Accidental Family Read online

  She watched one corner of his sexy mouth slide into a tiny grin. Get ready, she warned herself. He's about to say something mean and humiliating.

  "I thought maybe you'd fallen asleep," he said gently. "You were breathing so evenly."

  Not sleeping, she silently admitted. Simply concentrating on something she had no business even pondering.

  "You've worked so hard with Tony all week," he said. "Why don't you take this afternoon off?"

  Wait a minute, her subconscious warned. His suggestion knocked her off-kilter. He hadn't embarrassed her or teased her. She felt her eyes narrow almost of their own volition. What was he up to?

  "When Tony wakes up we can go to the mall or something," he continued softly. "Or if you'd rather be alone, you could go do some shopping by yourself." His smile widened. "Just think, a whole afternoon without work. Hours without me and the little man cluttering up your life."

  It sounded like heaven. Wasting away the entire afternoon strolling through the mall, window-shopping with Jonas and Tony. They would laugh at Tony's antics. They would enjoy seeing the world through the baby's eyes. They'd have fun. Together.

  It sounded terrifying.

  "No," she stated emphatically, straightening her spine so she no longer reclined against the couch, so Jonas's hand no longer rested on her shoulder.

  She felt stronger now that she didn't have to contend with the soft pressure of his warm fingers in her skin.

  "No," she repeated. "I have to work. My editors are expecting my article by the end of the week."

  It was a bald-faced lie. Her editors had told her to take her time recovering from the loss of her family, take her time getting used to caring for her nephew. One of them had likened it to new motherhood, and as the days passed, Robin realized the woman was spot on with the assessment. She might not have given birth to Tony, but she was quickly becoming his mom, that was certain. Time, her editors assured her, was what she needed. Time to learn to live without her brother and sister-in-law; time to get to know her nephew, time to learn to meet his needs. And she clutched onto this sage advice, but the women she worked with were oblivious to the problems she was having dealing with her feelings regarding Jonas. Time, she worried, would only exacerbate these physical urges. When it came to Jonas, time was not her friend.

  He seemed to withdraw. He crossed his arms over his chest. His green eyes turned shuttered. He looked hurt. Stung by her rejection. There was a coolness in the air between them that made Robin feel suddenly alienated and alone. But this was far better than the alternative.

  This she could deal with. This conscious separation, physically and emotionally, was a good thing. It would enable her to focus on cramming like there was no tomorrow; she must acquire all the knowledge and skill that child-rearing required so that in eight months or so she could break the news to Jonas that she would be the one who would raise the baby.

  "You're sure?" His question was curt.

  "Yes," she told him. "Quite sure."

  She rose and went to the doorway where she paused.

  "But I will join you and Tony tonight for that video," she said. "Your idea sounds like a good one. And I really hope it works."

  His green gaze softened and he nodded.

  As Robin turned and walked away, she was left wondering why she'd been impelled to compliment him. Doing so had only softened the mortar holding together the brick wall of detachment she had so hastily built, and she couldn't fathom why she'd do such a thing.

  ~ ~ ~

  Her arms were elbow-deep in sudsy dishwater. Her stomach began to churn anxiously during dinner. Tony's nap had been cut short when a neighbor's dog barked furiously at a squirrel this afternoon, so the baby was tired even though his usual bedtime was over an hour away.

  Tony had been peevish and contrary at the dinner table. He'd fussed and picked at his food, taking naughty pleasure in squishing his green beans between his fingers rather than eating them. Robin and Jonas had looked at each other, both obviously hesitant to discipline their nephew yet not wanting to encourage such behavior, either.

  Finally Jonas had simply taken Tony upstairs for his bath.

  So, Robin was cleaning up the mess left from dinner.

  She twisted all the water from the dishcloth and went to wipe up the bits of beans from the tray of Tony's high chair. When she finished with that chore, she emptied the soapy water from the sink and then swept the floor.

  Her chest felt heavy and her throat was so tight she could barely swallow. What would they do if Jonas's plan didn't work? Would she have to endure another night of listening to Tony's heartrending sobs? She didn't think her nerves could take it.

  She remembered the agony etched in Jonas's face as he, too, tried to comfort Tony. She didn't think he could stand another night of it either.

  Hopefully Jonas's idea of having Tony fall asleep in front of the television would work and neither of them would have to experience another night of anguish.

  Robin bent to sweep the bits of green bean and bread crumbs onto the dustpan.

  "Here we are," Jonas announced.

  She turned and had to smile.

  Tony was shiny clean, his curly hair plastered to his head in wet ringlets. But what made her smile was the fact that Jonas looked just as shiny clean. His hair, too, was slicked back, and she noticed that he had on a different shirt than the one he'd been wearing when he'd taken the baby upstairs.

  "You decided to have a bath too?" she asked.

  "I didn't decide." He pointed at Tony. "He did. He had me so wet, I might as well have climbed into the tub with him."

  Tony giggled and shouted, "Splash!"

  Jonas just grinned and shook his head and Robin couldn't hold back her chuckle.

  His gaze became serious. "You're just finishing up? Tony really did a job on the kitchen, didn't he?"

  "It wasn't too bad," she told him. "Besides, I'll take swabbing down the kitchen any day over…" she tickled Tony's ribs "…giving this kid a bath."

  The toddler squirmed in Jonas's arms and laughed.

  "Okay, video time," Jonas said. "Let's get some snacking going on!"

  Tony's eyes lit. "Snack!"

  Concern puckered Robin's brow. "Do you think he ate enough dinner?" she asked. "Should we be giving him goodies when he didn't finish the, you know, g-r-e-e-n stuff?"

  "It's all right," he said. "This one time won't hurt." Then he shrugged. "He was too tired to eat his veggies. Maybe he'll be too tired to eat some ice cream."

  "Yea, yea, yea." Tony chanted the tiny word, propelling himself up and down in Jonas's embrace like the piston of an engine.

  Jonas's green eyes sparkled, obviously realizing what kind of response the mention of ice cream would elicit from his nephew even before he said it.

  Robin scooped up three bowls of vanilla ice cream and carried them into the family room. She placed them on the coffee table and sat down on the couch. Then she glanced over to where Jonas was inspecting the buttons on the DVD player while Tony sorted through a pile of plastic cases.

  "Do you have any idea how this works?" Jonas asked her. "I mean, have you had a chance to use it while we've been here? I don't see a 'play' button"

  He wasn't looking at her, so he didn't see her shake her head. "Sorry," she said. "But I do think you need to use this." She brought the remote control to him.

  During this brief exchange, Tony toddled over with a DVD in both hands. How he got it out of the case, Robin had no idea. He touched the top of the player, and when the tray slid out, he seated it onto the indentation with only the tiniest of trouble before touching another button. Then he took the button-covered remote from Robin and turned on the television.

  The TV screen lit up while the player loaded the DVD.

  Jonas's shoulders shook as he laughed. He looked at Robin. "Couldn't be easier than that, now could it?"

  She expected to see colorful cartoon characters and hear the lively music associated with such comic capers, and when
she didn't, the serious implications didn't strike her right away.

  The scene on the television screen was blurry white. Snow, Robin realized. The kind that fell from the sky.

  A woman and child came into view.

  "Wave at Daddy."

  An icy chill ran down Robin's spine as she recognized Sara's voice. A younger Tony waved and grinned at the camera.

  "Hey, Tony."

  Robin couldn't see her brother as he was behind the camera, but simply hearing him speak was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Pressing her fingertips to her lips, she stood and watched in paralyzed silence. She hazily noticed that Jonas and Tony also seemed hypnotized by the unexpected image on the television. None of them spoke. None of them moved. None of them even breathed.

  The image jostled as the camara was placed on a picnic table or some other smooth surface. Then Jeff and Sara were both in the picture, showing their son how to make a snowball. The baby on-screen frowned at the white powder, touched it and drew back his hand.

  "Look, baby," Sara said to her son. "It's snow. See? It's cold."

  Mother and father and baby twirled slowly, laughing as they gazed toward the sky.

  "Mommy."

  Robin's gaze flew to Tony when she heard his whisper, and there was no other way to describe his tone except to say it was filled with pure ecstasy.

  "Jonas?" Robin's voice was sharp. She hadn't realized she'd begun to cry. Two fat tears trailed down her face, and the sorrow and helplessness were more than she could handle. She desperately needed for Jonas to take control of the situation.

  But when he looked at her, she saw that his eyes were wide and watery, and his grief was as plain as if it were spelled out in block letters across his forehead.

  Dear Lord, what should she do? Turning off the DVD would upset Tony as much as if it continued to play.

  With the speed of lightning, Tony ran toward the television as though he meant to dive straight through the screen.

  "Mommy! Daddy!" he cried, and at the same instant, he smacked his head against the glass.

  Robin gasped as the laws of physics threw the baby backward with enough momentum to plop him onto his diapered butt. Jonas had evidently regained some of his senses, at least enough to snatch Tony's arm at the last minute and keep him from cracking the back of his head on the floor.

  Tony rented the air with a jarring, jagged, frustrated scream. He'd finally found his long lost parents only to discover he couldn't get to them.

  "Off!" Robin yelled at Jonas. "Turn it off! Turn off the television!"

  Jonas looked at her for the briefest second before he swiveled around and snapped off the TV.

  Robin rounded the coffee table and bent down on her knees beside her nephew. He cried piteously, an angry, red lump swelling on his head.

  "I had no idea," Jonas said, his voice filled with self-loathing. "I should have checked the movie he had in his hand. I never thought about family recordings."

  Between the baby's wet, hiccuping sobs, he called out for his mother and father, pointing and straining toward the now blank television screen.

  "I... I had no idea," Jonas repeated, the words barely heard above Tony's wails.

  "Jonas…" she placed her hand firmly on his shoulder to get his attention "…go into the kitchen and put some ice in a dish towel."

  When he looked at her his green eyes looked dazed.

  Robin raised her tone. "We need to get some ice on his forehead."

  Jonas nodded and rose to his feet. When he was gone, Robin picked up Tony and cradled him against her shoulder. She rocked him back and forth until the small of her back began to throb.

  With wrapped ice in hand, Jonas returned.

  "Let's take him upstairs," she suggested. "Looks like he's going to cry himself to sleep again tonight."

  Jonas glanced at the television, obviously realizing how miserably his idea had failed. He nodded.

  "It's going to be okay," she felt impelled to say. Robin had no idea if everything would be okay, however she couldn't help but offer the poor man some kind of comfort, even though her words sounded pretty weak, even to her own ears, in the midst of this horror. She would have reached out to him, but she needed both hands to hold on to Tony.

  Once they were upstairs in the nursery, the situation grew worse. The baby squirmed and cried each time Jonas tried to place the cold pack against his head. He buried his face in Robin's shoulder, and when she insisted that he let her put the ice on his bump, Tony called out for Jonas and the ritual repeated itself.

  "What are we doing to the kid?" Jonas finally asked as he passed Tony to Robin for the third time. "He's upset. He's hurting. And we're only making him more miserable."

  And ourselves, Robin silently agreed, gently patting Tony's back.

  "Hey, little man," Jonas said, his voice filled with a false brightness that would only fool a nitwit, "want to play with some toys? Uncle Jonas will build you a tower of blocks."

  The baby never even lifted his head from Robin's shoulder. She raised her hand into an awkward position, trying to maneuver the cold towel to Tony's head.

  "Forget that," Jonas told her. "We need to get his mind off of t-h-e-m." He spelled the pronoun in a mere whisper. "Tony…buddy…come play with me." He went to the toy box and sat cross-legged in front of it.

  The baby pushed himself away from Robin and she put him down on the floor. But rather than going to his uncle, Tony turned and strode right out the door of his bedroom.

  "Where's he going?" Robin asked Jonas.

  Jonas shrugged, then pushed himself to a stand. Then he and Robin went out the door.

  The hallway was empty and Robin questioned Jonas with a silent look. Jonas shook his head.

  "Tony?" he called. "Where are you, son?"

  "Mommy."

  Tony's voice was hoarse from crying, and Robin frowned when she realized that he had pushed open the door of the master bedroom and had gone inside. The faint smell of Sara's perfume wafted around her. Robin fumbled for a moment before flipping on the light switch.

  Emotion lumped in her throat until she thought she'd choke and she actually pressed her hands against her chest, hoping her heart wouldn't rip right in two. Tears prickled her eyes at the sight of Tony standing on the floor at the head of his parents' bed. He'd wedged himself between the nightstand and the mattress, his tear-stained face pressed against his mother's pillow.

  Chapter Six

  Forty minutes later Robin came down the stairs slowly, her steps heavy. She was tired, she knew, not just from soothing and consoling Tony, but also from the storm of emotions she had endured through the pitiful and agonizing ordeal.

  When they had found Tony leaning against his mother's pillow, she and Jonas had simply pulled the baby up onto the bed, and the three of them had lain there until Tony had finally cried himself to sleep. Robin had spent the time combing her fingers through her nephew's silky curls, or caressing the backs of his little fists. Jonas had patted and rubbed the baby's back.

  After Tony had fallen to an exhausted sleep, Jonas had gently picked him up and carried him to his crib with Robin close on his heels. Jonas had disappeared then, but she'd barely realized it because she'd been so focused on tucking Tony in for the night, making certain his favorite stuffed animal was nearby and that the night light was turned on in case he awoke in the wee hours.

  She'd stayed by his side for a while, trying to bolster herself, make herself believe that the baby would get over his parents' death, that everything would work out. Eventually. But the emotional episode had taken so much out of her, she was left feeling completely empty inside.

  Her hand rested on the banister as she came down the last step. With rounded shoulders she turned down the hallway and made her way to the family room where she knew the bowls of ice cream they'd left there would be waiting, all melted and gone to waste, to be taken into the kitchen and dumped down the food disposal.

  She came through the doorway and saw Jonas on his kn
ees in front of the oak cabinet where the DVDs were stored. He was pulling them from the shelf and checking the titles. She noticed that there was a small stack of empty plastic cases on one side of him, a stack of DVDs on the other.

  "They're all mixed up," he said, irritation evident in his voice. "These movies aren't in the proper cases. How is a person to know which movie he's about to choose if they aren't where they're supposed to be?"

  The bowls of ice cream completely left her mind as she made a beeline toward Jonas. Even though her exhaustion made her feel sluggish and slow, she realized from the sound of his voice that he needed her. Urgently.

  She spoke his name softly, gently. "Stop."

  She knelt down beside him and reached out to touch him on the shoulder.

  "Jonas, it wasn't your fault," she said. "You had no way of knowing that the DVD would be a family movie."

  He didn't cease his frantic task. "I should have known. I should have at least thought of the possibility that something like this could happen. I'm supposed to be the boy's guardian, damn it." His tone was filled with self-reproach. "I'm supposed to protect him from harm."

  Robin sighed, understanding exactly what he meant. She, too, felt a tremendous responsibility for what had happened. She, too, thought that she should have realized there might be family recordings mixed in with the videos. But she hadn't.

  He jerked another movie from its case, slapped the plastic down on one side of him, the video on the other.

  "I'm supposed to protect him too." Her voice came out in an odd-sounding jagged whisper.

  Lost in his own self-blame, Jonas said, "What I should do is just get rid of all these family movies. Then I'll know for certain this won't ever happen again."

  Robin's hand fell to her side and she leaned her weight back on her heels. "Why didn't we think of that before?" she asked him.

  He looked at her for the first time since she'd come into the room.

  "Because, Robin," he said, his tone edged with frustration, "we've never had an occasion to use the DVD player."