sounded rough and strained to his own ears. Probably because he hadn’t said anything more than, “Coffee, please,” to anyone since leaving Ollanta yesterday. His hand hovered near the kicking, squirming pile of frantic that was Jamie. Would it make things worse if Boone touched him? All the books he’d read about babies assured him that they needed and were soothed by touch, but there was a hell of a difference between theory and practice.

      “Sorry about the warm greeting.” Kate rolled her eyes. “We had a bad night. I think he’s cutting his first tooth.”

      A memory surfaced from when he’d lived with... Was it his aunt Carol? No, it might have been one of his foster mothers. Gayle? She had been one of the younger ones. There had been a baby. There had been teething. There had been cold canned spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and lunch.

      He had thought he couldn’t admire Kate more than he already did. He’d been wrong.

      “Let’s get your bags before he breaks everyone’s eardrums,” she said, and headed for the escalator. Boone hurried behind her, glad to be upright and stretching his legs again. Once they reached the main floor, he aimed for the baggage carousel but stopped when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

      “You get your things,” she said over the baby’s cries. “I’ll take him outside. The change of scenery might calm him down a bit. I’ll meet you right by the door.”

      Before he could answer, she zipped away. The usual airport cacophony sounded almost peaceful once the doors slid closed behind her.

      He’d spent much of his travel time assuring himself that he was ready for this. He felt like every moment of the last few months that hadn’t been devoted to work had been spent teaching himself how to be a father. He’d read everything about childcare that he could get his hands on. He’d played with the kids who came to the Project Sonqo office with their parents, perfecting his peekaboo skills. He’d even worked up the nerve to visit some websites for people who had grown up the way he had but who wanted to break that cycle with their own kids.

      It had all seemed so possible when he was in Peru. So manageable. Now, with the echo of Jamie’s cries rattling inside him, he had to work hard to convince himself this was a good idea.

      Ten minutes later, his ancient suitcase rolling crookedly behind him, Boone exited the terminal into the welcome coolness of early spring. Not that Ollanta had been hot. In the mountains, it rarely grew more than pleasantly warm. But after four flights’ worth of stale air, it felt good to breathe deep and not get a lungful of other people.

      Kate