The Black Sheep’s Baby Read online

  On that score, on a purely legal level, once the DNA tests proved he wasn’t the baby’s father, his custody claim wasn’t going to have much of a leg to stand on. So, he’d figured his only hope for keeping the little-Emily-out of her grandparents’ clutches was to get to Devon’s emotions-break her down, get her to remember what it had been like, growing up in that house. At the very least, get her to remember and acknowledge what it was that had made her little sister run away from home-and stay away, at the cost of her own life. But what if, he thought now, the memories are too painful for her to face? What if she’s buried the memories-and the feelings-too deep? What if I can’t get through?

  Then…it will have to be Caitlyn.

  “Son? You want to give me a hand out here for a minute?” His dad had opened the back door just wide enough to put his head through, letting in eddies of damp snow-scented air to swirl through the warm, spice-saturated kitchen.

  “Yeah-sure.” As he pushed back his chair, Eric saw his mother throw another smile over her shoulder, this one aimed over his head, toward the back porch door.

  Watching his parents’ silent communion, he felt a pang of something that wasn’t quite envy, but rather an acknowledgement sense of being on the outside of an exclusive club-one with a membership of two.

  Once upon a time, he’d wondered if the kind of love his parents had was really as rare as it seemed. Now that he’d been out in the world for the past ten years, he knew beyond any doubt that it was. And that was a bleak and lonely thought.

  Even with the storm windows up, the porch was cold as a meat locker. It smelled of mud, evergreens and freshly cut wood.

  “I took off another four inches-that should be enough.” Mike gestured vaguely at the wet sawdust and pine boughs scattered on the floor, the tree leaning against the wall. “Your mother likes to use the extra branches to put around.”

  Yeah, Dad, Eric thought but didn’t say aloud, I know. I used to live here, too.

  He didn’t blame his father for treating him like a stranger; not really. He’d been just a kid the last time they’d spent any time together. The few brief and very awkward visits in the years since, some even more awkward phone calls hardly counted at all. Now, here he was a grown man, and it seemed neither of them had figured out how to work it yet.

  “I thought we could-oh-okay…” His father hastened to grab the other side of the eight-foot tree Eric was already lifting and together they eased the freshly cut stump into the stand. “That looks pretty straight,” Mike said, standing back to get a better perspective.

  “I’ll hold it, if you want to tighten the screws,” Eric said, and then silently cussed himself as he watched his father lower himself to his knees with a stiffness that hadn’t been there before. His dad getting old? Eric wasn’t prepared for that. Not by a long shot.

  “You know, son,” Mike said, squinting up at him through the evergreen boughs, “I couldn’t help but hear what you were telling your mother just now-about Devon. The baby…”

  Eric glanced at his father, then quickly away. His feelings just then were ambiguous, as they had been since long before he’d pulled his car up to his parents’ back door. While the child-the son-in him was bristling at the merest hint of parental interference, the adult-a brand-new parent himself-cautiously hoped for some much-needed advice. So as not to betray that fact, he eyeballed the tree, straightened it minutely and unnecessarily, and said, “Yeah? What about it?”

  “You said…you didn’t think she had…any feelings…for the baby.” Mike’s head and shoulders had disappeared into the foliage, and his words came in muffled grunts. “But…I think…you’re wrong about that.”

  What else is new? Eric-the-son wanted to say. Eric-the-new-father drew a careful breath and gruffly said, “Yeah? Why?”

  “Think about it.” Mike sat back on his heels, gave the tree a measuring glance, then transferred the glance to Eric. “If she didn’t have any feelings toward that baby, why would it bother her just to hold her? Shouldn’t be any different than holding…say, a doll. Or a sack of groceries. Right?”

  Eric didn’t say anything. He stared at the tree, then gave it a quarter-turn. His father studied it with tilted head, muttered, “A little bit to your right-that’s it, hold it right there,” and dove into the branches again.

  “Now, Devon, it seems to me-” slightly out-of-breath, it came from the depths of the tree “-is a young woman who likes to be in control.” There was a pause before Mike emerged to gaze up at him again, this time balanced on the ball of one foot and the opposite knee. “That sounds like a cliché, I know, but in her case I think it’s important. There’s a good reason she’s a lawyer. Lawyers get to call the shots, see? Tell people what to do. Anyway, to a lawyer, emotions are commodities, something to be polished up, spin-doctored and sold to a jury.” He smiled crookedly and stuck out a hand. After the briefest of hesitations, Eric gripped it firmly and braced himself against the pull of his father’s weight. “Real emotions-particularly her own,” Mike said with a grin when he was on his feet again, “probably scare that woman to death.”

  Eric made a disbelieving sound and shook his head, but it was only for show. To his surprise, his father seemed to know that. Instead of arguing with him, he touched his arm and moved closer in a companionable, man-to-man sort of way.

  “Son, let me tell you how it is with women and babies. I don’t know what, but there’s something that happens. Put a woman close to a baby, and she goes all soft and runny inside. Even the most sensible no-nonsense woman’ll suddenly start cooing in babytalk. Take your mother-when she was younger, she’d fight a bare-knuckle brawl to prove how tough she was. She felt she had to, I guess, trying to run this place alone, all that responsibility, being the boss. I had a devil of a time just getting her to admit she needed me.

  “Then your sister Rose Ellen was born…” He paused, laughing softly, and for some reason Eric found himself laughing the same way. “Ah, man.” Mike shook his head. “I remember once, Ellie was only a couple of weeks old. I walked into the bedroom, and there was your mother, leaning over the crib, crying. Nearly scared me to death- I thought for sure something was wrong with the baby. But your mom shook her head and kept looking at Ellie, who it turned out was sound asleep and perfectly fine, and all she could say was, ‘She’s so beautiful-’” He broke off with a cough, and Eric, all too familiar with how it was with guys and emotions, turned away with an embarrassed laugh of his own.

  “The thing is,” his father said after a moment, stopping him just before he could escape back into the kitchen, “there aren’t many emotions in this world more powerful than those of a mother. You’ve heard of maternal instincts? If Devon was feeling even a little bit of that, it is no wonder she ran.”

  After her demoralizing morning, Devon hid out in the bathroom for as long as she could find excuses to do so. She showered and shampooed, conditioned and deep-cleansed, tweezed and clipped, brushed and flossed, blow-dried and styled anything and everything she could think of to which those activities could possibly be applied. Worse than the boredom was the full awareness that that was what she was doing-hiding out. And the worst of it was, she couldn’t really understand why she was doing it. Devon O’Rourke wasn’t a coward. She was not in the habit of avoiding issues and ducking confrontations-especially when such confrontations might be her only means of obtaining needed information.

  But then, Devon O’Rourke did not ordinarily make a complete mess of things from the get-go, either.

  She’d been over it a dozen times, and demoralizing as it was, it was still the only conclusion she could come to. She’d screwed up. Made one mistake after another. To begin with, she now realized, she should have just let the marshalls serve the court order and never gotten involved with these people at all. That was mistake number one.

  Mistake number two: What was I thinking of, born and raised in Southern California, to have tried to drive in a Midwestern blizzard?

  Number three-and after
that so many more she’d lost count-all had to do with Eric. Damn him. She’d started out underestimating him. She’d told herself she wouldn’t make that mistake again, but somehow he kept catching her off guard anyway. She didn’t understand him. And all her efforts to do so seemed to result in more confusion, more misunderstanding.

  All right, so what in the hell was she supposed to do now? Devon was accustomed to taking action, making things happen, not waiting for events to happen to her. But stuck here in an Iowa farmhouse, in a blizzard, she was both figuratively and literally-and she thought of the rented Town Car, out there in the snow somewhere-spinning her wheels.

  The north wind doth blow and we shall have snow,

  And what will the robin do then, poor thing?

  She’ll sit in the barn and keep herself warm,

  And hide her head under her wing.

  A shiver coursed through her, though the bathroom was warm and steamy as a tropical greenhouse. All right, so big deal, she’d forgotten that nursery rhyme-so what? And so many others… Why? Why can’t I remember my childhood?

  Where were you when your sister needed you?

  Help me, Devon please don’t leave me.

  Damn you, Eric, she thought bitterly. Damn you.

  It was hunger-and the delicious smells drifting up from the kitchen-that finally drove her downstairs. As before, she was vaguely disappointed to find the kitchen empty, though she did locate the source of at least one of the mouthwatering smells there. Cookies-dozens of them, spicy brown rounds with crackled tops-were spread out on trays on the kitchen table and covered with clean dish-towels. Though the smell made her almost dizzy, after a quick peek she let the dishtowel drop back over the cookies without tasting so much as a crumb; Devon rarely allowed herself to eat sweets.

  While she’d been barricaded in the bathroom, it seemed, Christmas had arrived. The already cozy farmhouse kitchen had been transformed, as if by magic wand-or a battalion of elves, Devon thought wryly-into a department store window. A bright red-and-green tablecloth covered the oak table, and there were red cushions on all the chairs. A basket in the center of the table held pinecones decorated with cranberries and sprigs of evergreen. There was a wreath dangling against the glass part of the back door, and above each window, boughs of evergreen had been tied to the valance rods with red velvet bows. There were Christmasy towels and potholders on the counter, and Christmasy covers on the toaster and blender, and Christmasy knickknacks on the shelves above the microwave oven. Devon tried to tell herself it was ridiculously overdone; she wanted to believe it was tacky and gaudy and silly.

  She tried, but she couldn’t.

  What she really thought it was, was pretty.

  And being there in the middle of it all made her feel much the same way the cookies did-dizzy with longing and at the same time doggedly proud of the willpower with which she had always denied herself such things.

  There was Christmas music, too, she realized, drifting in from a stereo playing somewhere in the house. Bing Crosby had just started “I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas,” when real voices joined in, picking it up on the next line. Men’s voices, singing in harmony. Men’s voices? Good God, Devon thought, one of them had to be Eric. Would he never stop surprising her?

  Following the voices and the music, she crept down the hallway to the parlor. Yes, they were all there-Mike and Lucy, Eric and even the baby, asleep in her carrier seat-but instead of joining them right away, Devon paused in the shadows just outside the doorway to watch. Standing in the dark hallway and looking into that room, all aglow with Christmas cheer and family togetherness, she felt as if she were alone in a cold street, watching strangers through a lighted window. Watching something warm and real, but which she could neither feel nor touch. Something wonderful that she could never be a part of.

  Across the room, Eric and Mike stood flanking a Christmas tree that towered almost to the high parlor ceiling. They were facing each other, each holding one end of a tangle of Christmas tree lights, though at the moment that was all they were doing-holding them-as they devoted their attention to the song they were singing with droll abandon. Though Eric’s was the stronger voice, he was doing the harmony, while Mike backed up Bing on the melody. Lucy, their appreciative audience, perched sideways on the recliner chair with her chin in her hands and the baby’s carrier at her feet, watching and smiling, but not singing. No one noticed Devon.

  She didn’t mind. She was glad of the chance to study Eric’s family, she told herself, ruthlessly disregarding a persistent, mouthwatery hunger feeling that was centered much nearer her heart than her stomach. She told herself it was his whole family she needed to know more about, although after the first sweeping glance around the room, her eyes came back to Eric-just Eric.

  She was struck by how alike they were, father and son-though she couldn’t have broken the resemblance down to specifics. Eric was a little taller than his father, and a lot thinner, and he did have his mother’s hawklike nose. And, she realized, her intensity, too-though it was possible that Mike’s quiet way was something that just came with age. Like wisdom.

  Barely thirty herself, it was hard for Devon to imagine herself or anyone her age old, but she knew with complete certainty that, like his father, Eric would still be trim and attractive when he was in his sixties-and well beyond. She could see it in his bones, the strong features unsoftened by excess flesh, in the shape of his head, the breadth of his shoulders. And his hands…

  Oh yes, those big, long-fingered hands, so unexpectedly gentle when he’d touched her, this morning in the barn. Oddly, she could feel them still, on her face, her throat, the side of her neck. Feel her pulse throbbing against his thumb, and her body quivering inside, humming like a dynamo-some high-voltage power source. So gentle…

  And they’d scared her to death. They still did.

  She shifted restlessly, that strange vibration inside her a tickle she couldn’t reach. And that movement was enough to give her away. Mike sang out, “Hey-Devon! Come on, join us.”

  “White Christmas” had ended. Someone else was singing now; Devon had no idea who, or what. She moved into the room, pretending an ease she didn’t feel, avoiding Eric’s eyes though her senses hummed with awareness of him and her skin still shivered with that memory of his touch.

  “My,” said Lucy from her perch on the recliner, “don’t you look nice.”

  Devon’s smile, as she murmured her thanks for the compliment, was wry. Her clothes-black silk pants and an ivory cashmere sweater-and hairstyle-a sleek and elegant twist-would have been entirely suitable for dinner in a hotel dining room, maybe a solitary nightcap in the lounge afterward. Here, in a farmhouse parlor in the middle of a snowy winter afternoon, she was well aware that she was ridiculously overdressed. Mike and Eric were both wearing nondescript jeans and sweatshirts, and Lucy looked decades younger than her age in matching green sweats with a Kliban Cat Santa on the front.

  Well, so what? Devon thought. Too bad. After her marathon primp-session, she’d debated whether to put on something borrowed again. Considering the debacle she’d made of the day so far, she’d opted instead for the boost of confidence her own clothes might give her. So what if she looked like a city girl, and completely out of her element? That’s what she was, dammit.

  “You must be starving. Help yourself to some cookies and cocoa.” Lucy casually pointed with her head to a tray on the coffee table. “We sort of missed lunch-got so busy decorating, I guess we all lost track of time-so we’re filling up on snacks to tide us over till dinnertime.” Her grin wasn’t even remotely repentant. “There’s some popcorn around here, too, someplace. Mike, where did you-oh, there it is.” Mike had reached behind him to retrieve a giant Tupperware bowl from the desktop. He handed it over to Lucy, who stretched to add it to the hospitable jumble on the coffee table. “Don’t be shy, dig in.”

  What else could Devon do? Her own fault she’d missed out on breakfast, of course, but she was starving, and it had been a ve
ry long time since that piece of toast and cup of coffee in the dark early morning. One cookie wasn’t going to ruin her!

  Seating herself on the edge of the couch, Devon picked up a napkin and selected a single cookie from the half-empty plate. The rich, spicy aroma made her lightheaded. She bit into the cookie and it was so delicious she actually closed her eyes. It was all she could do not to croon.

  “Molasses Crinkles were always Eric’s favorite,” said Lucy with a pleased and reminiscent smile.

  Mike chuckled. “Don’t even think about stopping at one.”

  Devon had already taken another cookie. She envisioned her thighs blowing up like off-road tires.

  “Have some cocoa,” Lucy urged. “It’s the old-fashioned, made-from-scratch kind, not instant.” She gave a contented sigh and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I think hot cocoa just goes with a snow day and a roaring fire.”

  Devon felt the same way about white wine, preferably a nice Napa Valley chardonnay, but she didn’t say so. Probably not so much as a bottle of wine in this entire house, she thought, as, in complete surrender to the inevitable, she poured herself a cup of steaming cocoa from the thermal carafe on the tray.

  She was taking a cautious sip when her eyes collided with Eric’s across the rim of the cup. She gulped instead, and felt a delicious warmth spreading all through her insides-similar in effect to a slug of good brandy.

  Brandy…yes. That’s what his eyes are like. Brandy.

  Had he been watching her all that time, she wondered, with his mocking smile and whiskey eyes? Her heart skipped and jumped beneath her ribs, but she defiantly refused to let herself look away. She blew gently on her cocoa and stared back at him through the fog of rising steam.

  “Speaking of snow days,” Lucy announced to the room at large, “the noontime weather report says the storm is supposed to be over by tomorrow. Should be ending late tonight.”