Dream Baby

“I don’t want to get dirty.”

“I can see why,” Nora replied, eyeing the expensive cut of his slacks and shirt. Who dressed a kid—especially a boy—like that? “Maybe you’d better not. I need someone who can really dig in and help me out.”

The boy seemed to consider this statement for a moment or two, then he shrugged. “I’ll be careful, and I guess there’s nothing better to do.”

“Can you tear this hay into pieces?” With one hand she indicated a second small pen she’d recently finished constructing. “Then spread it around the floor there?”

He nodded and began pulling apart the hay, methodically placing it in layers across the dirt floor of the pen while she retrieved medicines from the small refrigerator under one of the counters. She noticed that he was very careful not to allow the straw to touch his clothes.

“Don’t you have anyone to do this for you?” he asked.

“I do now. What’s your name?”

“Charles.”

He said his name precisely, as though he thought it held special meaning. She inclined her head toward him. “Welcome to the rehab shed, Charles. Don’t talk too loud and don’t move too suddenly. It frightens the animals. And if you want to hang on to all your fingers, don’t put them in the cages. All right?”

He nodded again. “So what’s a rehab shed?” he asked when he was about halfway through the chore.

“A place where sick wild animals get better. Every year a few run into trouble—cars, hunters with no sense, predators that beat them up pretty badly. If the problem is fixable, they’re brought here so I can nurse them back to health.”

“So they’re your pets.”

She thought of Marjorie and shook her head firmly. “No. A rehabber isn’t allowed to turn them into pets. They have to remain wild. Otherwise they won’t know how to survive once you’ve released them.” From the sink in one corner, she added a few drops of water to the medicinal base she planned to use on Bandit’s cuts. “Want to meet them?”

He nodded, and she led him to the cages while she gently stirred the yellow concoction into a paste. “This is Jeckle,” she said, inclining her head toward the crow, then the mockingbird. “And that’s Begger. They were both brought to me as orphans.”

Charles wrinkled his nose as he peered into Jeckle’s cage. “Why are you bothering to save him? He’s just a crow. They’re everywhere.”

“You see little boys everywhere, but wouldn’t you want someone to save you if you were in trouble?”

“I’m not a little boy,” Charles said in an aggrieved tone. “I’m nearly a teenager.”

“Well, Jeckle is important to me. All creatures ate.”

The kid looked up at her with sudden speculation. “Do they pay you lots of money to do this?”

“They don’t pay me at all. I do it because I want to.” She moved on to the raccoon’s cage. The animal looked at them with sharp, beady eyes. “This is Bandit.”

“Are you gonna cut his head off!”

“Good grief, no!” Nora stared at the boy, wondering what kind of horrid imagination this kid liked to indulge. “Why would you ask that?”

“You know,” Charles said in a seemingly earnest tone. “Rabies. Isn’t that how they find out if they have them?”

Nora frowned. “Bandit doesn’t have rabies. He had a run-in with a dog. I’m mixing up this paste right now so that I can put it on those cuts you see.”

“Oh. What if he bites you? Is there a chance you’ll get rabies?”

“Are all kids your age so gruesome?”

The boy opened his mouth to reply, then seemed to change his mind. After a few seconds he spoke. “I’ve just never seen many wild animals up close before. I live in the city. At least, I used to.”

“That explains a few things,” Nora muttered.

Charles asked a few more questions about the raccoon and its chances for survival. Unexpectedly, they were thoughtful, intelligent inquiries, and he listened closely to her answers. Nora began to suspect that he was enjoying himself.

“This is Marjorie,” Nora said as they moved on to the deer’s pen. “Her mother was killed on the road.”

“She doesn’t look like a Marjorie.”

“Well, you don’t look like a Charles.”

He jerked his head up to glare at her. “That’s what my mother always calls me.”

“You look like a Charlie to me. Do you mind if I call you that?”

“I guess not,” he said in a soft, sullen voice. He stared at the deer as though memorizing every detail. “Marjorie’s still a dumb name.”

“I named her after Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.”

“Who?”

“The woman who wrote The Yearling.”

He shook his head. “Never read it.”

“Too bad. It’s wonderful.”

The boy looked up at her again, one eyebrow raised in inquiry. “Any monsters in it?”

“Afraid not. No car chases or killer tornadoes, either. But there’s a young boy in the story. He lives deep in the Florida woods with his family, and he finds a fawn, just like Marjorie here.”

“Sounds exciting,” Charlie commented with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “When are you going to let her go?”

Nora frowned and looked down at the yellow paste in her hands. “Perhaps in a few days.”

“You don’t want to?”

“She has to be released,” she replied, more for her own benefit than his. “She’s probably stayed too long as it is.”

Charlie straightened, and Nora was aware that he was suddenly watching her closely. For a kid, he seemed very intuitive. She had the strangest feeling that he knew exactly how much the mistake she’d made with Marjorie was costing her.

“You could lie,” he said quietly and gave her a sly look, as though they were suddenly coconspirators. “Tell them you let her go, but keep her instead.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” he asked. He seemed genuinely surprised by her answer. “’Cause you’d get caught?”

“No. Because then she’d be miserable instead of me. She’s a wild animal who wouldn’t be happy living in a pen.”

He seemed to give this thought serious consideration for a long moment. Then his shoulders rose in an elaborate shrug. “You should just do what you want, and the heck with what anybody else thinks, including Marjorie.”

“Surely your parents taught you that’s not a very good way to live your life?” Nora said.

The boy actually stiffened. With a quaint and somehow heartrending dignity he said, “My mom taught me everything I need to know, and she did everything right”

His eyes had taken on a militant sparkle, and Nora realized that he was waiting for her to dispute that statement. She didn’t. Instead, she said lightly, “Wow. A mom who doesn’t make mistakes. I hope she’s going to write a book on motherhood.”

“She’s a famous model.” Charlie’s expression turned to one of pride. “So famous that she doesn’t even need her last name anymore. Her name’s Thea. You’ve probably seen her. She was on two magazine covers last month.”

Nora never bothered to follow the news about the “beautiful people,” but even she’d heard of Thea. The woman—in her early thirties—was the latest darling of the photographers. Some perfume company—trying to woo the aging baby boomers—had just given her an ungodly amount of money to be the star of their multimedia ad campaign. There was some other reason Nora was familiar with the woman’s name, but for the life of her, she couldn’t put her finger on it.

She went to the sink and washed the spatula she’d used to stir Bandit’s medicine. With her back to Charlie, she said, “A mother who doesn’t make mistakes and is a supermodel. Your dad must feel pretty lucky.”

“They’re divorced. He hates her.”

She cocked her head in the boy’s direction, not certain she’d heard correctly over the sound of running water from the tap. “How do you know that?”

“He took me away from her. Just to make her mad.”

That statement carried such fury that Nora turned and looked sharply at the boy. She was about to engage Charlie in further discussion, but she became aware of Jake Burdette standing in the open doorway.

Hot blood surged into her cheeks, and she was glad for the late-afternoon light that gave everything in the rehab shed a mellow glow. She wondered if he had heard the last of his son’s remarks. His face gave nothing away.

Charlie—obviously expecting her to react to his words—turned his head and caught sight of his father. His posture went from stiff to ramrod straight.

“Charles,” Jake Burdette said mildly as he ducked his head under the low doorway and moved farther into the shed. “You shouldn’t have run off without telling me where you were going.”

An argument looked ready to drop from Charlie’s lips, and Nora plunged in quickly. “My fault,” she offered in an effort to lighten the sudden tension between father and son. “I’m always looking for someone to fetch and carry, and he was too nice to refuse.”

Jake gave her a vague smile, his attention still focused on Charlie. “Get your things together from the car. We’re checking in.” He held up one of the Hideaway’s large key rings. “Cabin Two.”

“You’re kidding.” There was no mistaking Charlie’s feelings about staying a night in one of the cabins.

When Jake ignored the comment, Charlie sighed heavily, snatched the key from his father’s hand and stomped out of the shed without a look or word in her direction. Silently, the two adults watched him go.

“Thank you for keeping him occupied,” Jake said eventually. “He didn’t want to come on this trip, and he’s been reminding me of that fact ever since we left Norfolk.”

“No problem. He seems like a nice enough kid.”

“Does he?” Jake replied with a surprised look and a light laugh. “I’ve yet to see much of that side of him. I’ve just recently gained custody, and our relationship is a little thorny.”

“I’m sure he’ll come around.”

It was the kind of hope-filled comment all parents like to hear, and he gave her a small smile to indicate he knew that. Then he looked at her in such a calm, deliberate way that her pulse jumped. Before she knew it, he was taking her hand, as though meeting her for the first time. “I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot. Isabel speaks very highly of you, and I know firsthand that you’re very protective of her.”

She dipped her head. “I’m rather embarrassed...”

“Don’t be. Everyone should have a friend like you.”

The words were low, but sounded so sincere that her pulse jumped again, even danced a little. Silly, she thought, and unexpected. Had it really been so long since a good-looking man had said nice things to her that she should react like a teenager on her first date? Jeckle began to screech unpleasantly, and Nora used the crow as an. excuse to move away from Jake Burdette.

She removed the water bottle from Jeckle’s cage. “So,” she remarked in what she hoped was an offhanded way. “Isabel checked you in.”

“We both felt we needed more time to talk. Do you object?”

She shrugged. “If Isabel doesn’t mind, there’s no reason for me to.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Isabel answered an ad I’d placed for seasonal help three years ago. She’s been coming every break from college since then.” She looked up at him over the edge of Jeckle’s cage. “Well, all except the holidays last year when she met your brother. Over the years we’ve developed quite a friendship. We’re more like sisters now.”

“I’m glad she had a good friend to turn to when she needed one.”

“I’ll do anything I can to help her.”

He was quiet for a long moment, watching her replace the refilled water bottle into the crow’s cage. Then he said in a tone that sounded almost sympathetic, “Does that include adopting her baby?”

She leveled a look at him. “You make it sound like I’m only doing it to help her out of a jam. I assure you it wasn’t a quick decision.”

“Isabel’s very young. Probably confused about what she really wants—”

“She’s not confused at all,” Nora countered. “Perhaps she was at first, and certainly she was frightened, but she’s very clear on what she wants now.”

“So you had nothing to do with her plan to give you her baby?”

The conversation was deteriorating rapidly. “What are you suggesting?” she asked in what she meant to be a chilling voice.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” he said. “I’m pretty much stating it up front. I think this decision to give her baby away is too hasty. Perhaps she saw it as the only way out of a difficult predicament.”

“If she found herself in a difficult predicament, your brother was the one who helped put her there. He washed his hands of the problem and even suggested an abortion. Are you aware of that?”

He nodded. “I am. Isabel’s telephone call threw him for quite a loop. That doesn’t excuse him, but I do know that he came to regret that suggestion almost immediately after he made it.”

“And yet you’re the one who’s come here, when it should be him—”

“My brother is dead, Miss Holloway. He died a few days after he received Isabel’s phone call.”

He said the words in such a matter-of-fact way that at first Nora thought she’d heard incorrectly. She looked at him, trying to gauge his feelings, but his features were expressionless. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

His broad shoulders moved uneasily, and she suspected he wasn’t comfortable with her sympathy. His hands roamed over a line of bottles and cans that sat upon the counter, as though he had real interest in containers of peroxide and liniment.

“He was working with me in Nigeria, building a bridge. A group of bandits attacked one of my field crews. Bobby hung on for a while, but...” He broke off, turning away from the counter suddenly. There was an odd twist to his mouth, as though he’d said too much and wished he could call back the words.

“Have you told Isabel?” Nora asked softly.

“Yes. She took it well, I think.” He grimaced. “I know Bobby’s initial reaction to her telephone call hurt her pretty badly. I don’t believe she’s been entertaining pleasant thoughts about him all these months.”

“Still, I should go to her.” Placing the last of the medicine in the refrigerator, Nora washed and dried her hands. She turned to face him suddenly. “You said Bobby came to regret his decision?”

“I sat by my brother’s hospital bed for almost two days before he died. He wanted to come home, find Isabel and tell her he’d made a huge mistake. There’s no doubt in my mind he would have married her and given his child a name.” Jake expelled a long sigh. “Toward the end he knew he wasn’t going to... He asked me to make sure she was all right. That she’d have enough money to support herself and the baby. That’s why I’m here. Of course, everything’s changed now.”

Nora’s heart cramped suddenly. “What do you mean?”

Jake gave her a hard, level look that didn’t reassure her any. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go along with what Isabel wants. I can’t let you adopt my brother’s child.”

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS ABSOLUTELY as bad as she had feared. Her dream was disintegrating. A sudden weariness dropped over Nora like a second skin.

Please don’t do this to me, she wanted to beg. Not again.

It was an effort to keep her lips from trembling, but somewhere in the past she’d learned the trick of shielding herself. Somehow she managed to find enough voice to say firmly, “The decision has been made.”

Jake shrugged. “It can be unmade. I understand no adoption papers have been signed yet.”

“They will be. Isabel is not going to change her mind.”

“We’ll see. I’ve asked her to give me a week to convince her otherwise.”

“Mr. Burdette, did Isabel tell you about her plans for the future?”

“No. I suppose that’s one of the things we’ll need to discuss. We barely covered the basics. She told me the child was a boy, but little more than that.”

Nora snorted in derision. “I’m afraid you’re in for quite a disappointment. Isabel may seem rather... scattered right now, but she has very specific goals for herself, and they don’t include raising a child.”

Her hands were shaking, and to find something for them to do she began reorganizing the items on the counter, tilting bottles this way and that as though they were intended for some sort of display.

Jake observed her silently for several long moments, then he reached over to place one hand on top of hers.

“Miss Holloway,” he said in a surprisingly gentle tone. “Nora. I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re a very nice person—”

She snatched her hands out from under his and jerked her head up to glare at him. “You don’t even know me.”

“By the end of the week I intend to know everything I need to know about you.”

The sudden steely tone in his voice made her heart buck in rebellion. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to intimidate me?”

“There’s no need to be defensive.”

She clamped her jaw around a few harsh words that came to mind. Giving him the same hard, level look he had given her only minutes ago, she said with biting courtesy, “Mr. Burdette, I’ve waited a long time to have a child. Now that it’s about to become a reality, I’m not willing to just politely step aside. I want this baby. It’s Isabel’s intention that I have this baby. The wishes of the mother hold a considerable amount of sway in the eyes of the law.”

He appeared completely unperturbed. If anything, something in his stillness became more ominous. “Yes, they do,” he agreed in a quiet tone. He pushed away from the counter and headed toward the door. Before he left the room, he turned to look at her one last time. “But I doubt very much that the courts would completely ignore the concerns of a blood relative.”

ISABEL PLEADED a headache when Nora returned to the lodge, and she allowed the girl to escape into her bedroom for the evening. Tomorrow was soon enough to find out if all her hopes and dreams for this baby had been for nothing.

But in the morning, Isabel was already gone when Nora woke. A note on the kitchen counter indicated she’d gone into town with Jake Burdette and would return by mid-morning. Instead of trying to drum up an appetite for breakfast, Nora began working on the baby’s quilt the two of them had been piecing together. She wanted desperately to believe that one day her child would lie under it.

By ten o’clock, when she head the front lobby door of the lodge open and shut, her nerves were as tight as each stitch she had pulled through the pastel material.