responsible for it? I don’t even know if I have the legal right to get care for it—for God’s sake, I don’t even believe the child is mine.”
Molly wasn’t sure what Flynn believed. He was thrown for six. That was obvious. But she couldn’t help but be aware that he hadn’t really looked at the baby—not earlier, when Virginie had staged that scene, and not now.
Dylan was safe enough. Molly had scooped up his diaper bag from the office, a blanket from the break room, crackers and a mug of milk from the kitchen—the cracker had been bribery to con the baby into giving up his mouthful of paper. The urchin had charged around her office for a couple of minutes on all fours, and then simply curled up on the blanket...one minute a dynamo of energy, the next snoozing harder than a whipped puppy.
Flynn had to realize the baby was right there. No matter how agitatedly he was pacing around, he never even accidentally came close to that blanket. Now, though, he punched a fist into his palm. “There are things I obviously have to do immediately. Call a lawyer, for one. And find out what pediatricians are in town. And maybe I should be calling my doc, too...hell, I don’t know what kind of tests are done to prove or disprove parentage...”
“Flynn?”
“What?” He stopped hurling himself around the office long enough to look at her. She’d had some time separate from him—time to get tough, to firm up her common sense, to put any unmanageable emotions on chill until she was ready to handle them. But it was still rough seeing that devastated look in Flynn’s eyes. God knew, he responded to everything volatilely and emotionally—but nothing like this. Even if he’d brought every ounce of the problem on himself, he’d still never had that drawn white look around his eyes before.
“I think you’re right...that you need to do all those things,” she said quietly. “But I’m afraid you have a more critical priority than any of that.”
His eyebrows lifted in query. “Like what?”
“Like the baby himself, McGannon. He needs food. More diapers than were in that bag. A crib, or something to sleep in. And she put some clothes in there, but not enough to last more than a few days.”
“Molly...” Flynn threw himself in the chair opposite her desk, and focused on her with those incredibly electric blue eyes. “I can’t do any of that stuff. I’ve never been around a baby, wouldn’t have a clue what to buy or what it needs—”
“Neither have I. No, Flynn.”
“No? I didn’t ask you anything.”
“But you were going to. I took on the baby for a few minutes because someone had to—and I was glad to help. But just because I’m a female doesn’t make me a born expert in child care. I haven’t been around little ones, either. I honestly don’t know any more than you do.”
“You have to know more than I do,” Flynn muttered, and yanked a hand through his scalp. “A stone would know more than I do about babies. A leaf. A slab of concrete. I’ve got work on my desk higher than a mountain, a project halfway done, the phone’s ringing...I don’t even know how to suddenly stop an entire business for a child—”
“Flynn,” she said gently, firmly. “Look at him.”
But he wouldn’t look at the child. He just kept looking at her, with those eyes as magnetic as blue lightning. There was so much power and character in his face, more natural charisma than one man had a right to. But it was the honesty of anxiety in his expression that touched her far more now. “This isn’t your problem, Molly, I realize that,” he said slowly. “But I don’t know who else to ask for help. Not until I at least figure out what I’m supposed to do with him.”
Molly sighed. She really couldn’t imagine Bailey or Simone pinch-hitting. Not with a problem like this. “Well, he’s sleeping now. And I realize you really do need to make those phone calls and get some business squared away. He can stay here until he wakes up.”
Flynn didn’t move. Just kept looking at her with that confounded helpless expression—until Molly threw up her hands in exasperation.
“All right, all right. After that I’ll go shopping with you. I realize that’d be really hard for you to do alone, and with a baby in tow besides. But I’m warning you ahead, my advice is worthless. I don’t know anything! The best I can say is that between two adult heads, we should be able to handle picking out at least some basic baby supplies.”
Well, darn it, she thought. That was what she thought he wanted—her offering help. Yet once she suckered in that far, he still didn’t look happy. Flynn invariably bellowed and barreled into most tricky life situations, but he still hadn’t budged, and his voice turned bass-low and careful.
“You’re angry with me, aren’t you. You’re not looking at me the same way, talking to me the same way. She really upset you.”
“Maybe you’d better call her Virginie instead of ‘she.’ If she’s the mother of your child, I think it might be appropriate for you to remember her name.”
“I’m not a father,” he said quietly, clearly.
“Look at the baby,” she said again.
But he didn’t. “No matter what she said...no matter what you think...I’ve never been careless with a woman. Not once. Not ever. There are reasons why I’ve stayed unattached, reasons why I never wanted to be a father. I’m not saying I’ve been a saint, Molly, but I never knowingly risked a child. I’m asking you to believe me.”
Molly fussed with her pencils on the desk. “Actually she blurted out rather clearly that she’d skipped some birth control pills—”
“I heard what she said. I heard every damn word she said. But that has nothing to do with your believing me.”
“McGannon...” Molly felt all tangled up, unsure what was so important to him, what he wanted her to say. “Look, trying to talk right now is nuts. You need to scoot. I don’t have a clue how long a baby naps, but every minute is borrowed time. Get whatever business cleared away that you can.”
He seemed inclined to argue—but didn’t. Once he peeled out of that chair and left, Molly pressed two fingers to her temples, her gaze instinctively honing on the sleeping baby.
She’d seen Flynn thrown plenty of times. He ranted and raved as a life-style, but that was just because he was boisterously emotional by nature. At a gut level, he thrived on challenges. The more impossible the problem, the more it revved his personal engines.
But not this one. Any man would be shook up to have a baby suddenly thrown into his life, Molly realized, but Flynn...there was something more. His face had gone cold, his voice stone-harsh when he’d said there were reasons why he never wanted to be a father. Something painful had to be behind that She wished she knew what. The damn man could flirt all day and then some...but Flynn never revealed anything personal about himself, had never admitted anything painful to her before. For Flynn to express that kind of gut honesty was a vulnerable measure that he was seriously shook up.
But so was she. Shook up—from the inside out. Her pulse was still rattling. She’d been falling hard and deep for him—painfully hard, dangerously deeply. And she had no idea before that moment that Flynn was stone-set against being a father. How could she love a man who didn’t want children, didn’t love babies, couldn’t even look at that adorable homely face snoozing on the carpet?
