Baby in His Arms

A Newborn Surprise

Helicopter pilot Creed Carter can’t believe his eyes—someone’s left a baby on the church altar. When this perfect little girl is temporarily turned over to Haley Blanchard, Creed is skeptical. The auburn-haired foster mother in flowing skirts is pretty, yet definitely not his type. But the more time Creed spends with Haley, the more he appreciates her style and her fierce commitment to her foster kids. To his surprise, he’s falling for her—and for baby Rose. But when a crisis strikes, can Creed convince Haley to face her worst fear and trust what’s in her heart?

“Want me to hold her while you do that?”

He’d never been a guy who went around holding babies, but Rose Petal was different. She’d stolen a corner of his heart yesterday morning and he hadn’t gotten it back yet. That a tiny infant wielded such power felt nothing short of weird.

He reached for Rose. His fingers collided with Haley’s soft, smooth skin. His pulse jumped. He took Rose and stepped back, bothered.

He wasn’t attracted to this earth mother. He couldn’t be.

Getting that itchy feeling again, Creed turned his attention to the soft bundle in his arms.

“Hey, little girl. Remember me?” Creed stroked one tiny fist and was gratified when the infant clutched his finger. The action was an innate reflex, but his insides warmed anyway. “Why do you think her mother left her?”

“I don’t know. I try not to think about it.”

He couldn’t think of anything else. The fact that Haley didn’t only proved how different they were.

He definitely wasn’t attracted to her. Not one bit….

LINDA GOODNIGHT

Winner of a RITA® Award for excellence in inspirational fiction, Linda Goodnight has also won a Booksellers’ Best Award, an ACFW Book of the Year award and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews. Linda has appeared on the Christian bestseller list and her romance novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. She and her husband live in Oklahoma. Visit her website at www.lindagoodnight.com. To browse a current listing of Linda Goodnight’s titles, please visit www.Harlequin.com.

Baby in His Arms

Linda Goodnight

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared.

A new way of living has come into existence.

—2 Corinthians 5:17

This book and the entire Whisper Falls series

are dedicated in loving memory of

my brother, Stan Case.

People say that if a prayer is whispered beneath Whisper Falls, God will hear and answer. Some folks think the tale is superstitious nonsense. Some think it’s a clever ploy to attract tourists. But others believe that God does work in mysterious ways. And prayers, no matter where whispered, are always heard.

Contents

Prologue

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 Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Prologue

Desperation drove her to it.

Even though the rocks behind the falls were slippery and wet, even though she shivered in her sweater and pulled the well-wrapped baby closer to her aching chest, she struggled along the ledge, clinging to the gleaming black rocks with one hand and to the baby with the other.

The crash and roar of river water filled the air, filled her head, filled her completely and terrifyingly. She must do this. She must. Whisper Falls was her last and only hope.

With water spraying relentlessly against her face and hair, she edged along the rock face. Thank God for the rock cleaves and ledges made by nature and humans, many perhaps as desperate as herself. People who’d climbed down the rocks to the ledge below and clung to the rock face like snails to somehow manage the difficult journey to that sacred spot behind the waterfall.

The roar grew louder. Tons of water cascaded in front of her, a white spray of fierce beauty. Her body trembled violently from cold and wet, fear and exhaustion as well as from the lonely, terrible suffering of solitary childbirth hours before.

“Please, God,” she whispered, “help me do this for my baby.”

She’d heard the tales of Whisper Falls. Tales of whispered prayers answered if the one in need had the courage to climb behind the falls and send a prayer on angel wings to God.

One more step and she’d be there. One step. Barely able to hold on because of the violent weakness in her knees, she slipped successfully behind the falls. Just that quick, she stepped into a place of tranquility and quiet as though the curtain of white water blocked the painful, bewildering world she’d fled.

She let out a long sigh of relief, eyes closed, resting the back of her head against the hard, cold rock for a moment. Mist drenched her face and clothes, but the baby rested warm and dry, protected by a vinyl tablecloth.

“Dear God,” she whispered.

She wasn’t sure how prayer worked or if there were rules. But she knew God was big and if anyone could help her, He could. He was likely the only one.

“I need your help, God. I don’t know where to go or what to do. Tell me what’s best for my baby.”

She waited, unsure, hearing nothing but the waterfall’s mighty rush. She didn’t know what she’d expected but not this loud silence.

“If you’re listening, God. If you even listen to someone like me, take care of my baby.”

The tears she’d held inside all through the grueling birth fell now and mixed with the swirling mist until her chilled face ran like a windowpane.

“I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for her. She didn’t do anything wrong. Please, God, send a family to love her.” Her voice choked. “Really love her. This is all I’ll ever ask of You.”

She gazed down at the tiny red face, memorizing the thatch of dark hair above the perfect nose and chin. Then she offered up the child, a living sacrifice for her mother’s sins. Her terrible, terrible sins.

Chapter One

A baby on the doorstep was a cliché. Wasn’t it?

Creed Carter shook the early morning cobwebs from his head. He should have had one more cup of coffee. Maybe two.

No one abandoned babies on doorsteps anymore. Especially in a town as small as Whisper Falls.

But this wasn’t a doorstep. This was the altar of Whisper Falls Community Church. A small church that was always as quiet as a tomb on Tuesday mornings and every other morning he came in to pray before starting his day in the air above the Ozark Mountains.

Creed blinked and crept closer, tiptoeing, hoping his vision would clear or he would awaken and laugh off the silly dream.

Maybe a child had left a doll behind. Maybe the Christmas committee had gotten the baby Jesus doll out of storage for some reason.

But this was spring. Christmas was months away.

Suddenly, the small wrapped bundle stirred. Creed’s heart jumped, kicking up to a hundred knots. A man who’d flown helicopters over Iraq wasn’t scared of anything. Except very small human beings who cried a lot and couldn’t talk. Or walk. Or feed themselves.

A pair of tiny fists rose from the odd-looking bundle. Right behind them came the mewling cry.

His heart slammed against his chest wall as if he’d lost power over Whisper Falls with the chopper filled with sightseers. Creed rushed to the altar and fell on his knees beside the bundle. A tiny baby, face wrinkled and red, eyes still puffy and slanted as if she or he was brand-new, quivered and kicked. The tiny rosebud mouth opened with a loud, distressed wail.

Creed glanced wildly around. Surely this child had a mother around here somewhere. Reverend Wally Schmidt opened the church every morning at five before making his trek over the mountains to his day job in Fayetteville. If Creed arrived early enough, sometimes they prayed together. But not this morning. The church was empty. Not even Wally’s four-wheel drive was parked outside. There wasn’t another soul around except him and this little bitty, squalling baby.

Heart revving faster by the minute, Creed offered up a quick prayer and then whipped out his cell phone and did what any sensible man would do. He called 9-1-1.

* * *

The sound of JoEtta Farnsworth’s moped had barely died when the Whisper Falls police chief slammed through the double doors into the sanctuary. Short and stocky and tough as shoe leather, the middle-aged blonde looked like a scooter-riding version of Amelia Earhart.

“What’s going on in here?” she demanded in voice like a foghorn.

“I found this baby,” Creed said, realizing how sad that sounded. People found pennies, not babies.

It was weird. He, an only child whose experience with babies was limited to diaper commercials on TV, was downright heartsick to think anyone would leave a baby alone. Even if the little thing had been left in a church, he or she was alone. Abandoned. Helpless.

“What do you mean you found her?” Chief Farnsworth eyed him as if he was a teenaged driver caught spinning doughnuts on Main Street.

“I came in a few minutes ago, and there she was.” He hitched his chin toward the long, oak altar.

“On the altar?”

The baby stirred. “Wrapped up in this thing. It’s a tablecloth, I think.”

“Uh-huh. The kind you carry on picnics.” The chief stepped closer. “Flannel on the inside. Vinyl on the outside.”

“She quieted down when I picked her up.”

He’d rocked her, too, and sung “Jesus Loves Me” in the rough, pathetic voice that could make dogs howl and soldiers throw things. She’d seemed to go for it.

Creed didn’t mention the singing and rocking to the chief.

“Anyone else around?”

“No one I saw.”

“Did you look? Check in the office or the bathroom?”

“Never thought about it. She was crying.” A man would be heartless to walk away from a cry like that.

JoEtta peeled back the vinyl to peek at the sleeping face. “You say she’s a girl? What about the umbilical cord? Is it still attached?”

Creed blinked, horrified. “I didn’t look. I just thought she seemed pink and round like a little girl.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake. Let me see its belly.” The no-nonsense policewoman pushed aside the cloth and peered down at the naked baby. “It’s a girl, all right,” she said. “New as the dew.”

The baby started crying again.

“Well, pardon me, missy,” JoEtta said with a snort.

Creed rewrapped the baby and snuggled her close to his shirt. She stopped crying.

“I think she likes you, Creed.”

Creed figured the little thing was simply happy to be held. Either that, or desperate to escape Chief Farnsworth’s rock-grinder voice. But the idea that she liked him tickled his chest, anyway. “What are you going to do with her?”

“Call Social Services.” JoEtta pointed at the altar. “Sit down there and do whatever it is you’ve been doing to keep her happy while I search the church and make sure there’s not a mama lurking around.”

“You think someone walked in here and had a baby, then left her?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Not in Whisper Falls.”

The chief made a rude noise in the back of her throat. “I beg to differ. A woman had twins one year on the Ferris wheel at Pumpkin Fest because that idiot Buster Grubenheimer thought she was screaming from fright and wouldn’t shut down the ride.”

“True. I’d forgotten about that. She named the babies Ferris and Wheeler.”

“Sure did.” JoEtta slapped her thigh and guffawed. The baby jerked. “Sit tight. I’ll be back.”

Creed grinned as the short, squat chief stomped away, gear rattling at her side.

The sanctuary grew quiet again. A large round clock on the back wall reminded him of the time. With a grimace, he sat down on the front pew.

“Don’t worry, princess,” he said to the sleeping face. “I won’t bail on you. Not like your mama did.”

He fished for his cell phone and canceled his first scenic flight of the day. He’d no more than ended the call when the baby’s mouth opened in a whimper that quickly escalated to a cry.

Creed scooped the frantic bundle against his chest and patted her back. She was probably hungry. He was about to sing again when the police chief marched in from the vestibule.

“Social worker’s on her way.”

“You didn’t find any sign of the mother?” he asked.

“Nope. The way I figure it, the mother slipped in, left the baby and made a run for it.”

Left at the mercy of strangers.

The idea twisted in Creed’s gut. Through a cap of fine dark hair, he could see a pulse in the infant’s head. The sight scared him silly. “Maybe we should call Dr. Ron.”

“The social worker will make that determination. She ought to be here any minute.” The back door opened. “See? I told you. Howdy, Melissa.”

“Chief Farnsworth.” A surprisingly young woman wearing very high heels with a black business suit and crisp white blouse bustled into the room. Before Creed could say a word, she took the baby from him.

He didn’t think he liked her.

* * *

Haley Blanchard got the call at ten o’clock. She stripped off her gardening gloves, stuck her feet into a pair of flip-flops and jumped into her minivan. Never mind that her hair had escaped its topknot and now danced in auburn wisps around her face, or that she was sweaty, grubby and needed a shower.

A baby had been abandoned. The thought quickened a sinking sensation deep in her gut, a moment of deep pity. But this was her job. Fostering was what she did. If a child was in need of a temporary home, she provided one. She didn’t let her emotions get in the way of doing the right thing.

Haley reached Dr. Ron’s clinic in less than ten minutes, a thousand questions and thoughts racing through her head. Who found her? Where? Was she healthy? Who would abandon a baby in Whisper Falls?

As she entered the building, flip-flops smacking the tile, she was greeted by Chief JoEtta Farnsworth and a social worker, Melissa Plymouth. The three were well-acquainted, having worked together on child welfare cases many times.

“Where’s the baby?” Haley asked.

“Dr. Ron’s checking her out.”

“What happened? Where was she found?” Haley ran her hands down the sides of her dress, glad for the hand sanitizer hanging on the wall.

The chief gave her a brief rundown, answering the questions she could. At the moment, no one knew why the baby had been left at the church or by whom.

“Did Reverend Schmidt find her?”

“Actually, no.” Chief Farnsworth stepped to the right, creating a space between herself and the social worker.

Haley’s gaze snapped into focus.

A deeply tanned, dark-haired man slapped a magazine shut and stood. “I did.”

In her haste to speak with the women, Haley hadn’t noticed the man sitting against the pale green wall. Now she did. Creed Carter, the helicopter pilot. She’d seen him around, mostly at the Iron Horse Snack Shop, knew he flew a helicopter all over the place and was too good-looking for anyone’s good. He was the usual well-built, compact size for a pilot. Dark spiky hair, black cargo pants, black golf shirt with a bright yellow helicopter logo on a very nicely formed chest.

She yanked her attention from his chest to his dark chocolate eyes and found those every bit as compelling as the rest.

His lips twitched. He’d caught her staring.

Haley lifted her chin and eyed him coldly.

Arrogant. Overconfident. A typical flyboy. She decided not to like him.

“What were you doing in a church that early in the morning?” Her words were sharp with suspicion.

“Praying.”

His mild expression pricked her conscience. Okay, so she’d been a little rude. The man reminded her of someone she’d dated. Well, a lot of someone she’d dated.

“Why would anyone abandon a baby in a church?”

“Why would anyone abandon a baby at all?” A muscle ticked under his left eye.

“Good point.”

Clearly, he wasn’t happy to be here. Typical of a flyboy. But he’d stuck around, and that was the part—the only part—that interested Haley, regardless of how good-looking Creed might be.

“There was a note,” he said.

JoEtta Farnsworth, who scared Haley a little with her gruff demeanor, dug inside her brown leather vest and produced a folded piece of notebook paper. “Looks like it was ripped right out of one of those spiral notebooks kids use in school.”

“What does it say?”

“Not much, but enough to know the mother thought she had no other choice. She seems desperate and certain she’s doing the right thing. Tragic.”

Tragic didn’t cover it as far as Haley was concerned. Irresponsible. Selfish. Some mothers were. No one knew that better than Haley. “May I read it?”

“Sure.” The chief passed the note over.

Haley read the note and then looked up. Creed Carter watched her from beneath hooded eyes, arms crossed over his black shirt.

Okay, so he was really good-looking.

She did her best to ignore him while she read part of the note out loud. “Please find the perfect family for my baby. Don’t look for me. I won’t take her back. I can’t. I prayed at Whisper Falls, and this was the answer. Tell her I’m sorry and I love her.”

“The mother sounds very young and frightened,” the social worker said. “I hope she’s all right.”

Creed’s feet shifted against the tile, a tense, masculine presence Haley found unsettling. She was here now. He could go.

“Will you look for her?” he asked in a voice Haley could only describe as dark, rich chocolate.

“Have to,” the chief said with a sniff. “She broke the law.”

After reading the note, Haley wanted to protest. The girl, whoever she was, wasn’t a criminal. Nor was she anything like Haley’s mother. The girl sounded hopeless and alone, two emotions Haley understood very well. She’d broken the law a few times herself when she’d been young and stupid and under the spell of her crazy mother.

Before she could say anything, though, Dr. Ron and Wilma, the doc’s bun-haired assistant, appeared from the back carrying an infant. Wilma held a bottle of formula against the tiny face. Every adult in the waiting room turned in their direction. Creed Carter’s expression, Haley noticed with interest, went from cocky to concerned...and bewildered.

“She appears healthy and full-term,” Dr. Ron said.

The only doctor in Whisper Falls, the forty-something physician handled anything that came his way from delivering babies to setting bones. Issues outside his abilities he sent to Fayetteville or Little Rock. Haley liked the youthful-looking doctor with his freckles and cowlick and affable bedside manner. She’d committed more than one foster child to his efficient care.

“Does she need to go to the hospital?” Haley asked.

Creed stepped up beside Haley, bringing with him the scent of woodsy aftershave and pressed cotton. She tried not to notice but she liked scents. She liked them a lot.

“I can fly her there.”

Haley shivered at the thought. No way was she going up in his death machine with a baby. Or with anyone else for that matter.

“Thanks, Creed,” Dr. Ron said, “but no need at this point. Right now, the baby looks good. Not very big, but at six pounds two ounces and eighteen inches long, she’s big enough. Formula and diapers and a lot of love should fix her right up. If anything medical presents, Haley will let me know. Right, Haley?”

“Absolutely.” She reached for the baby. Too late, she saw the grass stain on her fingers.

“You’re not taking her, are you?” Creed’s voice was incredulous.

Haley bristled. As Wilma transferred the baby to Haley’s arms, she said, perhaps a bit stiffly, “The social worker called me. I am a certified foster parent. Taking care of displaced children is what I do.”

So she sounded defensive and more than a little testy. The man’s attitude ticked her off.

His doubting gaze drifted from her frizzy hair to her stained hands and down to the chipped polish on her toenails. A flare of nostrils indicated he’d seen the dirt on her feet, too. “You do?”

With those two words, he made her feel about an inch tall. The jerk.

“I was working in my garden,” she said hotly and then wondered why she felt the need to defend herself to him. A helicopter pilot. Ugh.

“Haley is an excellent foster parent.” Melissa’s gracious comment mollified her some, though not completely, after Creed had insinuated the opposite.

Creed still didn’t seem convinced. “You’ll take good care of her, won’t you? She’s really small.”

The man was hovering. She wanted to dislike him. She wanted to tell him to get lost, but he had found the child. Maybe he actually cared.

She softened a bit. That was it. Perhaps he wasn’t criticizing her. He was genuinely interested in the baby’s welfare.

“She’ll be fine.” Haley jiggled the infant for effect, noticing how avidly the little girl sucked at the bottle.

“Right. Okay.” Creed stepped back, but his gaze remained on the nursing child who was now dressed in an oversize yellow drawstring gown.

Haley was forever amazed at the supplies Wilma stocked in that small clinic. “I can assure you, she will be well-cared for until the authorities decide what to do with her.”

Creed’s lips twisted beneath flared nostrils. He gave her a searing, squint-eyed look she couldn’t begin to comprehend. Then to the chief, he said, “You’ll keep me posted.”

“Will do. Thanks, Creed.”

With one last troubled glance at the infant in Haley’s arms, Creed Carter strode out of the clinic.

He had insulted her, but Haley had the inexplicable feeling that she’d somehow offended the handsome flyboy.

Chapter Two

Creed had no idea what he was doing. None whatsoever. If the guys could see him now, they’d bust a gut laughing and he would never live it down.

With a grunt, he wrestled the giant pink teddy bear from the backseat of his black Jeep and picked his way along a series of odd-shaped stepping stones through a mass of flowers and plants that led to Haley Blanchard’s house. She had plants everywhere, most of which he didn’t recognize. Plants in pots. Plants in half barrels. Plants shooting up around the pavers to brush at his cargo pants. They all seemed to be blooming, the array of scents so vast, he smelled them all and recognized nothing but the pungent odor of dill pickles.