Father By Surprise

Would Nick get tired of playing at being an Indian again, or worse, tired of playing daddy, and hightail it back to Chicago the first chance he got?

It almost didn’t matter what the answer was. As Tanya watched, he sat cross-legged on the blanket and let Bear take his hat on and off his head while keeping up a polite, friendly conversation with Mom. Every so often, Nick would glance up at Tanya and give her the kind of warm smile that made her want to melt.

Maybe it didn’t matter that he would leave, which she was certain he would do. Maybe all that mattered was that he was here now.

* * *

“So you watch Bear during the day?”

“Monday through Friday,” Doreen said. “We have a good ol’ time, me and my Bear—don’t we, sweetie?” She leaned over and touched Bear on the nose. “We watch some cartoons, make some lunch, play some games—Nana’s house is always fun, isn’t it, baby?”

Nick was sure Tanya had said Bear was partially deaf, but as far as he could tell, the little boy understood the vast majority of what was said to him. Right now, for example, he was stretching his arms up to Doreen as if to agree that yes, they did have loads of fun together.

But beyond that, Nick was shocked by how much Tanya’s mother had changed since he’d seen her last. Her weight had ballooned—not that unusual on the rez, where the only grocery store within sixty miles was a Qwik-E Mart. However, Doreen’s weight seemed to congregate in her legs, to the point that she couldn’t get shoes on her feet.

How did she keep up with Bear when she could hardly walk? That worried Nick, but not as much as the way Doreen’s glassy eyes blinked at different speeds. The woman looked like she was in the middle of the world’s worst migraine.

“How have you been feeling?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh, you know,” Doreen replied, casually waving away his concern, “we all have our crosses to carry.”

Nick nodded in sympathy, but mentally, his wheels began to turn. He’d spent the last two weeks thinking about one of three things: Tanya, Bear and his current case. He was hip-deep in statements of denial from Midwest Energy Company about whether they had actually drilled underneath the Dakota River and onto the Red Creek Reservation for natural gas, and even if they had—which they were not admitting in a court of law—they were sure the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wouldn’t have polluted anything.

But other evidence showed that those chemicals were showing up in groundwater. When that groundwater made it into homes, people were being poisoned, one glass of water at a time.

Nick had already checked the maps. Tanya’s little house was several miles outside the radius the tribe maintained was polluted. Doreen’s house was right in the middle of it.

Most medical studies of the chemical pollutants talked about the neurological problems that occurred when people drank contaminated water. Nick was still working his way through the accusations by the tribe and the denials by Midwest. Now, however, he began to think that he needed to spend more time investigating the human impact of the pollution.

Doreen and Bear just might turn out to be the keys to his case. He just had to prove that Doreen’s water was contaminated and that both she and Bear were sick because of it. And if he could tie the hearing and speech problems of an innocent child directly to the actions of a money-grubbing corporation—well, that’s when lawyers started tossing around phrases like “slam dunk” and “sure thing.” When confronted with that kind of adorable evidence, corporations were much more likely to sign off on huge settlements than be labeled child poisoners. And the sooner everyone signed off on huge settlements, the sooner Nick could go back to his real life.

Even as he thought about going back to Chicago, Nick took in his surroundings. Bear had climbed into his lap and was now sucking his thumb, apparently on his way toward a nap. The sky was huge; the steady drumbeat and the whirling dancers in the nearby circle made him feel alive. Some of the guys had given him crap about cutting his hair, but no one treated him like an outsider—not to his face anyway. Despite his earlier concerns about coming to the powwow, he was having fun. Fun had been the last thing on his mind when he’d made his decision. He’d only come to prove Tanya wrong, but he had the sinking feeling he’d actually proved her right.

He was going to go back to his life in Chicago, that was a given. Things here were worse than ever—at least all he’d had to worry about when drinking the water from the river as a kid had been getting an upset stomach. Now the water here was contaminated. Even if he wrung a huge settlement out of Midwest Energy, it still wouldn’t cover the whole cost of cleanup once the legal fees were paid. And even though he had no concrete evidence, there was no doubt in his mind that Bear’s health issues were directly connected to that contamination. All of which made one thing brutally clear.

He couldn’t leave Bear on this rez.

He watched Tanya as she prepared to enter the circle for the women’s shawl dance. She looked up to where he sat and shot him a small, private smile.

A sudden, powerful urge to take her with him all but smacked him between the eyes. He shook it off, though. They’d had this argument before. She wasn’t going anywhere. She liked this hellhole. Sure, the sky here was pretty, and yeah, he was glad he’d come, but he didn’t want to live here. A man couldn’t survive on sweeping vistas alone. He had grown fond of his spacious condo, fine-dining choices and sailing on Lake Michigan. He didn’t want to go back to polluted water and cardboard-covered windows.

No use getting ahead of himself. Before he started game-planning how Doreen and Bear fit into his case against Midwest Energy, he had to have his facts straight, which meant that he had to get some hard evidence that Doreen Rattling Blanket’s water was contaminated and that Doreen’s and Bear’s health problems were tied to that. He’d need water samples and health records. And if it turned out he was right about this, then those same facts would be what he needed to win a custody battle.

He didn’t want it to come to that. He didn’t even want to be thinking about dragging Tanya into court. But no matter what a custody case would do to her—or his reputation back in Chicago—he refused to leave Bear in a situation where his health was in danger. This was about his son, first and foremost.

He’d have to go around Tanya. If she realized what connections he was making and what he intended to do with those connections, she might panic. He’d seen that before, too—people did stupid things when they felt cornered. He’d just found his son—he didn’t want Tanya to up and disappear with the boy. No, this situation required the utmost discretion.

By the end of the day, Nick had a plan. Now he just needed an opportunity, and he got one handed to him on a silver platter. Bear was fussy—or so Nick assumed. He hadn’t figured how hard it would be to understand a kid who didn’t make any noise. The boy was wriggling and flopping and scowling and no matter what Tanya did, it only got worse.

“I need to take him home. He’s super cranky.”

Doreen looked around. “The closing dance…well, if he needs to go, we’ll go.”

Nick heard the disappointment in Doreen’s voice and jumped at his chance. “I can take you home later, if you want to stay.”

Doreen rewarded him with a huge grin. “Really? You’d do that for me?”

Her joy was so real that Nick almost felt bad for having ulterior motives. “Of course—if it’s okay with Tanya, that is.” They both turned to Tanya.

Nick didn’t like the look on her face because it was the same look he’d been seeing a lot—one of optimism and hope mixed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Was she on to him, or was this just more of what he had coming?

“Sure,” she said slowly. “That would be great.” It didn’t sound great, but he took it.

Tanya kissed her mom goodbye, and then Nick carried Bear back to Tanya’s rust bucket of a car. Nick recognized it as the same car Doreen had been driving years ago. “This still runs, huh?”

Tanya was silent for a moment, leaving Nick to wonder if he’d managed to insult her again. But then she said, “Yup. At least I don’t have to worry about Bear trashing it, you know? Not like that car of yours.” Her tone was light, but not suspicious. Perfect.

“Hey, no big deal. And I got a vehicle we can put the car seat in, just so you know.”

Tanya looked up at him through wary eyes. “Bought a new car, did you?”

“Actually, it’s an F-250 extended-cab truck. Figured I’d need something to handle winter weather sooner or later,” he added, so she wouldn’t think he’d bought a truck just for child transportation reasons.

Tanya sighed, her shoulders drooping down. “I can’t get used to you throwing money around, Nick. I just can’t.”

That he understood. It had taken several years for him to get to the point where he bought things for the fun of it instead of stuffing the money under a mattress like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter. “I want to see you again.”

“Me or Bear?”

No, she didn’t trust him. “Both. You have a standing invitation to come to my place. I bought a toddler bed for Bear and everything, so you wouldn’t even have to pack.”

“Where would I sleep?” She asked it carefully, as if she knew exactly what sort of detonator was on that bomb of a question.

If they were back in her little house instead of in the parking lot of a powwow, he’d kiss her. Hell, he was thinking about kissing her anyway, but he was pretty sure he’d get punched for his trouble. He’d undoubtedly stirred up an epic hornets’ nest by showing up at all, let alone spending the afternoon playing with Bear. People were going to figure out he was Bear’s father sooner or later, but sooner didn’t have to be this instant.

So he leaned back even as he kept his eyes locked on hers. “Babe, you may sleep wherever you want.”

“Oh,” was all the answer he got, but the way her cheeks colored up with a beautiful pink told him plenty. No, she didn’t have to love him. He didn’t have to love her either. It wasn’t a strict requirement. But she still wanted him.

Luckily, the feeling was mutual.

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