Father By Surprise. Sarah M. Anderson
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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.
He tried to set Bear down just like Tanya had done the other night, but got his arms crossed up and wound up flopping the kid onto the bed. He froze, terrified he had just woken the baby up again, but after an extra-deep sigh, the little guy rolled over. Nick looked to Tanya, hoping to see approval or a smile on her face, but was surprised to see that she’d already turned away. In fact, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say she was sprinting down the small hallway.
Moving as quietly as he could, Nick followed. By the time he got the bedroom door shut, she was out the front door. Oh, no. No way she was going to run away from him now.
At the very least, they had to work out a visitation schedule, and he had to know more about Bear’s health—especially if he was going to start paying the medical bills. Tanya was still healthy, and Nick had never had any issues. It couldn’t be normal for Bear to have so many massive health issues. There had to be an external cause. Maybe it was just because Nick had litigated so many major pollution cases, but his first thought was that that external cause was environmental. What were the odds that Bear’s silence was connected to the contamination of the groundwater that the tribe maintained had occurred as a result of Midwest Energy’s fracking?
But if that was the case, why wasn’t Tanya just as sick? That was the part that didn’t make sense to Nick, so he had no justifications for jumping to conclusions. He wasn’t going to rule anything out yet. All this meant was that he needed to do a little more research. The boy was going to have to get tested. If there was a chance he could be cured or fixed or whatever, Nick had to make sure that happened. And if the results happened to bolster his case, well, he’d have another piece of evidence in his pocket.
But environmental concerns were not the real reason he took off after Tanya. Despite it all—her rejection of him, the hidden baby with health problems, the adversarial tone to their interactions—he wanted her. While he was fully aware that she’d kissed him out of self-defense the other night, there was no way she’d faked the heat that had flowed between them. He could still taste her desire on his lips. All that was complicated and tense had disappeared in that hot moment until he’d forgotten about lawsuits and reservations and everything that wasn’t Tanya. He needed Tanya. It wasn’t any more complicated than that.
Except it was. It always had been. Maybe it always would be, because by the time he caught up to her, she was standing next to his Jaguar, arms crossed and an unassailable look on her face.
Right. As much as he wanted to feel her body in his arms again, if he forced the issue, he would do more harm than good. He couldn’t let her know that he needed her more than she needed him. Never ever show weakness. “Like I said, I was having a little trouble with the car seat.”
“Have you considered that the problem wasn’t the seat, but your car?” She spoke stiffly, but he could still hear a tiny tease in her voice.
He was glad to hear that tease, however small. “Are you suggesting