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And now fifteen months later, here she sat rocking the sweetest baby on earth, trying to console him. What the hell had she done?
Oh, how she didn’t want to leave this sweet child, but she couldn’t risk calling in sick and losing her job.
With a sigh, she doubted all her decisions once again. Being a single mother was so much harder than she’d ever thought. And yet, she was not going to crawl to the baby’s father and ask for money.
Never. Which left her no choice.
Picking up the phone, she called her mother. “Hi, Mom. Can you please come stay with Wyatt today? He’s not feeling well.”
She gazed out the window at the sky beginning to brighten with the first rays of dawn. How many nights had she watched the sun rise since Wyatt had been born?
There was silence on the phone and she didn’t know what she’d do if her mother didn’t agree to keep her grandson. The daycare would not take him while he was running a fever and already she’d called in twice since she’d returned from maternity leave. Sooner or later, the airlines would get tired of finding someone to take her flights. She had to go or risk being fired.
“Have you called his father?” she said in that smart-aleck way that made Cristina’s nerves crawl up her spine.
Always the same. Where was his father? His father needed to know about his son and help raise him. But Cristina was determined to make it on her own. She knew how his father would feel about the consequences of their night together. And she didn’t want to be one of those women he hated.
“Mom, please, he’s running a low-grade fever. I can’t call in again. Just help me out this time and I’ll find a backup sitter for when he gets sick next time.”
She could not depend on her mother any longer or face their relationship deteriorating further. When she told her mother she was pregnant, the woman had railed at her until she’d finally left the house.
Every time they spoke, she wanted to know when she was going to tell the father. And Cristina had no plans on ever telling the man who’d given her this precious child. He would think it was just a way to take his precious gold. What he didn’t know was she was holding something more precious than his damn cash.
“I love my grandson. It’s not that I mind keeping him, you know what the problem is.”
Why did her mother seem to choose the worst times for them to have this argument? Right now, she was exhausted; she had to go to work and she was worried about this child she loved with all her heart. She hated going off and leaving him, but she had to earn money to pay the bills. And she didn’t need a lecture when she was at one of her lowest points.
“Mom, I hear you. You’ve made your opinion well known multiple times, but I have reasons for not telling his father,” she said.
Reasons she wasn’t willing to share with her mother. Reasons like the man hadn’t even had the decency to wake her up to say good-bye.
“What? What could be more important than a father knowing about his son?”
With a sigh, she felt the tears well in her eyes. She didn’t want to explain her reasoning. If her mother ever learned who the father was, Cristina feared the woman would go straight to him and tell him about his son.
For that reason, she kept his father’s name to herself. Only one person knew about his father – her best friend Lauren. And she was sworn to secrecy. If she didn’t work full time, Cristina would’ve called her to come to take care of Wyatt. Could she take a day off?
“Fine, I’ll call Lauren,” she said.
“No, he’s my grandson. I’ll be over there. What time do you need to leave?”
“In an hour,” she said.
“I’m on my way,” her mother responded. “But you should tell his father. He needs to know about his son.”
It had been one night. One night of the best sex of her life and then he’d never spoken to her again. She’d been so disappointed that he never called her. So disappointed that she never saw him again.
Devastated, to put it mildly.
Obviously, she’d just been the flavor of the night and she wasn’t about to be lumped in with all his other girlfriends. He’d told her what he believed about them, so she wasn’t going to be one of those girls. And yet, he’d put her in the same category as them by not saying good-bye.
“Thank you, Mom,” she said as she kissed Wyatt on the top of his head.
Someday he would ask questions, and she’d be honest with him then, but she didn’t want to depend on his father for a damn dime. Wyatt was her son and she’d die protecting him.
If only she hadn’t gone to the rodeo that night with Lauren and then to the bar in the Fort Worth Stockyards. If only she hadn’t listened to his sad tale of ridiculous woe and let him persuade her into his bed.
But now she knew better.
