Custody for Two

“I need to talk to you.”

Dylan’s words carried a foreboding Shaye only was beginning to understand. Did he want to take Timmy away from her?

Stalling, she asked, “Now?”

“Now.”

Swallowing hard, she turned away from him and on wobbly legs went down the stairs.

In the living room, Dylan sat on the couch. She perched on the armchair next to it. To her surprise, even that still seemed too close.

“Have you started adoption proceedings yet?”

Her dreams for Timmy were huge, her mind filled with scenes of the two of them facing the world together until Timmy could do it on his own.

She didn’t like where this was headed. “I want to. And I know that’s what Julia would have wanted, too.”

“It is, Shaye?” he returned quickly. “Or deep down in her heart did she want to leave Timmy to me?

“Did she want me to be his father?”

Custody for Two

Karen Rose Smith

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAREN ROSE SMITH

read Zane Grey when she was in grade school and loved his books. She also had a crush on Roy Rogers and especially his palomino, Trigger! Around horses as a child, she found them fascinating and intuitive. This series of books set in Wyoming sprang from childhood wishes and adult dreams. When an acquaintance adopted two of the wild mustangs from the western rangelands and invited Karen to visit them, plotlines weren’t far behind. For more background on the books in the series, stop by Karen’s Web site at www.karenrosesmith.com or write to her at P.O. Box 1545, Hanover, PA 17331.

To Liz Conway—

Thanks for being my lifelong friend.

With thanks to Char Rice who welcomed us

to Cody and enriched our stay there.

With appreciation to Ken Martin who knows

and understands the mustangs so well.

I’ll never forget Grey Face and his band.

For information about wild mustangs,

visit www.wildhorsepreservation.com.

For adoption information, go to

www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

He couldn’t believe his sister had entrusted her son to Shaye Bartholomew rather than to him. Still in shock even after two days of traveling, Dylan Malloy stepped inside the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. His gaze focused intently on the woman seated by Timmy’s tiny bed…the woman who had custody of his nephew.

Walter Ludlow’s call had been a severe blow, and Dylan was still reeling from it. His lawyer and long-time mentor, calling Tasmania from Wild Horse Junction, Wyoming, had hastily told him, “There’s no easy way to say this. Julia and Will were in a serious accident. Will died on impact. Julia hung on until Timmy was delivered, then we lost her, too.”

We lost her, too.

The words wouldn’t fade out. They’d been a shout in Dylan’s head ever since he’d heard them. Seconds later Walter had followed them with, “Julia gave Shaye Bartholomew legal guardianship. She didn’t want to burden you again.”

Dylan couldn’t wrap his mind, let alone his heart, around losing Julia. The grief enveloped him like a dark shadow that continuously seeped through him, leaving no room for anything else.

“Fight, Timmy. Fight.” Dylan heard Shaye Bartholomew encouraging Timmy, her voice breaking.

The doctor had explained Timmy’s condition to Dylan. Born twenty-eight weeks into Julia’s pregnancy, he was on a ventilator to help him breathe normally. He had a good chance to survive. But with so many tubes and wires connected to him, that was hard for Dylan to believe.

Did Shaye already think Timmy was hers? he wondered.

She hovered beside the baby, her lips moving silently. Maybe in prayer?

Dylan’s work as a wildlife photographer had taught him stillness and patience. But now he had questions, and Shaye Bartholomew held the answers.

After crossing the room, he pulled her attention from the infant bed. “Miss Bartholomew?”

She gave a small sound of surprise when she saw him and recognition dawned. They’d met at Julia’s college graduation. Shaye had been a year ahead of his sister, and the two women had become friends.

“Mr. Malloy. I’m so sorry about Julia.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.

Why did he suddenly feel as if he wanted to take this woman into his arms to give both of them some comfort?

Dylan knew he looked unkempt. He hadn’t shaved in two days, his hair was disheveled and needed a cut, his sweatshirt was streaked with lines from being slept in.

“I got here as soon as I could.” He’d been photographing kangaroos when he’d gotten the call. That seemed like eons ago.

Standing, Shaye let him come in closer to Timmy’s bed. Dylan could see the reflection of the fluorescent light on her shoulder-length, coffee-brown hair and noticed the sheen in her amber eyes. When their gazes locked, the grief inside him shifted a bit, but he let it settle back into place as he broke eye contact and stared down at his nephew.

Timmy had sandy-brown hair and green eyes…like Julia…like himself.

Softly, Shaye said, “During Julia’s pregnancy we talked about baby names. She said she wanted to name a girl after her mother, a boy after her father. Your mother and father.”

Ironically, like Julia and her husband, their parents had also been killed on a slippery road. That night, Family Services had taken the two of them to a holding facility in Cody. Back then, Dylan had had to break out of his shock to take care of his sister. Now he had to break through it to think about Julia’s baby.

Forcing his attention back to Shaye, Dylan couldn’t keep the edge from his tone when he said, “I want to know how you came to be named Timmy’s guardian. I know Will’s mother was too frail to consider—”

One of the monitors began to beep loudly. At once, a nurse appeared at Timmy’s bedside while another rushed to call a doctor.

A physician in a white coat hurried in. One of the nurses put a hand on Shaye’s arm and spoke to Dylan. “Please wait outside.”

“I want to know what’s happening,” Dylan demanded, fear for his nephew beating hard against his chest.

“We have to let them work.” Shaye tugged at Dylan’s elbow. “They know what they’re doing. The doctor will come talk to us when they get him stabilized. We have to do what’s best for him. We’re just in the way.”

After another glance at the personnel around the baby’s bed, certainty dawned that he was in the way. Dylan pulled from Shaye’s clasp and strode to the door leading outside the unit.

Had Dylan Malloy come back to mourn his sister? Or had he returned to Wild Horse Junction to claim his nephew?

Shaye took a few shallow breaths, reaching deep inside for the strength that had kept her going since the call about Julia and Will. Once in the hall, she motioned to the waiting room.

Instead of going in, Dylan paced. “I don’t want to be that far away.” His gaze shot back to the NICU. “Surely someone will tell us if he’s going to make it.”

When he ran his hand through his tawny hair, when she glimpsed again the primordial pain in his green eyes, she wished she could ease his grief. But no one could. “Have you spoken with the doctor?”

“When I was waiting for my flight in London.”

“Then you know this is all up to Timmy—how he responds to the antibiotics and the help they’re giving him.”

“I understand that. I certainly don’t understand everything else. Why did Will have Julia out in bad weather? She was almost seven months pregnant, for God’s sake!”

Understandably, Dylan was looking for somebody to blame, as people did when tragedy struck, and goodness knew Dylan and Julia had already experienced plenty of it. All Shaye could do was to tell him what she knew.

“Julia had been cooped up inside for over a week due to the bad weather. Will wouldn’t even let her step onto a snowy sidewalk because he was afraid she’d fall. But she was going stir crazy. The morning of—” Shaye’s voice broke in spite of her effort to put her own emotion aside.

Clearing her throat, she went on. “The morning of the accident, I stopped in to see her. She was in such a good mood. She said she’d cajoled Will into taking her to the Johnsons that night. The weather was supposed to hold and not turn until early morning.”

“The Johnsons practically live in the mountains,” Dylan muttered. “Those roads can be treacherous any time of the year, let alone when there’s snow on them.” He swore and turned away from her.

Unexpectedly, Shaye didn’t know what to do, and that was unusual for her. In her job as a social worker, she routinely handled sticky situations. But this one was personal. Something about this man touched her in an elemental way, and that, as well as the crisis with Timmy, made her uncertain.

Dylan faced her again, everything about him shouting restrained energy, restrained emotion, restrained frustration. “Did you know Julia was going to name you as guardian?”

“Yes, I did,” she answered quietly, bracing herself for whatever came next.

The nerve in his jaw worked. “Julia spoke often of you, Miss Bartholomew. I know you were good friends. But I need to know how this…legacy came about.”

“It’s Shaye,” she murmured, needing to be on a first-name basis without knowing why. With a nod, she motioned to the lounge again. “Let’s sit down.”

After a glance at the NICU, he followed her into the waiting room. Although she lowered herself onto one of the fabric-covered chairs, Dylan remained standing. She felt like a schoolgirl sitting in front of a principal, which was ridiculous. In her position as caseworker for the department of family services in the county, she’d learned to stand her ground. With two brothers to take care of, she’d had to be assertive or she would have been snowed under or trampled. However, in the presence of Dylan Malloy, her confidence seemed to vanish.

Taking a breath, she plunged in. “You know Julia and I met in college.”

He nodded, waiting.

“Since we were both from Wild Horse Junction, we caught rides together from Laramie to come home. At first I thought she was reserved. Then I found out she just used reserve to protect herself. She told me about what happened to your parents and about spending time in foster care.”

She remembered the story Julia had related about how Dylan and Walter Ludlow had become friends. At eighteen, Dylan had just graduated from high school and landed a job at the local paper. He’d walked into the attorney’s office saying, “I need a lawyer to petition the court to become my sister’s legal guardian.”

Julia had been eight and Dylan sixteen when they’d been orphaned, and Dylan had known his sister was unbearably unhappy in foster care. He’d moved heaven and earth to gain custody of her. He’d made sure she was safe, happy and secure until she’d gone to college. Then he’d left Wild Horse Junction to follow his own dreams.

“Julia never stopped telling me how grateful she was that you rescued her,” she added softly.

“Not soon enough,” he murmured, as if he was remembering all too well.

“As soon as you could.”

Seeming to ignore her comment, he said evenly, “After you graduated, you went on for your masters.”

“That’s right. By the time I returned to Wild Horse, Julia had met Will and they’d eloped.”

“She told me she didn’t want a big fancy wedding,” Dylan mused. “I wanted to give her one.”

“I think Julia and Will just wanted to start their life without fanfare. So many times she told me she wanted a home and family and someplace to belong.”

“She knew she could count on me,” Dylan insisted.

“Yes, she knew that, but she also realized you’d sacrificed for her for eight years. Eight years you put your dreams aside for her. She knew how much being a wildlife photographer meant to you.”

“Not as much as she did,” he protested quickly.

“You proved that,” Shaye reassured him. “You stayed here and worked on the paper when all you wanted to do was to catch a plane to someplace exotic.”

His green eyes became piercing in their intensity. “You seem to know a lot about me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s an uncomfortable feeling when I don’t know you. Have you had experience taking care of kids?”

“In my job I sometimes have to. But besides that— My mother died when I was ten. I had brothers who were eight and five. My father, a cardiologist, was gone a lot, so I had to take care of them.”

“On your own?”

“No, he hired a housekeeper, but she didn’t tell bedtime stories or know where they left their favorite toy. She didn’t take the time to make peanut butter and marshmallow crackers or help them build a clubhouse.”

“You were a sister and a mother hen?” Dylan asked perceptively.

“Sometimes that boundary blurred. I’m not so sure my brothers didn’t resent it as much as appreciate it.”

Dylan looked across the room out the window, as if trying to see into the past—perhaps the years in foster care…the years when Julia was his life…the years when he pursued his vocation. “I never tried to be a father to Julia. We were brother and sister and that was the only bond we needed. At least, I thought so.”

Now she could see he was thinking about Timmy and maybe wondering exactly why Julia had asked her to be guardian rather than him. She had explained, but maybe that explanation hadn’t been enough.

Footsteps sounded outside the waiting room and Dr. Carrera stepped inside. “We’ve got Timmy stabilized again and we’re monitoring him closely. I think it would be better for you and him if you just give us some time here. Take a break. Get something to eat or take a walk.”

“What if something happens?” She’d been staying close, hoping in some way that would help.

“I have your cell phone number,” the physician said kindly.

“You have mine, too,” Dylan interjected gruffly. “I left it with the nurses at the desk.”

The doctor looked from one of them to the other. “Legally, I know Shaye is the guardian, but I realize, Mr. Malloy, you are the blood relative. Is there something I should know about?”

When Dylan moved, he did so agilely, like one of the beautiful animals he photographed. A male tiger came to Shaye’s mind.

Standing beside the doctor now, Dylan shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “I found out about Julia on Sunday. I didn’t even have time to shower or change before I left Tasmania, and I didn’t sleep on the plane. I haven’t had a chance to absorb the fact that I don’t have a sister anymore, let alone the surprise that she wanted Shaye to be the baby’s parent. Shaye and I need time to talk.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “How about a walk outside?”

Most men would probably have asked her to share a cup of coffee either in the hospital cafeteria or in the family restaurant across the street. But not Dylan Malloy. He wanted to take a walk on a cold February evening in Wyoming. Her royal blue parka hung on an old-fashioned brass coatrack in the corner. A leather bomber jacket hung there, too, and she assumed it was Dylan’s.

Dylan’s gaze passed over her cranberry blouse and her navy slacks as well as her black shoelike boots.

“Do you mind going for a walk?” he asked her. “I suppose we could stay here and talk.”

She’d seen nothing but the confines of the hospital for the past two days. Even last night she’d curled up on the couch to get some sleep. She needed the cold to clear her head as much as he did.

Standing, she went to the rack for her parka. “I could use some fresh air.”

“If anything else occurs, I have your numbers,” the neonatologist said diplomatically, and disappeared down the hall.

Neither of them spoke as they walked to the elevator. Dylan pressed the button. Shaye wrapped her scarf around her neck then pulled her hair from under it. Reaching into her pocket, she found her knit hat and pulled it onto her head.

When they stepped into the elevator, she could feel Dylan’s gaze on her and she realized her whole body was responding to it…to him. She was warmer than she should have been and she attributed that to nerves, anxiety about Timmy and everything else that had happened. Certainly a man couldn’t make her warmer just by looking at her. That had never happened with Chad, although she’d considered herself in love with him. She’d thought he was madly in love with her. She’d been wrong. Yes, she’d loved him, but apparently Chad had seen her as convenient and disposable.

Why was she thinking about that now when there were so many other things to think about…so many things to feel? Whenever she stopped thinking, she started feeling. Missing Julia, realizing Timmy would never know his real mother, made her sick inside.

Aware of the bulk of Dylan beside her, she felt awkwardly self-conscious. She usually knew what to say and how to say it. Why not now? Because the stakes were so high and involved her becoming a mother? Because the grief they shared could form a bond neither of them might want?

In the lobby, she pulled on tan leather gloves.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Hiking is a habit for me. It’s the way I catch the right photograph, the way I solve a problem or find an answer.”

She couldn’t keep her gaze from passing over the thick hair that fell across his forehead and shagged over his collar. His hands were bare though he did wear rugged-looking shoes. “Aren’t you going to be cold? It will soon be dark and there’s a wind.”

“I don’t think a stroll around the hospital will do me in.”

According to his sister, this man had climbed a glacier to get a particular shot. Her worry for him was unwarranted. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

He held up a hand to stay her words…as an apology for his sharpness.

Looking into his very green eyes, she saw his anguish over Julia as well as Timmy. “It’s okay. Come on.”

They headed for the door.

Nestled at the foot of the Painted Peak Mountains, Wild Horse Junction had been born in the eighteen hundreds and some of the original buildings had survived. The town was a mixture of old-fashioned and modern, classic and contemporary—from Clementine’s, the saloon turned honky-tonk and now modern day bar and grill, to a saddle shop, trading post, discount store and modern hospital. Wild Horse had a little bit of everything.

Thank goodness Wild Horse Junction’s St. Luke’s Hospital had a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The unit was only three years old. A few years ago, a celebrity who spent summers on her ranch in Cody had been passing through Wild Horse Junction when she’d gone into premature labor. There had been complications, but the obstetrician at St. Luke’s had saved both the actress and her baby. To show her gratitude she had endowed the hospital with a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Although Wild Horse Junction was still basically a small town, it had become a center in Wyoming for babies born at risk.

Shaye’d thought about leaving Wild Horse once. She would have had to, to follow Chad. But she hadn’t really wanted to. Her family was here. Her good friends, Gwen and Kylie, whom she’d known since grade school, were still here. During tourist season, all kinds of people came and went, and she found them interesting and exciting. Yet most of them left and she stayed. That was the way she liked it.

Unlike Dylan Malloy.

Julia had told her how he’d dreamed of getting away from the time he was a small child, from the time his father had bought him his first camera.

“A walk around the hospital or across the street to the park?” Dylan asked as they exited the building.

“To the park.”

Wild Horse Junction’s park was an unusual one. The town had been named for the wild mustangs that used to roam the Painted Peaks but now mostly lived in the Big Horn Mountains about an hour away. Bronze sculptures of the beautiful animals had been added to the park since the early nineteen hundreds. Black wrought-iron benches were plentiful and every spring the city council made sure they were refurbished and kept in good shape for the residents come summer.

She could imagine bringing Timmy here, walking him in a stroller. When he grew older, she could see him playing on the swings at the south end of the park. During the past two days she’d purposely created pictures in her head of the future, believing they’d come true. The pictures eased her loss and kept her away from the truth that she’d never see Julia or Will Grayson again. Her eyes burned from the tears she’d shed and she almost wished she could go numb instead of having to deal with the depths of loss.

Traffic was sporadic as she and Dylan stood at an intersection to cross the street. They’d just stepped off the curb when an SUV suddenly rounded the corner and sped by them. Dylan reached for Shaye’s elbow, holding it protectively to let her know when it was safe to cross. Unlikely as the sensation was, she seemed to feel the heat from his long fingers and his large hand through the down of her jacket.

As if he sensed something, too, he looked at her, and even though the night was turning dark and shadowy, she caught an awareness on his face…some kind of current between them.

Flustered, she hurried with him across the street, his long strides making her quicken hers. As they entered the park’s winding stone-covered path, snow began to fall lightly. Shaye lifted her face and the feel of the flakes somehow seemed to cleanse her of the chaos of the past few days.

As Dylan stopped, he said huskily, “I wish I had my camera.”

“Why?”

“Because I never took a shot of a woman looking exactly like that—like you were with your face tipped up to the sky.”

Frissons of excitement shot through Shaye and she didn’t know how to respond. “Do you photograph people much? The shots in magazines Julia showed me were mostly of animals.”

“Most people like to have their picture taken. I’d rather have the challenge of capturing an animal unaware of me, photographing it in its real home, snapping interaction with the other animals. It’s all genuine and honest.”

“Unlike people?”

“People are much more complicated. Much of what they do is motivated by something.”

“Like?” she coaxed.

“Do you deal with foster families much?”

“I do.”

“Talk about motives. I know the system is overcrowded. I know there’s constantly a need for placing kids. But neither Julia nor I had pleasant experiences. The families we were placed in weren’t motivated by compassion.”

“Julia told me the foster father in the family she was placed in drank. And when he did, he became loud and abusive.”

“That’s right,” Dylan confirmed. “I had to get her out of there.”

“What about the family you were placed with?”

He shook his head as if his experience hadn’t mattered. “I wasn’t there that long.”

“Two years can feel like forever when you’re not happy.”

Stopping again, he said, “You’re perceptive.”

“I have to be, in my work. I have to use my intuition as much as my training.”

When he stared down at her, he admitted, “The family I was with just wanted the money they received every month. I was good for chores and work around the house, but there was no real caring there.”

“I’m sorry,” Shaye said, meaning it.

“That’s long ago and I’ve forgotten about it. But I saw firsthand that altruism isn’t part of what most people are about.”