The Baby Gift

Glenda gave an apologetic smile over the cracker. “I told him not to.”

“Boys will be boys.” Larry shrugged. Then he squinted at Briana. “Who you talking to for so long on the phone?” he asked. “The whole family’s here.”

“It was personal,” said Briana, getting disinfectant and cleaning cloths from the pantry.

Larry shrugged again and said, “Poppa figured it was Josh. He said he knows that look you get on your face when the phone rings and it’s Josh.”

“I said it was personal.” Briana set about cleaning up the mess the cat had made. The boys were chasing each other around the dining room table.

“You boys be quiet,” Glenda said from the couch.

“Ah, let ’em alone,” Larry told her.

The boys chased on.

“Don’t those sons of guns got energy?” Larry said with a proud laugh.

I can last until they’ve all gone home, Briana told herself. It became her mantra for surviving the rest of the night. Till they’ve all gone home.

AT LAST, the little house was empty of its guests. Her father returned to the main farmhouse, where he had lived all his life. Her brother and his family went home to the neighboring house Larry had built when he’d married.

Briana lived in the house that years ago had belonged to Uncle Collin, her father’s bachelor brother. It was far smaller than the others, only two bedrooms, but it was set nicely apart from the main house, and its simplicity suited her.

Now it was quiet, blessedly so. She washed the last of the dishes and put them away. Still restless, she got out the ladder and took down all the balloons and the crepe-paper streamers.

There. It was her normal, peaceful little house again. She made herself a cup of hot chocolate and sat down on the couch to savor the hush that had at last settled.

Zorro came padding soundlessly from behind the washer. He leaped to the couch and settled heavily into her lap, thrumming with his almost silent purr.

“Poor Zorro,” Briana whispered. “Neville got you, hmm? Poor kitty.” She scratched him between his black ears.

Briana loved her family, but she was glad they were gone.

She could not tell them of Nealie’s illness. She could not. She knew some of this was simple, cowardly denial. Every person who knew Nealie was sick made her sickness seem more real.

Nobody would treat Nealie the same, or Briana, either. The boys would not understand, and they might say wounding things to Nealie. Glenda would be too sympathetic, and Larry wouldn’t want to talk about it at all. He wouldn’t know how to deal with it.

And her father—her father’s heart would break. He was a sentimental man, especially when it came to his family, and he worried incessantly over his loved ones. Larry was big and strong and a hard worker but, unlike Briana, he’d never done well in school. Neither was he skilled with people. He talked too loudly, made inappropriate jokes, and he could be chauvinistic.

Glenda, his wife, was sweet and docile. This was her fourth pregnancy in six years, and she was always exhausted. Leo Hanlon wanted his son to hire a woman to come in and help Glenda, but Larry said it was her job, she should do it.

And although Leo was proud of his big, sturdy, handsome grandsons, he fretted about their rowdiness. He could by God control them. So could Briana. Why wouldn’t their parents? Leo fumed and grumbled at Larry, but nothing changed.

Leo’s favorite grandchild was Nealie. Larry couldn’t understand this. After all, Nealie wasn’t big, strong or good-looking. Worse than that, she was only a girl.

But Leo had never been able to resist his granddaughter’s spirit or smile. He fondly nicknamed her Funnyface. He was proud of her intelligence and imagination—he adored her. To know how ill she was would destroy him.

No, Briana wouldn’t tell them. How could she? She wouldn’t say anything until another child was clearly on the way.

For two months her daughter’s sickness had been her secret. Soon Josh would be here. She would no longer be alone with it.

She lifted Zorro from her lap and set him on the floor. She shut off the lights and went upstairs to bed, Zorro waddling silently behind her.

She opened the door to Nealie’s room and peered inside. The child stirred and rose on her elbow. “Mama?”

“Hi, sweetie. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“My clothes woke me up,” Nealie said. “I want my jammies.”

Briana switched on the bedside lamp.

“How come I still have my clothes on?” Nealie squinted at the sudden brightness. Her big glasses lay beside the lamp.

“You fell asleep on the couch,” Briana said, going to the dresser. “I brought you up to bed. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Nealie rose on both elbows, frowning. “I remember. Rupert gave me a nosebleed.”

“Yes, well, he likes to roughhouse. I scolded him for it.”

“Ha!” crowed Nealie. She knew how Rupert hated Briana’s scolding.

Briana rummaged in the drawer for pajamas. “Do you want the ones with cows or the ones with flowers?”

“Cows,” said Nealie with a yawn. Then she fell back against the pillow. “Why do I have so many nosebleeds?”

Briana’s hand tightened convulsively around the flannel. “Your allergies, I guess,” she lied.

“Rupert woke me up, too,” Nealie said in a sulky voice. “I heard him kicking on a door and yelling.”

“Those are rude things to do,” Briana said. “I don’t want you ever to do them. Here, sit up, let me get that shirt off you.”

She got the child into her pajamas and then made her settle back against the pillow. Briana pulled the quilt to Nealie’s chin and bent to kiss her.

Nealie blinked, as if truly awake for the first time. “Daddy—did he call tonight? He always tries to call on the first of the month. Did he?”

Briana hesitated. If she told Nealie the truth, it would take at least half an hour to get her back to sleep.

But she had told the child lie after lie, and this time the truth would make her happy. She kissed the soft cheek. “He called. He says he’s coming home soon.”

Nealie sat up with a start, hazel eyes widening. “Really? Honest?”

“Honest. He’s finished his assignment in Khanty-Mansiysk. He’s in Moscow, ready to start back.”

“And he’s coming here?” Nealie’s body seemed so charged with energy she looked ready to bounce. “Here? To see us?”

“Yes. To see you.”

Nealie bounced in a sitting position. “When? When?”

“As soon as he can catch a plane. He should be here by the end of the week.”

“For how long?” Nealie asked, bouncing harder.

Briana’s heart wrenched. “I don’t know. We’ll see. Don’t bounce, sweetie. You’ll make your nose bleed again.”

“Maybe he’ll stay,” Nealie said. She stopped bouncing, but she wriggled. “Stay and never go away again.”

“No. We’ve talked about that. Daddy can’t stay in one place. But this time, maybe he can stay—a longer time.”

“Till my birthday?”

Nealie’s birthday was in April, more than two months away. God willing when spring returned, the child’s strength would return with it, and she would be better, not worse.

“Could he?” Nealie asked. “Still be here for my birthday?”

“I don’t know. He’ll tell us when he gets here. Now lay down and close your eyes and go to sleep. When you wake up, it’ll be morning, and he’ll be one day closer.”

She slipped her arm around her daughter, leaned back with her against the pillow. Nealie’s little body, warm and lithe, snuggled against hers.

“Why didn’t you wake me up when he called?” Nealie demanded. She was tired. She tried to hide her yawn as she said it.

“Shh. It was late. It’s a different time in Moscow. He would have called earlier if he could. You know that.”

Nealie nestled closer. “What time is it in Moscow?”

“Moscow time,” Briana said, and they both giggled. She smoothed the child’s hair and kissed her cheek again. She stayed until Nealie was asleep.

Then, because Briana couldn’t bear to let her go, she switched off the light and slipped under the quilt with her. But she could not sleep. She lay in the darkness, holding on to her child.

ON SATURDAY, Josh watched the airport loom beneath the plane as his flight descended into St. Louis. A light snow fell, dusting the runways, but after Russia, he saw such a snow as insignificant. It was like a season of buds and bluebirds, practically springtime in Paris.

His head, however, felt nothing like the merry month of May. It felt like hurricane season in hell.

For three days he’d lived in a nightmare of bad airline connections and endless delays. He’d spent too many hours crouched in cramped plane cabins, missed too much sleep, been able to stomach too little food.

Truth be told, he’d also nursed too many Scotches and vodkas to dull the pain. The pain came not from his physical discomfort, but out of fear for his daughter.

Along his jerking, twisted journey, he’d kept in touch with Briana as best he could. He told her he’d rent a car in St. Louis and drive to Illyria, for her not to drag Nealie out into the cold.

But when he got to the gate, his heavy camera bags slung over his shoulder, he saw them both, his ex-wife and his child. It was as if the rest of the sea of waiting people parted and vanished.

They stood at the edge of the walkway. Briana looked beautiful but pale and tense. Nealie, his little, bespectacled elfin Nealie, looked radiant.

His daughter grinned at him. She had lost a tooth. For some reason, this nearly undid him. He ran toward her, and she ran to him, her arms out wide.

Then he had her in his embrace, and she seemed to be both clinging to him and climbing him like a little monkey. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” she cried, her arms tightening around his neck.

He kissed her all over her face, knocking her glasses askew. She laughed and kissed him back.

“Daddy,” she said again with such deep contentment that the words tore his heart.

She tried to wrap her skinny legs around his waist, but she was too small, and his parka made him too big. He let his camera bags fall to the floor and held her as tightly as he could. She buried her face in the harsh fur of his new parka, giggling.

He stared over the top of her head into Briana’s dark eyes. She was holding back tears, he could tell.

For a few seconds, everything that had ever gone wrong between them disappeared. For those few beats of his jittery pulse, once again he loved her, and she loved him.

But he knew it was an illusion and he knew that it couldn’t and wouldn’t last. There were some things in life so broken they could never be fixed. His marriage was one of them.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR A MOMENT Briana’s gaze locked with Josh’s. There was a wildness in his hazel eyes, a desperation she’d never before seen. In that look she read the depths of his love and fear for Nealie.

She understood his feelings, shared them. She had an impulse to join him and Nealie in their crazy embrace. But she did not. Instead she turned away and let them have their moment.

She bit her lower lip and wished her heart wouldn’t beat so hard that its every stroke felt like a stab wound. The airport looked blurry through her unshed tears, and she gave all her will to blinking them back.

But then she felt Josh’s touch and, helpless, she turned to him. Nealie clung to his neck, and he carried her in his left arm. His right hand gripped Briana’s shoulder.

He said nothing, only stared. His looks had always been a paradox to her, his face both boyish and rough-hewn. The jaw was pugnacious. The nose had a thin scar across the bridge from having been cut in a street fight when he was twelve.

But the eyes under the dark brows were alert and sensitive, and she had never seen such vulnerability in them. Still, his mouth had a crooked, slapdash grin that she knew he put there for Nealie’s sake.

His brown hair was long and not quite even. He had a close-trimmed beard, and the harsh winter had burnished his cheekbones and etched fine lines at the corners of his eyes.

He put his free arm around her. “Briana,” he said. He bent and kissed her on the mouth. His beard tickled and scratched. He smelled of Scotch and airline peanuts. His lips were chapped.

None of it mattered. Something turned cartwheels inside her, and to steady herself, she put her hand on the thick gray fur of his parka.

He drew back too soon, or maybe not soon enough.

He shook his head in mock disapproval. “You weren’t supposed to come for me.”

“She insisted,” Briana said, giving Nealie a shaky smile. “You think I could keep her away?”

Nealie’s arms tightened around his neck. “You came all the way from Russia. We just came from Illyria.”

He shifted her to hold her closer. “It doesn’t matter where we started out, does it, shrimp? We ended up together.”

She smiled and buried her face in his shoulder. He hugged the child and pressed his cheek against her hair. “I love you,” he said. “I’ve missed you. Every day, every night, I’ve missed you.”

NEALIE CHATTERED on the way home, bombarding Josh with volleys of questions. “The people really have reindeer that pull their sleds?”

“Indeed they do.”

“Just like Santa Claus?”

“Pretty much. Except Santa lives in one place. And these people move around.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re nomads.”

“What are nomads?”

“People who move around,” Josh said. “They have to hunt. They have to have fresh grazing for the reindeer. They change places when the seasons change.”

“Why do the seasons change?”

“Because the earth goes round the sun.”

“Why?”

“Because of gravity.”

“What’s gravity?”

“It keeps things fastened down.”

“Why doesn’t it keep the nomads fastened down?” Josh darted a helpless glance at Briana’s profile. She had a strange, sad little smile, but she kept her eyes on the road.

“That’s a good question,” Josh hedged. “I’ll have to think about that one. Ask me again tomorrow.”

Nealie settled more comfortably into her booster seat. She was growing tired, he could tell. He held her hand, and her head lolled against his shoulder.

“Daddy?”

“What, Panda Girl?”

“Why do you always call me Panda Girl?’

She knew the answer to that. It was a game they played. “Because when you were born, you had an extra thumb on one hand. Pandas have extra thumbs.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re special. Everybody loves pandas.”

“Then why’d the doctor cut off my panda thumb?”

“So you’d match on both sides.”

She held out her left hand, staring at it. A small white scar marked the operation. “Why didn’t the doctor put another one on my other hand?”

“He couldn’t find one. Panda Girl thumbs are very rare.”

“I wish I kept the one I had.”

“Naw,” he said and kissed her ear. “Then everybody would have been jealous.”

“Rupert says I was born a freak. That I had too many thumbs and a hole in my heart.”

He resisted to the urge to say what he thought of Rupert. “See,” he said. “Rupert’s clearly jealous. Too bad. Poor old Rupert.”

“Too bad,” she echoed. “Poor old Rupert.”

She dozed off. For a time neither Josh nor Briana spoke. The only sound was the soft stroking of the windshield wipers.

Josh shifted so the child leaned more comfortably against his arm. He took off her glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his travel vest. His parka lay in the back seat, flung atop his bags.

“Does your family know I’m coming?” he asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Of course,” Briana said, eyes on the road. “I had to tell them as soon as Nealie knew. She couldn’t keep it secret. Not possibly.”

“Do they know why I’ve come?”

Briana shook her head. Her dark hair swung about the shoulders of her white sweater. “No. I told everybody your assignment was done and you wanted to come back to the States to see Nealie. That’s all.”

He cocked his head, examining her. Oh, she was still something, all right, with her golden skin and exotic eyes. When she was serious, like now, she was a pretty girl. But when she smiled, he remembered, she was dazzling. She had the best smile he’d ever seen. He wondered how long it had been since she’d really used it.

“So,” he drawled, “how’d your family take the news I’d be here? Great wailing and gnashing of teeth?”

“Poppa was polite,” Briana said. “He said you could stay in his guest room if you want.”

“No, thanks,” Josh said and looked out the window on the passenger’s side. Leo Hanlon was a deceptively amiable man, but his true feelings for Josh were as cold as the ice that glittered in the trees.

Josh had almost succeeded at the unthinkable—he had almost taken Briana away from Leo. But the old man had won. He’d won with one of the oldest plays in the game—just when Briana had to choose between the two men, Leo had gotten sick.

“How’s his health?” Josh asked. This time he couldn’t keep the edge out of his tone.

She stared straight ahead. “He’s doing well. He went to the cardiologist last week. His heart’s good. He hasn’t had any episodes lately.”

Episodes, Josh thought sourly, are what you have on soap operas. “But,” he said, “I suppose he can’t work much.”

“No,” she said.

“So Larry oversees the farm.”

“Larry’s a physical guy. He likes it.”

He turned to Briana. “And what about Larry? Did he offer to let me use his guest room?”

“No.” She cast him a cool look. “He hasn’t got one. All his rooms are full of kids.”

“He still thinks of me as the guy who deserted his big sister?”

“He doesn’t change his mind easily.”

No. He’s like a Rottweiler or a water buffalo that way. Once an idea worked its way into his thick skull, it seldom found its way out again.

Josh didn’t really care about Larry’s opinions. But he knew down the line he’d have to grapple with them. As well as the far more complex ones of Leo Hanlon.

“Just when do you plan to tell them?” Josh asked. “About her?” He nodded toward Nealie, who was sleeping with her head on his shoulder. “And about—us?”

Every visible muscle in Briana’s body seemed to tighten. “I don’t want to discuss it now.”

“Have you thought about it? How you’re going to tell them? When?”

Her chin was stubborn. It was a look he knew well. “I said not now. She might wake up.”

As if to prove Briana right, Nealie stirred, rubbed her eyes, murmured something incomprehensible, then nestled against him.

She’s so small, Josh thought, so thin. She wasn’t this thin last time I saw her. She was light as a bird, like a creature with air in its bones.

“You and I,” he told Briana, his voice hard, “have to talk soon. And for a long time. I didn’t come all this way to be stonewalled.”

She nodded without looking at him. “Tonight. When she’s in bed.”

He frowned. “This thing you want to do—another baby—it’s going to cause all kinds of—”

“Shh. Tonight.”

“Fine,” he countered. “Tonight. And where am I supposed to stay? Am I invited to use your guest room?”

She shot him a look. “I don’t have one, either.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No. People would talk.”

He sighed in exasperation. She was worried what people thought? She wanted him to father another child for her—like that wasn’t going to make people talk?

She said, “If you don’t want to stay with Poppa, you can stay at the motel. I’ll loan you my truck to get back and forth.”

He groaned. He remembered Illyria’s motel from the photo shoot when he’d met Briana. It was a far cry from the five-star Kempinski in Moscow. Instead of private bars in every suite and a view of the Kremlin, it had a soda machine at the end of the hall and a view of a cornfield.

But that wasn’t what bothered him. What bothered him was that he and Briana had spent their wedding night there. They’d married in a kind of ecstatic haste, too hungry for each other to go anywhere else. They’d made love, then dozed, woke, made love again, and when the sun came up, they made love again.

If Briana remembered, she didn’t show it.

He tried to steer the conversation to neutral ground, not sure they had any.

“The farm’s a success?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, businesslike. “These days people are careful about what they eat. The more particular they get, the more they like us.”

“No preservatives,” he quoted from memory. “No additives. No artificial fertilizers. Only natural pesticides. No hybrid or patented seeds. The heritage of pure, old-fashioned food.”

“You’ve got it,” she said with a hint of the smile that used to make him crazy with wanting her.

“As George Washington said, ‘agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man.’”

“Wow,” Briana said. “You really do remember.”

I remember much more. Too much.

“Yeah. I remember,” he said.

“In growing season, we do well at the farmers’ market,” she said. “We always sell out. We have buyers from restaurants as far away as St. Louis.”

He thought about this past growing season. During it he had traveled over half the earth. She’d stayed home and tended her garden. And their child.

She said, “Was it a problem, getting time to come here?”

He shook his head. “No. Gave up a couple of short assignments. Nothing major.”

“Where do you go next?”

He tried to sound casual. “I’m not sure.”

“Are you still tied up with that crazy Adventure magazine?” she asked, an edge in her voice.

“I’ve got one more assignment,” he said. “That’s all.”

She tossed him a displeased glance. “Where?”

“Don’t know. Maybe Burma. An outside chance of Pitcairn Island.”

“Burma?” she asked with alarm. “Pitcairn Island? Josh, those are dangerous places. When would you have to go?”

He shrugged. “Burma? Probably not for a month, maybe more.”

“Burma has terrorists,” she said. “It has land mines.”

“I’ll be careful. Besides, a few weeks in Burma beats months on Pitcairn.”

Briana had said he needed to be in Missouri for at least three weeks. He’d told Carson he wasn’t touching anything for three weeks, and Carson had been bitter because there was money at stake, a lot of it.

From the unhappy look on Briana’s face, he decided the subject needed changing. “So how’s the seed business?”

She seemed relieved to talk of something else. “It keeps me busy. We’ve got a Web site now. And I computerized as much of the business as I could.”

One corner of his mouth pulled down. “Computerized? Didn’t Poppa object to that?”

The ghost of her smile flickered again. “Until he saw the results. He liked the profits.”

“So it’s the same as just after his heart attack. Larry’s the brawn, you’re the brains. In fact, it’s the same as before his heart attack.”

Her mouth went grim. “That’s not fair. He’s never been the same since my mother died. I told you that when we met.”

“Sorry,” he said, but he felt little true sympathy.

Briana’s mother had died two years before Josh came to Missouri. She had been the one with the business mind. She kept the books, made the payments, studied new directions to take the business.

Leo Hanlon had neither the patience nor the sort of mind to take over the job his wife had done. It fell to Briana to do, and she did it brilliantly.

Leo’s bachelor brother, Collin, a true workhorse of a man, died shortly after Leo’s wife did. He had done all the farm’s heavy work.

Without his wife and brother, Leo was nearly helpless. His back bothered him, his joints ached, and he was lonely. He wore his depression like a badge that exempted him from responsibility. He hired out more and more of the physical work. He was a genial man, sweet-natured, but he seemed to Josh to have drifted into a sort of privileged laziness.