Free Bundle of Joy by Barbara Bretton

think she would fare too badly with mine."
    "You know what I'm talking about."
    "The concept of illegitimacy is an outdated one," she persisted. "In case you haven't noticed, the world's changed a great deal."
    "Right, and that's why adults are out there searching for their parents."
    "You're talking about adoptions. This is entirely different."
    "The principle's the same. People want to know where they come from. It's about blood."
    She looked at him strangely. This was the last thing she'd expected to hear from the mouth of the ex-navy cook.
    "You'd still be the child's father, Charles, whether or not we were married. You wouldn't be locked out of the baby's life. I don't understand the difference."
    "Kids have enough to fight growing up these days. Why give ours anything more to explain or wonder about?"
    She paused, struck by his words. With his statement, Donohue had neatly summed up the basic difference between men and women. Caroline could only think of the fetus curled inside her womb, of the baby who would nurse at her breast. And yet there was Donohue, considering the feelings of the child who would venture out on his or her own.
    "I--I hadn't thought of it quite that way." Although why she hadn't was beyond her. Hadn't she helped her goddaughter Patty search for a father not even two years ago? Patty had wanted a daddy more than anything in the world, despite Sam's best efforts to be mother and father to her little girl. Sam and Patty had been happy as a family of two, but that happiness had truly soared when Murphy O'Rourke came onto the scene.
    The waitress, blatantly curious, deposited Caroline's dinner salad and Donohue's side of beef. The porterhouse was rare, just the way he'd ordered it, and Caroline watched a thin trickle of pink juice ooze from the steak where he pierced it with his knife. "Excuse me." She scraped back her chair and rose, unsteady, to her feet.
    "You don't look too good," said Charlie, pushing his own chair back and getting to his feet.
    "Eat," she said, praying her stomach would stay where nature had intended it to stay. "One of us might as well."
     
    #
     
    Charlie watched as she disappeared down the hallway in search of the ladies' room. Green, he thought, reclaiming his chair. He'd never actually seen anyone turn green before but damned if the beautiful Ms. Bradley hadn't turned a beautiful shade of chartreuse right before his eyes.
    "Everything okay, sir?"
    He looked up at the perky waitress with the intricate braid, who had obviously waited for Caroline to disappear before she dared approach the table again.
    "Great," he said, cutting a slab of steak. "Couldn't be better."
    "The lady...." The waitress paused delicately. "Is something wrong with her salad?"
    "Salad's great. Everything's fine."
    The waitress didn't look as if she believed him. Reluctantly she returned to her post near the kitchen, casting a watchful eye for Caroline's return.
    "Right," he said into his beer. "Everything's fine."
    He'd walked into that restaurant a happy-go-lucky bachelor with nothing on his mind except tomorrow's Yankee game. Ten minutes later he was an expectant father. He knew he should be thinking profound thoughts about the future, about immortality, about having someone to carry on his name but his mind had gone blank. Things that had seemed so clear when he looked into Caroline's huge blue eyes no longer seemed clear at all. Suddenly he felt as if someone had dropped anchor on him without his knowledge, weighing him down with responsibilities he hadn't wanted or asked for.
    But then, neither had she asked for those responsibilities. What had happened between them in the fur storage vault had been a mutual coming together of two adults. Unfortunately neither of those two adults had had brains enough to give even lip service to birth control.
    He pushed his plate away and stared blankly at Caroline's empty chair. One night. That was all it took. A few hours and life as he knew it had vanished right