His Best Friend's Baby (13 page)

“Try not to push yet,” she cautioned, when sinews stood out in Mindy’s neck and her back arched with a powerful wave of contraction.

And finally she said, “Oh, yes! I see the top of the head. Now, as you reach the top of the contraction, push! Yes, like that.
Push!
”

The effort was enormous, primal. An agonized, guttural cry came from Mindy’s throat as her body arched from the narrow bed.

She collapsed briefly, then did it again, and again, the doctor singing encouragement, Quinn gripping her hand and watching something amazing.

Finally, Mindy cried out in triumph and the doctor crowed, “Yes! Here she is!”

“She?” Quinn croaked.

“She?” Mindy whispered.

“You have a little girl.” Dr. Gibbs lifted a scrawny, red, mucus-and blood-covered creature that let out a squall and flapped arms and legs as Quinn gaped. “Let us clean her up, and she’ll be happier with her mommy.”

The nurse accepted the newborn from the doctor, who encouraged Mindy to push again. A few minutes later, the nurse brought a small, white-wrapped bundle to the bed and gently laid it—her—in the crook of Mindy’s arm. The face was red and puckered and ugly as sin—and yet Quinn might as well have been reeling from the slam of a bullet, so wrenching was the pain under his breastbone, an onslaught of love for a baby that wasn’t his but
felt
like his.

She wasn’t ugly, she was beautiful—tiny, perfect features, a miniature rosebud of a mouth, perplexed blue eyes and a fuzz of moonlight-pale hair that had a hint of red in it.

“She’s a strawberry blonde,” Mindy whispered in wonder. She looked up at him, her eyes awash in tears, her smile tremulous. “Isn’t she gorgeous, Quinn?”

“Yeah,” he heard himself say, in a voice that wasn’t his. “As pretty as her mommy.”

In his dumbfounded state, Mindy had never looked prettier. Her face glowed with joy and a love so gentle and profound, it deepened the ache in Quinn’s chest.

“Oh, sweetie, are you hungry?” As if it were natural, she started to pull the neck of the gown down and he realized she was going to feed the baby.

Quinn shot to his feet. “I’ll go make those calls.”

In a central waiting area, he had to sink to a chair and lower his head to keep it from spinning. What had happened to him? Why did he feel this powerful bond to a woman and child who weren’t his?

It was just the moment. The experience. It had to be, he thought desperately. It couldn’t be anything more lasting, more threatening to the even tenor of his life.

He couldn’t let it be.

Eventually Quinn pulled himself together enough to go to find a quiet place to use his cell phone. He’d been carrying the two numbers in his wallet for the past couple weeks.

He called Mindy’s mother first.

A man answered, asked who he was. A moment later, Mrs. Walker came on. “You’re that friend she’s been staying with?”

What woman didn’t know who her daughter lived with?

“Yes, Brendan Quinn,” he repeated. “Mrs. Walker, Mindy asked me to call you. She’s had her baby.”

He heard a squeal.

“Is it a boy? A girl?”

“A girl. She’s cute. Her hair looks...” What was it Mindy had called the color? “Strawberry blond. And her eyes are blue. I guess all babies have blue eyes, don’t they?” Actually, he had no idea. “But she looks like hers really are.”

“Oh, my.” Her mother sounded genuinely staggered.

Man, did he know the feeling.

She wrote down the name of the hospital. Quinn couldn’t tell her how long Mindy would be staying. He promised to get in touch once he knew more.

Then he called the Howies.

Nancy was wonder-struck as well. “A little girl!”

He described her again.

“Well, Dean was a redhead,” Nancy said practically. “Oh! Has Mindy named her yet?”

“No, during labor she said she hadn’t thought of a name if she was a girl yet. If the baby had been a boy, she was going to name him Dean.”

“You know, Dean’s mother’s name was Jessamine. Isn’t that pretty? Do you remember how much he talked about her?”

She was always going to come for him. He didn’t know what was holding her up, but even after his faith had eroded inside, he became enraged when anyone suggested that she might be dead or just plain not interested in returning for the kid she’d discarded. Not that anyone put it so bluntly, but Dean had known what they were saying. Quinn had envied him the ability to love and trust someone so unshakably, even if that person didn’t—or couldn’t—live up to the trust.

“Jessamine.” He sounded out the name. “I’d forgotten her name. I’ll mention it to Mindy.”

“Oh, she may want to name the baby after her own mother or grandmother. Don’t put pressure on her.”

“No. I won’t.” He shifted, resting a shoulder against the wall. “Listen, why don’t you and George plan to come over next week some day? I’ve talked Mindy into staying with me for a while, at least. Once she’s got the hang of this motherhood thing, I know she’d love to have you visit.”

They promised they would, and he made one last call, this time to Ellis Carter.

“You sound beat,” his partner sympathized. “I remember what it was like. Did I ever tell you about the time...”

“Yeah, you did,” Quinn interrupted. Carter loved to tell the story about his wife’s first labor, which had—or so Carter liked to say—gone on forever. She’d been dilated three centimeters, had a further hour of vicious labor pains only to be told she was now dilated only two centimeters. According to Carter, she’d risen from the delivery table like a Valkyrie and gone for the nurse-practitioner’s throat. He’d had to bodily hold her back.

“A girl, huh?”

“Yeah. Dean has a baby daughter.”

“Wow.” Carter cleared his throat.

“You’ll let everyone know?”

“Sure, sure.”

“I won’t be in today.”

“You must need to hit the sack.”

Quinn guessed he did. Right now he was still too wired. Too shaken. But he knew that when weariness hit, it would be hard. One minute he’d be fine, the next he’d feel as if he’d walked into a wall. That was how it worked.

He went back to the room and poked his head in warily. Mindy had restored her gown to its place, he saw with relief. He wasn’t ready yet to face the fact that she’d be nursing regularly.

“She’s asleep,” Mindy whispered.

His heart did another tumble when he saw her face, frowning in sleep. She made a snuffly sound and burrowed against her mommy’s chest.

“Isn’t she amazing?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she is.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed, his gaze captured by that funny red face.

“Did you call everyone?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Your mom sounded blown away. I think I got her up. I’m guessing she’ll be tearing in the door here any minute.”

“Really?” Mindy looked vulnerable. As if she didn’t want to hope her mother cared, but she couldn’t help herself.

“She was excited. Nancy was, too. She and George are hoping to come over to see the baby once you’re ready.”

“Oh, good.”

“Nancy had a thought for a name, too. Did Dean ever talk about his mother?”

Mindy nodded. “He thought she must be dead. He said he knew she’d have come back for him otherwise.”

“Yeah, he was always so sure she’d be showing up any day. We’d make plans, and he’d say, ‘Except, if my mom comes, I might not be here.’” Quinn shook his head, remembering. “Just a few years ago, I offered to search for her. He blew his top. Finally he admitted that he’d rather imagine her giving him up because she knew she was dying of cancer and didn’t want him to watch than find out she’d been murdered in some alley.”

“How sad!”

“He really believed in her. He wanted to keep believing.” Weird how Quinn found he could understand Dean feeling that way better now than he’d been able to when Dean was alive. “Anyway, Nancy reminded me that her name was Jessamine. She thought it was so pretty.”

“Jessamine.” Mindy looked down at her tiny daughter. Her voice had gone soft again. “Dean would love that, wouldn’t he?”

“He would, but if you don’t like the name...”

“It’s beautiful. Just like her. Jessamine.” When Mindy lifted her head, her eyes sparkled with tears. “Thank you, Quinn.”

Alarmed, he said, “Thank Nancy.”

“No, I didn’t mean for the name. Well, for that, but mostly for everything else. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“You’re strong,” he said, and meant it. “You’d have done fine.”

She gave a funny laugh. “Did that choke you?”

He grinned, a little ruefully. “Nah. It just came right out.”

Face sobering, Mindy said, “I’m not so sure I
would
have done fine. This time, I really, really needed help.”

“You know, being here for this...” He moved his shoulders, uncomfortable with expressing emotions but feeling compelled. “Today. I wouldn’t trade it.”

Gaze on her sleeping daughter, Mindy’s smile went back to glowing. “I was scared, but you were right. It was all worth it.”

The nurse popped in to say that the doctor had decided to keep Mindy overnight because of her condition, even though her blood pressure was good. Mindy was whisked to a room and the nurse took tiny Jessamine off to the nursery so that her mom could get some sleep.

Dr. Gibbs, looking in on Mindy, scrutinized Quinn. “You look like you need some, too. Go home. Come back when you can stand without swaying.”

A minute later, Quinn stood outside the entrance, wondering where he’d left the car. Across the parking lot, Mindy’s mother, trailed by some guy, hurried toward the hospital entrance. Too tired to make the effort to intercept her, Quinn turned vaguely in the direction from which he thought he’d come that morning.

His feet stopped when they found the car. He got in and drove home in a semiconscious state. He kept hearing Mindy’s guttural cry, seeing the exultation on her face, the tiny flapping arms of the being who had emerged from her body.

And Mindy’s wondering, loving smile. Had Dean’s mother looked at him like that when he’d been born?

Quinn’s thoughts took an inevitable, sideways jump. Had his
own
mother ever looked at him like that? Had she wanted a baby at all? He could close his eyes sometimes and remember being held and swung into the air and rocked. Or perhaps the fleeting images weren’t memories at all, but dreams. Childish fantasies, cooked up when he hid in the back of the closet in the dark, filthy apartment, because he’d thought he heard footsteps stop outside the door, the knob rattle.
Mommy, where are you?

But from what he remembered more clearly, she
had
tried. So maybe, when he was younger and her addiction less fierce, she’d been the loving mother from those whispered memories.

For some reason, Mindy’s surprise that he hadn’t wanted a picture of his own mother popped into his mind. Her face had become increasingly hazy in his memory. Maybe, if he actually found a photo of her when she was young and still hopeful, he’d remember more of the good times, before her addiction had become more powerful than any love she felt for him. Finding out what high school she went to wouldn’t be hard.

He drove the car into the garage at home, right next to Dean’s shiny red Camaro, turned off the engine and sat unmoving, unable to summon the will to make himself get out and go into the house.

Tomorrow morning, he’d set up the bassinet Mindy had ordered online. On the way to the hospital, he’d pick up some other things—diapers, maybe a couple of those tiny sleepers that didn’t look like they’d fit a doll. He’d ask a clerk what Jessamine would need. He didn’t think Mindy had bought much yet.

Tomorrow morning, he’d be bringing mother and child home. A month ago, he hadn’t known where Mindy was. Hadn’t known she was pregnant. Now, he couldn’t imagine not having witnessed the birth of Dean’s daughter, couldn’t imagine going back to his lonely life.

But he’d have to. He had no right to want more, to ask for more. And no reason to think Mindy would give it.

Finally, moving stiffly, feeling as if he’d had the energy zapped out of him, Quinn shut the garage door, patted the fender of Dean’s car and made it to his bedroom, where he fell face down on the bed into a sleep filled with dreams and confusion.

CHAPTER TWELVE

M
INDY
CALLED
Q
UINN
on his cell phone the next morning and said, “I haven’t bought a car seat yet! The hospital won’t let me take Jessamine without one. I hate to ask, but...”

“I just bought one,” he said. “Set up the bassinet this morning, too.”

Relief washed over her. “Oh, good! I suddenly had this image of me trying to wrench Jessamine from somebody’s arms.”

“I’d arrest ’em if they tried to stop you.”

Her heart gave one of those funny little hops that he seemed to provoke so often these days. Who’d have thought grim Det. Quinn could be so sweet?

When he picked her and Jessamine up, she discovered he’d bought the Rolls Royce of car seats, a convertible one with parts that could be added on and removed to see a baby through kindergarten and the booster-seat stage. Right now, it sat facing backward and had a simple harness to buckle Jessie in.

In the car, Mindy said, “The hospital sent me with a couple of diapers, but I suppose...”

“I took care of that, too.” He started forward with as much care as if he were transporting someone who was badly injured. “I bought a few other things, too, that I thought you might need. I asked for help.”

Who had he asked? She pictured him in the baby aisle at the grocery store, staring baffled at the rows of diapers of different brands, some for girls, some for boys, in half a dozen different sizes. He must have looked cute stopping some woman with her cart and asking her to tell him what a newborn would need.

Mindy wondered what else he’d bought. Bottles and nipples? Pacifiers? Strained peas Jessie wouldn’t need for six or eight months?

Smiling, she vowed not to tell him if he’d bought useless things. She just hoped the
diapers weren’t toddler pull-ons.

At home he let her lift Jessamine out of the car seat and then escorted them in. She stopped in the doorway to her bedroom and gaped. “Quinn!”

“Did I go overboard?”

Several downy baby blankets were draped over the side of the bassinet. A mobile with bright-colored faces and shapes and even a mirror dangled above it. On the bed were more diapers than any baby would use in weeks and a couple of bags from Nordstrom.

“You didn’t have to do this.” In a dream, she laid Jessie, still snugly bundled in a receiving blanket, down in the bassinet, gently covered her with a fuzzy pink blanket with a woolly sheep embroidered on it, and turned to the bags. “What did you buy?”

Still standing in the doorway, he said, “I just noticed you didn’t have any clothes for her yet.”

Amazed and touched, she pulled one small sleeper after another from the bag, some thin knits, others thick, warm fleece. In the second bag were tiny undershirts, a mint-green knit cap embroidered with a white-and-yellow daisy, a rattle and a quilted sack with arms and a hood that looked like it would keep Jessie warm on the way up Mount Everest.

“With the weather getting cold...”

Quinn never showed emotion, exactly, but she realized he was waiting with apprehension for her reaction.

“Oh, Quinn.” Man, she was crying again. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I mean, it’s for her, but...”

“Don’t start that again.”

Okay, she was wrong. He
did
show emotion. He looked seriously irritated.

“‘Thank you’ will do,” he growled.

She blinked away moisture and said obediently, “Thank you, Quinn.”

“Are those okay? The receipts are in the bag if you want to take anything back or get something different.”

“Everything you bought is perfect. Beautiful.” Her face wanted to crumple.

He shook his head, disappeared from the doorway and reappeared a moment later with a tissue in his hand. “Here,” he said, thrusting it at her.

She blew her nose, mopped her cheeks and smiled at him. “I think I need a nap.”

He nodded toward the bassinet. “Will she let you nap?”

“She actually hasn’t cried much yet. I think she’s too traumatized by the noisy, bright world. I did nurse right before you picked me up.”

He looked vaguely alarmed, probably at the idea of Jessie squalling, and left her to her own devices. Mindy sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at her sleeping daughter, still awed by her perfection. No, by her very existence.

She was surprised, too, by the love that was so sharp it might have been pain. It was fierce and instinctive, awakened the minute she’d seen her daughter, bloody and trailing the umbilical cord. She couldn’t imagine
not
feeling this way. It left her puzzled because she knew her own mother had never loved her so intensely. For the first time, instead of hurt she felt pity for the joy her mother had missed.

“Daddy,” she whispered, “I wish you could have seen Jessamine.”

She woke an hour later to a piercing cry. She was on her feet in an instant, lifting Jessie and cuddling her.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, Mommy’s here.” She looked up to see Quinn in the doorway and realized she’d never shut the door.

“Is everything okay?”

“I think someone is hungry,” Mindy murmured. “Or wet. Is your diaper wet, sweetheart?”

He nodded and retreated again. She wondered in gentle amusement what he would have done if she’d slept through Jessamine’s cries. Tried to change her diaper himself? Or woken Mindy?

But then it occurred to her he had yet to hold Jessie. Or even, she thought in surprise, touch her.

She knew when she nursed that Jessie wasn’t yet getting much milk, but she seemed satisfied by the act of suckling. Since she didn’t immediately fall asleep again, Mindy carried her out to the living room.

Quinn rose from his chair, the newspaper crackling in his hands. His gaze was fixed on the bundle in her arms.

“Here,” she said. “I thought you might like to hold her.”

“Hold her?” He looked...well, she couldn’t quite decide. Horrified? Unwillingly fascinated by the idea?

“She won’t break.”

“I’ve never held a baby.”

“One was born right into your hands. You kept her safe.”

“I passed her off to her mother as quick as I could.”

“Coward,” Mindy teased. “Come on. Put down the paper.”

With obvious reluctance, he did.

“Now, sit.”

He sat.

“Wow. If I’d known you’d follow orders so easily...”

He gave her a dark look.

She laughed at him and laid Jessie in his arms. His head bent, and he and the baby gazed in equal bemusement at each other.

Mindy curled one foot under her and settled on the end of the couch, a few feet from Quinn’s chair.

The very sight of him in jeans and a black T-shirt, powerful muscles flexed in his upper arms as he sat frozen holding the tiny, pink-bundled infant, was enough to give Mindy that familiar twist in her chest. Jessie wriggled one arm free of the receiving blanket and waved it, causing Quinn’s eyes to all but cross as he studied the minute hand.

“She’s so...little.”

“Not that little. She was almost eight pounds. Imagine having a five-pound preemie.”

“Can she see me?”

“I think things are pretty fuzzy. It takes a few weeks for a baby’s eyes to figure out how to focus.”

Jessamine let out a squawk. Quinn jumped. “Nothing wrong with her lungs,” he muttered.

Mindy smiled. “Nope. I’m afraid you’ll be hearing a whole lot from her in the middle of the night. Not only does she want to nurse every couple of hours, but I have a suspicion she’s nocturnal.”

“Isn’t that normal?”

“Yeah, there’s a reason new parents look haggard for the first couple of months.” She bit her lip. “Quinn, you’ve let yourself in for an awful lot. I can start looking for an apartment right away if you want.”

His head lifted and he pinned her with a glittering stare. “I said I wanted you to stay and I meant it.”

“O-kay.” She waved her hand. “Down, boy.”

He looked astounded.

“You don’t have to intimidate me. I’m just asking. And telling you. You won’t hurt my feelings if you ask me to start apartment hunting.”

“I don’t intend to kick you out!”

Jessamine opened her mouth and screamed.

Mindy laughed at his aghast expression. “You scared her.”

He said, “I didn’t mean... Oh, no. What do I do?”

“Just lift her to your shoulder.” She mimicked the action. “Support her head with your hand. Like that. Good. Then pat her back and murmur soft things to her. Or sing. She likes it when I sing.”

“She wouldn’t like my singing.” He cleared his throat. “It’s okay. You don’t have to cry.” His big hand engulfed Jessie as he awkwardly patted. “Hey, don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

As if by instinct he began to jiggle her, and his voice softened, took on a singsong rhythm Mindy had heard herself using as well.

Jessie quieted.

Mindy smiled. “I think she likes that.”

“Yeah.” He stole a glance down. “Yeah, I think she does.” His amazement was comical.

“Would you mind holding on to her while I take a shower?” Mindy stood, taking his assent for granted.

There was a hitch in the rhythm and Jessie’s head bobbed. “What if she...”

“Talk to her.”

The hot water beating down on her felt unbelievably good. Drying herself afterward, Mindy looked ruefully at her still-soft belly. She was going to have to keep wearing her maternity clothes for a few weeks, at least. How long did it take to get your figure back?

Finger-combing her wet hair, she went back to the living room to find that Quinn hadn’t moved, but Jessie had apparently fallen asleep against his shoulder.

“Afraid to twitch?”

“Won’t she wake up if you move her?”

“Haven’t you ever seen puppies and kittens and little kids sleep?” She reached for her daughter.

He let her take Jessie. “I’ve never had a puppy or kitten.”

She stopped. “You’re kidding.”

“Why would I kid?”

“Not even the Howies?”

“They had an old dog. Buster.” He looked momentarily reminiscent. “Buster was a beagle. A great dog. He died when I was a junior in high school. They never replaced him.”

“Wow. We took in a pregnant cat when I was a kid. We found homes for most of the kittens. We kept the mom and one kitten. Mom still has them. I remember the way the kittens slept in a heap. One could climb right on top of the pile and the others wouldn’t even stir.” She leaned a cheek on the pale fuzz of her daughter’s head. “I think Jessie is like that.”

Putting Jessie down for her nap, Mindy thought,
At least he had a pet.

What the Howies had done for Dean and Quinn was extraordinary. They hadn’t just given them a home. They’d given them a childhood neither had had. Even Dean, much as he’d worshipped the memory of his mother, had admitted that she’d taken him from one dump to another. They’d lived in women’s shelters some of the time. He’d remembered long days of kicking his heels while he sat on plastic chairs in government offices while she applied for food stamps and welfare and subsidized housing. As fast as he’d grown, he’d never had clothes that fit. The jeans had always been too short, his bony wrists had always stuck out below the cuffs of shirts.

“I wanted the things other kids had.” He’d looked with satisfaction around his living room, at the leather couches and crystal and wrought-iron lamps, at the ten-thousand-dollar painting that hung over the fireplace. He’d always made sure everyone knew how much he’d paid for that painting. “I haven’t done half-bad at getting them.”

Dean would hate to know she hadn’t been able to get anywhere near that much money when she’d sold the painting.

In the early days, she’d enjoyed his childish pleasure in his success and in new possessions, but had also found it a little sad. What she hadn’t realized was that he never would have been completely fulfilled. That car or boat or fancy lawn mower wasn’t an end, but...oh, more like a piece of chocolate popped in the mouth of someone who was ravenous. It tasted good, it spiked the blood sugar and brought temporary contentment—but then it was swallowed and the blood sugar plummeted and the stomach was still empty. Dean was always hungry.

Mindy wondered whether Jessie would have been like that bite of chocolate for Dean, or whether she would have satisfied a deep need in him for love. She
wanted
to think he would have been a great father.

Over the next few days, she kept thinking about Dean and about Quinn in contrast.

Why didn’t Quinn covet the newest, shiniest, most dazzling possessions? He hadn’t had it any better than Dean. Worse, in some ways.

And why had one man tried hard to be loved by everyone, while the other became a loner, skipping most human connection by choice?

Why, she wondered, had Dean, who’d known that he was loved, been so restless? Shouldn’t he have been
more
able to make long-term commitments than Quinn, who’d never had anyone make one to him until the Howies came along?

More and more she speculated on whether her marriage would have lasted. Would
she
have satisfied Dean, or would his unending hunger have caused him, sooner or later, to start dreaming about replacing his wife with a newer, more spectacular model?

She felt horribly cynical even to be thinking that way, or to be wondering whether she would have remained content in the marriage, but part of her needed to know.

And she knew why, although she wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

One night, after Jessie was asleep and she and Quinn were cleaning up the dinner dishes, Mindy said, “You didn’t have much when you were growing up, either. Why is it that you aren’t like Dean? I mean, always wanting something newer and better?”

Quinn paused with his hand on the handle of the faucet. If he was surprised at the way she’d jumped in with both feet, given the fact that they’d been talking about a scandal in the state attorney general’s office, he didn’t show it.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just never cared that much about possessions. In fact...”

He braked so suddenly she was intrigued.

“In fact what?” she prodded, when it was clear he wasn’t going to finish.

His face took on that closed look she was so familiar with. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he shrugged, turned on the water and poured soap into the sink.