Having His Baby

Donna cringed as another pain sliced through her back. She gulped in air, then looked Jake square in the eye. “Yes” seemed to be the only word she could manage.

“What?” Tallie stared back and forth from her eldest brother to her pregnant friend.

Jake shoved the women aside and lifted Donna, whose damp dress clung to the backs of her legs. She slipped her arm around his neck and laid her weary head on his shoulder.

“I took a cab from the airport,” Jake said. “Somebody else will have to drive us to the hospital.” He carried Donna through the midst of curious onlookers, straight to the front door and out onto the porch.

His brothers and their wives followed, whispering among themselves as they tried to make sense of what was happening.

“We can take my minivan,” Susan said, turning to her husband. “Get the keys and bring Lowell with you. He’ll be hungry soon.”

When Hank returned to the house to retrieve the keys and his infant son, Caleb laid his hand on Jake’s shoulder, halting Jake’s progress toward the driveway.

“Mind telling us just what’s going on here?” Caleb asked. “We’re all a bit confused.”

Jake paused, turned his dark gaze on his youngest brother and grunted. “You think you’re confused! How the hell do you think I feel, showing up for Hank’s wedding and running into a woman I spent a—”

Donna cried out in pain. “Please, hurry up and get me to the hospital. I’m sure I’m in labor and this baby isn’t going to wait around while we discuss who’s confused and why.”

Caleb’s wife Sheila slid open the minivan door. Jake stepped up inside the vehicle and settled Donna on his lap. She squirmed against him in an effort to remove herself from his arms. He tightened his hold on her just enough to restrict her movements.

Lowering his head so that his words were a whispered question in her ear, he said, “How about explaining a few things to me?”

“What’s there to explain?” Tilting her chin defiantly, she glared at him as she shrugged her shoulders.

Jake stared meaningfully down at her stomach. “That baby’s definitely mine, right?”

She tried again to wiggle free of his hold, but to no avail. “The baby is mine!” she told him. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I had no idea you were Jake Bishop. If I’d known, I never would have—” She lowered her voice. “You do realize, of course, that your showing up here like this has complicated my life. I told people that I had married and gotten a quick divorce and the father of my child was out of my life.”

“Why didn’t you get in touch with me to let me know I was going to be a father?”

“How was I suppose to do that? I didn’t even know your last name.”

“You could have—”

“Excuse us,” Caleb said as he helped Sheila and Susan, who was carrying little Lowell, up into the van. “We’re ready to go now.”

Tallie raced toward the van with her husband Peyton at her side just as Hank opened the driver’s door. She stuck her head inside, peered into the back and said, “Peyt and I will follow y’all to the hospital. And before Donna has her baby, this family expects a full explanation from you.” She pointed her finger directly into Jake’s face.

Donna groaned as another pain hit her. This had to be some horrible nightmare, she thought. It wasn’t possible that she was on the verge of giving birth to Jake Bishop’s baby. The child she had carried for nine months was hers and hers alone. Not once had she ever considered the possibility that her child’s father would show up unexpectedly in her life. And it certainly hadn’t crossed her mind that the man she’d spent the weekend with in New Mexico was the brother and brother-in-law of her three closest friends.

She had heard them mention Jake Bishop, the eldest of the Bishop clan, the brother who had left town nearly eighteen years ago and hadn’t been heard from until about six years ago In all that time, nothing had lured him home. Not his grandfather’s death, not his other siblings’ marriages, not even Caleb’s nearly fatal accident. So, why now, after all this time, had he decided to show up for Hank and Susan’s wedding?

Donna felt decidedly uncomfortable cradled in Jake’s lap, but he’d made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t letting go of her. She stole a glance at his face, hoping to gage his mood. But that stony, expressionless face gave away nothing.

“J.B.—ah, I mean Jake—” She cleared her throat. “—Why did you come back to Crooked Oak?”

“Yeah, why did you come back?” Caleb asked as he turned halfway around in the front seat.

“I came back for Hank’s wedding,” Jake said.

“Why for Hank’s and not for mine or Tallie’s?” Caleb draped his arm across the seat as he focused his gaze on his eldest brother.

“Well, to be honest, I was planning on coming back to Tennessee anyway,” Jake admitted. “You see, I’ve made an offer for Old Man Henry’s quarter horse ranch and if the deal goes through, then I’m moving home to stay.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Hank slammed his hand down on the steering wheel. “Looks like, one by one, all three Bishop brothers have come home to roost.”

Donna moaned. Oh, great! Jake Bishop was moving back to Tennessee. He’d be around all the time. She didn’t think she could bear having him in the same state, let alone the same county. What if he wanted to play a role in little Louisa Christine’s life? She barely knew him but somehow she was sure this cowboy wasn’t suitable father material.

You should have thought of that before you slept with him, an inner voice chastised her.

“So, while we’re on our way to the hospital, how about one of you explaining the situation to us,” Sheila said. “It’s obvious that you two know each other and that...well, are we wrong to assume that Jake is the father of your baby?”

“I thought you told us you didn’t know the guy you spent the weekend with,” Susan said as she rocked a restless little Lowell in her arms.

“I didn’t know him!” Donna said. “All I knew was that his friends called him J.B. I had no idea he was Jake Bishop.”

Caleb chuckled, then rubbed his chin in mock seriousness. “Let me get this straight. Donna and Jake met...somewhere...nine months ago, got married, got divorced and never knew who the other one was? Sorry, folks, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

“We didn’t get married.” Donna looked pleadingly at Jake.

“Oh, so you just had sex and then went your separate ways and Donna made up the story about a marriage and a divorce,” Hank said.

“He wasn’t suppose to show up in my life,” Donna explained. “Not ever. J.B. was just a weekend fling. I had no idea I’d accidently get pregnant.”

“So you did use condoms?” Caleb barely suppressed a grin as he looked his eldest brother square in the eye.

“This conversation is getting entirely too personal,” Donna told them, then cried out when, another labor pain struck.

“How far is the damn hospital?” Jake ran a comforting hand over Donna’s stomach.

“We’ll be there any minute,” Hank said.

Donna clutched Jake’s strong hand and held on to it tightly as the pain worsened and then subsided. Her cry transformed into a whimper and then a sigh of relief.

“Is it bad, sugar?” Jake asked, sincere concern evident in his dark eyes as he stared at her face.

“You have no idea.” For a split second Donna was glad her baby’s father was with her, holding her, comforting her, trying his best to reassure her. But the moment ended quickly and reality set in. She didn’t know this man—Jake Bishop—and had no idea what his presence in her life would mean to her and her child.

“We’re here,” Hank said as he pulled the van up in front of the emergency room entrance.

Caleb jumped out, opened the back door and moved out of the way as Jake emerged with Donna in his arms. Jake stormed into the ER, past the protesting receptionist and straight toward the nearest person in a nurse’s attire.

“She’s in labor and we need help immediately,” Jake said.

“Sir, if your wife is in labor, you need to take her to the admission’s office,” the nurse explained. “After she’s admitted, they’ll take her up to her suite and her doctor will see her.”

“I’ll take her wherever she needs to go right now,” Jake said, his deep voice a vicious growl. “Somebody can fill out the papers later!”