Daddy in the Making

chapter Twelve

Conn had been just outside St. Valentine, looking at a nearby ranch’s cattle stock for sale, when he got the call from Margery Wilmore.

He dropped everything and was at the county hospital in record time, rushing into the waiting room and to the reception desk.

“Rita Niles?” he asked the nurse on duty. Around him, it seemed as if nothing else existed. There were just drab colors, dull walls and empty chairs, all stirred together and slipping down the edges of his perception.

The nurse asked, “Are you family?”

Yes, he wanted to yell.

Someone gently touched his arm, then led him away from the desk.

Kim, Rita’s tomboy sister. She had her hat in her other hand, her gray-green eyes red-rimmed.

“How is she?” His question sounded like one slurred word.

“Rita’s with the doctor right now. They’re giving her an ultrasound.”

The answer wasn’t nearly enough. “Margery, the woman who called me, said Rita had fallen and she was holding her stomach afterward.”

“Right. She got dizzy at the hotel and lost her balance. She wasn’t in any pain, though. But she came right to the hospital, just in case.”

Oh, God. Just in case.

Conn would never forgive himself for not being here if something went wrong. It was stupid to think he could’ve stopped this from happening, but he felt responsible anyway.

Maybe that was what all dads felt like.

Kim led him to the waiting area, but he stayed standing. Belatedly, he realized that Nick, Rita’s brother, was also there, his own hat in hand as he stood by a magazine rack.

“Can you tell me about this dizziness?” Conn asked.

Nick wiped a hand over his mouth and trimmed beard. “Margery said that Rita was running all over the hotel, working, hardly taking time to rest properly. Rita thinks rules of nature don’t apply to her or something. She’s got to learn that she can’t say no to what her body needs.”

Did she only want to show everyone that she’d be all right on her own? Conn thought.

He came to a plastic chair, starting to take off his hat until he remembered that he had left it in the truck in his haste to get inside.

Slowly, he became more aware of his surroundings. The sterile waiting room with its snack machines, the drab tile floor, the soothing pastel walls and the smell of strong cleaning products.

A hospital. And Rita was somewhere in here with their baby.

“I tried to get her to rest,” Conn said. “But she’s as stubborn as they come, and she’s always so damned determined to do everything her way.”

“From what I surmise,” Nick said, “she could’ve been working off some demons that were riding her.”

“Nick,” Kim said. “Don’t blame Conn for this. We know how Rita can be.”

Conn stayed still. Kim was defending him?

She looked at him. “I’m not blind, and my hearing’s pretty top-notch, too. I noticed how good you were for Rita and Kristy. Even Nick, here, has commented that Kristy is entirely devoted to you. And as for Rita? I haven’t seen her this happy since Kristy was born.”

What was she saying? That Conn was all right in their book?

Nick grunted, and—what do you know—it sounded a little like approval.

But Conn couldn’t be sure, because the man restlessly moved toward a coffee machine.

At the mention of Kristy, Conn’s thoughts revolved to her. Where was she in all this?

“Is Kristy okay?” he asked.

“She’s still at school. Margery’s going to pick her up when it lets out. It didn’t make sense to scare her with the news about this.”

“That’s good,” Conn said, and Kim slid an understanding glance at him, as if she could truly see that he wasn’t some demented Lothario who’d come into town just to cause trouble with her sister.

Then she turned her attention to Nick as he took out his wallet to pay for a cup of coffee. Both siblings looked tired, as if merely waiting for news about their sister had exacted a toll.

Kim looked at Conn again, but she hesitated before she spoke. “You should know that you were the second call Rita wanted to make. The doctor was the first.” She smiled wanly. “She asked Margery to contact you before even me or Nick.”

The comment took a moment to soak in to Conn, giving Kim enough time to shrug.

“She trusts you that much,” she said. “She wanted you here more than anyone else.”

With a cosmic-size flash, everything came together for Conn then.

He saw life as it had been ever since he had made his way back to St. Valentine as a virtual stranger and been turned away by Rita at her hotel when he’d tried to give her necklace back to her.

He saw her baby bump as she rounded the reception desk that day. Saw her across the candlelit table at the fish shack, just after he had kissed her. Saw her giving him permission to touch her baby bump for the first time on Heartbreak Hill.

Then, most painfully of all, he saw her in bed the other day, looking up at him with such love in her eyes that he hadn’t been able to fathom it.

Until now.

This memory flash had done it for him, made him feel completed. None of it enlightened him any more about his past, but it was the present that made him confident in knowing exactly who he was—the father of Rita’s and his child. A man who could, beyond all doubts, handle being an instant dad to Kristy.

A man who loved Rita and couldn’t live another day without her.

A door opened, and a middle-aged woman with her hair fixed into a bun came out, her doctor’s coat flying open to reveal a set of pink scrubs.

“Dr. Ambrose?” Kim asked, taking Conn by the arm as they went to her.

Nick left his Styrofoam cup in the vending machine, where coffee splashed as it was poured.

The doctor was smiling. “Good news. Rita and the baby are just fine.”

With a whoop, Nick wrapped Kim in a bear hug, and as Conn stood there, his knees just about giving out, they pulled him into their circle, too.

Emotion clogged Conn’s throat as Nick patted him on the back and Kim squeezed his hand.

They were fine. Thank God.

Dr. Ambrose tucked her hands into her coat pockets, giving Conn a curious glance once the group hug had ended. It was as if she was wondering just who he was.

For the first time since he could really remember, he felt free in announcing his news to the world.

“I’m the father,” he said, his voice cracking.

The doctor nodded, reaching out to touch his arm. “Well, you’ve got a baby who’s healthy and doing very well, Dad. It’s the mother who concerns me. She’ll need to get some better rest and nutrition from now on.”

Kim spoke up. “Conn will see to that.”

He sent her a speechless glance. How quickly things changed.

Even Nick was smiling, but it was hidden pretty well by the shadow of his beard.

Dr. Ambrose gestured toward the doors. “You can see her now. She asked for the father specifically.”

Rita had known Conn would be here?

From the way Nick and Kim looked at him, Conn guessed that perhaps Rita had only hoped that he would always be her man, even after all the ups and downs.

He was happy not to disappoint her.

He went with the doctor through the door and to a room off the hallway. When he saw Rita, she was reclining on an exam table, her white uniform blouse and dark skirt unbuttoned to reveal her rounded belly, which shone with what looked to be a gel smoothed over her skin.

But it was her eyes that Conn came to focus on—the glimmer in them as he entered the room.

“You came back,” she whispered.

When he rushed to her, taking her tenderly in his arms, he whispered right back.

“Did you ever expect anything else?”

* * *

Even though Rita had worried that maybe she had blown it for good with Conn and he might not come back to her, deep in her soul, she had known he would be here.

Seeing him again sent her into a whirl of teary joy. She couldn’t let go of him as they embraced, even when he pulled back far enough to brush the hair from her face and take a good look at her.

“Did you really have to put yourself in a hospital just to get me back here?” he asked.

Rita laughed anxiously. It was so much better than crying. His return was like a dream, an assurance that they would be able to work through anything that came their way.

Real men never left for good, and Conn had proven that he was as real as they came, no matter who he was. How could she have ever doubted that?

He wiped a stray tear from her face. “The doctor told us that everything is okay.”

“It is. I’m just feeling...” She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, these hormones, you know? They make me so weepy.”

They smiled at each other, knowing it was more than just pregnancy wreaking havoc on her emotions.

He looked toward the entrance to the room, but Dr. Ambrose had left them alone, although the door remained cracked open.

Still holding Rita’s hand, he took a seat by the side of the table. “You gave everyone a scare.”

“It won’t happen again. I promise.” Yeah, look who was making the promises now. But she meant it.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he said.

His meaning was obvious—he was going to pamper her—and instead of resisting him, she welcomed the very idea.

Linking her fingers through his, she said, “I gave you about a thousand reasons to leave me, didn’t I? But you persevered through each and every one of them, especially the other day. I said some things I regret, Conn.”

“You said some things that were valid, too. There’s no skipping over the fact that we still have a long road ahead of us, and there might be a bunch of potholes in it.”

Empty holes. Places where his memories were still missing.

“Know what I’ve come to think?” Rita asked, her throat scratchy.

“What?”

“That if you haven’t reverted back to being the old Conn already, it’s not going to happen.”

“Not with you in my life.” Conn held her hand between the both of his.

To think, she had spent so much time avoiding men, probably because she had no idea how to live with one after being so thoroughly brokenhearted by her ex. Conn was willing to overlook that.

How had she gotten so lucky?

“For a while,” he said, “I wondered if I had made you into some kind of fantasy that was stopping me from going back to being the old Conn. With you, I could act like someone else. But it wasn’t true. I don’t have to act.” He rested his head against her hands. “You’ve made me over, Rita.”

As she watched him, she cupped her hand over her belly. Conn had been reborn, she thought. A new life had been given to him just as much as he’d given life to their child.

He kissed her hand, and her heart warmed, slowly expanding until the tingling sensation flowed all through her.

“I love you so much, Conn,” she said.

“And I love you, too.”

Then he smiled, still holding her with one hand while he reached into a back jeans pocket with another.

When he pulled out her necklace, she marveled. “You held on to it?”

“It meant something to you, even if you didn’t want to take it back from me.”

She noticed that the R was in one piece, just like everything else.

He opened her hand, then put the necklace into it. First the pendant, then the chain, which spilled over the R like a sparkling gold fall of rain.

As the old Conn, he had told Rita that he would bring the necklace back when he returned for a second night with her. Now, it felt as if he truly had come back, against all odds.

And, this time, she accepted it.

There was nothing to say as she closed her fingers around the necklace. Nothing but sublime joy as he slid his other hand over her tummy.

“Your belly’s slippery,” he finally said.

“That’s because of the gel Dr. Ambrose used for the sonogram. I told her she didn’t have to wipe it off, because I was hoping you’d be here soon.”

His blue eyes brightened as he got her meaning.

“I want you to see the baby,” Rita said.

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Conn made short work of finding Dr. Ambrose; she hadn’t gone too far from the room.

She entered, smiling. “I love this part,” she said. “Excited parents are such a job perk.”

After she turned on the machine and coated Rita’s tummy with a bit more gel, she slid the transducer over the bump.

Rita didn’t want to miss Conn’s very first look, and he didn’t disappoint. His face reminded her of how she’d felt when she’d first seen Kristy, and then this baby. Worshipful. Blessed.

His voice was raw as he took in the shape of their child. “She’s beautiful.”

Rita laughed. “She doesn’t look much like either of us yet, does she?”

“I don’t know.” Conn leaned forward in his chair. “She has a stubbornness to her chin that seems awful familiar. She’s got a lot of her mom in her.”

Rita ran a hand down his arm. “And a lot of her dad.”

When Dr. Ambrose let them hear the heartbeat, it pounded through the room, just like a symphony that was being composed pulse by pulse.

In the end, she gave them a picture of the child, then left the room again for what she said would be a short time.

“Look,” Conn said, wearing his heart on his sleeve as he ran a finger over the photo. “I think she’s waving.”

Rita saw it, too, and as they stared at the picture, she knew that, no matter what the future held, this child—and Kristy—would always know just where their dad’s heart was.

* * *

Nearly a week later, after Conn had moved back into the St. Valentine hotel, he brought the family on their first official outing together.

The H&H Ranch—which stood for Helping Hands, a charity that aided families who were down on their luck in St. Valentine—was having an open house. The endeavor had been the brainchild of Davis Jackson, but had become more of a project for the entire town, which had staffed the ranch with local talent that welcomed at-risk teens. The idea was to rehabilitate troubled youths here, through work and a connection with animals.

Conn carried Kristy into an area strewn with red-and-white-checked picnic tables and mistletoe centerpieces. The still-mild air was redolent with the aroma of barbecue. Next to them, Rita was carrying a small, wrapped “ranch-warming gift” for Violet and Davis.

Since Kristy had chosen the present, she asked, “Mommy, can I give it?”

“Sure.” Rita handed her the beribboned box, which contained a collectible Precious Moments horse figurine to commemorate the spirit of the ranch.

“Yesss!” Kristy said, starting to climb out of Conn’s arms.

He set her on the ground, but before she could run to Violet and Davis, who, along with Wiley Scott, were standing near a wagon filled with hay bales that would be rolling off for a tour of the property, she went to Rita.

“See you later, baby-gator,” she said, touching her mom’s tummy. Then she looked up at Rita with her big gray eyes.

“We’re good. Don’t worry,” Rita said, winking at Kristy.

The girl smiled. After Rita’s hospital trip, which they had tried to explain to Kristy without frightening her, Kristy had been extra watchful of Rita and the baby.

She waved, then took off, bearing her gift.

Conn put an arm around Rita’s shoulders as they watched the little girl go. His hand brushed the chain of her R necklace, which she had started to wear again.

“Just what you always wanted,” he said. “Another person who looms over you.”

“I don’t mind so much.”

Rita leaned her head against him as, all around them, teens from every area of St. Valentine, whether they were miners’ kids or from the east side of town, sat at the tables, eating barbecue and socializing. Country music played from the speakers, and a few teens had ventured out on the makeshift dance floor.

Violet and Davis had spotted Conn and Rita, and they waved, then walked toward them. Meanwhile, Kristy was tugging poor old Wiley Scott by the hand toward the stables.

When Violet arrived, she said, “Kristy’s keen on the pony rides, and she enlisted Wiley to go with her.”

“Looks like he’s been pressed into service,” Rita said as she hugged her friend.

Meanwhile, Davis and Conn shook hands.

“Recovered from those Scottish castles yet?” Conn asked him.

Davis, who was just as comfortable wearing designer suits as the faded jeans, flannel shirt and boots he sported now, shrugged. “They were cold and drafty. I missed it here.”

“They were intellectually stimulating and historic,” Violet said, nudging her husband. “But I was glad to get home. I’m only sorry I wasn’t here for Rita.”

“I already told you two that I’m okay.” Rita rested her hands on the top of her belly. “The hospital trip was just a precaution.”

Conn didn’t say it, but that baby emergency was also a wake-up call. He hoped they never had one like it again.

Rita smiled up at him, and he pulled her closer.

Someone from the dance floor called to Davis.

“Duty awaits,” he said just before he left, giving Rita a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.

Violet’s gaze trailed him, and the smile she wore told Conn that the honeymoon itself had been anything but cold and drafty.

“So,” Rita said. “It’s back to the grind, huh?”

“Hardly a grind. Don’t get me wrong—I love a good honeymoon—but both Davis and I were chomping at the bit to get back. There’s an estate sale coming up just outside of town and we always hit those in the hopes that there’ll be something old and hidden that gives us more information about Tony Amati.”

“You still haven’t given up on that story?”

“Not while Jared Colton is hanging around town. Davis and I can’t shake our reporter radar—there’s something we haven’t uncovered about Amati yet...and Jared.”

Now Violet was being summoned by a volunteer who was running the hay rides.

“I’ve got to be a glutton for labor,” she said, smiling. “See you later?”

“Always.”

And she was off, leaving Conn alone with Rita.

The music played on, the kids on the dance floor clapping and having a good old time.

“I’ve been thinking,” Conn said, watching them. “This place might need an extra cowboy on the volunteer staff.”

“Really? Don’t you already have your hands full enough on Shadow Creek?”

He was still doing business for the family ranch, but he hadn’t told Rita everything yet.

“As I was saying...” He guided her to the left, where there was a view of the corrals and stables. Beyond those, a ridge of pine trees created a green horizon. “There’s some land for sale out that way.”

Rita looked up at him. “What about it?”

“Well, since those quarters of yours at the hotel are getting a little crowded, I’m thinking of buying some acreage, making a home here in St. Valentine.”

He had promised her that he was going to stay, forever and always, but he had been thinking of ways to show her his intentions in more concrete terms. The glistening sheen of her gaze told him that she didn’t miss his message.

Tucking one of her loose curls behind her ear, he said, “I’ve been saving my money a long time, and this seems like a sound investment. What do you think of the idea?”

“I think I like it.”

“I have another investment in mind, as well.”

He didn’t care that he was in a public place, amidst a hundred people. He didn’t care who saw him, because his entire life was Rita and the kids now. Let the whole town witness the extent of his devotion.

From his pocket, he took out the ring he’d purchased the other day when he’d had business in Houston. He’d spent what had felt like hours picking out just the right one—a white-gold pave diamond in a swirl design. It was as complex yet as elegant as Rita herself.

She hauled in a breath when she saw it. “Conn...”

“I want to invest in you and Kristy, and...well, whatever we’re gonna name our baby girl.”

Bright-eyed, Rita locked gazes with him. “Kristy’s still lobbying hard for the name ‘Ariel.’”

He slid the ring onto her finger. He’d bought a bigger size than he thought she might need at the moment, knowing that she might be swelling up any day now. They could resize it later.

“I do like ‘Ariel,’” he said. “I like anything you like.”

Rita lifted her hand to see the ring glimmer in the sunlight. Around them, it was as if everyone had stopped and held their collective breath, just as Conn was doing.

Before he could even officially ask her to marry him, she fell into his arms, whispering, “Yes, Conn, yes!”

He thought he heard applause, the sound of a hundred fragmented claps cheering them on, but to Conn, everything was in one piece.

His heart. Her heart.

And the beautiful, clear future before them.