Nobody's Baby But Mine Part 7

He'd gotten the message.

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The following evening Cal sat in his accustomed place toward the back of the chartered plane that was returning the Stars to Chicago from Indianapolis. The lights were out in the cabin, and most of the players either slept or listened to music through headsets. Cal brooded.

His ankle ached from an injury he'd received in the fourth quarter. Afterward, Kevin had gone in to replace him, been sacked three times, fumbled twice, and still thrown the ball fifty-three yards for the winning touchdown.

His injuries were coming faster now: a shoulder separation at training camp, a deep thigh bruise last month, and now this. The team physician had diagnosed a high ankle sprain, which meant Cal wouldn't be able to practice this week. He was thirty-six years old, and he tried not to remember that even Montana had retired at thirty-eight. He also wasn't dwelling on the fact that he didn't recover as quickly as he used to. In addition to his ankle injury, his knees throbbed, a couple of his ribs hurt, and his hip felt as if it had a hot poker shoved right through it. He knew he'd spend a good part of the night in his whirlpool.

Between the ankle injury and the disastrous incident with Rosebud, he was more than glad to have this weekend behind him. He still couldn't believe that he hadn't used a rubber. Even when he was a teenager, he'd never been that careless. What really galled him was the fact that he hadn't even thought about it until after she'd left. It was as if the minute he'd set eyes on her, his brain had gone into hibernation, and l.u.s.t had taken over.

Maybe he'd taken one too many blows to the head because he sure as h.e.l.l felt like he was losing his mind. If it had been any groupie other than Rosebud, he would never have let her into his room. The first time he'd had an excuse since he'd been half-drunk, but this time there weren't any excuses. He'd wanted her, and he'd taken her; it had been as simple as that.

He couldn't even figure out what her appeal was. One of the perks of being an athlete was picking and choosing, and he'd always chosen the youngest and the most beautiful women. Despite what she'd said, she was at least twenty-eight, and he had no interest in women that old. He liked them fresh and dewy, with high, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pouty mouths, and the smell of newness about them.

Rosebud smelled like old-fashioned vanilla. Then there were those green eyes of hers. Even when she was lying, she'd looked at him dead on. He wasn't used to that. He liked flirty, fluttery eyes on women, but Rosebud had no-nonsense eyes, which was ironic considering the fact that nothing about her was honest.

He brooded all the way back to Chicago and kept at it right on into the next week. The fact that he was held out from practice made him even more bad-tempered than usual, and it wasn't until Friday that his rigid self-discipline finally kicked in, and he blocked out everything except the Denver Broncos.

The Stars were playing in the semifinals for the AFC Championship, and despite his sore shoulder, he managed to perform. Injuries, however, hampered their defense, and they weren't able to stop the Broncos' pa.s.sing attack. Denver won, twenty-two to eighteen.

Cal Bonner's fifteenth season in the NFL came to an end.

Marie, the secretary Jane shared with two other members of Newberry's Physics Department, held out several pink message slips as Jane walked into the office. "Dr. Ngyuen at Fermi called; he needs to speak with you before four o'clock, and Dr. Davenport has scheduled a departmental meeting for Wednesday."

"Thanks, Marie."

Despite the secretary's sour face, Jane could barely resist giving her a hug. She wanted to dance, sing, jitterbug on the ceiling, then race through the corridors of Stramingler Hall and tell all her colleagues that she was pregnant.

"I need your DOE reports by five."

"You'll have them," Jane replied. The temptation to share the news was nearly irresistible, but she was only a month along, Marie was a judgmental sourpuss, and it was too early to tell anyone.

One person knew, however, and as Jane collected her mail and walked into her office, a nagging worry burrowed through her happiness. Two nights ago Jodie had dropped by the house and spotted the books on pregnancy that Jane had unthinkingly left stacked on the coffee table. Jane could hardly hide her condition from Jodie forever, and she didn't try to deny it, but she was uneasy about trusting someone so self-centered to keep quiet regarding the circ.u.mstances surrounding her child's conception.

Although Jodie had promised that she'd carry Jane's secret to the grave, Jane didn't have quite that much faith in her integrity. Still, she had seemed genuinely happy and sincere in her desire to keep the secret, so, as Jane closed herself in her office and flipped on her computer, she decided not to waste any more energy worrying about it.

She logged on to the electronic preprint library at Los Alamos to see what new papers on string theory and duality had been posted since yesterday. It was an automatic act, the same one performed daily by every top-level physicist in the world. The general public opened a newspaper first thing in the morning. Physicists connected with the library at Los Alamos.

But this morning, instead of concentrating on the list of new papers, she found herself thinking about Cal Bonner. According to Jodie, he was spending most of February traveling around the country fulfilling his commercial endors.e.m.e.nt obligations before he left for North Carolina in early March. At least she wouldn't have to worry about b.u.mping into him at the corner grocery store.

The knowledge should have been comforting, but she couldn't quite shake off her uneasiness. She determinedly turned her attention back to her computer screen, but the words wouldn't come into focus. Instead, she found herself envisioning the nursery she wanted to decorate.

She'd already decided it would be yellow, and she would paint a rainbow running up the walls and across the ceiling. Her mouth curved in a dreamy smile. This precious child of hers was going to grow up surrounded by everything beautiful.

Jodie was p.i.s.sed. The guys had promised her a night with Kevin Tucker if she came up with the Bomber's birthday present, but it was the end of February, more than three months later, and they still hadn't delivered. Watching Kevin flirt with one of her girlfriends didn't sweeten her mood.

Melvin Thompson had rented Zebras for a party, and all the players who were still in town were there. Although Jodie was officially working, she'd been sipping from everybody's drinks all night so she was finally ready to confront Junior Duncan when she found him in the back room shooting pool with Germaine Clark shortly after midnight.

"I need to talk to you, Junior."

"Later, Jodie. Can't you see me and Germaine have a game going?"

She wanted to pull the cue right out of his hands and bash him over the head with it, but she wasn't quite that drunk. "You guys made me a promise, but I still don't have number twelve hanging anywhere near my closet. You might have forgot about Kevin, but I sure haven't."

"I told you we're working on it." He aimed for the center pocket and missed. "s.h.i.t."

"That's what you've been saying for three months, and I'm not buying it anymore. Every time I try to talk to him, he looks at me like I'm invisible."

Junior stepped aside so Germaine could take his turn, and she was happy to see that he looked a little uncomfortable. "The thing of it is, Jodie, Kevin's been givin' us a few problems."

"Are you sayin' he doesn't want to sleep with me?"

"It's not that. It's just that he's been seeing a couple other women, and it's gotten sort of complicated. Tell you what? How 'bout I fix you up with Roy Rawlins and Matt Truate?"

"Get real. If I'd wanted those two benchwarmers, I could have screwed them months ago." She crossed her arms. "We had a deal. If I found you a hooker for the Bomber's birthday present, I got a night with Kevin. I lived up to my part of the bargain."

"Not exactly."

The sound of that Carolina drawl coming from directly behind her sent a shiver down her spine, just like somebody'd stomped right over her grave. She turned and looked into the Bomber's pale gray eyes.

Where had he come from? The last time she'd seen him, a couple of blondes had been trying to make time with him at the bar. What was he doing back here?

"You didn't come up with a hooker hooker, did you, Jodie?"

She licked her lips. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do." She jumped as he curled his long fingers around her arm. "Excuse us, guys. Jodie and me are going to step outside and have ourselves a little chat."

"You're crazy! It's freezing out there."

"We won't stay long." Without giving her a chance to argue, he pulled her away from the pool table and toward the back door.

All day the radio had been warning that temperatures would be dipping into the single digits that night, and as they hit the alley, their breath made vapor clouds in the air. Jodie shivered, and Cal regarded her with grim satisfaction. He was finally going to have his questions answered.

Mysteries had always made him edgy, both on the football field and in real life. In his experience a mystery generally meant somebody was getting ready to run a play that wasn't in the book, and he didn't like those kinds of surprises.

He knew he could have pressed the guys for some answers, but he didn't want them to suspect how much time he'd spent thinking about Rosebud. Until he'd overheard Jodie's conversation with Junior, it hadn't occurred to him to talk to her.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to put the matter of Rosebud to rest. He found himself worrying about her at the strangest times. Who could predict how many hotel rooms she'd stumbled into recently, with her story about SPPs and spiritual advisors? For all he knew, she'd moved on to the Bears by now, and he couldn't help wondering which one of them she wasn't undressing for.

"Who is she, Jodie?"

She wore only her hostess uniform, a clingy scooped-neck top with a zebra-striped short skirt, and her teeth were already chattering. "A hooker I found out about."

Part of his brain whispered a warning that maybe he should let it go at that. How did he know he wasn't poking into things he was better off not knowing? But one of the factors that made him a great quarterback was his ability to sense danger, and for some reason he didn't understand, the hairs on the back of his neck had begun standing up.

"You're bulls.h.i.tting me, Jodie, and I don't like it when people do that." He let go of her arm, but, at the same time, he moved a few inches closer, trapping her between himself and the brick wall.

Her eyes darted to the side. "She's somebody I met, okay?"

"I want a name."

"I can't- Look, I can't do that. I promised."

"You shouldn't have."

She started rubbing her arms, and her teeth began to chatter. "Jesus, Cal, it's colder than h.e.l.l out here."

"I don't even feel it."

"She's ... Her name is Jane. That's all I know."

"I don't believe you."

"This is bulls.h.i.t!" She jerked to the side, trying to push past him, but he shifted his weight, blocking her way. He knew he was scaring her, and that was just fine with him. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

"Jane what?"

"I forget." She clutched her arms tighter and hunched her shoulders.

Her defiance annoyed him. "Hanging around the guys means a lot to you, doesn't it?"

She regarded him warily. "It's okay."

"I think it's a lot more than okay. I think it's the most important thing in your sad little life. And I know you'd be real upset if none of the players came in to Zebras anymore. If none of them wanted to hang out with you, not even the backups."

He knew he had her, but she made one last stab at defying him. "She's a nice lady having a hard time, and I'm not going to hurt her."

"Name!"

She hesitated, then gave in. "Jane Darlington."

"Keep talking."

"That's all I know," she said sullenly.

He lowered his voice until it was barely more than a whisper. "This is your last warning. Tell me what I want to know, or I'll make you off-limits to every player on the team."

"You're a real s.h.i.t."

He didn't say a thing. He just stood there and waited.

She rubbed her arms for warmth and regarded him with belligerence. "She's a physics professor at Newberry."

Of all the things he had expected to hear, that one wasn't even on the list. "A professor? professor?"

"Yeah. And she works at one of those labs, too. I don't know which one. She's a geek-real smart-but she doesn't have a lot of guys, and ... She didn't mean any harm."

The more answers he got, the more the skin on the back of his neck tightened. "Why me? And don't try to tell me she's a Stars' groupie because I know that's not true."

She was shaking with the cold. "I promised her, okay. This is like her whole life and everything."

"I've just run out of patience."

He could see her trying to figure out whether she was going to protect her own hide or rat on her friend. He knew the answer even before she spoke.

"She wanted to have a kid, all right! And she doesn't want you to know about it."

A chill shot through him that had nothing to do with the temperature.

She regarded him uneasily. "It's not like she's going to show up when the kid's born and ask for money. She's got a good job, and she's smart, so why don't you just forget about the whole thing."

He was having a hard time dragging enough air into his lungs. "Are you telling me she's pregnant? That she used me to get herself pregnant?"

"Yeah, but it's not like it's really your kid. It's like you're just a sperm donor. That's the way she thinks about it."

"A sperm donor?" He felt as if he were going to explode-as if the top of his head was about to blow right off. He hated any kind of permanence-he wouldn't even live in the same place for very long-yet now he'd fathered a child. He had to fight to stay in control. "Why me? Tell me why she choose me?"

A thread of fear reappeared beneath her hostility. "You're not going to like this part."

"I'll just bet you're right."

"She's this genius. And being so much smarter than everybody else made her feel like a freak when she was growing up. Naturally she didn't want that for her kid, so it was important for her to find somebody who wasn't like her to be the sperm donor."

"Wasn't like her? What do you mean?"

"Somebody who ... Well, who wasn't exactly a genius."

He wanted to shake her until every one of her chattering teeth hit the ground. "What the h.e.l.l are you trying to say? Why did she choose me?"

Jodie eyed him warily. "Because she thinks you're stupid."

"The isotope's three protons and seven neutrons are unbound." Turning her back on the eight students in her graduate seminar, six males and two females, Jane continued sketching on the board. "Take one neutron away from Li-11, and a second one will also leave. Li-9 stays behind, binding it and the two remaining neutrons as a three-body system."

She was so intent on explaining the complexity of neutron halos in isotopes of lithium that she paid no attention to the slight disturbance that was arising behind her.

"Li-11 is called a Borromean nucleus along with ..." A chair squeaked. She heard whispers. "Along with ..." Papers rustled. More whispers. Puzzled, she turned to investigate the source of the disturbance.

And saw Cal Bonner leaning against the sidewall, his arms crossed, fingers tucked under his armpits.

All the blood rushed from her head, and for the first time in her life, she thought she was going to faint. How had he found her? What was he doing here? For a moment she let herself pretend that he wouldn't recognize her in her professional attire. She wore a conservative double-breasted woolen dress, and her hair was pulled into the French twist that kept it out of her way when she worked. She had her gla.s.ses on-he'd never seen her with gla.s.ses. But he wasn't fooled for a moment.

A thick silence fell over the room. Everyone in her cla.s.s seemed to recognize him, but he paid no attention to their reactions. He only looked at her.