Read Somebody's Baby for Free Online

myself with a totally new status.” Finally, officially, on my own. Alone.
    Her gaze dipped downward.
    “I didn’t handle it particularly well.” I’m not making any excuses.
    She nodded, her brow furrowed. “I’m sorry about the loss of your mother.”
    “Thanks.” He’d struck a chord, he supposed.
    “She was a remarkable lady. A real force in the community. A good Christian who supported so many social causes and cared about people. She really put her faith in action.”
    “More than you probably know.” He thought not only of how his mother had taken him in as a child and raised him as her very own, but also of the ways she devoted her own inherited fortune to help those in need. It tugged at Adam’s heart to realize that back then he’d been so fixated on striking back at his father and brothers that he had done nothing to honor his mother and the things she had taught him. That did not alter his plan for revenge, however.
    He was a Christian. He just wasn’t that kind of Christian. He fought back a twinge of shame over having even thought that, much less allowed it to stand as his justification. “If it helps, I am not proud of what I did.”
    “I’m not the one you owe an apology to.” Josie poked her chin up, fidgeted with the folds of the blanket that still concealed his son from him.
    “An apology? I wasn’t aware I owed an apology to anyone.” It was what it was. He felt bad that it had gone so wrong. Felt some shame that his grief and resentment had uncovered his weaknesses instead of revealed his inner strength. But getting all touchy-feely about it now wouldn’t change the past or set things right today.
    He had come to town with only two indisputable responsibilities, to claim his son and ruin his so-called family. Neither Josie nor Ophelia Redmond figured prominently in his designs. “Your sister was a willing partner in what happened between us. Don’t forget that she was the one who failed to notify me about the baby. It’s not as if I haven’t paid a price for my poor choices.”
    “I don’t doubt that.” She gave him a look of sympathy that did not sink to the level of pity.
    He hadn’t known anyone who had ever managed that with him and appreciated it in a way he could not for the world have articulated. His whole life, people had given with one hand and taken away with two. Encounters with even the most sincerely empathetic often left him undermined and exposed. He wondered if Josie would finally be the exception.
    “However…”
    “I should have known,” he muttered under his breath.
    “Hmm?” she asked over the wriggling and almost inaudible fussing of the baby in her arm.
    “Give with one hand, take with two,” was all he felt compelled to say.
    “However…” She patted the blanket and adjusted the form beneath it, raising it higher against her own small frame. The legs kicked and a tiny hand flailed out to grab a strand of her hair. She ignored it and forged on. “Your choices have resulted in this small life. And whether you have suffered enough or who is to blame for how the two of us arrived in this situation no longer matters. When you are a parent, it’s not about you and your feelings anymore, it’s about what’s best for your child.”
    “My child,” he echoed softly. “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.” She batted her eyes in a show of seeming disbelief, then leaned back to look under the blanket and the wriggling infant in her arms. “I don’t usually yell at strangers like that, but…”
    “I’m not thanking you for yelling at me.” He chuckled at the very notion. He could go just about anywhere in this town and get yelled at, and by people a lot more experienced and colorful at it than Miss Josie Redmond.
    “Then, I don’t—” She hook her head.
    “When,” he explained as softly as the baby’s gentle stirring.
    “What?”
    “You said when you are a parent. Not if. Your intention with that little speech was to put me in my