Enough thinking about babies right now. Work first. Okay, one more minute. He texted Cruz.“Everything settled?”
A moment later a smiling emoji appeared onscreen, along with,“Graciela sends her love and asked if tamales would keep long enough for me to bring them to you. Sorry, my friend, but Graciela’s tamales wouldn’t last any farther than the Texas border in my care.”
The little shit.
“Yolanda is seeing a therapist and helping Graciela at the cantina. She’s starting online classes in the fall.”
“Hug G for me, k?”Graciela. One more person on a growing list of folks who might not hate him. Hard to hate him, probably, when he’d helped her regain her home.
No one would bother the girl in Nestor’s territory, or under the protection of the Mangiardis. Lucky couldn’t have found a safer place for her.
With Yolanda settled, he could put his mind to ease. About one thing, anyway, leaving him free to worry about the roughly 9,000 other matters on his plate.
He pushed aside thoughts of his personal life. Work. He needed to work. Lots of cleanup from the clandestine pharma shop, more assignments for the rookies, getting the nursery in order.
Damn, there he went again. If this was how a man acted during impending fatherhood, how had his father ever gotten the tobacco and other crops planted during the nine years Lucky’s mother pretty much stayed pregnant?
A father. Lucky was going to be a father. Sooner than he ever dreamed.
Diapers, bottles, responsibilities, up all hours of the night.
Ever since his talk with Bo his moods swung from walking on clouds to scared shitless. What right did he have to be a dad? He’d done some awful things with his life. Some good, too, to hear Bo and Walter tell of it, Charlotte as well.
But a father. To a little boy who needed people to love him. A little extra help. Not to mention the mother. Poor girl. She was just a little older than Ty, and younger than Todd.
He stared at the plant on the filing cabinet. Last year it bloomed at Thanksgiving. He imagined dark pink blossoms.
In November. Thanksgiving. Followed by Christmas.
Would Bo and Lucky get to spend a proper Christmas together again? Charlotte and the boys would be here. What if little Alejandro spent his first Christmas with an actual family instead of in the hospital or foster care?
Christmas. A family Christmas.
With a family of his own.
He needed to talk to some folks at Ty’s school. The hospital was on the way. Or close enough. Only ten more miles.
The ride over blurred in his mind, and once again he stood peering through a glass window at a tiny body in a bassinet. Only a few sensors remained on Andro. A good sign, right?
A smiling nurse pushed the bassinet closer to the window. He’d been a fixture here for the last few days. How he longed to go in, hold the tiny body against his chest, rock him.
But he wasn’t the baby’s father. The nurses wouldn’t allow him to hold a child not his.
If he and Bo married, he’d have rights. No, he wouldn’t push Bo to make things legal. They wore wedding bands, were married in all the ways that mattered.
Still, as he smiled down at his son, he couldn’t help wondering if he should be doing more.
He texted his sister.“Make me a list of everything we’re going to need.”
If he couldn’t rock his son, he’d do what he could to make the boy’s life good.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Lucky rummaged through other people’s cast-offs. Did they have any business bringing a child into their lives if they couldn’t afford nice, new furniture for their kids?
Then again, Lucky’d grown up wearing his cousin’s hand-me-downs, which he then passed on until the clothes disintegrated. Poor Daytona. He’d gotten not only used clothing from cousins and older brothers, but also Charlotte. Good thing she’d been tomboyish in her younger years.
Hmm… an oak crib. Some scuffs, but nothing he couldn’t sand out and refinish. The changing table didn’t match, but Charlotte could work some magic with all the crafts she’d taken up over the years. Between his sanding and painting and her tacking on decals or whatever, they’d make do.
