Pucker Factor Page 4

  The whistling started again, coming from a distance and growing closer. Oscar looked up in time to see the ordnance coming in, aimed directly at his position. He stared, watching as it grew larger and larger until it blotted out everything and was all he could see.

  Oscar woke panting, pillow clutched over his head, huddled on his knees in the middle of his mattress. Fuck. He hadn’t dealt with that dream for a long time, not since right after coming back from overseas. It wasn’t how things had happened, not quite. He’d been crouched alongside a building waiting for his chance to run to supposed safety when the bunker had taken a direct hit from enemy fire. The mortar had exploded upon impact, tearing the entrance out of the ground and scattering shrapnel in a wide radius.

  Regardless that there were more incoming rounds, he and a handful other soldiers had immediately gone to rescue anyone who could be. It was a miracle that no one died, but two of the men sheltering inside had been injured so badly they’d lost limbs to amputation.

  The incident had been two years before he separated from the service and had been a scene he’d never wanted to see played out again. At least I got that wish.

  He evaluated the chances of falling back asleep without dreaming, shook his head, and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, squinting at his phone. Two hours until sunrise, and it was January in Northeast Texas, which meant a level of cold that ruled out working in the backyard. He could go for a ride, and often would, ignoring the stiffness brought on by the windchill, but he wanted to be close today, and if he got on the bike, he could get lost in his head and disappear for hours.

  As he sat trying to decide how his day would go, the screen on his phone lit up with an incoming call. Local number, which could mean anything, so he scooped it up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Oscar?” He didn’t recognize the female voice, but he made a noise of acknowledgment. “It’s Kristie at the hospital. Lindsay Ashworth’s asking after you. Deb left your number with a note that you were Ms. Ashworth’s local contact.”

  Before she finished speaking, he was on his feet and reaching for his jeans. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, Oscar. She had a bad dream and woke up asking about you. I can patch you through to the phone in her room if you’d like.”

  “Nope. I’m right here in town. I’ll be there in just a few minutes. Tell her I’m coming, okay?” Two steps to the dresser and he yanked open a drawer, tugging out a clean shirt. “I’ll be right there.” Without giving the woman a chance to respond, he disconnected and tossed the phone to the nightstand, where it rattled against his keys.

  Two minutes later, he was out the door and striding along the sidewalk, his brisk walk just this side of a trot.

  Chapter Four

  Lindsay

  Stretched out on her side at the edge of the bed, she stared down into the bassinette, trailing her fingers along Christopher’s body. The gentlest of touches, she’d occasionally press her palm against his chest, just to feel him breathing. It had taken a long time to calm herself, but finally her lids were drooping.

  The door opening startled her, and she pushed up on an elbow to turn and look, surprised to find Oscar slipping into the darkened room. The instrument panels gave off more than enough glow to see his face, and it looked like he was smiling.

  “Hey,” he called out softly, his mouth going back to that relaxed smile.

  “Oscar.” Pleased to see him, she didn’t try to hide it and knew he’d picked up on it when his soft smile turned into a grin with a flash of teeth in his beard. “Come see, he’s sleeping.” As he made his way around the bed to where the bassinette was, she pushed back and up along the mattress, making room for him to sit alongside her hips. As with everything that had happened during Christopher’s birth, it felt natural and right to give Oscar this space at her side. She didn’t worry about her instinctive reaction, didn’t question it. “Isn’t he gorgeous?”

  “Handsome fella, that’s a fact.” He did the same thing she had, his palm flattened across Christopher’s chest and belly, his fingers wrapping around a tiny shoulder. “He’s sleepin’ good.”

  “Yeah,” she cooed, adjusting to rest her head on the pillow. She split her attention between the sleeping babe and the man staring down at him with an expression of such gentle pride and affection that it took her breath away. “He’s up every couple of hours to feed but sleeps well in between.”

  “Hard work fighting to get to air.” His fingers stroked, adjusting a fold on the blanket wrapped tightly around Christopher. “Wears a body out.” He turned his head and looked at her. “How about you? Don’t look like you’re sleeping between times. You restin’ like you should?”

  “As I can.” She shook her head against the pillow. “I had a bad dream and can’t…I haven’t been able to get back to sleep.”

  “Burdens are easier shared, even unreasonable ones. Tell me about your dream.” He shifted, cocking one knee on the mattress so it pressed against her in an oddly comforting way. The heat of his body soaked through the sheet separating them. “I got all the time you need.”

  “I—I… It’s silly.”

  “So?” he shot back. “Just ’cause you think it’s silly don’t mean it isn’t stealin’ your rest away. Talk it out, we’ll sort it out, and you’ll be back to restin’ easy, Lindsay.”

  “Lindy.” She smiled at him. “My friends always used to call me Lindy.”

  “Honored.” There was so much emotion in that single word she blinked and stared at his face, which had turned a flinty kind of hard that told her it meant something to him that she’d given him that name. “Now, tell me, Lindy.”

  “Okay.” She paused, but he didn’t recant his offer, so she dived in. “I was here, like I am now. I think that’s why it felt so real, because part of it is, you know?” He nodded but didn’t speak, and she tipped her head back to stare up at the darkened ceiling. “I woke up and a man was standing next to Christopher, had his hand on the bassinette. Not the baby’s—” Even stopping short of saying the word that haunted her, it still made guilt prick her eyes with hot tears knowing her poor judgement in men had set the start of Christopher’s life on a fatherless track. I want Oscar to like me. What would he think if he knew? Lindsay tried to pick back up, changing direction to hide her fears. “—not anyone that I know. But he started spouting off gibberish legalese, and all I could do was stare at him. He finished, then backed towards the door, but he did it taking my son with him.” She took a deep breath. “I screamed and cried, asking him why he would do this to me. To my son. He told me it was in the best interests of the child, that I didn’t have anything to offer. I couldn’t get up. It was like I’d been glued to this bed. So all I could do was ask him not to as he went away. The door closed and it was dark in here, so dark I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel anything, and I prayed I was dead. I knew a life without Christopher wasn’t something I’d survive. I prayed and prayed, and then I woke up and the nurse was standing over Christopher, and I… I kinda freaked out.”

  She didn’t realize Oscar had moved until his hand brushed her face. The contact wasn’t startling, it was comforting as the heat and weight of his touch steadied her. She leaned into it, feeling his thumb sweep her cheek, gliding through the wet streaming from her eyes.

  “That had to be terrifyin’, Lindy. But it’s not going to happen. It was just a bad dream, you know that, right? You’re a good momma, anyone looking at you can see that. And you’ll do what you need to in order to provide for your boy.” His voice was by turns stern and gentle, and she liked that nearly as much as she liked his touch. “I don’t know much about you, but I’m a good judge of character. There’s nothing about you that tells me anything except you’re a good person who wound up in a bad situation, and that doesn’t define who you are. Who you are is that good person. I know that down in my gut. So don’t you worry about any bad dream. Put it right out of your head, and focus on what you need to do, what you need n
ext. We’ll get you where you need to be.” His voice went from stern to steel when he told her, “I promise you that.”

  It was like he tried to lay every fear to rest at once. Gathering them up in his words, folding them into tiny pieces until they weren’t threatening anymore. Oscar’s a special man. She knew he’d understand, so on a whisper, she shared, “I’m so scared.”

  His touch never wavered, thumb stroking gently across her cheek, fingers curved around the back of her neck, and he stared into her face, the expression on his resolute. “I know you are,” he whispered back, no less intense for the quiet. “You’ve got a little baby, a helpless being who depends on you for everything. Brought a life into this world, and that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, watching you see him for the first time, hold him for the first time, become the momma you were meant to be. So you let yourself be his momma, and then you’ve got to let me help you with the rest. I’ll make it so you aren’t scared anymore, at least not for the same things.” His lips pressed tightly together, then split in a small smile. “There’s plenty of scary things in this world. I’ve seen my share. But you bein’ who you were meant to be, mothering that boy? That’s so far from scary it’s not even in the same country. That’s making your own territory, and ownin’ it. You just gotta let me help you now so you can find your way.”

  “I live in a motel,” she told him, voice trembling even as she tried to firm it. Hard enough to admit her failings in the silence of her own head, it was twice as difficult to say these things aloud. “I don’t have a job, not now. Why would they wait for me when they need what they need now? Freelancers are a dime a dozen.”

  “I have a house, and it’s got a pair of bedrooms I’m not usin’. You give me your room key, and I’ll move everything you have today.”

  Lindsay sat silent, stunned at the offer. He doesn’t even know me. She thought back to how Deb and the doctor had spoken to Oscar, with respect and deference, showing through every interaction the kind of man they believed him to be. What’d he’d said about Christopher struck true, creating another well of fear inside her. Her tiny newborn was depending on her to make all the right decisions, to keep him safe. This seemed an offer that was too good to be true. She blinked wet away. “It can’t be that easy.”

  “It’s as easy as you let it be, Lindy.” His smile was wider, more confident now. “Easy as you let me make it.”

  “You don’t have to—” She paused when he shook his head firmly. “Oscar, you don’t. I can… I can figure out something.”

  “There’s a sayin’ about savin’ a life and becoming responsible for that life, you know that one?” She nodded, frowning at Oscar’s abrupt topic change. “I think there’s another one that says when you’re part of bringing a new life into the world, however that happens, there’s a responsibility for that life. That’s what I’m asking for, Lindy. You let me take this on, because I need it just as much as you do.”

  She stared at him, seeing for the first time the dark circles under his eyes, the shadowed expression. He looked like a man who sat in the grip of something regularly, and that something wasn’t good. Then she remembered his kindness, his care of her during Christopher’s birth, how he’d looked staring down at her son. And just now, how he’d somehow known she needed a friend and had walked into her hospital room without giving it a second thought, being there when she was at her lowest.

  Okay, she thought. Okay. Carefully choosing her words, she told him, “If I let you take that on—take me on like you’re talking about—then you need to know it goes both ways. If you’re responsible for me in any way, I’m responsible for you, too. You’re a good man, Oscar Mayhan. Deb spoke highly of you, as have the other nurses. I get the feeling that no matter my answer, you’d be doing what you wanted anyway.” He grinned at that, giving her an indication she’d read him right, and she gave him the same, surprised when his expression gentled at her smile. “So, if we do this, it’s going to have to be a give-and-take, because I can’t accept charity. Not for me.”

  “For your boy, you would,” he shot back, and she sighed because he was right. His grin told her he knew it, too. Oscar sobered and studied her for a moment, and she felt the approving weight of his gaze. “But it’s not charity. I work for a foundation, and we need some marketing assistance. I also have a cousin down at the Chamber, and I’ll call her tomorrow—today.” He laughed quietly. “See what they’ll work out for you. My house has three bedrooms, but because I don’t like being alone much, I stay with friends a lot of the time. You and Christopher won’t be putting me out at all. Promise.”

  “Then… okay.” She closed her eyes, taking in the feel of his comforting touch, the presence at her side that felt so solid, and the promise of a stable place to be for a while alongside the possibility of work. “Okay.”

  Christopher made a snuffling sound, and she quickly looked to where he lay. Swaddled as he was in the hospital’s blue blanket, her baby stretched, yawned hugely, and mewled like a kitten, tiny and weak. She lost the heat and pressure of Oscar’s touch but got to watch this big man, this strong man, this unbelievably kind man, hover over the bassinette with hands out, clearly at a loss as to how to pick up a baby.

  Lindy laughed for the first time in a long time at that.

  ***

  Cradling Christopher to her breast, she stared in awe as the discharging nurse showed her all the things in the hospital’s “welcome to motherhood” gift basket. Multiple packages of diapers and wipes, infant medication, tiny baby nail clippers, a bulb thingie for if he got stuffy... There was a wardrobe in packages of onesies, socks, hats, mittens, a sleeper sack, shirts and pants, and a dozen other things. She determinedly ignored the nurse’s surreptitious efforts to scrape off the price tags from some of the things, something that told Lindy not every mother had the same wealth bestowed on her. She waited until the nurse had packed things that would fit back inside a diaper bag that was the basket part of the gift, had bagged up all the things that wouldn’t, and was smiling down at Christopher before she said, “Tell everyone thank you for the impromptu baby shower. I love it all.”

  The wrinkled nose and grin told her the message of gratitude had been received and would be passed along.

  She’d never met as friendly and kind a group of people in her life. Not just the nurses, but the doctors, and even the admitting woman who’d been eating lunch when Lindy showed up at the hospital. It seemed everyone had trailed in at some point to oooh and aaah over Christopher.

  Oscar had been back every few hours, whatever job he did for that foundation giving him ample leeway in attendance to allow for frequent breaks. He’d brought in his cousin Kirby and Kirby’s fiancée, Dana, another person associated with the foundation she’d learned supported combat-wounded veterans. Oscar had introduced her to Nathan and his wife, Cathy, who’d promised Lindy she and Dana had made the guest room at Oscar’s house an oasis Lindy would love. Having been raised in a metropolitan suburb, she quickly decided there was something to be said for small towns where everyone knew everybody else. When there was a need, it seemed like everyone pitched in. There’d even be a crib waiting, given to them by the mayor no less, a man who turned out to be Oscar’s second cousin.

  Her job for the city was secure; they’d told Oscar to tell her congratulations and to not worry about a thing, the deposit they’d paid standing as surety that she’d complete the work. Kirby’s plans for the charitable foundation were exciting, and Lindy couldn’t wait to dig in and put together a campaign for him, something he’d said would be waiting for her when she felt ready to begin.

  Oscar stuck his head in around the door, dazzled her with a smile, and asked the nurse, “Hey, Donna. She ready to go?”

  Lindy smiled and gave him a little wave, answering for herself. “Yes, she’s ready.”

  “Hey.” He stepped around the nurse and to her side, bending close to touch Christopher’s hand. The little boy’s fingers immediately wrapped around Oscar’s fin
gertip, and his next greeting was for her son. “Hey, Chris. How’s my big boy today?” The door sighed shut behind Donna, leaving Lindy with Oscar.

  Rolling her eyes, she reminded him of her preference. “Christopher.”

  “Lindsay.” He drawled her name out long. “If you think this boy’s teachers and friends are gonna stick with that long name, you’re full of it.” He angled his head to catch her gaze with his and smiled, then made his point, “Lindy.”

  She felt a touch, and instead of continuing the teasing argument, she looked down at Christopher to see Oscar’s hand had shifted and now rested against her as well. He had been careful to not make her feel awkward about their rushed and somewhat exposed introduction, which meant she knew this was inadvertent contact, so she jostled her bundled baby, unseating his fingers from the curve of her breast as blood rushed to her face.

  “You ready to go home?” The casual way he said it made tears well in her eyes.

  If only I’d met someone like Oscar instead of— She cut off her thoughts, unwilling to even name the man in her mind. She blinked away the threatening tears and looked up, waiting until he dragged his gaze from Christopher to her. He deserves to understand.

  “Do you know how much it means to me that you care? A stranger.” She lifted a hand to stall his interruption, waiting until he closed his mouth, lips thinning resolutely in a way that told her he’d have his say afterwards. “A stranger in profound need, and you’ve done everything in your power to help. And now, you’re inviting a single mother with a newborn into your home, knowing the schedule my son keeps is an every-two-hours one. You’ve moved my things, organized your friends to help, and introduced me to them so I’d have a larger circle of my own contacts here in town. You secured my current freelance project and expanded that to include a new client.”