Drive-By Daddy. Cheryl Anne Porter

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      When the nurse signaled she was done, Tom stuffed his license into his wallet and repocketed it as he, along with Darcy, watched the nurse pantomime that she was going to change the baby’s diaper. Darcy waved at her and nodded…and turned away from the window, walking slowly, stiffly back down the hall toward her room.

      Tom wondered if she’d forgotten he was here. He didn’t know what to do, what to say in the face of her silence. Suddenly his act of kindness seemed like just what it was—a rash one made on emotion. He never did things like this. Usually he was plodding and methodical, so slow to make a decision that he drew groans from his ranch hands and his family. Well, that certainly wasn’t his problem in this instance, was it? No, he’d made up his mind and had acted on it immediately. Because he was in love.

      As Tom kept pace with Darcy, but respected her silence, he decided that maybe that’s what being in love did to a man. Made him decisive. And made him do silly things. Like buy a big bunch of pink roses and a beautiful baby spray and then drive an hour to hand-deliver them…only to give a stranger’s child his name at the end of the trip. Tom looked over at Darcy, noting things now like her height, the shape of her nose, her general shapelessness under the hospital’s gown and robe. Yep. She was a stranger to him, and him to her.

      He didn’t know any of the things about her a man would normally know about a woman whose child bore his name. Things like…what it felt like to hold her, what it took to make her laugh, to make her smile. Or cry. Or to make her mad. He didn’t even know her favorite flavor of ice cream. Or her favorite TV show or book. Where she’d gone to school? How would she raise Montana Skye? Where would she raise the little girl?

      No, he didn’t have any of those answers. But he did know that he had the rest of his life…and Darcy’s…to find them out.

      BACK IN HER room, having climbed slowly, sorely back into her bed—again with Tom’s help—Darcy sat with her bottom half covered with a light blanket, her hands folded in her lap, and stared at the man who’d just…well, fathered her child, in essence. Looking away from him to the end of her bed where his white Stetson still rested, Darcy exhaled sharply.

      The sound made him glance at her. “You okay?”

      She nodded haltingly. She’d come to the decision as she’d walked back to her room that she needed to give him a way out. “Look, if you’ve already thought better of putting your name on Montana’s birth certificate, I can—”

      He raised his hand. “No. I’m not sorry.”

      Darcy brightened. He wasn’t? Then she remembered she didn’t dare fall for him—not from a maternity ward bed, at any rate. This just was not good timing. So, she raised an eyebrow, trying for skeptical. “You look to me like you are.”

      “And how’s that?”

      She looked him up and down. The man was perfect. “Well, you’re a little pale under your tan,” she lied.

      His gaze shifted away from her, to the roses he’d brought. Then he resettled his gaze on her. “Look, I admit that what I did back there is a big thing. Huge. But it doesn’t scare me, Darcy. I won’t run. And I won’t change my mind. I did it, and I’m glad.”

      Pricked to her very core—could this man see all the way into her frightened soul?—Darcy stuck to her guns. She couldn’t afford to like him any more than she already did. Her first priority now was her daughter. She just didn’t need to keep thinking of him as good and noble and fine. But most of all, she didn’t want to let him hurt her first. And that, regrettably, gave her only one course of action. “Fine.” The one word sat him up in his chair. She snatched up the nurse-call button.

      “What are you doing?”

      “I’m going to call the nurse.”

      Concern edged his sky-blue eyes. “You hurting somewhere?”

      “Not anywhere it shows.”

      Tom slumped back against the chair. “Then let me guess. You’re going to change the birth certificate, aren’t you?”

      Darcy shrugged, adopting a bravado that hid her pain for her child’s sake. Montana Skye was about to lose another father. “If I can. There might be a law or something that says I can’t.”

      “But you’re sure going to try, right?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, pressing wrinkles into his crisply ironed white shirt.

      Well, she’d done it now…he was angry. Still, believing she was doing the right thing, Darcy looked him up and down, trying desperately to find fault with him. “Is white the only color you wear? I mean, are you really all that good all the time?”

      His eyes narrowed. “You trying to pick a fight with me, Darcy? You think that’ll make me go away?”

      Here was the opening she needed. She stabbed a pointing finger at him. “See? That’s what I don’t get. Make you go away? Tom, we don’t have a relationship. We’re essentially strangers. I shouldn’t have to make you go away—because you shouldn’t even be here. I mean, I’m thankful and all for everything you’ve done for me.” Her heart cried out for her not to continue, but as always, she didn’t listen to it. “But your work here is done, Lone Ranger.”

      There. She’d done it…given him nowhere to go. No way to argue. A heavy silence filled the air between them. As she held his gaze, Darcy felt triumphant…and about ready to burst into tears. Why had she been so hateful? What was wrong with her?

      Tom stood up slowly. Darcy figured she was about to find out exactly what was wrong with him. “All right. You’ve made your point. I’ll go.” He walked over to the foot of her bed and snatched up his Stetson, which he carefully fitted to his head, tugging it low over his brow. Then he looked her in the eye. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

      Darcy didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She raised her chin a notch and tried to swallow past the knotted emotion in her throat. Her heart screamed for her to stop him…but she refused to open her mouth. And so, he turned and walked out of her room. And out of her life.

      He was gone. Darcy sat staring at the opened doorway to her hospital room…and listened to his every booted footfall out in the hallway until they faded. She sniffed and looked all around her at the flowers and the balloons and the cards that congratulated her and wished her well. They suddenly blurred. Darcy blinked back the tears. She’d never felt more alone.

      Just then, the air-conditioning came on, blowing cold air from the vent directly onto her. As if that were the final insult, Darcy’s chin dimpled and quivered. Releasing the nurse-call button, she slid down a bit in the bed and turned on her side, away from the door, drawing her knees up as much as her soreness would allow. Pulling her covers close around her, clutching a twist of the blanket in her hand, she put her other fisted hand to her mouth and bit down on a knuckle…so no one would hear her cry.

      5

      “WELL, HERE WE ARE, Darcy Jean, you and baby Montana home all safe and sound. Just be careful there, honey. Watch that threshold. Don’t trip. I’d hate for you to drop that two-day-old baby.”

      “Why? Don’t they bounce?”

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