The Black Sheep’s Baby

person?”

“Why shouldn’t I think that?” she shot back, riled and defensive. “How else would you have met my sister, much less-”

“Got her pregnant?”

Devon closed her eyes and held up a hand to stop him in case he meant to say more, which he sure as hell didn’t. As far as Eric was concerned, any conversation with this woman was a waste of time.

“Look,” she said, taking in a long draught of air through her nose-the smell of which seemed to surprise her a bit, since her eyes got watery and she blinked and gave her head a little shake to clear it before she went on. “I just thought, since we apparently got off on the wrong foot this morning-” She broke off. Eric was shaking his head.

“Oh, I don’t think so, lady,” he said softly. “I think that’s pretty much the only foot I ever want to be on with you.”

She looked at him in silence, then said just as softly, “Aren’t you forgetting something? Emily is my niece. If you are her father, we’re now family, you and I-distasteful as that may be for both of us. Like it or not, Eric, we have that little baby in common. And I’m sure we both want the same thing, which is what’s best for Emily.”

Eric made a rejecting sound and turned away. Looking at her had again become impossible; his eyes felt seared by her image.

As before, she didn’t take the hint and back off but instead pressed her advantage, coming right into the opening of his stall, invading his space. He wanted to shut her out, command her to leave, but again, an ingrained courtesy forced him to stand and listen to her voice, that poised, confident voice, so different from Susan’s, and insidiously gentle, now.

“Look, Eric, I think I understand how you feel. You must have loved Susan. As I did. I think…my sister was very lucky to have found someone like you, after such a difficult and unhappy adolescence. At least, maybe she finally found some happiness, at the end. I know losing her was hard. My God, it was hard for me, don’t you realize that? Hard for my parents-for all of us. And I know you must love your daughter very much. But Eric-” she put out a hand and touched his arm, and he felt a shiver go through him, sharp and cold as a knife. “Even you must admit that your job… Your mother says you have to travel most of the time. Don’t you think a stable home, with two loving parents, would be a far better environment for a child than what you, a single-”

He made a violent movement, shaking her hand off of his arm as if it were some particularly loathsome variety of bug, and glared at her with burning eyes. “You think you understand me? Lady, let me tell you something. You don’t understand anything. You got that? Nothing.” Breathing hard, he turned away from her again.

Lady, don’t make me do it, he silently prayed. Just go. Get the hell out of here. Don’t make me say it.

It was rejection as emphatic as anything Devon had ever experienced, a door slammed rudely in her face. But it wasn’t her way to flee in ignominious defeat. She stood in frozen silence, staring at the naked back he’d turned to her, at muscles bunched and rigid as stone.

Her eyes felt as if they’d been scorched; she kept blinking, trying to soothe their burning. His sudden withdrawal had shocked her; she’d thought-she’d been certain-she was saying the right things. Getting through to him. She’d sensed his pain and grief-surely she’d been right about that much.

Part of her shock was anger at herself, because once again she’d let Eric Lanagan take her by surprise. Once again she’d misjudged him. I can’t read him, she thought, fighting an unfamiliar sense of failure. He’s right-I don’t understand him.

“Look-” he flung out an arm and she stiffened, composing herself to face him. But he kept his back to her as he went on, in a voice that had gone low and guttural, “I might as well tell you-you’re going to find out anyway, soon enough. I’m not the baby’s-Emily’s-father.”

Again, it wasn’t what she’d expected-the admission, not the fact. Inwardly in turmoil, outwardly calm, she nodded, though he couldn’t see it, but didn’t say a word. After a moment he rounded on her, fierce and defiant.

“I was working on a piece-a photo essay-for the L.A. Times. About teenaged runaways. That’s where I met her- Susan. I didn’t know her last name-didn’t know any of their names. It took me months, living with them on the streets of L.A., but I finally won their trust-some of ’em, anyway. Susan was one. She seemed…special to me, right from the first. There was something about her, you know?” He stopped and looked away, and Devon felt an ache, the beginnings of a lump in her throat.

A tiny movement from Eric tugged at her attention; she let her eyes follow the ripple of his throat when he swallowed. But then, without permission, somehow her eyes just continued on down, slaloming over the planes of a chest still shiny with sweat. Irrelevantly, she thought, He lied. He is cold. She could see his nipples had gone boldly erect, hard and sharp as buttons.

There was something in the silence. She jerked her gaze upward and found his eyes on her. And the darkness in them seemed more anguished, now, than angry.

In mounting suspense she waited, and after a moment he went on, in a voice so raw and sharp she thought it must hurt his throat to talk. “We got to be friends. Friends-” he interrupted himself with a sharp angry gesture “-not lovers-we were never that. She trusted me. Told me her story. She told me-” he clenched his teeth hard; she could see the muscles work in his jaws “-she’d been abused-sexually. By her father. Your father. For years. Until she finally got strong enough, desperate enough, and decided to take her chances on the streets.” He stopped, breathing hard, waiting for her reaction.

She didn’t give him one. Couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. She’d gone cold, hollow. The truth was, she felt nothing, nothing at all.

“Go on,” she finally said, without expression.

He did, wearing a tight, off-center smile, and if her lack of response surprised him, he didn’t let it show. “She survived, the way so many of them do-working as a prostitute, panhandling, a little shoplifting. Got into, then out of drugs.”

He let out a breath, picked up the shovel, then stood it on end again, flexing his grip on the handle. Releasing tension. “When I met her she was clean-and pregnant. Didn’t know who the father was, though. I took care of her, or tried to. Saw to it she had food, vitamins, things like that. I just about had her talked into moving into a shelter. I’d made all the arrangements. I went to pick her up and that’s when I found her-she was in labor, bleeding. Barely conscious. I drove her to the hospital, got her there in time to save the baby.”

Silent now, he watched himself twirl the shovel, around and around in the straw. Then he looked up at Devon from under the lock of hair that had fallen across one eye, his face suddenly younger, more vulnerable than she’d ever seen it.

She didn’t want to see that. She hated him. Hated him.

He went on, inexorably. “That’s all she could think about, you know? Her baby. Was her baby okay, and please save her baby. She held on to my hand and asked me-begged me-to keep her little one safe. Don’t let them get her-that’s what she said to me. Please-don’t let them get her. She told them I was the father, and they let me hold her, just for a minute. I stood there and held that little girl and watched them try to save her mother’s life. They kept pouring blood into her, everybody yelling back and forth and shocking her with those paddles. But it didn’t…it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.” His clenched jaws relaxed, and his voice trailed away on an exhausted breath.

Through the shimmering haze of her anger, Devon saw him draw a hand across his face, then straighten up and turn toward her, silently waiting. Waiting, she realized, expecting her to say something. She became aware that she was shaking-a tight inner tremor that wouldn’t even show on the outside. To him she knew she appeared cool and unruffled, calm and unmoved. Oh, but the trembling, deep, deep inside.

She couldn’t remember ever being so angry. She wanted nothing more than to flee, to simply walk-no, run-away and leave him there. Leave him with his vicious and unconscionable lies.

“She lied.” She heard herself say it in a calm, cold voice. “Susan always was a little liar.”

It was her exit line, and she did walk then, not run-that would have been undignified-away from him, with her spine rigid and her chin high. She got as far as the door, pulled back the latch