at my doorstep

chapter 3

 

 

"I'm keeping her."

Fiona's nervous chuckle cut off at a hiccup. "I'm sorry," she said. "My cell phone must be on the fritz 'cause I could've sworn I heard you say that you were going to keep the kid."

"I am." Looking down in my arms where the baby was starting to doze off, I felt my lips tug up from a frown to a smile. "Her mother gave her to me to take care of. I can't betray that trust, Fi."

"Orlando," said Fiona, her panic unveiling as the seconds passed. "Listen to yourself. This is a baby we're talking about, not a stray cat."

"I know that."

"No, I don't think you do. Look, I'm about ten minutes from your place--"

"You're not going to change my mind, Fiona."

"--don't you dare do anything rash." The connection ended.

Jabbing the end button, I threw the mobile over my shoulder, focusing instead on the baby's face. She was looking up at me but I wasn't sure if she actually saw anything; her eyes were crossing.

"Hey there, Elf." I pushed a finger in her hand. She held on tight. Christ, I can't begin to explain what that felt like. I got Maude when she was a puppy and, yeah, in the beginning she was helpless. But it was nothing like how this baby was to me. She needed me, Orli, not Orlando Bloom the actor or the son or the brother or the weird cousin or the friend. She needed me for everything, depended on me, was putting her very life at risk based on the belief that I, a complete stranger, was going to give her the next bottle and keep her from being too cold or too hot. Hell, I'd be more than willing to fight the monsters under the bed and anywhere else. Reason told me that she would do no less for the next bloke walking down the street but Reason and I parted ways the moment I was left alone with her.

Her lips worked, pursing and opening, a line of drool slowly sliding down one of her cheeks. I laughed, patting it dry with my other hand; she still had a death grip on my right.

Ten minutes ago on that park swing, I'd been ranting about how awful my life would be with a baby. Then the police had called.

"We've got some possible leads about the mother, Mr. Bloom," said the officer. "But nothing certain yet. The good news is that we can take the kid off of your hands now. There's a spot available for one of the foster families just outside of LA and the lady said she could get the kid by tonight."

All the words were swallowed in a roar except for "Get the kid."

"Erm…by tonight you say?" I stuttered. "What time tonight?"

"She gets off work by seven-thirty--"

I cut him off. "I'm going to be at a friend's place by then. Couldn't possibly change plans now. Oh, listen, the baby's crying again, you'll have to excuse me. Bye!" The last few words blurred together in a rush. I mashed the end button as though it would prevent the LAPD from coming to my door.

I all but sprinted back to my place and shot all the locks home. The baby looked worried as well, her forehead wrinkling.

Placing a kiss on her forehead, I said, "Don't worry, love, they won't get you tonight. I promise."

Back in the park, somewhere in the middle of listing the house rules, it occurred to me that I wasn't so much ranting about how difficult my life would be as bracing myself for the inevitable. I was already mentally rearranging my life to make room for one baby girl. My chest had gotten tight not because I'd been walking too much but because I wanted to tear the head off any of her future boyfriends and smack any girls that dared make fun of her.

Fiona's Jaguar screeched into my drive. In two counts, she was at the doorbell.

The first words out of her mouth were, "Oh, my God!" as soon she took in the sight of me with the baby in my arms.

I cocked an eyebrow at her. "Is that a good expletive or a bad one?"

"Don't be cheeky to your agent when she's about to suffer a massive coronary, my boy." Snuffing out her cigarette at the doorstep, she brushed in.

"Beer?" I asked, feeling a bit foolish. Having a woman in my house just made me feel inadequate for fatherhood again. Aren't women hard-wired for this sort of thing? What would she think of the mess? Hell, should I have offered her beer?

She shook her head. "I'm going to need a clear head to argue with you."

"Yeah?" I wandered into the kitchen, still holding the baby in her sling. I grabbed a beer for myself and set a pot of water boiling for the munchkin's bottle later on.

Fiona watched all of this with wide, bemused eyes. "Oh, yeah." She was silent again as I carefully eased the baby into an upright position in her sling and started rubbing her back to help her sleep. "Oh, hell yeah."

I gave her the best puppy-dog smile I could muster. "You're not going to be able to talk me out of this, Fiona, love."

Her chin set at a stubborn angle. "Them's fighting words, kiddo."

I turned away. "I'm not listening. I'm going to give my daughter a nap."

"Do you know how hard it's going to be for a non-citizen to adopt an American baby?" she fired. "A single, unattached, twenty-five year old male actor whose nearest family is across a continent and an ocean? You're going to get laughed at compared to a stable couple who've lived in the States all their lives."

"I have more than enough money to support the both of us," I countered. "And I'd be able to provide a stable environment for her once we move back to England."

Fiona threw up her hands. "Snowboards on diamond runs? Cliff-diving? Self-taught surfer? Spent every weekend during the LOTR shoot in pubs with other young, unattached males cruising for chicks and drowning in alcohol? Does any of that sound remotely stable to you?"

Ouch. That stung. "We weren't that bad."

"Of course, you weren't." Fiona said. "But people won't see it that way. They'll see some hot-shot actor who's decided to adopt a baby for kicks. Maybe even for publicity. And to top it all off, you want to take an American baby out of the States?" She shook her head firmly. "I'm sorry, Orlando, but it's not gonna fly."

Holding the baby closer higher on my chest, I said as seriously as possible, "I am going to keep her, Fiona. You can't change our minds about it. She's been mine since she first turned her head to look at me."

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!" Slapping her hands on her face, Fiona massaged her temples. "For one thing, newborns don't have the ability to see much less focus until after the first month. Neither can they move their heads until they're around eight or nine weeks old. Therefore, what you think happened isn't possible.

"Secondly, you've been with her for, what, less that a day?" My agent shook her head. "I have two kids, Bloom, and the first day is always awesome. The second day isn't bad either. The third, fourth, fifteenth, thirtieth and every day afterward, you're going to want to strangle her."

I lifted my chin smugly. "I've already wanted to strangle her twice."

She snorted, almost holding back a laugh, I think. "And you think you're going to last another eighteen years at least?"

"I know I will." I made my way to the couch across from her. "I've thought about this, too, you know."

"Oh, have you?"

"Yeah." I shifted so that the baby could use my chest as a mattress. "I know we're going to have to do some juggling with 'Ned Kelly' and I was planning to ask you to look into the adoption procedures for me."

"Drag me into this mess, why don't you?" She'd begun to massage her temples again.

Inspiration struck. "You know," I said casually. "This could end up being really good for my public relations."

Her fingers froze in mid-rub. "Explain," she demanded.

"Don't tell me you can't see the potential in it, love." I let mischief tug my lips into a smile. "A kind, down-to-earth actor decides to adopt an abandoned baby girl. Decides to put his career on momentary hold in order to provide for a helpless stranger?"

She was starting to look up again. I pushed on.

"If people went berserk over Tom Cruise helping little old ladies cross the street, what more is this?"

Fiona looked as if she was brewing this over. We held our breaths. I opened my mouth to put in one last round of "pretty, pretty, please with a blockbuster on top?" when she looked up.

"You realise you're going to have to be an angel."

The vise that had been squeezing my chest loosened fractionally. "Yes."

"And you'll have to milk your publicity for all its worth." She took her little computerised agenda thingy out of her purse and started writing things in. "We can't have you look like the know-it-all father; too easy to fall. I think if we release this as a feel-good type story: you found the child, wanted to do the whole good Samaritan thing, then you bonded. Maybe have you look like the earnest but still-confused new father; women go nuts over that."

I was nodding frantically by now. "And the adoption?"

She pursed her lips. "That might get a bit tricky," confessed Fiona. "The 'Ned Kelly's' definitely going to be on hold for at least a couple of weeks but I'm sure Gregor wouldn't mind the publicity that this whole baby thing will bring." She jotted down a few more things on the mini-computer. Honestly, if she was just going to write something down, what was wrong with a pen and paper? It's worked for the past thousand years at least.

With a final click of her pen, Fiona nodded. "All right. I think I've got this all figured out. I'll give the publicist a call and see if I can get around to finding you a PA."

"PA?" I repeated dumbly.

Fiona gave me a grown up version of The Look the baby herself just mastered hours ago. "You think your life is hectic now? Wait until she turns three. You're going to love your PA more than you love your mother."

She shut her scheduler with a decisive snap and stood. "I'll call you first thing tomorrow morning about all of this, okay?"

"Okay." I stood up as well, feeling more than a little shell-shocked.

My feelings must have been rather obvious. Fiona let herself smile a bit. "You two really are pretty cute together." Then she was all back to business. "Don't mess anything up."

I saluted smartly. "Never fear, Cap'n! I shan't let you down!"

And she was gone, leaving the baby and me alone once more. The Elf was more than halfway to dreamland, now. I took a sniff of her hair. Bloody hell, there's just something about the way babies smell that make the crying and fussing all worth it. Once again, I wondered at how her mother could have left her alone like that. Oh, well… her loss, my gain.

"So, what do you think, elf?" I asked her. "Do you think you'd be able to stand living with a bloke like me? Displaced Englishman living in the desert playing make-believe for a living?"

She blew a spit bubble.

"It's going to be difficult," I warned her. "I can't handle everything, you know. And I know next to nothing about babies. So if I fuck--erm, mess up you'll have to forgive me. Oh, and I've a filthy mouth to top it all off."

She rolled her eyes up and went to sleep, one hand still fisted around my shirt. The drool and spat-up milk was starting to crust up on it, too. My arm was likely frozen in this bent position from holding her so long. Her nappy was starting to feel heavy again. It was two o' clock in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything but potato skins and a banana since nine o' clock the night before.

I stumbled into bed and fell asleep with a smile.

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