going, and if Dad and Ms. Callahan got married… Wow. He and Cait would be like brother and sister. And how weird would that be?
But this…was she serious?
“You heard me,” Cait said.
“Come on, hurry up, I’m cold.”
“Wimp.” She wore a parka—pink, of course, and it had a faux-fur-lined hood, really girlie but he had to admit he liked the way it framed her face.
“I don’t feel any need to show I’m manly by freezing to death.” She trotted off down the sidewalk, a bright spot of color on a gray day when the trees were bare of leaves, dark and skeletal. Pretty.
He followed her, catching up quickly with his longer legs. “Your mom wants to keep the baby.” He couldn’t get his head around it.
“And you feel the need to repeat me…why?” Cait shot him an annoyed look that he sensed was cover for something. He couldn’t tell what.
“How do you feel about it?” he asked slowly.
Her steps slowed. “I’m not sure yet.”
“But?”
“I think it’s a good idea.”
Okay, now he was freaking. “I thought there was no way you were keeping this baby.”
“I wouldn’t be keeping it. Mom said if we do it, we should make it official. You and me both give up our rights, the way we would if an adoption agency took the baby away. And Mom would adopt it.”
“But it would still be right there.”
She whirled. “I know!” she yelled, face red. “What do you think, I’m stupid?”
If the label fit.
She growled and stalked away again.
“Talk to me,” Trevor said, trailing her.
“I’m trying.” She said it so softly, he barely heard her.
Now he broke into a jog so that he could catch up and get in front of her. Then he walked backward so he could see her. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. It’s just… The baby would still be here.”
“That’s the point,” Cait said huffily.
He couldn’t get past the basic concept. He’d been counting on the baby vanishing from their lives. Not that he’d forget he had a kid out there somewhere, but that wouldn’t be the same. “But it…”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you talking about the baby?”
“What?”
“When you say it.”
“What am I supposed to call it?” He was yelling now. Losing it. It.
“Our baby,” she informed him, all pissy, “is a little girl or boy. Not an it.” She flounced up the steps to the dance school, although he hadn’t even realized they’d arrived. “Goodbye,” she said, yanking open the big door, and left him.
Stuck on the idea that his baby—a little girl or boy, oh, God—might stay in his life. Forever.
He stood where he was for a long time, freezing but unable to move.
* * *
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” In the act of opening containers from the local Thai restaurant, Richard gaped at his son.
“Ms. Callahan is going to adopt the baby.” Trevor looked dazed.
“Who told you that?”
“Cait. Who else?”
Shock, incredulity, anger, disbelief… Let me count the ways. “And this was Molly’s idea? Or was it Cait’s?”
He had to nail it down. Not get sucked in by some dumb teenage scheme.
“Molly’s. I mean, Ms. Callahan’s. Cait told me her mom said that’s what she wants. She asked if she could keep the baby.”
In that moment, Richard figured out what emotion was paramount. Hurt. He’d talked to Molly the day before yesterday, and she hadn’t said a word about this. Hadn’t even hinted she was thinking it. Never mind asking. “What do you think?”
Well, this was one way for her to make it plain she wasn’t envisioning a future with him. Apparently for her, “I love you” meant hot sex when their respective kids weren’t around.
Which would be pretty much never once she started all over with a baby.
He shoved back his chair and stood. “You eat. I’ll be back later.”
Trev jumped up, too, looking alarmed. “You’re going over there to see her?”
“To see her? Hell, no. I need to hear this from her. Not thirdhand.”
“Are you mad?” Trevor’s voice probably hadn’t cracked like that since he was about thirteen.
Good going. Scare your kid, why don’t you? Richard didn’t care. He grabbed his car keys and wallet from the kitchen counter and kept going into the garage.
Ten minutes later—maybe less, he’d violated some speed limits on the way here—he was ringing Molly Callahan’s doorbell.
Cait opened the door, her expression an echo of Trevor’s. “Wait,” she said urgently. “He wasn’t supposed to tell you. It’s not like we’ve made up our minds. I was just…”
Richard pushed right past her. He pitched his voice to