“Are you excited?” Montana asked. “I would be terrified. The dogs take the best of my maternal skills. I’m not sure I could manage more.”
“I am terrified,” Dakota admitted. “What if I screw up? What if she doesn’t like me? What if she wants to go back to Kazakhstan?”
“The good news is, she can’t talk,” Nevada told her. “So asking to leave is out of the question.”
“Small comfort,” Dakota muttered.
Her mother joined her on the sofa and put her arm around her. “You’re going to do just fine. It’s going to be difficult at first, but you’ll get the hang of it. Your daughter is going to love you and you’re going to love her.”
“You can’t know that,” Dakota told her, fighting panic.
“Of course I can,” her mother said. “I guarantee it. And the best part of all is I finally get a granddaughter.”
Nevada smiled. “Because it’s all about you?”
“Of course.” Denise laughed. “Not that I don’t love my grandsons, but I’m dying to buy something pink and frilly. Please don’t turn my only granddaughter into a tomboy, I beg you.”
“I’ll do my best,” Dakota promised.
She looked around her crowded living room. Most of the women had brought food for the impromptu gathering. A few had brought casserole dishes that she could use later in the week. That was the way of life here. Everyone took care of their own.
A very pregnant Pia and her husband, Raoul, Dakota’s boss, moved toward her.
“So typical,” Pia said hugging her as tightly as her huge belly would allow. “Jumping to the front of the line. Here I am nearly two months away from giving birth and you’re getting a baby first.”
“Congratulations,” Raoul said, kissing her cheek, while managing to keep his arm around Pia. “How you holding up?”
“I’m in a panic. I need to go shopping,” she said. “I need diapers and a bed and a changing table.” She knew there was more, but she couldn’t think of what. One of those baby books would help, she thought. Didn’t they have lists of what you needed? “Are there baby things that you don’t need when the kid is six months old?” she asked.
“Not to worry,” her mother told her. “I’ll go shopping with you. I’ll make sure you have everything you need for the flight home. You’re going to give me your house key. By the time you get home tomorrow, everything will be waiting.”
If anyone else had told her that, she wouldn’t have believed her. But this was her mother. Denise knew how to get things done. You couldn’t have six kids and not be an expert at management.
“Thank you,” she whispered, then hugged her mother. “I couldn’t get through this without you.”
Emotions threatened to overwhelm her. None of this felt real, yet she knew it was happening. She was going to have a baby. A child of her own. Despite her broken body, she was getting her own family.
As she looked around the room, at all the friends and family who had dropped everything to stop by and wish her the best, Dakota realized she was wrong. She wasn’t getting her own family. Her family had always existed. What she was getting instead was a wonderful, unexpected blessing.
DAKOTA HAD NEVER BEEN in a small plane before. But even flying in something roughly the size of a tin can was nothing when compared with the reality of becoming the mother of a six-month-old child she’d never met.
As Finn flew them southwest toward Los Angeles, she frantically flipped through the book she’d bought the previous day. The authors of What to Expect the First Year deserved some kind of award. And perhaps a house on the beach to go with that. Thanks to them, she at least had a place to start.
“Diapers,” she muttered.
“You okay?” Finn asked.
“No. Yesterday Pia went on and on about different kinds of diapers. I thought she was silly. I mocked her. But what do I know about diapers? I can’t remember the last time I diapered a baby. Any babysitting I did in high school was with older kids.”
She looked at him, trying to breathe through her panic. “This is crazy. What are those people doing, leaving me alone with a child? Shouldn’t they have investigated me more? There were only two home visits. Should I have to take some kind of practical evaluation? I don’t know what formula to give her or if she’s had shots. Kids get shots, don’t they? Shots are a big deal.”
“Calm down,” Finn said soothingly. “Diapers aren’t that hard. I changed them when my brothers were babies. The disposable kind make it really easy.”
“Sure. They were easy twenty years ago. Things could be different now.”
He turned his attention back to the view out the front window. One corner of his mouth turned up. “You think they’ve made it more difficult to diaper a baby in the past twenty years? That doesn’t make for a very good marketing plan.”