and had a drop-down change table. Nora made quick work of the diaper, enjoying Zoe’s cooing nonsensical song. But the restroom lacked a place to sit and breast-feed. And boy, did she need to breast-feed. Given Coop’s stupefaction, her breast-feeding in public would probably send him to an early grave, which—setting aside her own discomfort at the public airing of a private event—would be highly satisfying.
Spirits bolstered, Nora opened the door.
Coop was waiting for her, no longer looking like a man who couldn’t believe he’d plowed his beloved sports car into a tree. His green eyes sparkled. His grin dazzled with straight teeth as white as snow. “Tangerine dress. Yellow heels. St. Patrick’s Day.”
She’d wanted him to remember her. And yet...Nora felt as if the unsalted nuts she’d eaten on the bus were giving her indigestion.
“You ordered white wine.” His grin spread over his now handsome—despite the beard—face. Funny what a smile did to a shaggy man’s looks. “We went back to your place and—”
“Please.” Nora walked past him to the booth. “Not in front of the baby.”
Everyone in the bar stared. She felt their eyes like a field mouse feels a circling hawk’s calculating gaze, almost as if they were protective of Coop, more than ready to join him in rejection of her paternity claim.
Her steps quickened. A woman in a strange town accusing the local golden boy she’d had his baby?
It’d been a mistake to come. A desperate, stupid mistake. She’d find the means to get by without Coop’s money. She’d get a second job. She’d trade babysitting services with other working moms. There had to be a way to raise Zoe without Coop’s help.
He slid into the booth across from her, looking decidedly chipper. “The thing is, Nancy—”
“Nora.” She resented his too-late chipperness and his too-false charm.
“I remember you.” His voice dropped from light and pleasant to dark and repellent. “And I distinctly remember using protection.” His smile never wavered as he tried to back her off from her claim.
Her father had a smile just like it, one that said he never worried about anything. And Dad didn’t worry. Not when he’d lost everything because one of his many get-rich-quick ideas failed. Not when he had a baby with a woman he didn’t remember meeting in a bar.
“You missed your weekend with the kids,” Nora’s mother would say. “It was three weeks ago. And your check—”
“Bounced again? I’ll write you another.” Dad would flash a minty smile meant to cover the alcohol on his breath. “Why waste time arguing? I’m here. And the kids want to have fun with their old man.”
Nora and her brothers hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. Not when he drank beer until he passed out and practically forgot their names.
“Protection?” Nora wanted to be sick. She swallowed back the memories and held on to her resolve because the bus wasn’t scheduled to leave for another hour. “As my doctor told me...ninety-nine percent effective means one lucky woman in one hundred gets a golden ticket.” She angled Zoe’s sweet, innocent face toward Coop. “Here’s mine.” Not his. Never his. She’d never raise a child with this loser.
The wattage on Coop’s smile never dimmed. “Why wait so long to tell me?”
“Since you didn’t call me afterward, I figured you were just a beer-swilling guy looking for a good time, and I assumed I could afford to raise a child on my own.” Diapers. Day care. The dollars added up far too quickly. “One of my assumptions was wrong.”
His eyes narrowed, but that smile... “I’ll want a paternity test.”
She nodded, unfazed. “I brought one.”
* * *
“SHE’S GOT YOUR nose, Coop.”
Coop couldn’t see what Gideon saw, maybe because a demoralizing thought kept buzzing in his brain. You’re going to lose your second opportunity in the NHL, even if you win the bet.
It can’t be mine.
The baby swaddled in neon pink in Nora’s arms seemed like any other to him: round cheeks, tufts of blond hair, squinty eyes. Maybe the eyes looked like his after one too many beers the night before, but those days were few and far between now. As were his days of picking up women in bars.
A change made too late, it seemed.
He’d retreated with sluggish steps to the bar when Nora told him she was going to breast-feed. “It might not be mine,” he said to his friends. His words didn’t sound convincing.
Nora’s words sounded convincing.
“Congratulations on a baby girl.” Coach guffawed and set a shot of whiskey on the bar in front of Coop. “She’s got the Hamilton nose. Won’t be long before you’re having tea parties and playing with dolls.”
“Taking her to tap-dancing lessons,” Ty said slyly, clearly enjoying this too much.
“Laying down the law with the guy who takes her to prom.” Gideon grinned.
“Jumping the gun, as usual.” A band of disappointment tightened around Coop’s chest. If he was a dad, he had an obligation to stay where his child was. “Let’s wait for the results of the paternity test. In the meantime, back to the issue at hand. Matchmaking.”
Mary Jo, the bus-route driver, banged into the foyer and through the second door, shaking off snow that covered her boots and parka. She’d been a couple years ahead of Coop in school, but she looked as old as truck-driving Derrick, a crony of hers and ten years her senior. Lines had made permanent inroads on her forehead and from the corners of her frequently frowning mouth. Her divorce battle had aged her.
Nora waved to Mary Jo, buttoning up her yellow blouse. “Is the bus ready to leave?”
“The bus isn’t going anywhere.” Mary Jo clomped across the wood floor, tugging off her gloves. “That darn weatherman was wrong again. It’s a blizzard out there. Service is cancelled for the day.”
“But...I’m stuck?” Nora’s horrified gaze bounced around the bar and landed on Coop. “Here?”
She’d taken the bus. She’d implied money was tight. There were hotels and motels in town, but could she afford a room? And how would she get there? Mary Jo wasn’t offering a ride. Helio’s Taxi was closed for the day. He was in the back on his fourth beer. Between the drifts of snow on the ground and the severity of the storm, it wouldn’t be safe for Nora to walk anywhere with a baby.
Coop felt paralyzed.
Next to him, Ty was lost in thought, staring at the Anchorage Beat. Gideon asked Mary Jo if her divorce was final. Derrick tugged on a gray streak in his beard and made a joke about the fragility of buses on Alaskan highways. Trucker humor. Mary Jo gave Derrick a smiling gesture of disrespect. Bus-driver humor.
Just another Friday night at the bar.
A dark and stormy night. Near whiteout conditions. A woman alone. With a baby.
A
