The Black Sheep’s Baby Page 6

  His mom and dad had been in and out, starting the morning chores. He’d stopped shoveling long enough to ask his mom who was looking after the baby. She’d given him a searching look before answering, “She’s still asleep. I asked Devon to keep an ear out for her.”

  He’d had nothing to say to that, and had just nodded and gone back to shoveling, using the physical activity and his own sweat to dampen down the fiery sizzle of anger in his belly.

  After that, his parents, no doubt remembering his old habits, had pretty much ignored him. Still, he’d been glad when they’d finished the chores and gone back to the house, and the quiet he remembered, if not the peace, had settled once more around him.

  When he again felt a cold blast of arctic air and heard the storm’s howl rise abruptly from a muted roar to a banshee’s scream, he thought it must be his mom or dad come back, probably to tell him the little one was awake. When he saw instead the bundled shape of someone that couldn’t possibly be either of his parents, his heart gave a leap, then settled down to a quick, angry thumping.

  He watched in impassive silence while the figure, clumsy in snow-dusted parka and rubber chore boots several sizes too big for her, struggled to push the door closed against the buffeting wind. She gave a wordless cry of victory when she succeeded in dropping the latch into its cradle, then whipped around and leaned against the door, breathing hard.

  She looks scared to death, Eric thought, amused. As though she’d just managed to escape a pack of ravenous wolves.

  Oh, he wanted to feel contempt for her, this thin-blooded California girl, threatened by a little snowstorm. He tried. But…dammit, there was something fierce, even triumphant about the way she threw back the hood of her parka and shook out that fiery hair of hers, and try as he would, he couldn’t manage to convince himself it was contempt he really felt.

  She came toward him, absently brushing snow from her coat and looking around her like someone who’d been magically transported to an alien world. Rather the opposite, he thought, of Dorothy finding herself in Oz.

  “What do you want?” he asked before she’d gotten far; he couldn’t explain why he didn’t want her coming close to him. “She awake?”

  “What? Oh-no, Emily’s still sleeping, or was when I left. Anyway, your mom…” Apparently fascinated by the barn, she’d finally got around to looking at him, only to do a double take and interrupt herself with a blunt, “Aren’t you cold?”

  Eric glanced down at his naked chest. “Only when I stand around,” he said meaningfully, and twirling the scoop, rammed it, with more energy than was necessary, under layers of dirty, wet, trampled-down straw. He heaved the shovelful toward the pile he’d been building in the center aisle without checking to see if his visitor was out of the way or not, and got an infantile satisfaction when he heard her exclamation of dismay.

  Didn’t slow her down a bit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her skirt the manure pile, brushing straw off of her parka sleeve now, instead of snow, and come to lean her elbows on the gate of the stall next to the one he was working in.

  He went on shoveling, thinking if he ignored her she’d take the hint and go away. No such luck. Apparently lawyers didn’t understand subtlety. Looked like, if he wanted to get rid of the woman, he was going to have to use more direct measures.

  He stopped shoveling, and scoop held at the ready, said, “What do you want?” just as she opened her mouth to say something. A lifelong habit of good manners-for which he could thank his mom and dad’s stubbornness-made him halt and give her a sardonic go-ahead shrug.

  “I was going to say I didn’t know you were a photographer.”

  It wasn’t what he’d expected. He lowered the shovel blade to the floor and leaned on the handle. “My mom been blabbing?”

  “No. I went to check on the baby and saw the photos in your room. I asked about them, and she told me they were yours. And that you’re a professional photographer.”

  He gave a soft grunt and corrected it. “Photojournalist.”

  She said, “Ah,” and went on looking at him in a searching, appraising kind of way he found intensely annoying.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” he said after a moment, smiling without amusement. “What did you think? Yeah, I have a profession, even earn a living at it, pay taxes and everything. You just assumed I was some homeless street person?”

  “Why shouldn’t I think that?” she shot back, riled and defensive. “How else would you have met my sister, much less-”

  “Got her pregnant?”

  Devon closed her eyes and held up a hand to stop him in case he meant to say more, which he sure as hell didn’t. As far as Eric was concerned, any conversation with this woman was a waste of time.

  “Look,” she said, taking in a long draught of air through her nose-the smell of which seemed to surprise her a bit, since her eyes got watery and she blinked and gave her head a little shake to clear it before she went on. “I just thought, since we apparently got off on the wrong foot this morning-” She broke off. Eric was shaking his head.

  “Oh, I don’t think so, lady,” he said softly. “I think that’s pretty much the only foot I ever want to be on with you.”

  She looked at him in silence, then said just as softly, “Aren’t you forgetting something? Emily is my niece. If you are her father, we’re now family, you and I-distasteful as that may be for both of us. Like it or not, Eric, we have that little baby in common. And I’m sure we both want the same thing, which is what’s best for Emily.”

  Eric made a rejecting sound and turned away. Looking at her had again become impossible; his eyes felt seared by her image.

  As before, she didn’t take the hint and back off but instead pressed her advantage, coming right into the opening of his stall, invading his space. He wanted to shut her out, command her to leave, but again, an ingrained courtesy forced him to stand and listen to her voice, that poised, confident voice, so different from Susan’s, and insidiously gentle, now.

  “Look, Eric, I think I understand how you feel. You must have loved Susan. As I did. I think…my sister was very lucky to have found someone like you, after such a difficult and unhappy adolescence. At least, maybe she finally found some happiness, at the end. I know losing her was hard. My God, it was hard for me, don’t you realize that? Hard for my parents-for all of us. And I know you must love your daughter very much. But Eric-” she put out a hand and touched his arm, and he felt a shiver go through him, sharp and cold as a knife. “Even you must admit that your job… Your mother says you have to travel most of the time. Don’t you think a stable home, with two loving parents, would be a far better environment for a child than what you, a single-”

  He made a violent movement, shaking her hand off of his arm as if it were some particularly loathsome variety of bug, and glared at her with burning eyes. “You think you understand me? Lady, let me tell you something. You don’t understand anything. You got that? Nothing.” Breathing hard, he turned away from her again.

  Lady, don’t make me do it, he silently prayed. Just go. Get the hell out of here. Don’t make me say it.

  It was rejection as emphatic as anything Devon had ever experienced, a door slammed rudely in her face. But it wasn’t her way to flee in ignominious defeat. She stood in frozen silence, staring at the naked back he’d turned to her, at muscles bunched and rigid as stone.

  Her eyes felt as if they’d been scorched; she kept blinking, trying to soothe their burning. His sudden withdrawal had shocked her; she’d thought-she’d been certain-she was saying the right things. Getting through to him. She’d sensed his pain and grief-surely she’d been right about that much.

  Part of her shock was anger at herself, because once again she’d let Eric Lanagan take her by surprise. Once again she’d misjudged him. I can’t read him, she thought, fighting an unfamiliar sense of failure. He’s right-I don’t understand him.

  “Look-” he flung out an arm and she stiffened, composing herself to face him. But h
e kept his back to her as he went on, in a voice that had gone low and guttural, “I might as well tell you-you’re going to find out anyway, soon enough. I’m not the baby’s-Emily’s-father.”

  Again, it wasn’t what she’d expected-the admission, not the fact. Inwardly in turmoil, outwardly calm, she nodded, though he couldn’t see it, but didn’t say a word. After a moment he rounded on her, fierce and defiant.

  “I was working on a piece-a photo essay-for the L.A. Times. About teenaged runaways. That’s where I met her- Susan. I didn’t know her last name-didn’t know any of their names. It took me months, living with them on the streets of L.A., but I finally won their trust-some of ’em, anyway. Susan was one. She seemed…special to me, right from the first. There was something about her, you know?” He stopped and looked away, and Devon felt an ache, the beginnings of a lump in her throat.

  A tiny movement from Eric tugged at her attention; she let her eyes follow the ripple of his throat when he swallowed. But then, without permission, somehow her eyes just continued on down, slaloming over the planes of a chest still shiny with sweat. Irrelevantly, she thought, He lied. He is cold. She could see his nipples had gone boldly erect, hard and sharp as buttons.

  There was something in the silence. She jerked her gaze upward and found his eyes on her. And the darkness in them seemed more anguished, now, than angry.

  In mounting suspense she waited, and after a moment he went on, in a voice so raw and sharp she thought it must hurt his throat to talk. “We got to be friends. Friends-” he interrupted himself with a sharp angry gesture “-not lovers-we were never that. She trusted me. Told me her story. She told me-” he clenched his teeth hard; she could see the muscles work in his jaws “-she’d been abused-sexually. By her father. Your father. For years. Until she finally got strong enough, desperate enough, and decided to take her chances on the streets.” He stopped, breathing hard, waiting for her reaction.

  She didn’t give him one. Couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. She’d gone cold, hollow. The truth was, she felt nothing, nothing at all.

  “Go on,” she finally said, without expression.

  He did, wearing a tight, off-center smile, and if her lack of response surprised him, he didn’t let it show. “She survived, the way so many of them do-working as a prostitute, panhandling, a little shoplifting. Got into, then out of drugs.”

  He let out a breath, picked up the shovel, then stood it on end again, flexing his grip on the handle. Releasing tension. “When I met her she was clean-and pregnant. Didn’t know who the father was, though. I took care of her, or tried to. Saw to it she had food, vitamins, things like that. I just about had her talked into moving into a shelter. I’d made all the arrangements. I went to pick her up and that’s when I found her-she was in labor, bleeding. Barely conscious. I drove her to the hospital, got her there in time to save the baby.”

  Silent now, he watched himself twirl the shovel, around and around in the straw. Then he looked up at Devon from under the lock of hair that had fallen across one eye, his face suddenly younger, more vulnerable than she’d ever seen it.

  She didn’t want to see that. She hated him. Hated him.

  He went on, inexorably. “That’s all she could think about, you know? Her baby. Was her baby okay, and please save her baby. She held on to my hand and asked me-begged me-to keep her little one safe. Don’t let them get her-that’s what she said to me. Please-don’t let them get her. She told them I was the father, and they let me hold her, just for a minute. I stood there and held that little girl and watched them try to save her mother’s life. They kept pouring blood into her, everybody yelling back and forth and shocking her with those paddles. But it didn’t…it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.” His clenched jaws relaxed, and his voice trailed away on an exhausted breath.

  Through the shimmering haze of her anger, Devon saw him draw a hand across his face, then straighten up and turn toward her, silently waiting. Waiting, she realized, expecting her to say something. She became aware that she was shaking-a tight inner tremor that wouldn’t even show on the outside. To him she knew she appeared cool and unruffled, calm and unmoved. Oh, but the trembling, deep, deep inside.

  She couldn’t remember ever being so angry. She wanted nothing more than to flee, to simply walk-no, run-away and leave him there. Leave him with his vicious and unconscionable lies.

  “She lied.” She heard herself say it in a calm, cold voice. “Susan always was a little liar.”

  It was her exit line, and she did walk then, not run-that would have been undignified-away from him, with her spine rigid and her chin high. She got as far as the door, pulled back the latch and felt the wind battering against the boards and it seemed to her like some fearsome beast trying to gain entry. Hurriedly she shoved the latch back in place and sagged against the door, leaning her head against it as a shudder shook her through and through. She felt defeated, trapped, cornered-caught between the storms within and without.

  Chapter 5

  U nbelievable. That was all Eric could think of as he watched her walk away from him. The woman was simply unbelievable. Made of solid ice. Not a compassionate bone in her body. He’d wasted his breath on her. Furious with himself for trying, he twirled the shovel around and jammed it viciously into the layer of matted straw at his feet.

  Something-maybe the silence-finally got to him. He realized that she hadn’t opened the door, letting in the expected blast of cold and noise. He stopped his shoveling. Hating himself, contemptuous of himself for wondering about her, he couldn’t stop himself from turning to look.

  What’s she waiting for? he silently raged when he saw that Devon was still standing by the door. Why doesn’t she go on and get the hell out of here? He desperately wanted her out of his space, his place of sanctuary, his peace. Because if there’d ever been a moment in his life when he’d needed those things, it was now.

  He wondered again how she could turn her back on her sister like she’d done. Even if those people were her parents, how could she protect them, let alone even think about giving them custody of a baby girl? She must have known what was going on in that house. She must have. At the very least, suspected. Maybe she even… Maybe…

  That was when his body grew still, giving his mind a chance to listen to the tentative rustlings of a new idea.

  Devon had been standing with her back to him and her head bowed, her forehead against the door. And maybe it was because she was some distance from him and the light was dim, and that he couldn’t see that beautiful, arrogant face, but it struck him all at once that what she looked most of all was…vulnerable.

  No way! He wanted to argue with himself, totally reject the thought. But he couldn’t. That was when it came to him-the notion, the possibility that would change everything. Change his perspective. Make it a whole new picture.

  What if… Oh, he’d read it somewhere-about people suppressing memories that were too painful to bear. He began, now, to wonder if this cold-hearted attitude of Devon’s might be nothing more than armor she wore to protect herself from truths she couldn’t bring herself to face. If…

  What if-it seemed not only possible, but made all kinds of sense-Devon had been a victim of abuse as well? Everybody had different ways of coping with the bad stuff in life-he’d learned that lesson well enough. What if the only way she’d been able to deal with that, grow up and live a normal life in spite of it, had been to block it out of her mind?

  What did he know, after all, about her life, Susan’s-any of it-growing up the way he had in a home as normal and wholesome as apple pie? He’d been judging the woman. And he’d been taught better. How many times had his mom and dad both told him he had no right to judge someone until he’d walked a mile in their shoes?

  He wanted in the worst way to hate Devon O’Rourke. It would make things a lot simpler for him if he could. Hating what she stood for and what she meant to try and do to him and the little one, and at the same time having his feelings for the woman hersel
f turn soft and sympathetic on him-that was something else entirely. He could see how that kind of conflict was going to make for some serious emotional turmoil.

  Slowly, slowly, Devon’s mind grew quiet again. It’s not his fault, she reminded herself. He only knows what Susan told him. And, she told herself, it wasn’t really Susan’s fault, either. She was disturbed, sick. More so than I realized.

  She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She had to try and talk to Eric. Make him understand that.

  If only he weren’t so damned difficult.

  It struck her suddenly how quiet it was in the middle of such a storm. Storms-both inside and out.

  Too quiet…

  An awareness, a presentiment-not of danger, just of something-gripped at her spine, making her turn abruptly with her heart inexplicably pounding. She saw that Eric was leaning on the handle of his shovel, intently watching her, as if she were some unfamiliar new animal whose behavior and responses he couldn’t be sure about. Her breath caught, and that same awareness, a tiny frisson, shivered down her spine.

  Defying her own uneasiness, she forced herself to walk toward him, managing a casual stroll, hands jammed deep in the pockets of her borrowed parka. He watched her for a few moments, saying nothing, then hefted his shovel and went deliberately back to pitching straw.

  This time Devon was prepared, and sidestepped the shovelful of smelly hay he carelessly heaved her way. Safely past the danger zone, she leaned her folded arms once more on the stall gate and quietly watched him work while she waited for her pulse rate to return to normal.

  For some reason, it didn’t. It wouldn’t.

  There was something fascinating, almost hypnotic about the way his body moved. The bunch and ripple of muscles in his torso as he bent and straightened, the way the light played over his back and shoulders, shiny wet with sweat, the lock of hair that dangled across one eye every time he leaned forward…