Free Somebody's Baby by Annie Jones

Besides, the bathroom was closer to the front door. Better situated to hear what Conner Burdett had to say.
    “Hello?” the masculine voice boomed. The knocking did not relent. “Hello in there.”
    “Just a…” Josie put her finger to her lips to remind him to stay quiet, then waved her hand to order Adam to close the door. “Just a moment, please.”
    “I know you’re in there, young lady. Don’t think you can hide from me.”
    “Hide? Me? Hide from…him?” Adam looked his son in the eye. “This is not hiding.”
    “Ya-ya-ya.”
    “No, really. That is not who I am. It’s important to me that you know that, kid. I’m not hiding. I’m exercising discretion. Control. Got that?”
    “Ya-ya-ya.” Nathan waggled his head, his dark hair floating back and forth like down.
    “Don’t buy that, huh?” What Adam had intended as a joke left him uncomfortable and defensive. He met his own eyes in the bathroom mirror and frowned. “How about this? I’m protecting your mother. Both of your mothers.”
    “Hello?” Josie’s voice was steady but tentative as the front door creaked open. “May I, um, may I help you?”
    “Josephine Redmond?” Conner got right to the point.
    The door creaked even louder.
    Adam could imagine his father blustering in past Josie as if she wasn’t even there. He clenched his jaw.
    “Yes.” Hesitation and anxiety colored Josie’s usually warm, friendly tone.
    “Good.” Heavy footsteps thudded farther into the front room.
    “Mr. Burdett, I didn’t expect anyone to drop by today. Sir, if you don’t mind…” She let her voice trail off, leaving her uninvited visitor to do what anyone with even the most basic good manners would do—apologize and offer to return when it was convenient.
    Poor naive Josie. She must not have known that not only did Conner not mind that he’d inconvenienced her, he had counted on doing just that.
    Keep ’em off balance. Always maintain the upper hand. Hold business meetings in your own office and if you can’t, then never take a seat before your adversary. Conner had whole lists of edicts about interacting with others.
    Adam had once asked, “What about people who are not your adversaries?”
    “There are no such creatures, boy,” Conner had replied with a look bent on driving home the point that the man included his own sons in that sweeping generalization.
    “You didn’t expect company,” Conner’s voice grew louder, a sure indication he had barged right into the house and had headed straight for the kitchen. “Yet here you just happened to bring a pie home from your restaurant in the middle of the day?”
    Adam tensed. The last time he had heard that tone, that cadence of speech, that calculating manner, was the day he’d gotten a check, the lump-sum payment to buy him out of his share of the family business and the money his mother had left him in her will. He thought the next time he heard it, the man would be begging him to save the business. Now to hear him toying with Josie like this…
    Adam flexed one hand over the doorknob. He wanted to go out there to rescue Josie.
    Nathan squirmed.
    He studied his son’s face. Despite having only recently become aware the child existed, much less knowing him, just looking at him filled Adam with so much emotion. And he knew he would do anything to keep him safe. He knew Josie would feel the same way.
    “Is that your way of asking for a piece of pie, sir?”
    Silence. Conner hadn’t seen that coming.
    He wouldn’t. Kindness and hospitality were foreign concepts to the old man.
    “Good for you, Josie,” Adam whispered.
    “Uh, uh-huh. Pie would be nice.” The tone shifted slightly. “Thank you.”
    Adam didn’t know what to make of it.
    “But what I’d rather have—” the old bluster returned “—is to get my hands on my grandson.”
    “Get your hands on?” Josie repeated the demand with hushed anxiety.
    Adam hated this. Hated having to stand by and make her endure his father.