Page 40 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
But Shoshana was swallowing hard, then she nodded. “What do you want me to do? Do I need to sign something? Because I will. I’ll sign anything.”
This had been part of what he’d discussed with Atticus the night before. What happened if he did find this girl. What the options were. Why it was maybe a good thing that she’d put him on the birth certificate, because it gave him standing to act in the child’s interest. Atticus had given him a little primer on birth certificate fraud, and more than that, paternity rights and parental rights in general. Enough to know what he needed to do here.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said to Shoshana, very seriously. “You gave me responsibility for Hailey, and I accept that responsibility. If you sign away your parental rights, I won’t take you to court for committing fraud.”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Fraud? What do you mean?”
“You can’t just write random names on a birth certificate,” he told her, but he smiled. “I’m not mad. I don’t want to take you to court. You seem pretty sure that you don’t want Hailey. I want to make sure of that because I don’t want to take her from you.” She started to lift her hands again, so he kept going. “If I do take her, I want to make sure she’s mine, no matter what. Do you understand?”
Shoshana blew out a breath. “Sure,” she said after a moment. “You want to make sure that I don’t show up a few years from now and snatch her back from the only home she’s ever known. See? I knew I picked the right guy.”
But there was something so cynical about that, as if Shoshana could already see herself in that role. As if she knew that she could never be anything but a liability in her baby’s life. Knox couldn’t say he liked it.
“Okay,” Knox said, and he held out his hand so they could shake on it. “Whatever happens, we’re agreed on this. No one pushed anyone into anything.”
Again, Shoshana looked a little too old for her age. “Aside from me forcing you into this, you mean.”
He grinned at her. “I can take it.”
And slowly, solemnly, Shoshana shook his hand.
Knox knew, somehow, that she meant it. She wasn’t going to go back on this decision. And that meant that Hailey was his. Entirely his. Unless and until he came up with a better plan.
But something inside of him seemed to shift a little too precipitously at that thought.
He pushed that aside. “But there’s more to this deal,” he told Shoshana.
He looked at Ramona, and while he wouldn’t call the expression on her face unreadable in the usual sense, he couldn’t say he knew what it was, either. Just that it made him feel even more stripped bare than he had in the kitchen, right before he stood up.
Like this was all one vulnerability on top of the next when he’d never been one to admit he had any. He told himself this had to be good for him.
Knox focused on the girl. “This isn’t the kind of deal where we never see each other again, Shoshana. You can always come to me for help. You already know where I live.”
She looked abashed at that. “After that thing at the Wolf Den, when you took me to my uncle’s place in Marietta, I followed you home. I just wanted to see what it looked like in your world. I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t even know I was pregnant then.”
He smiled. “I don’t mind. I’m glad you found a safe place for Hailey.”
All he could think of was Shoshana hiding in the trees, peering at his house. He remembered where he’d dropped her off in Marietta, a tidy little house with a fifth wheel parked beside it. He’d waited until she’d gone into the trailer before he’d left her there. And he’d wished he’d done more than scare off the guy who’d been giving her trouble with a look.
But he couldn’t change the past, so he kept going. “You can come by whenever you like to see Hailey. I won’t keep her from you. I just want to make sure that she always knows who she is and where she lives, and who her acting parent is. For her sake.”
That’s what he’d been thinking about on the drive here, when he wasn’t thinking about Ramona. Assuming Shoshana wasn’t wracked with guilt and remorse, assuming she didn’t want Hailey back—as hard as that was for him to imagine—what sort of home did Hailey deserve?
“I get it,” Shoshana said, and he didn’t think he was imagining that she sounded relieved. “I knew you’d be the right choice.”
He stepped away then to call the lawyer he knew in Billings, who he’d prepped yesterday while he was grabbing food. He told him what had been agreed and signed off on the next steps. Then he asked if a lawyer could be found for Shoshana, too, just to make sure that everything was above board for her. He assured his friend that he’d be the one paying no matter what the court decided about Shoshana’s involvement.
While he was on the phone, Ramona sat and talked with Shoshana about options. Safe spaces. Ramona even made a few calls herself, to people she knew out this way who could offer Shoshana a different path, if she liked.
“I think I will call,” Shoshana said when Ramona texted her a list of places. “I might… I don’t know, I think maybe I want to get my GED after all.”
Ramona nodded in that solemn, doctor-y way of hers that made it seem like Shoshana’s success was a foregone conclusion. “I think that’s a terrific idea.”
When they got up to leave, they’d started the legal proceedings as best they could in one afternoon. Knox had Shoshana sign a letter of intent, just in case things got weird, though he didn’t think they would. Ramona had inspired the girl. He’d seen it all over her face.
“You can text me anytime,” Ramona told her as they walked out.
“Me too,” Knox said.
