own father hadn’t come around until he was nearly an adult.
Which gave Whitney a second, maybe more important, role in this child-custody venture. Because Darius didn’t know how a father was supposed to behave, Whitney was going to have to teach him.
CHAPTER TWO
AS WHITNEY AND HER DAD left his office, Cyn caught his arm. “They need you in the conference room right now.”
“But I’m still working with the Andreas brothers—”
“The exact words Roger said were, ‘The Mahoney case is going to hell in a ham sandwich. The very second Gerry is out of his meeting we need him in here.’”
Whitney’s dad faced her. “Will you be okay?”
She forced a smile. “Yes. You go on. When the Andreas brothers are through with their little powwow, I’ll have you paged if we need you.”
“Thanks.” He kissed her cheek, slid the duffel and diaper bag onto her shoulder, turned and raced away from her.
Walking to her office, Whitney looked down at Gino. Sucking a green-and-brown camouflage-print pacifier, he peered up at her. Luminous dark eyes met hers. Her heart stumbled in her chest. Layla’s pale-blue eyes had been a combination of her father’s sky blue eyes and Whitney’s gray blue. Her hair had been yellow. Baby-fine. Wispy. Whitney had never been able to get a clip to hold and she’d become one of those moms who used multicolored cloth hair bands to decorate her baby’s head.
Her chest tightened. She’d give everything she had, everything she owned, every day of the rest of her life, for even one more chance to touch that wispy hair.
Gino spat out his pacifier and began to cry. Whitney set the baby carrier on the small floral-print sofa in the right-hand corner of her office.
“Don’t cry, sweetie,” she said automatically and her throat closed. Her chest tightened. Caring for a baby was something like riding a bike. Unfortunately, all the remembered skills also brought back memories of the baby she’d lost—
The nights she’d walked the floor when Layla was colicky. Her first birthday party when the abundance of guests had scared her. Bathing her, cuddling her, loving her.
Being her mom.
Don’t cry, sweetie.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to pull herself together, but Gino cried all the harder.
She sat on the sofa, lifted him from the carrier and cuddled him against her chest. Sobbing in earnest now, the little boy buried his face in her neck.
He smelled like baby lotion and felt as soft as feathers from an angel’s wings. She closed her eyes again, weakened by longings for her own baby. Remembering treasured events. The plans they’d had for Layla’s future. The mom she’d wanted to be.
Shaking with sorrow, she pushed at those memories, trying to get them out of her head. But they wouldn’t budge. Instead, they arched in her brain like a rainbow of photos, a cacophony of happy sounds. Baby giggles. Toddler laughs. First words. Mama. Da Da. Nanna. Pap Pap. Kitty.
She knew it was the sweet baby scents that caused her total recall. So she grabbed a blanket from the diaper bag and laid it on the sofa, then placed Gino on top, putting three feet of distance between them.
She swallowed. The memories receded. Her shaking subsided. The thumping of her heart slowed.
The little boy blinked at her.
“I know you’re probably scared,” she said, talking to him as if he were an adult because she couldn’t risk the baby talk that she knew would soothe him. “I know my mom was very good to you the past few days, but I’ll bet you miss your own mama …” She swallowed. Miss didn’t even halfway describe the feelings of loss this baby must feel. Even though he probably didn’t understand that his parents were dead, her heart broke because she did understand. She knew exactly what it felt like to lose the two people closest to her. He was alone. Scared. And wanted his mom. Or someone to make him feel safe again.
In three long years, she hadn’t felt safe. Everything she believed had been tossed in the air and come down in pieces the day her husband had committed suicide and killed their baby with him.
As she checked Gino’s diaper to see if that was why he was crying, a rush of memories of Layla flooded her brain again. Except this time they weren’t happy. This time, she heard her baby crying, calling for her, and suddenly she was face to face with her worst fear. The fear that morphed into guilt. The guilt her therapist had told her was pointless.
No one knew if Burn had deliberately put Layla into the car with him when he’d decided to kill himself by sitting in the vehicle while the garage filled with carbon monoxide. Speculation was that he’d put Layla into her car seat to go somewhere, but when he’d gotten behind the wheel he just couldn’t force himself out into the world. He’d sat in their garage long enough for the fumes to begin to get to him and was soon mentally too far gone to remember he had the baby with him.
That explanation had soothed everyone but Whitney. If everyone accepted that Burn’s depression and mounting mental illness were reason enough to forget he had their child in his car, then shouldn’t she have realized he was too sick to care for her baby?
Layla.
Why hadn’t she recognized Burn’s growing troubles?
Why hadn’t she protected her baby?
What had been so important in those months that she’d missed all the signs that Burn was tumbling over the edge?
Tears filled her eyes as Gino began to cry, drawing her back to the present. She wanted to cuddle him, to love him, but her memories of Layla were still morphing into memories of Burn’s suicide, Layla’s death and the horrible, horrible feelings of guilt.
She couldn’t deal with the guilt.
She changed Gino’s diaper but rather than hold him, she returned him to the baby carrier. He looked at her with sad dark eyes.
She blinked back tears, hoping for his sake that the trouble she had holding him was only temporary. It wasn’t his fault her family had died. Plus, Missy had wanted her to care for this little guy—
Remembering the envelope her dad had given her, she rose from the sofa to retrieve it from her jacket pocket. After fumbling with the seal, she pulled out the slim sheet of white stationery. Pacing in front of her sofa, she read …
Whitney …
It’s funny to be writing this because I don’t think you’ll ever read it. Actually, I hope you never do read it. But we’re having wills drawn up today and we have a baby. Plans have to be made for who will care for Gino just in case something happens. Stephone said he wanted Darius to have custody, but I didn’t think that was such a good idea. I know Darius will never marry and that means Gino will never have a mom. But I also recognized I couldn’t talk Stephone out of naming Darius as guardian. All I could do was suggest making you co-guardian. So that’s what we did. If something happens to me and Stephone, Darius will be Gino’s dad and you will be Gino’s mom.
Love him, Whitney. I’m not
