Some kind of wonderful (29 page)

She kept her gaze locked with his. "Are you still going to be here only temporarily?"

He paused. Temporary was the only way he knew anymore. "Yeah."

Carol nodded stiffly, as if even that slight movement ached. 'Then there's no point in your moving out. I think we can stay out of each other's way well enough, don't you?"

"If that's what you want."

One corner of her mouth turned up and then flattened again. "That is so very far from what I want, Jack." Her voice dropped to a hushed whisper of sound as she added, "But we don't always get what we want, and I should know that better than anyone."

"Carol—"

"Just," she said, lifting one hand to cut him off even

II

as she started past him, "don't say anything else, okay? It's been a lousy night and anything you can say won't make it better."

"Okay." He shoved both hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her as she passed him. Her scent stayed with him even as she walked away. Her steps were slow, tired, fatigue dragging her down into the ground as if the park were sitting on quicksand. Even the bells on her shoes weren't tinkling with the same carefree joy he usually associated with her.

Quinn paused beside Jack long enough to look up at him and whine again. Maybe he was losing what was left of his mind, but Jack almost thought the dog was disgusted with him. Hell, join the club. But the moment passed and the big dog hurried to catch up to his mistress.

Jack turned to watch her leave and a tight, cold band wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed. With her hand on the big dog's back, she walked alone in the shadows, and for the first time since he'd known her, she looked.. .fragile.

By mid-morning, word about Liz had spread all over Christmas and Jack was standing on Lacey Reynolds's front porch, his sister Maggie at his side.

The house had seen better days. The dark green paint on the shutters was peeling, a porch rail was missing, and the doorbell hiccuped drunkenly as it rang inside the house. The grass needed mowing, the bushes needed trimming, and the screen door flapped loosely around its frame. It was a good old house, but it had been neglected too long and now, Jack thought, it would probably be easier to just raze the place and start from scratch.

"How's Carol doing?"

He shifted his gaze to Maggie, looking trim, professional, and just a little sad around the eyes. She'd seen enough misery in her time at Social Services to be as hardened as Jack. Yet Maggie, like Carol, had found a way to look at life and still smile. Usually. Today though, her empathy for Carol shone from her eyes and sounded in her voice.

"I think she's all right."

"You think?" she asked, one dark red eyebrow winging up. "I thought you and she were, uh—"

"You thought wrong," he said, cutting her off.

"Well, color me surprised."

"Give it a rest, Mag."

But she wouldn't, of course. He hadn't really expected her to.

"She needs you right now, Jack. I know what losing this baby must be doing to her and—"

Impatience leaped from him. "Look. She doesn't particularly want me around right now, so can we just do thejobr

Both eyebrows lifted now and she managed, even though she was at least eight inches shorter than he, to look down her nose at him. And damned if he didn't deserve it

"Fine, Sheriff."

The front door suddenly swung open, sparing Jack the necessity of a reply. Lacey's mother stood in the doorway, blinking at the sunlight like a vampire who'd stayed up too late. "What is it?"

"Mrs. Reynolds, we're here to see Lacey."

She groaned tightly and pushed at the screen-door latch. The door popped open like a cork pushed from a bottle and Jack caught it before it could slam into the house.

"Great. The baby's been screaming ail night and now that it's finally asleep, you come along and wake me up."

"We're very sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Reynolds," Maggie was saying in that cool, rational tone that used to drive him nuts when they were kids. "But this official visit is necessary to check on the well-being of the child in question and its"—she paused to glance around— "home situation."

Jack smelled liquor, baby formula, and just a whiff of desperation. It was dark in the living room, only the sunlight slanting in behind them to light up the corners of the room. Magazines were scattered across a table, laundry— whether clean or dirty, he wasn't sure—piled on the couch, and the television was tuned to a game show with pretty people and annoying music.

A part of him wanted to rush in, grab the baby, and take her back to Carol. He wanted to walk in her front door, holding that baby, and be the damn hero. He wanted to be her hero.

Hell, he wanted, as he hadn't wanted in years.

Scrubbing one hand across his face, he pushed that wild impulse aside and stared at the once-blond, now-brassy older woman in front of him. Her eyes were red and her hand shook as she reached for a cigarette and lit it. She* sucked in the smoke like it was oxygen for a starved brain, then exhaled it reluctantly.

"Where is Lacey?"

She stared up at him and he wondered if she was just sleepy or still drunk. Then she breathed on him and he figured it was a little of both.

"Are you here to take the baby?" she demanded.

Maggie answered that one. "We're here to check on the baby and speak to your daughter."

"Stupid girl," Lacey's mother muttered as she turned

and headed down the short hall toward a closed door. She took another short drag on the cigarette, then stabbed the air with the fiery tip of it. "Didn't think she was smart enough to hide a pregnancy. Then she turns around and does something idiotic like claiming the kid. Told her she should have left that baby with the shopkeeper. What the hell is Lacey going to do with it?"

She stopped in front of a closed door, gave a brief, perfunctory knock, then opened it and walked inside. Here, Jack thought, Lacey had done all she could to combat the closed, quiet air of defeat clinging to the house. The walls were a cheerful pale yellow, and white curtains fluttered at a window that overlooked a weed-choked flower bed. Posters were tacked to the walls and framed photos cluttered every surface.

The girl herself sprang up off the bed as though she'd been shot and faced them all with a guilty, embarrassed expression.

'They're here to see about the baby," her mother announced, then stepped back, folded her arms across her chest, and tapped one bare foot against the carpet.

Jack's gaze swept the small room and landed on the baby. Asleep on Lacey's bed, Liz's tiny face was scrunched in sleep and she looked in as much distress as her mother. He recognized the blanket covering the infant. Carol had bought it that first week with the baby and had covered her with it every night. Tiny yellow ducks pranced across a soft white fabric and something inside Jack shifted and groaned.

His hands itched to hold her. His heart ached for what ie'd lost. What he, Carol, and little Liz had lost.

"Hello, Lacey," Maggie said softly and eased up on he girl as though she were a wild thing poised for flight.

"Hi." She looked from Maggie to Jack to her mother

and back again. Her eyes were wide and filled with tears she was trying not to shed.

"We've got a few questions," Maggie was saying.

Jack responded to the emotions crowding the girl's anxious face. She was probably terrified. Wondering if she'd be going to jail. But jail wouldn't serve anyone at this point Maggie had agreed to keep this private as much as she could "It's okay, Lacey," he said, wanting to relieve her of at least this much. "You're not in trouble."

She breathed a sigh of relief that was short-lived as her mother spoke up again.

"Oh, yes she is," Deb said, stabbing the air with her cigarette again. "She's a kid. What does she know about babies? Nothing. She can't take care of that baby and I'm sure as hell not going to raise it."

"Mom—"

"No way," the older woman said sharply. "I did my time in the trenches. I raised you, didn't I? Well, I'm finished. You got yourself into this mess. You can get yourself out"

Jack's teeth ground together. He was helpless. He couldn't take Liz out of here, and return her to the warmth and love in Carol's apartment He couldn't help Lacey against her mother's anger. Rage coiled inside him at the unfairness of the situation. But anger wouldn't help her, either.

"This isn't really productive," Maggie said.

Deb opened her mouth to say something else, but Jack stopped her with a hand on her arm. This, at least, he could give Lacey. "Mrs. Reynolds," he said, keeping his grip gentle, since she felt like a sack of sticks. "Why don't we step out into the living room and let Maggie and Lacey have a talk?"

'Talk all you want," the woman said, looking back

over her shoulder at the daughter she'd thought was going to amount to something. "It won't change anything. You're stuck now. Stuck here. Just like me." Deb narrowed her gaze. "For all your fancy talk of college, you're no smarter than me, are you?" That parting shot left Lacey weeping.

"Only terrified," Lacey admitted.

"How'd you do it? How'd you have the baby all alone, Lace?"

She'd nearly managed to blank that whole night out of her mind. But still the ragged edges of her memory tugged at her. "When the pains started, I went down to the caves," she admitted, her voice soft.

"At the beach?" Incredulous, Peggy stared at her.

"Yeah." Lacey inhaled sharply. "I stored a bunch of stuff down there ahead of time. Like blankets and towels and water and stuff."

"Jesus" Peggy whispered, clearly impressed. "Didit hurt? Wait. Stupid question. Of course it hurt. But Lacey, how did you do it all alone?"

Lacey's mind took her back to the shadow-filled cave. She heard the lapping of the ocean as the low-tide waves slapped against the shore. It had been cold and dark and terrifying. She could almost smell the damp air and see the pale shadows tossed from her lantern to the rock walls of the cave. The sand beneath her blanket had felt as soft and giving as asphalt and she remembered with exquisite clarity the screaming pain that had lanced through her body again and again.

She shivered slightly, swallowed hard, and said, "I had a book. A midwife book. It told me what to do."

"What if something had gone wrong, though?" Peggy asked, her voice quiet. "You could have died or something, Lace."

"I didn't, though," she said, closing a mental door on the memories. "And after Liz came out, I cleaned her up and took her to the manger and hid in the bushes until Carol and Quinn found her."

"I can't believe you didn't trust me to help you."

"I do trust you, Peg," she said quickly, fervently, needing

her very best friend to believe her. "But I just felt like I couldn't tell anybody. I'd been so stupid. And I was so scared."

Peggy's expressive eyes filled with sympathetic tears that she deliberately blinked back. "You weren't stupid, Lace. You just made a mistake, that's all."

"A big one," she said, glancing at the baby again.

'True. So, who's the father?"

Lacey squirmed uncomfortably. "You remember Da-mian?"

"That guy who worked at the garage outside of town for a while?"

"Yeah."

Peggy thought back and remembered a blond-haired guy with a vine tattooed around his bicep. "Wow. An older man."

"He was only nineteen."

"Older than us." Peggy shook her head and looked at Lacey for a long minute. "How did you hide it, Lace? You must have been so scared."

"I was." She shivered at the memory of being alone and knowing that she was going to have a baby she wouldn't be able to keep. "Only time in my life being fat paid off, though. Nobody noticed anything different about me."

"Not even me." Peggy reached out one hand and squeezed Lacey's fingers. "I'm so sorry. I should have known. Should have seen it."

Lacey squeezed back. "It's not your fault. I did it all."

A couple of minutes of pained silence ticked past until Peggy spoke up again, in an effort to make Lacey smile. "So, was it good?"

"Huh?"

"Sex," Peggy prompted. "The guy. Was it good?"

Lacey closed her eyes, trying to remember. So much had happened since then, it was like trying to imagine something that had happened to somebody else. And oh, God, sometimes she really wished it had happened to somebody else. "It's kind of a blur."

Peggy snorted and leaned back. "Then he wasn't any good at it."

Lacey laughed for the first time in days. "Maybe it wasn't his problem. Maybe it was just me."

"Nah." The tiny redhead pooh-poohed that notion entirely with a wave of one small hand. "My sister Eileen says, every woman is good at it. You just have to find a man with skill. That's why she told me to hold out for more than a quick roll in the back seat with a high school guy." What she said suddenly struck her and she winced and groaned. "God, I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry."

Lacey flinched and couldn't quite hide it.

"I didn't mean anything, honest—" She blew out a disgusted breath. "I just—you know how when my mouth starts moving I can't keep up "

"It's okay. You don't have to be sorry." Lacey knew Peggy wasn't trying to be mean. And hey, it was the truth, wasn't it? She had let a smooth-talking guy get her out of her panties. If she'd been smarter, if she'd been more careful... Too late to think about that now, she told herself. "Don't worry about it."

"Jesus, Lacey, I should be shot." Peggy slapped one hand across her mouth and still talked. "I should be kicked out of the Best Friends' Hall of Fame and tied up in a kennel loaded with fleas."

Lacey laughed again, and God, it felt good. She could always count on Peggy for that. No matter what, their friendship had endured. They'd always been there for each other. It was the two of them—and sometimes

Donna—against the world. Until now, a voice in the back of her mind whispered. Now everything will change. Peggy's going to college and you're not She HI make new friends. She y ll do all the things you planned, but she '11 be doing them without you. You '11 be alone.

A twinge of something sharp and painful sliced at her and Lacey tried desperately to ignore both it and that taunting voice. She'd done the right thing.

"Did he know about the baby?" Peggy asked a minute or two later, when the baby's gurgling broke the silence.

"No. I found out after he left" Lacey said, preferring to forget the whole thing. It hadn't been pleasant. It hadn't even been fun. But how could she ever forget, she wondered, when the living proof of that night was lying in a splash of sunlight, kicking her little legs?

Outside, a lawnmower growled from somewhere down the street and the McCorys' dog barked like he was being attacked by aliens. A breeze fluttered into the room beneath the partially opened window and Lacey watched the curtains dance.

"So, what're you gonna doT Peggy sat at the end of Lacey's bed and stared at the baby as if waiting for her head to spin.

Lacey looked down at her daughter and sighed again. She was doing that a lot lately, she'd noticed—sighing, that is. But she was just so tired. It had been three days and Lacey felt as though she hadn't slept at all.

Liz cried a lot.

And then there was the whole diaper thing, which was usually pretty gross, and then there was feeding her and burping her and changing her clothes 'cause she burped up something disgusting and then the whole thing started over again and really ... Lacey just wanted to cry.

But she couldn't.

One of them crying was enough.

"I'm gonna take care of her," she said and hoped Peggy didn't hear the tremble in her voice. Heck, she hoped Liz couldn't hear it. Then she remembered Carol covering the baby's ears so she wouldn't hear anything that might upset her and Lacey smiled briefly. But Carol wasn't here now. It was all up to her. She could do this. She loved Liz. She was her daughter. She was supposed to take care of her.

"Uh-huh," Peggy said, tearing her gaze from the baby with a tiny shudder and shifting it to her friend. "But what about school? What about the dorms?" Her voice climbed a notch as she added, "And the apartment we were gonna get? It was all gonna be so cool, Lace."

A pang of regret bounced in Lacey's chest and slammed hard against her rib cage. There was so much she had been going to do, she thought. So many things she had wanted to see.

She looked at her baby, lying wide awake and staring up at the slant of sunlight spearing through the window. Plans change, she thought grimly and tried not to feel the sharp pull of disappointment that hovered near the corners of her mind.

"I'll go to community college for a while," she said, lifting one shoulder into a shrug that belied the worry settling over her like a thundercloud. "I can still transfer later."

"How much later, Lace?" Peggy asked, folding her hands together and dangling them between her knees. "I mean, do you wait until Liz is grown up? Or in kindergarten? Or high school maybe? What?"

"I don't know," Lacey said, wishing she knew the

answers. Weren't moms supposed to know everything? If they did, she was in trouble because she didn't. She didn't even know the right questions.

"It's not too late," Peggy said, reaching out to cover Lacey's hand with hers again. "You could talk to Carol. See if she'd take Liz back and—"

Lacey pulled her hand free and shook her head. Maybe she reacted so strongly to the suggestion because she'd thought the same thing herself too many times to count in the last few days. But that would be abandoning her baby twice. And what kind of person would that make her?

"I can't," she said, her voice strong enough, she hoped, to convince not only Peggy, but herself. "I can't just give her away like she's ... nothing. She's a person. She's my daughter."

"Whoa." Peggy leaned back against the wall. "Weird, but that's the first time I've thought about it like that. You have a daughter. I mean, you're a mother. How weird is that?"

"Yeah ..." Pride, fear, and confusion tangled together in her chest, making it almost impossible to draw a breath. Her heart pounded like a sledgehammer against her ribs and she was almost getting used to the bass-drum sound of it in her ears. It was weird. And Lacey didn't know what the heck to do. She'd been so sure of her future, before. She'd worked so hard. So long, to get out of Christmas. To go to school. To become ... somebody. And now ...

"What's it like?"

"Huh?"

"You know, having the baby. Being the— mom''

Lacey looked at her friend, and just for a moment, put aside all but the one emotion that was still strong enough

to swamp her when she let it. "The love is amazing, Peg. I mean, it's so big, you know?"

Peggy's eyes teared up with emotion and Lacey knew she was lucky to have a friend like her. Peggy hadn't made any judgments. Hadn't yelled at her for not letting her in on the secret. She'd just been there. As she'd always been.

"It must be scary, though," Peggy said quietly.

"Terrifying."

"Is your mom helping?"

Lacey laughed shortly, but felt tears spring to her eyes. She'd really hoped that her mother, once over the shock, would care. But Deb Reynolds had meant every word she'd said to the sheriff and Peggy's sister. She wasn't going to help. She hadn't even held Liz. Not once.

"No. She says the baby's my mess and I'm the one who has to clean it up."

"Wow." Peggy's eyes widened, but she didn't look surprised. Only sad. "I can't imagine my mom saying that."

"I know." For one tiny moment, Lacey wished that Mrs. Reilly was her mom. Or at least that her mom was more like Peggy's. But she'd wished that before and nothing had changed, so what was the point? Besides, she was a mom, now.

"You'll be a good mom," Peggy said as if reading Lacey's mind.

"Will I?" she asked, glancing at the baby long enough to feel the tug on her heart. "I want to be, Peggy. But I just don't know how. What does a good mom do, you know? How do I know?"

"Maybe it's something you learn."

She'd thought that once. But if you learn something by watching it, what kind of skills had she learned from

her own mother? And what would she pass on to Liz? Those thoughts skittered through her mind like BBs rattling around in a pan.

What kind of life could she give the baby who was now depending on her for everything? Liz would look at her and expect to be taken care of. Loving her wasn't enough. She'd need food and clothes and later books and doctors and maybe dance lessons or gymnastics and—

Panic, pure, hot, and wild, roared through her veins, stealing her breath, tearing her eyes, strangling in her throat.

"What am I supposed to do, Peg?"

Peggy scooted off the bed and sat on the floor beside her best friend. She wanted to help. She just didn't know how. So she figured the best thing she could do was something Maggie had said. Just listen when Lacey felt like talking.

"I don't know, Lace," she said, folding her legs Indian style on the worn carpet. "But you love her, right?"

"Oh, yeah."

Peggy smiled. "Then I think you'll figure it out."

"I hope so," Lacey said, reaching up to stroke her daughter's tiny hand.

"The first night was the worst," Carol said firmly and pulled a clean sheet from the pile of laundry.

It felt good to be busy. When she was busy, her arms didn't ache to hold Liz. She wasn't thinking about the baby's sweet face, or the soft sighs she made when snuggling in close to Carol's chest, or the feel of tiny fingers plucking at her neck.

Carol groaned inwardly and tried to shut it all off. But it was impossible.

And it wasn't only Liz she was missing.

The hole Jack's absence had left in her heart ached continually. So staying busy was her only answer.

Her only saving grace.

In fact, she'd been so busy in the last few days, the apartment and the shop below practically gleamed. The scent of lemon oil and soap clung to every surface. The windows were squeaky clean and she could have served dinner on her kitchen floor. But she was running out of things to do and she had no idea what she'd do when she reached the end.

"Honest," she said, mentally crossing her fingers to absolve the lie. "I've been okay since that first night."

"Uh-huh." Phoebe watched her over the rim of her wineglass.

Carol shot her a quick look, then focused on the sheet as she folded it neatly, smoothing her palms along the creases. "I admit it, I did a lot of crying when Lacey took the baby back."

Oh, God, just saying the words aloud unleashed the emotions still churning inside her. Carol's heart pinged, throbbed, then eased back into the steady, constant pain she'd grown accustomed to in the last few days. She took a deep breath in an attempt to steady both the pain and her voice as she said, "It was awful. And the longest night of my life, I think. But I'm better now. It's been three days and I think I'll be okay."

"Of course you will." Phoebe set her glass onto the coffee table and leaned back into the cushions of the sofa. "Even Quinn will recover eventually."

"I hope so," Carol said, letting her glance slide to the open door of her bedroom. The big dog was there, just as he had been for days, lying beneath Liz's empty crib, waiting for her to come home. Wasn't fair, she thought. Poor

dog, couldn't understand where his baby had gone to.

But Phoebe was right. Eventually, he'd forget. She'd take away the crib—as soon as she could bear to—and their lives would go back to the way they had been before this summer had happened. And that would be good, right?

They'd been happy. She and Quinn, in their nest. Just the two of them. Then Liz had come along.

And Jack.

Oh, Jack. Why aren't you here?

"We'll both be fine." She said it because she needed to hear it. "I've still got my shop and Quinn and—"

"Jack?" Phoebe asked quietly.

"No," she said, and a different sort of agony rippled through her. She hadn't spoken to him since that night in the square. Since she'd turned down a proposal he hadn't wanted to make. Since she'd turned her back on her dreams and lost the child she loved all in one night. "No, I don't have him, either."

And she so wanted him. She heard him moving around in his apartment and it was all she could do to keep from crossing the narrow hall and pounding on his door. She wanted to scream at him. To tell him to wake up to the possibilities. She wanted him to swing her up against him and wrap his arms around her. She wanted to hear his heartbeat beneath her ear as he cradled her to his chest. She wanted to mourn Liz's loss with him, because she knew he loved that baby, too. She wanted so damn much. And she wasn't going to get any of it.

Because he wouldn't come after her.

And she couldn't go to him.

Not again.

"I could have him killed for you "

Startled, Carol looked over at her friend. Phoebe's

eyes sparkled with sympathy, anger, and just a dash of wry humor. Phoebe knew what this was costing her. Her lies weren't clever enough to hide her pain from her friend.

'Thanks," Carol said, "but I'll pass."

'That's a good sign," Phoebe told her. "When you no longer want bloodshed, you're getting over the bastard."

"Right." But she wasn't. Carol had the distinct feeling that she'd never really be over Jack Reilly. Oh, she'd learn to live without him, as she'd learned to do without so many things in her life. But the emptiness would always be there. The wish that things had been different The dream of what might have been would torment her when she tried to sleep.

Why hadn't he loved her enough to live?

Because he did care. She knew that. She felt it. He just didn't care enough.

Nodding, she set the folded sheet aside and reached for the next one in the basket. "You don't have to worry about me, Phoeb."

"I like worrying. I'm good at it"

Carol smiled and silently thanked heaven for her friend. Strong. Dependable, predictable Phoebe. It was good to have at least one person in your life you could count on.

"Did I tell you I'm thinking about volunteering for Doctors Without Borders?" Phoebe asked suddenly.

"Uh, no." Predictable, she'd just been thinking. Seems she was wrong about a lot of things. "Since when?"

"Actually," her friend said, "I've been thinking about it since before Cash left town."

"That'd be wonderful, Phoebe," Carol said, grateful for the shift in conversation. She couldn't keep talking about Jack and Liz. Couldn't keep thinking about them.

Not if she wanted to stay sane. And sanity was all she had left.

She shook another clean sheet out with a snap of both wrists. "You'd be great at—" Her words dried up. Her throat closed tight.