Baby Business: Baby Steps

“The investigator C.J. hired keeps running into dead ends, apparently. As though Trish dropped off the baby, then the planet—”

“Hey,” said a reasonably good-looking suit who’d popped up out of nowhere. His gaze bounced off Dana’s breasts, then zeroed in on Mercy in her bright red spaghetti strap top and matching, flippy skirt. “Can I buy you ladies a drink?”

“Thanks,” Mercy said, “but we’re fine.”

“Hey, you know, maybe it’d speed things up if we shared a table—?”

One French-manicured hand shot up. “No. Thank you.” She faced Dana again, pointedly turning her back to the guy. “So. You were saying?”

As the poor schlep trundled off, his wounded ego trailing behind like a strip of toilet paper, Dana smiled and said, “We don’t have to hang out tonight. I mean, if something better comes along …”

“Better than you? Never happen. Besides, when have you known me to pick up a strange guy in some bar?” At Dana’s raised brow, she huffed out, “Recently?”

Dana chuckled, then sighed. “But what does it say about us that, here we are, two women in our thirties, spending our Saturday night with each other?”

“That we’re comfortable enough with who we are to do that?”

“Or bored out of our skulls.”

“Yeah, that, too … oh! I’m blinking!” Mercy said, snatching the pager off the bar, then her drink. “Although you know,” she said as the hostess signaled them over, “at least you had an option. You could have stayed home with Mr. Gorgeous, flashing your girls at him instead of me. But no … Thanks,” she said with a bright smile for the hostess as they slid into their booth. Then she leaned across the table. “You’re here. With me. Instead of there. With him.”

And Dana leaned over and said back, “And maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“One can hope.”

Dana rolled her eyes, then told her about the whole “You make me want to beat people up” speech, which didn’t exactly elicit the reaction Dana had hoped.

“Dios mio, you little idiot!” Mercy’s dark eyes glittered in the dim light from the puny little votive in the center of the table. “This is huge, like something right out of a movie, when the guy suddenly realizes he can’t live without the girl! We ‘re talking When Harry Met Sally, or As Good as It Gets.”

“Oh, this is definitely as good as it gets, all right.”

Mercy’s eyebrows collided over her cute little nose. “Not following.”

“Merce, all this is, is C.J.’s coming to terms with being responsible for another human being. Meaning Ethan. I watch him, and I can tell being with his son is opening him up to all sorts of emotions he’s never dealt with before. Never let himself deal with before. And it’s as if …” She glanced away, trying to find the words, then looked back at her friend. “You know what it’s like, when you first fall in love, how the whole world seems brighter? And suddenly you love everybody, because what you’re feeling is too overwhelming to focus on a single person? That’s all that’s going on here, trust me. Only it’s with Ethan, not me.”

After a couple of seconds of introspective frowning, Mercy said, “So you think he said all that because, what? You happened to be in the vicinity? Like the victim of a gas cloud?”

“Basically, yeah. Nothing’s going to come of this, Merce,” she said firmly when the brunette pushed out a sigh.

“Well, it sure as hell won’t as long as you go out with me, or spend the night in your own apartment.”

“But that’s what it’s going to come down to eventually, anyway. Or did you think I was going to live with C.J. until Ethan graduates from high school? It was only ever supposed to be temporary, so the last thing either of us needs is to get too used to the other’s company.”

“I see. And you’re not just saying this because you’re afraid of getting hurt?”

Dana’s eyes snapped to Mercy’s, irritatingly astute under those perfectly arched brows. “I’m saying this because I’m a realist.”

“And?”

“And … I’d be a fool to believe the man’s done a complete about-face in less than three weeks, baby or no baby. Accepting his responsibilities as a parent doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind about anything else.”

“So this is about protecting yourself.”

She snorted. “Can you blame me?”

“No,” Mercy said gently. “But people do change, honey.”

“I know they do,” Dana said. “Because I have. Or at least, I’m trying to. And it’s going to take a lot more than a single impassioned declaration for me to let my guard down—”

She clamped shut her mouth, focusing on the flickering little flame between them. And Mercy, bless her, did nothing more than reach across the table to quickly squeeze Dana’s trembling fingers.

Somehow, though—probably because of the mutual, unspoken moratorium imposed on the subject of C.J. and/or anyone’s love life—she actually enjoyed the rest of the evening. For the most part they talked business, since the move into the new space was imminent, so by the time they went their separate ways a little after nine, Dana was beginning to feel at least a little less crazed.

In fact, she even thought she might get some writing done before she went to bed, only to remember she’d left her laptop and all her notebooks at C.J.’s. She was half tempted to forget it, except it seemed a shame to blow off her muse simply because she didn’t feel like trekking all the way back to C.J.’s.

Praying he wouldn’t notice her return, Dana let herself in and started toward “her” room, only to be waylaid by Steve, plaintively meowing and head-butting her shins as though he hadn’t seen her in three years. Or been fed, more likely. Honestly. She followed the cat into the kitchen, where, as she suspected, Iams abounded in his food dish.

Which is when she heard C.J.’s voice coming in low, angry bursts through the slightly open patio door.

Chapter Nine

Dana froze, knowing she should hotfoot it out of there, and yet … she couldn’t. Not that she could really hear what C.J. was saying—or wanted to!—but simply because it was such a shock, hearing those sounds come out of that man.

The sounds of a man having his heart shredded, basically.

Then suddenly the door slid open and he was there, barely ten feet in front of her, his cell phone clamped to his ear, a hundred emotions roiling in his eyes. Not the least of which was irritation at her unexpected presence.

Blushing furiously, Dana pointed toward her room and hurried away, even more hurriedly stuffing her laptop and notebooks into a canvas tote. Although if her muse hadn’t run for the hills by now, she’d be very surprised.

Naturally, she had to peek in on the baby on her way back down the hall. In the charcoal light, she saw him lift his head, heard him burble at her.

“Hey, little guy.” She set down the tote by the door and crossed the room, fighting the urge to pick him up. Bad enough she’d come in instead of walking away, letting him get back to sleep. Still, since she was here anyway, she bent over and sniffed. Nope, nothing but baby powder and tear-free shampoo.

“‘Night-night, sugar,” she whispered, handing him back his blanket, which earned her a quavering, sleepy smile. Oh, heck, how could she not touch him? So she cupped the silky head, only to practically jerk back her hand, as though she’d been tempted to take something that didn’t belong to her.

On a sigh, she crept back out, snatching her tote bag along the way, hoping against hope to make her escape without running into C.J.

“Dana?”

So much for that.

His voice drained of its earlier fury, her name floated out from the darkness in the living room. Then, like an apparition, the man himself appeared. Wrecked was the only word for his expression. Exhaustion, and something else Dana couldn’t quite identify, slumped his shoulders, fettered his smile. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming back tonight.”

She lifted the bag. “Left my writing stuff here. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

“Sorry,” she repeated. “So … how’d it go with Ethan?”