Sarah Anderson – Father by Surprise: A Man of Distinction / His Baby Surprise (страница 11)

Nick took a pair of winter boots and a cute stuffed bear out of the last bag. “Here you go, Bear. Your very own bear.”

Bear grabbed at the animal. Tanya felt her head shaking. Nick had come prepared, and Bear was too young to know he was being bought off.

“This is too much,” she started to say, but Nick cut her off.

“The toddler bed is back-ordered, so it’ll be two weeks.” He ducked his head and shot her a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t figure out the car seat, though. Might need a little help with that.”

“We can’t accept this.” She didn’t have much, but she had her pride. And she wouldn’t let Nick put a price on it.

Nick’s eyes hardened—not much, but enough to let her know that he didn’t think too much of her opinion. “‘We’? Or just you?” He looked down to where Bear was now chewing on his new bear’s nose. “I think he’s happy to have some nice things.”

“Because the only things I can give him are complete and total crap, right?” Tanya struggled to keep her voice calm, but she didn’t do a good enough job. Bear looked up at her with worried eyes.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Admit it—you don’t think I’m a good mother.”

“I didn’t say that.” Nick had the same controlled, pissed tone to his voice. “Stop putting words into my mouth.”

“Where else should I put them? I have a few suggestions.”

She expected Nick to come back at her with both barrels blazing, but instead, he smiled—and then laughed. Bear watched them for another moment before he broke out in a toothy grin and went back to chewing on his toy.

“What?” she demanded, feeling foolish and not knowing why.

He closed the distance between them in two long steps, and before Tanya could stop him or react at all, he’d wrapped his arms around her and placed a fire-hot kiss on her forehead. “I know you won’t believe this, but I have missed you, Tanya. No one in Chicago talks to me like you do.”

Tanya’s arms shook with the effort not to return the favor and pull Nick’s hard chest closer to hers. She wasn’t being swayed by any compliment, any tender gesture. None of this was working. Really.

He leaned down, his voice quiet and only inches from her ear. The warmth of his breath rolled down her skin until a lot more than her arms shook. “I’m going to be here for at least a year. You don’t have to love me, babe, but let me see my son. A boy should know his father.”

That was a damnably low blow, one that blew past her anger and went straight for her heartstrings. Who would she be hurting if she fought to keep Bear from Nick? Sure, she could exact some revenge for Nick’s repeated abandonment of her. But in the long run, it was Bear who would suffer. Would she really do that to her son?

Could she really do that to Nick?

As if he could feel that the attention of the adults had shifted away from him, Bear launched the teddy and began to flail. Tanya took a step toward him, but Nick put a hand on her shoulder. “I got him,” he said, a peaceful smile on his face.

Tanya watched as the man of her dreams swooped her son up into a big hug and then grabbed a board book and settled down to read him a story about a very hungry caterpillar. Tears swam across her vision.

She couldn’t keep Bear from Nick. She just couldn’t.

But what would letting Nick back into her life do to her?

Chapter 5

Throughout the evening, Nick could feel Tanya watching him. She stared while he read Bear stories. She kept an eagle eye on him as he and Bear rolled a ball back and forth on the floor. And she hovered behind him as Nick fumbled his way through his first diaper change. She didn’t tell him he was doing it wrong, though. Hell, she didn’t say anything. She just watched.

Nick didn’t remember all the words to the bedtime song Tanya had sung the other night, so he stuck with the classic “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Of course, while he sang it, Tanya stood in the doorway of the small bedroom, a look on her face that drifted between irritated and hopeful, with a dash of worried thrown in for good measure.

In other words, she looked confused.

That bothered Nick. What about this situation wasn’t black and white? He was Bear’s father, and as such, he had certain rights and obligations. He had a right to spend time with his son, and a correlating obligation to provide financial assistance for his care. Now that Nick was aware of the situation, he planned to step up to the plate and be a father.

So the situation with his son couldn’t be what was worrying Tanya, which only left one other possibility. She was worried about him.

And that bothered him, and the fact that it bothered him was a problem in and of itself. When the hell had he gotten to be such a nice guy? He had the legal upper hand here, and they both knew it. Tanya had admitted Bear had health problems and that she couldn’t afford proper medical treatment. Gaining custody would be a walk in the park. If he were still in Chicago, he’d use those facts to maximize his advantage. That was how the game was played. The moment someone showed weakness, whether it was opposing council or a coworker, you had to use that weakness to your advantage.

Tanya’s passions ran deep and true, and up until now, he had never viewed that as a weakness. He’d never viewed her as weak at all. Headstrong, stubborn, passionate—yes. Especially the passionate part. Nick knew he tended to be overly analytical. That trait made him a damn good lawyer, but he’d been accused of being cold and, on more than one occasion, heartless. Tanya’s passion had always been the perfect counterpoint, whether they were arguing about tribal politics or having incredible sex.

Of course, the flip side of the game he played in Chicago was that anything you said and did could be used against you, too. What would Marcus Sutcliffe think if he knew Nick had fathered a disabled bastard? More than likely, he’d scoff in an unsurprised way and say something like, “What do you expect from one of those Indians?”

Even thinking about Bear like that made Nick feel sick to his stomach. How could he define his own son that way? He knew the answer—that’s how it would look in court. But that would be the same as dismissing Nick as the token Indian. No way was he going to let people slap a label on his son, because the moment they did that, Bear would spend the rest of his life trying to live that label down.

Nick looked down at the boy, his thumb in his mouth, his eyes half-closed. That tightness hit his chest again. He would do whatever it took to make sure that Bear wasn’t dismissed. He needed a voice, and Nick was in the position to give him one.

Did Tanya understand anything about the games Nick was used to playing? She couldn’t, because she’d never shown up in Chicago with the baby. A person with less-than-sterling morals would have made dangerous threats of exposure in hope of extracting some money. Extortion was the legal term, but it would be blackmail, pure and simple. Nick saw it happen all the time.

But Tanya wasn’t like all those other people. It was apparent that she had no idea how much power she held in this situation. And even if she did, he didn’t think she’d use it. Somehow, despite her dirt-poor upbringing and barely-getting-by lifestyle, she had managed to remain pure and uncompromised. Hell, she’d even tried to refuse his gifts, despite how much she obviously needed them. Nick couldn’t remember the last time he’d dealt with a person who wouldn’t play the game. While it was refreshing to know that she couldn’t be bought, it left Nick with the unsettled feeling of knowing the rules had changed but not knowing what they’d changed to.

Nick’s morals were just shy of sterling. Maybe he’d played the Chicago games long enough that he’d been permanently tarnished. Winning primary custody of Bear would be easy—he could steamroll Tanya in a courtroom without breaking a sweat. He could get his son out of this hellhole of a rez and take him to Chicago. He could give Bear the finest medical care, the best schools, the nicest things—all the advantages that Nick had only dreamed about as a kid. He didn’t need Tanya’s permission. He could do whatever he wanted. Part of him wanted to do just that—show her exactly what he’d accomplished without her. She hadn’t let him give her a better life—that was her problem. But Nick didn’t have to let her withhold that life from Bear. In fact, he could make a strong argument that it was his moral imperative to gain primary custody of his son. He had worked his butt off for the last four years, amassing a small fortune and an unstoppable reputation. The least he could do was to share the benefits of all his hard work with his son. Then, maybe Tanya would finally realize that he hadn’t been selfishly focused on himself, but working for a life they could live together.

But he didn’t want to steamroll her. He didn’t want to be the one who took everything she held most dear and ground it into the dirt. Maybe it was being back under the wide South Dakota sky, or maybe it was the little boy who was almost asleep in his arms, but Nick didn’t want to win at all costs this time. Oh, he still wanted to win, but he didn’t want to salt the earth behind him. Tanya had always meant something to him. He didn’t want to destroy that. He didn’t want to destroy her.