Practicing Parenthood
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Cara Lockwood
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Prologue
COLLIN BAPTISTA SLID through the metal detectors at the Lee County courthouse, grateful for the cool air-conditioning that fought off the humid air of southwest Florida. He grabbed his keys and wallet from the conveyor belt and nodded at Joyce, the armed guard who wore her hair in tight braids. She was a regular, like all the staff he saw almost daily at the courthouse.
“Looking good today,” she told him, her eyes sliding down the length of the new dark suit that fit him like a glove, a splurge he’d allowed himself after winning that high-profile murder trial last month. He patted the top of his thick black hair, courtesy of his Filipino mother, a contrast to his green eyes and the lopsided, roguish smile from his Irish dad. Collin was anything but boy-next-door, but he could command a courtroom with persuasive arguments alone, one of the many reasons he hadn’t lost a case in two years working as a prosecutor for the state attorney’s office.
Still, he felt nerves dance in the pit of his stomach, but they had nothing to do with the hearing this morning, which was a routine case—a drunk driver who’d smashed his car into a tree but thankfully hadn’t hurt anyone. Yet. Collin planned to take the driver’s license to teach him a lesson. That was an open-and-shut case, something he could do with his eyes closed. The man’s blood alcohol had been three times the legal limit. No, what made him anxious was the thought of seeing Madison Reddy again.
Madison. Her dark thick hair, her light brown nearly hazel eyes... The curves that simply didn’t quit. Her father’s family had immigrated from India, her mother’s side was from Scotland. She was biracial like he was, and the only woman he knew of who could make an off-the-rack gray suit and sturdy heels look almost pornographic. He’d been haunted by her eyes for a year, and even more so now since they’d fallen into her bed two months ago after happy hour gone wrong.
Or, he thought, very, very right.
Collin walked through the courtroom and found he was early; no one sat at the defense table. He felt a tug of disappointment. He’d wanted every extra minute before or after the hearing to see her. That she wasn’t waiting for him left him feeling a little empty.
You were the one who didn’t call her, a voice nagged inside his brain. You were the one who deliberately avoided her these past couple of months.
He’d told himself he hadn’t called because he was worried about violating the state attorney’s policy of not sleeping with the opposing counsel. He could’ve gotten around that, he supposed. But he knew the real reason ran deeper than that. He liked Madison. He liked her too much. He had career plans that didn’t include staying in Fort Myers, and if he started a serious relationship with her, he’d be tempted to toss those ideas out the window.
He only had three rules in life: 1) Don’t lose; 2) Bad guys deserve more than the book thrown at them; and 3) Never sleep with the enemy (in other words, defense attorneys). He’d broken one of his three cardinal rules for Madison. That was how amazing the woman was.
In his opinion, most defense attorneys were liars or exaggerators, relying on smoke and mirrors rather than facts. Every prosecutor felt that way. He’d vowed never to go to bed with one of them. Yet, Madison had somehow managed to sneak past all his defenses. She stood by her own set of principles and wasn’t afraid to give him a piece of her mind.
Instantly, afterward, he realized how reckless he’d been. If word got out that he’d slept with opposing counsel, it would tarnish his career and hers.
They’d faced off on a number of different cases, including one that involved a fairly high-profile white supremacist who’d tried to murder a black man but had ended up shooting a twelve-year-old girl by mistake. After their one night together, he’d avoided her steadfastly for a couple of months. Yet, as much as he tried to forget her, he kept thinking about her smooth legs, soft stomach, her light brown eyes alight with mirth. It was only his career that kept him from picking up the phone and calling her.
But none of that mattered now. He wasn’t going to be her opposing counsel for much longer.
He sat at the prosecutor’s table and opened his briefcase, checking out the letter one last time. He’d accepted a job at the US attorney’s office in Miami, a huge promotion, beginning in four months. Not bad for a kid whose father went to prison for drugs when Collin was just two and died there when Collin was ten. He was proud of being a success despite the odds—son of a single mom and raised in the poorest of poor neighborhoods. Sure, he was a hard-nosed, hard-charging prosecutor, but life had never given him any real breaks. He’d had plenty of temptation to run drugs, to steal, to cut corners—but he’d never done any of it. He’d worked the worst jobs on janitorial staffs at two in the morning to put himself through college and law school, and eventually he wanted to be the highest prosecutor in the land, the attorney general. But for now, he’d accept a position as a federal prosecutor in Miami.
Collin planned to take some time off before then. This was his last case before he took an extended sabbatical. And the months he wasn’t working as a prosecutor, he wanted to spend with Madison, getting to know those curves he fought to remember through the fuzz of alcohol he’d consumed that night. He glanced at the defense table. Where was she?
Then attorneys from her firm, Reddy, Chester and Todd, arrived. Collin recognized one of them, Matt Todd, a guy he’d gone to law school with. Collin momentarily felt disoriented. Where was Madison? Surely, she hadn’t left the firm. Her uncle was a partner and there were rumors he’d make her a partner one day, too.
“Matt? I thought Madison was on this case,” Collin said, getting up to shake Matt’s hand.
“Not anymore,” Matt answered, trying to balance a briefcase and a large Starbucks cup while clasping Collin’s hand. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“She’s on sabbatical.” Matt placed his briefcase and coffee on the defense table. “Rumor has it she’s in the family way.” Matt lowered his voice as if this were the antebellum South when polite company refused to talk about pregnancy.
“Pregnant?” Collin felt like he’d been slapped. “How far along?”
Matt shrugged. “How should I know? All I can tell you is she was granted a few months off to figure it all out. At least, that’s the rumor. Everybody’s calling it a health issue, so it may be cancer for all we know...”
Matt continued to talk, but Collin was barely listening. Madison was pregnant? Collin remembered that they’d used a condom, although little good it had done them since it had broken sometime during the act. Or acts... He’d made the assumption she’d been on the pill because she’d told him, “Don’t worry about it.” Looked like he should’ve been worrying about it.
“...she gets to hang out on North Captiva for the summer, so it’s nice to be related to a partner.”
“What do you mean? She’s on North Captiva?”
“House-sitting for her uncle Rashad,” he said. “For the summer. That’s why I’m here, picking up her caseload while she has a health sabbatical or whatever.” Matt rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed by the new developments, but Collin hardly noticed.
“The rumor is she’s pregnant, though?” Collin pressed. Suddenly the neckline of his crisp new shirt seemed too tight. Why hadn’t she told him if she was?
“That’s what Rashad’s paralegal said. She’s a notorious gossip, but she also sits outside the man’s office and has bionic hearing...” Matt shrugged again.
Collin felt hot and cold all at once. Madison was pregnant? With his child. Had to be his. She’d said that she hadn’t slept with anyone in more than a year...and something in his gut said Madison didn’t sleep around. She just wasn’t the type.
He needed to find out if it was true.
Because if she was carrying his baby, there was only one thing he could do.
He wasn’t going to be like his own father who had never been a true parent. The man who’d never bothered to marry his mother, even after she’d given birth to two children. No, he’d vowed to be the opposite of that man in every way possible. Then he remembered the timing. He had the next few months off. He’d get on a boat, head out to North Captiva and find out if Madison was pregnant or not.
Because if she was, there was no way he’d abandon his son or daughter. He’d have to marry her.
That was all there was to it.
