From Here to Paternity Read online

  “Gracie Dellazola said she could take her. But thanks so much, Chastity, for offering.”

  “I’m glad to. My schedule’s pretty flexible, and the truth is I really enjoyed having a baby around.” Glory and her baby had stayed with Chastity for a while right after the baby was born.

  “Well, if there’s a time Gracie can’t take her, I’ll be calling.”

  “See that you do.”

  Charlene said goodbye and felt better about things—at least for a while.

  Her worrying about Sissy just wouldn’t stop, though. Really, she was glad to have Mia, happy to take care of her for as long as Sissy needed her to.

  But where was Sissy?

  And was she okay?

  She read Sissy’s note over and over, looking for clues as to how she was doing and where she might have gone. The note gave her nothing, though—not when it came to Sissy’s circumstances or her current location.

  Monday and Tuesday Charlene got used to the idea of working her schedule around Mia. Both days she picked the baby up after the lunch rush and went home for a couple of hours, then she took Mia with her back to the diner until she closed up at five.

  By Wednesday, she was feeling pretty good about the way it was working out. Mia seemed happy enough spending her mornings with Gracie and Baby Tony. Since she was such an easy baby, she was no trouble at the diner. And Gracie’s sisters-in-law had a whole lot of baby stuff between them. They loaned Charlene a playpen for the diner and one for the house, a baby seat and a baby pack that hooked on in the front. Since she never took the baby to the diner when she actually had to work the tables, it was fine. She could have Mia in the office while she did her bookkeeping, or even sitting in her little seat out in the main part of the restaurant, if necessary.

  If only she weren’t so worried about Sissy, she’d be feeling pretty good about the way things were going.

  Wednesday evening, when she and Mia got home from the diner, she did the thing she really didn’t want to do.

  She called her aunt Irma in San Diego and asked if Irma might know of a way that she could get in touch with Sissy.

  Irma Foxmire hadn’t changed. She was as self-righteous and judgmental as ever. In that tight, chilly voice of hers she said, “Well, Charlene. What can I say to you? Your uncle Larry and I haven’t seen Sissy in over a year—not since before she came to stay with you. No, she has not called. I have no idea how to reach her. And you haven’t called, either, as a matter of fact.” Irma exhaled, a hard sigh of anger and impatience. “Is there some emergency we should know about?”

  It was the moment to mention Mia. Charlene let that moment pass. As she’d told Brand, she wasn’t giving Mia up to CPS. And she was afraid if Irma knew about the baby, the first thing the woman would do was to call them and have Mia taken away.

  “Hello? Charlene? Are you still on this line?”

  “I’m here, Aunt Irma.”

  “Answer my question, then. Please.”

  “No. There’s no emergency.” Not that I know of, anyway. “I’m just trying to get hold of my sister, that’s all.”

  “She didn’t even have the courtesy to leave you a phone number where you could reach her?”

  “Aunt Irma—”

  “Never mind. You don’t need to tell me. I already know. And I must say, if she’s gone, well, just think of it as good riddance to bad stuff. I certainly do. That girl was nothing but a heartache and an ongoing trial to Larry and me. We gave her everything. And look how she turned out.”

  “Aunt Irma. I’m asking you nicely to stop running Sissy down.”

  Irma wasn’t listening. But then, she never did. “Just forget her. I’m telling you, Charlene. Forget her. It’s the only way.”

  It was too much. “No, I will not forget her. She’s my sister and I love her.” Temper, temper, Charlene thought. I am going to shut up now. But she didn’t. “And in case you don’t remember, Sissy was a sweet, funny, loving little girl before you took her away to live with you.”

  Irma gasped. “I did what was right for her, at considerable cost to myself and my marriage. Your sister has messed up her own life, thank you very much. All I ever did was to feed and clothe her and try to bring her up right—and I don’t wish to discuss this subject further.”

  “Hey. Fine by me.” The line went dead. “Bitch,” Charlene muttered to the dial tone. She hung up and glanced over at her niece, who was cooing happily at the butterfly mobile suspended above the playpen. “All right. I know what you’re thinking. I should have been more reasonable. But that woman just makes my blood boil.”

  Mia made one of those noises that sounded like a giggle.

  “Okay. I’m sorry I called her a bitch. I mean, she is one. But it’s not nice to say so. And I hope when you get old enough to talk, you’ll be a more forgiving person than your Aunt Charlene.”

  “Go-wahhhh…”

  “My sentiments, exactly.” The doorbell rang. “Terrific. What now?” She marched into her tiny foyer, flung the door wide—and found Brand waiting on the other side.

  Chapter Five

  He said, “Since Sunday, I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to come over here.” He gazed at her hopefully. He seemed so sincere and he was so tall and broad-shouldered and handsome and…capable looking.

  She could have hated him just for that alone. For looking like everything she wanted and needed in a man—when he wasn’t. “Okay. I’ll bite. Why in the world would you want to come over here?”

  He stuck his hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks and lifted one fine, hard shoulder in a shrug. “It’s not right you should have to take care of that baby on your own. Let me…help out.”

  Okay, now. That was a stunner. “Let you what?”

  “I want to help out.”

  “What did I tell you about helping? I believe it was ‘don’t.’”

  He frowned. “But you need help. You shouldn’t have to do this on your own.”

  “So you’re admitting it, then? Mia is yours.”

  “Charlene. How many times do I have to say it? I never slept with your sister, so that baby can’t be mine.”

  There was no point in arguing with him. No point in even talking with him. “Brand. Go away. Just, please, leave me alone.” She swung the door shut. But it wouldn’t go. Because his foot was in it. She glared at him through the narrow space that remained between the door and the door frame. “Move your foot.”

  “Let me in.”

  She looked down at that foot of his and then back up at him. “I ought to call the sheriff on you.”

  Brand said nothing, though one golden-brown eyebrow sort of inched toward his hairline. And his foot? It stayed right where he’d put it a few seconds ago. Stuck firmly between her door and the door frame.

  It was either start screaming at him—or let him in where she could yell at him in the privacy of her own home. “Fine,” she said between clenched teeth.

  She turned from him and marched into the living room—past the playpen and around the coffee table. Brand came in behind her and quietly shut the door as she dropped to the sofa. She could see him in her side vision, though she refused to look directly at him. Instead she focused on Mia, who continued to make those happy little baby noises and stare up at the butterfly mobile as if it was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen.

  He came and stood above Charlene. She kept her gaze on the baby.

  “You’re not even going to look at me?”

  She was not. “If you’ve got something to say, get it over with.”

  From the corner of her eye she could see his hands hanging at his sides. They tightened. And then he must have caught himself because they visibly relaxed.

  Those hands…

  Sometimes she could still remember the way they felt, touching her—and why, oh, why did she have to think about him touching her right now, when he was standing six inches away, waiting for her to give up and face him?

  “I’m sorry,” he said.
>
  Surely she’d heard wrong. She raised her head and met his waiting eyes; though, only a second before, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t. “What?”

  “I said, I’m sorry for ten years ago. I shouldn’t have walked away from you. I didn’t know what the hell else to do. I was twenty years old and incapable of being the kind of man that you needed then. I knew I’d make one lousy husband. I was certain it would be a disaster—not only the marriage part but also trying to be an instant dad to a nine-year-old kid. I couldn’t deal. So I broke it off.”

  She stared up at him. “You couldn’t deal…”

  “That’s right. I was a coward and I ran. I left you to fight for your sister on your own.”

  “And now you want, what? My forgiveness? For me to tell you it’s okay and I’m over it? Well, Brand, I know I should be over it. I should be…a bigger person than I am. But I’m not a bigger person and I’m not over it.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  “I don’t even want to talk about it.”

  “Fine.”

  She wanted to…oh, she didn’t know what she wanted to do. But it included violence. And even blood. “Fine?” she demanded.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, Brand. It’s not fine. It’s not fine at all.”

  He kept his mouth shut, probably because he knew that whatever he said at that moment would only cause her to start shrieking. He stared down at her, waiting—for what, she had no idea.

  The awful question, the one she couldn’t stop asking herself—and him—rose in her mind again, Had he slept with Sissy?

  Did she actually believe he could do such a low, rotten thing? Beyond not being the kind of man she could count on, was he also a liar and a cheat, a guy who’d have sex with her own little sister and then deny that her sister’s baby might be his…?

  Her stomach was clenched so tight, she feared she might be sick. With a soft cry of misery and frustration, she put her head in her hands.

  “Damn it, Charlene…”

  She heard his voice above her, sounding every bit as miserable and frustrated as she was—and right then, she knew.

  She was certain. He couldn’t have done it, couldn’t have slept with Sissy. He just…well, he wouldn’t, that was all.

  So while she would continue to judge him and find him guilty when it came to what had happened ten years ago, she had a gut-deep, undeniable surety that he was innocent of seducing Sissy. No matter how hard and loud she insisted otherwise, she believed him when he said he hadn’t laid a hand on her sister.

  Which meant either she was ten kinds of hopeless, gullible fool when it came to him—or Sissy had lied outright about something really important. Lied with breathtaking cruelty, choosing to accuse the one man she knew Charlene couldn’t bear to deal with, the only man Charlene had ever loved….

  It was all just too ugly.

  Too sad.

  Too wrong.

  And Charlene was tired. She was bone-deep weary of being furious at Brand, of denying her real and growing anger at her sister.

  She lowered her hands and folded them in her lap and drew her shoulders back. “All right,” she said. “I’ve heard your apology. Are you finished?”

  “No.”

  “What else?”

  “I just want to help, that’s all. Maybe make up a little for what I didn’t do back then.”

  Surely this wasn’t really happening. Brand in her house, saying he was sorry, telling her he wanted to make up for the past. “You want to help…”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Never been more serious in my life.”

  He wanted to help….

  Incredible.

  As she cast about for an appropriate response to that one, she glanced Mia’s way and saw that her niece had fallen asleep. Charlene shook her head. “Look at that.”

  Brand asked cautiously, “You mean the baby?”

  “Yes. I mean the baby.”

  “She’s…sleeping,” he said, as hesitant as a bad student suddenly called upon to answer a question in class. “Right?”

  “Yes. She’s sleeping. All this drama, all this suffering. All this mess…and she just goes sweetly to sleep. I’m telling you, that baby has got life figured out.”

  Brand stood there above her, looking like he didn’t know what to do with himself. “Charlene…”

  Charlene put a finger to her lips. She went to the playpen and gathered the little angel into her arms. Mia sighed and snuggled in against her shoulder the way she always did, so trustingly. Charlene carried her—through the kitchen and into the spare bedroom. She put her in her crib, switched on the baby monitor and shut the bedroom door on her way out.

  Back in the living room, Brand was just sitting there in the wing chair, waiting for her. Charlene went on into her own room and got the receiver for the baby monitor. She turned it on, took it back in the living room with her and reclaimed her seat on the sofa.

  The pictures of her family in happier times taunted her from the wall across the room. She looked at Brand instead and asked, “You mean it? You want to help?”

  “Any way I can.”

  “Then don’t tell anyone about Sissy leaving Mia on my sofa.”

  “Charlene. I get the message. Nobody’s hearing anything from me, I swear to you.”

  “All right, then.” She scooted away from him to the far end of the sofa and leaned on the armrest. “I just talked to my aunt Irma.” Now, why had she said that? He didn’t need to know that….

  “Irma,” he repeated. Of course, he knew all about Irma. When Irma sued to get custody of Sissy, Brand was the first one Charlene had run to. She always told him everything in those days. He was her rock and her sounding board. She’d loved him more than anything or anyone else in the world—even her parents, even her little sister. Or she had until he dumped her flat when she asked him to marry her and help her fight to keep Sissy in town where she belonged….

  But wait.

  That was bitterness talking. And she really needed to get beyond the bitterness.

  He asked, “Your aunt give you a hard time?”

  “She always does. And I let my mouth get away from me and said a couple of things I maybe shouldn’t have. But I didn’t tell her about Mia. And she didn’t mention the baby. I’d bet money she doesn’t even know that Sissy was pregnant. I want to keep it that way.”

  He swore under his breath. “Charlene. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to tell her. I don’t even know the woman. I wouldn’t recognize her if I passed her on the street.”

  “If she were ever to contact you—”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Pure mean-spiritedness, maybe. Because someone might tell her about the baby and she knows your name, knows that you and I were together once. I don’t know. I never know why that woman does the things she does. But if she did get in touch with you, I would expect you to find a way not to talk to her—that is, if you want to help me so much.”

  “I do want to help you. And, okay. If your aunt Irma ever calls me, I’ll be too busy to talk.”

  “Good.”

  “And, come on. She can’t be that bad—can she?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Help me to understand.”

  Was this an actual conversation they were having? She should put a stop to it right now.

  She didn’t want him getting the idea that they were suddenly best pals or anything—but then she heard herself say, “You saw how Sissy was last year….” She waited for him to make some hurtful remark about her sister, but all he did was nod. So Charlene went on, “I know she had…issues to deal with, even before Aunt Irma took her away. I mean, our parents just…vanishing from her life like that, going over the cliff that night and never coming home again, that was hard on her. Real hard. The time she did stay with me after they were gone, she was too quiet, you know? And sad.”

  “That’s o
nly natural, though, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose. And I realize that Sissy probably would have had some problems as a teenager, anyway. But Irma’s so controlling and she’s always criticizing—and giving orders. Sometimes I think that woman lives for the chance to boss people around. And what do you know? Sissy’s turned out hurt and bitter and totally resistant to any kind of authority.”

  “No kidding,” he said, with a wry twist to his mouth. She gave him a scowl, just to make sure he didn’t forget that she wasn’t going to take him running Sissy down. He added, “I’m a little unclear as to why you called your aunt, if you knew all you’d get for your trouble was a bad time.”

  Resentment flared. She tamped it down. He’d said he would help her. And she was starting to think of another way he could do that—beyond keeping quiet about Mia and Sissy.

  She said, “I told you that Sissy left me no clue how to reach her. I don’t even know where to start looking for her.”

  “So you thought your aunt might give you a number?”

  “I hoped. But I guess I should have known better. Last year she and Sissy had their…final blowup, I guess you could say. She found out Sissy hadn’t been to class in over two months, that Sissy had even gone so far as to intercept letters and calls from the school to keep Irma from finding out. Irma got so mad, she ransacked Sissy’s room looking for drugs.”

  “Did she find any?”

  “On a need-to-know basis, you don’t. The upshot was that Irma kicked her out and told her never to come back.”

  “And your sister came to live with you. But that didn’t work out, either, right?”

  “She didn’t even finish high school. It’s just so damn…sad. Even I managed to get through my senior year.”

  “You were valedictorian, too,” he said. He sounded almost proud.

  She’d been tops in her class. A small class, admittedly. In the Flat, a graduating class of fifteen or twenty was the norm. But she’d had a 4.0 and she’d been offered a free ride to both Cal State Sacramento and U.C. Davis.

  He must have known what she was thinking. “You turned down your scholarships.”