Somebody's Baby Read Online Free Page B

to have grit, he decided on the spot. How else could a woman choose to bear the burden of single motherhood? How else could she stay in Mt. Knott and watch the jobs and opportunities ebb away, partly because of his own actions, and even begin her own business because she knew she had to provide the sole support for a child?
    “You can say that? After Ophelia just dumped him on you?”
    “I never said she—”
    “But that’s what she did, right?”
    The woman lowered her gaze to the floor. “It doesn’t change how I feel about him.”
    Adam swallowed, and it felt like forcing a boulder through a straw. Everything he’d determined about this lady flew right out the window when he considered all he’d learned in just a few moments with her. He liked her plenty, in all manner of ways, most he didn’t even understand yet—and he reckoned she was plenty good for his boy, as well.
    “Please, Mr. Burdett,” she whispered, her chin angled up and her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Please tell me you haven’t come to take away my baby.”
    “Actually, ma’am, I…” Adam sighed.
    Who was he kidding? He couldn’t take his son away from the only mother the baby had ever known. He wouldn’t.
    “I haven’t come to take him away, Josie.”
    She shut her eyes and mouthed the words thank you.
    Adam didn’t know if she spoke to him or to heaven—maybe both. He took one step back. So he’d wimped out of doing what he’d come here to do. That didn’t mean he’d called a complete surrender…and he respected this woman enough to make sure she understood that without question.
    “But I think you should understand, ma’am.” He stuck his thumb through his belt loop and anchored his boots wide on the gleaming vinyl floor. “I won’t simply sign some papers and walk away, either. He’s my boy and I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I stay involved in his life. Whatever it takes.”

     
    Joy and apprehension battled within Josie, and in the end joy won. He said he wasn’t going to take her baby. Knowing that, she figured she could handle anything else thrown at her by this biker/cowboy with a voice that poured over her nerves like honey over sandpaper.
    “Then let’s talk, Mr. Burdett.” She extended her hand toward the small kitchen table, her hope renewed that this could still work out in her favor. “If you still want some coffee, I can—”
    The sputtered coughing cry of the baby halted her offer and Adam Burdett’s movement toward the table at the same time.
    He gave her a quick, panicked look. “That him?”
    “Unless my cat’s become a ventriloquist, I’d say yes.” She laughed but couldn’t make it sound real, not knowing that if the baby awakened she’d have to let this…this… father person see him. The very notion made her heart race.
    She cocked her head to listen, praying that the baby was merely restless and would quiet and go back to sleep on his own.
    “You got a cat?” Burdett leaned into the doorway to stare down the hall in the direction of the bedroom.
    “What?” She blinked, moving to the door to lean out just a bit farther than he did.
    “A cat.” He slouched forward, his face a mask of concentration all focused on any sound that might arise from the child. “I heard it said that it’s not good to have a cat around a baby.”
    “That’s an old wives’ tale.” Josie rolled her eyes.
    No other sound came from the baby’s room. She relaxed enough to appreciate the level of confusion and worry on Burdett’s face over the routine sounds the baby had just made and some silly superstition.
    The baby was quiet. Maybe the fact that she’d dodged the letting-him-see-his-son-for-the-first-time bullet made her warm a little to the man. Or maybe it was the tenderness in those eyes that allowed her to loosen up a bit and say, “You don’t know much about babies, do you, Mr. B—I mean, Adam?”
    “This is my first,” he said softly.
    “Mine, too,” she said, even