Somebody's Baby (12 page)

“D
o me a favor?” Josie stepped to the doorway, the first of many freshly baked pies in her silicon-mitted hand.

Adam looked up from a rousing round of a game that might be called “see Daddy scramble after every toy Nathan throws on the floor” and made the bugeyed bear in his hand squeal with one well-timed squeeze. “Anything.”

“First, stop chasing down everything he throws.”

“Just trying to make myself useful.”

“As what? A Labrador retriever?”

Adam looked at the bear then back at Josie. “Woof.”

She laughed. “You’re supposed to be the one in charge. Do you really think that if you go after everything the instant he tosses it overboard you are teaching him the way things work in the real world?”

“The
real
world?” Adam scowled. “He’s a baby. Why does he need to know about the real world?”

“Because that’s the world we are all born into. We have so little time to get his feet on the right path, with so many things trying to get him to stray…”

“What if straying comes naturally to him?” Adam flipped the bear over and over in his hands.

Adam was testing her and she knew it. Just as Nathan might push something away or even throw it aside.

“Straying comes naturally to all of us.” She glanced around her at the tables and chairs that would, on a normal Friday, be just now filling up with the lunch crowd.

She had served her friends, her fellow townspeople and strangers day in and day out. She had sat next to many of these same people in town meetings and church services. But here, where they had not always been on their best behavior, they had taught her something more precious than any of them knew.

Her eyes went to the prayer list and she managed a slight smile. “Isn’t that why Jesus is known as the Good Shepherd? We need Him to watch over us and bring us back into the fold when we lose our way.”

“Why, Miss Josie, I didn’t expect a Sunday school lesson from you today.” His mouth quirked up on one side, half in humor, half in challenge to her. Another test.

Would she pass it? Would she stand up to him? And, more important, stand up for her beliefs?

“Didn’t expect a lesson, but I notice you didn’t say you didn’t
appreciate
getting one.”

“You are a wonder, Josie.” He laughed.

“Takes one to know one,” she joked.

“Me? A wonder?” He dropped the toy into the playpen with the baby, then took a few steps toward the counter. “Only if by that you mean I
wonder
if I’ll ever get the hang of this Daddy stuff.”

“I think you will.”

“Do ya?” he asked softly, his eyes dark and his smile a very masculine mix of smug and wistful.

“Yeah, maybe by the time he goes off to college,” she teased.

Adam opened his mouth, probably to protest or to at least boldly proclaim his belief in his own parenting abilities when Nathan let out a
“Ph-th-th-th-ppp-ttt”
and sent the bear sailing right at the side of Adam’s head.

The bear hit its mark then slid to the floor.

He gazed down at the thing then at the baby, who stood with his pudgy fingers flexed and wriggling in the direction of the bear.

“Sorry, kiddo. Game over.”

Nathan grunted in anger and stretched up on his toes, his arms rigid and his cheeks red.

Adam plopped the bear on the counter. “Next time maybe you’ll realize that if you really want something you have to hang on to it. Don’t let it go. And certainly don’t throw it away and assume you can have it back whenever you want.”

Nathan shrieked.

Adam did not budge. “Listen to your ol’dad. This is a subject he knows something about.”

Josie froze. What exactly had Adam thrown away, then wished he could get back again? Not Nathan, as he had never known about the child. Ophelia? She held her breath to think of it.

“Okay, got that.” Adam now turned his full attention on her. “What else can I do for you? You just name it.”

Fall in love with me and become Nathan’s father in every sense of the word forever and ever.
She leaned against the door frame and sighed over her indulgent little fantasy. Her and Adam and Nathan. Their own patchwork of a family. Visiting with the other brothers and their families, if any of them ever had any, on holidays. Watching Nathan grow and perhaps giving him a sister or brother or both. Sharing a home and a future. Going to church together. Going to…

The smell of pies ready to be taken from the oven brought her back to reality. “Um, if you don’t mind, would you taste this pie?”

“I don’t mind. But I have tasted your pie before. It’s delicious.”

“When I bake a few at a time, it’s delicious. But trying to make enough for this barbecue? I’ve never tried to mix up that much pie crust before. I’m not sure I got the right ratio of flour to—”

“Yes?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Oh, no. You are not getting my secret recipe out of me that easily.” She slid the pie pan onto the counter, then turned around to retrieve a knife and a pie server. “Not unless you can figure it out for yourself.”

“If I do—” he sat himself at the counter and picked up a fork “—will you finally tell me your secret, Josie?”

“I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.” It came out before she could stop herself. And then she was glad she had
not
stopped herself. Because of all the things she wanted from Adam, knowing his secrets, knowing the undeniable truths upon which he based his decisions was right up there.

“Let me have a taste of that pie.” He did not promise to share anything with her.

She slid the stainless steel server in under the crust of the small triangular piece she had cut from the whole. Slowly she lifted it up, then lowered it slowly, then lifted it again. It had the right heft.

She closed one eye and peered at it with the other eye narrowed as if scanning the thing with a laser beam. It had the right look.

She closed both eyes now, pulled back her shoulders and inhaled. It had the right aroma.

The top and bottom crust broke into delicate flakes just as they should. The filling clung to the chunky upper crust that was her trademark, in the way it always did, with the fruit still firm and plump, not watery or crushed under the weight of the top. Still, Josie would not be satisfied that she had done her best until she heard it from someone whose opinion mattered to her.

That thought made her take a sharp right turn with the pie plate still in hand. “Here, Nathan, you take the first bite.”

“Hey! What about me?”

“This is your chance to show your son how to practice patience by example,” she returned, aiming to appear witty when, in fact, she was terrified.

She was a mother. A mother who had lived the past year in fear that at any moment her child could be taken from her. Now, just when it seemed she could put that fear behind her and move on to build a life for herself and her child, this man comes along. Yes, Nathan’s father, but also a virtual stranger to Josie. A stranger, by his own admission, with a secret.

She could not afford to take that lightly. Nor could she allow her own feelings alone to dictate her actions. She had to get her priorities right and keep them right. No matter how she felt about this man, she was first and foremost Nathan’s mother.

She pinched off a bite just right for a one-year-old and poked it into Nathan’s mouth.

He worked it around with his tongue more than with his tiny front teeth. Some of the red dribbled onto his chin, and he rubbed his fist over it and began to gnaw at his balled-up fingers. “Mmmm-nnnnmmmm-nop-nah-nnop.”

“Does that mean he likes it or not?” Adam moved in close behind her and then leaned forward to peer at the child, bringing him closer still.

“I don’t know,” she confessed, her eyes glued on the boy’s reaction in a gargantuan effort not to sense how close Adam was standing. Not to smell the still-fresh line-dried scent of his apron or hear the jingle of his change and keys when he put his hand in his pocket.

“Ya-ya-ya!” Another shriek, then Nathan went on tiptoe and stretched his arms out for the plate in Josie’s hand.

“I think he likes it.” Adam laughed

Josie laughed, too, and offered her son another infant-size piece on her finger. “I think he does.”

“Now how about you let me have a taste and see what I do?”

She spun around, the pie filling still clinging to her hand and found herself nose to nose with the man. “A…a taste?”

“Of pie.” He slipped the plate away, moved to the counter and found the fork he had left lying there. “Don’t worry, Josie. I won’t press you for anything you’re not ready to share. Not your secrets. Not your kisses. And most especially not your—”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“What’s that?”

“Bingo!”

“I didn’t even know we were playing.”

“Not the game, the mailman.”

“We have a beeping mailman?”

“He has a little horn on his scooter to warn people to clear the path or let them know he’s making a delivery. He has bad knees.”

“When did Mt. Knott get a beeping mailman?”

“He’s always been the mailman in this part of town as far as I know.” She hurried across the room. “I can’t believe you don’t at least know about him. He certainly knows plenty about you.”

“He does?”

Josie winced. She probably shouldn’t have reminded him of how she had gotten people talking about Adam right after he came to town, which probably was how his father found out about Nathan, which led to the barbecue that Adam did not want to attend, which—

“So, who else have you talked to about me besides the bad-kneed beeper?”

“Bad-kneed beeper.” Josie laughed. “I’ll have to tell him that.”

“Josie?”

She twisted the lock and pulled open the front door.

“Wouldn’t have bothered you. I know you had big plans for today.” Bingo eyed Adam.

Adam eyed him right back.

“But this looked important. Didn’t want to take a chance of you not seeing it.”

“He reads the mail?” Adam moved through the dining room in a few long strides. “You read her mail?”

“Just what’s on the outside.” The big man looked hurt and just a wee bit defensive. “Gotta read what’s on the outside or else I wouldn’t know what to deliver to where.”

“Yeah, he’s gotta read what’s on the—” Josie turned the letter over and what was on the outside of the envelope hit her like a slap in the face. “It’s the letter I sent to Ophelia to thank her for signing the papers to allow Nathan’s adoption.” Josie’s hand trembled. “Marked ‘Return to Sender.’”

“Really? I didn’t know people actually did that.” Adam moved in behind her, his hand out, but he did not try to take the envelope from her.

“Oh, yeah. All the time. Or they put ‘not at the address.’ The real creative ones sometimes send their own messages. Don’t think I can say what they write on the envelopes, not in front of Josie.” Bingo reached into his bag then and retrieved a stack of bills and advertising flyers. He thrust them toward her. “All means the same, the person on the address didn’t get the mail.”

She ignored the other mail and rubbed her fingertips over the blocky words beside her delicate-scrolled lettering. “Doesn’t look like Ophelia’s handwriting.”

Adam took the mail from Bingo, his eyes always trained on her. “That good or bad?”

“Well, if it were in her own hand, I’d know she was there and just didn’t, for whatever reason, want to hear from me.” She looked up and blinked, half expecting tears to flood over her eyelashes, but they did not come.

“Family can be tough on each other.” Adam brushed his hand over her shoulder.

“Some more than others,” Bingo observed.

Adam smacked the mail in one hand against his open palm. “Don’t you have mail to deliver?”

“Miss Josie?” Bingo looked to her to send him on his way.

She nodded.

“Now don’t go fretting too much about that. Could be any number of things behind it, not all bad.” He limped out the door, got onto his red scooter and gave a beep goodbye.

“You think that’s true?” she asked Adam as they walked back to the counter. “That there are a lot of reasons mail gets returned and it doesn’t mean that something bad has happened?”

“What do you think?”

“I think this means that Ophelia isn’t at this address anymore.”

“Then where is she?”

Where indeed?
You have a baby with her, why don’t
you
know?
Josie pressed her lips together to keep her questions and quasi-accusations from exploding into the open. She rubbed the space between her eyebrows. At last she fought to keep from bursting into tears.

“Maybe you can contact your mother. She might know how to find Ophelia.”

“She might. But in order to ask her, I’d have to first know where my
mother
is.” That did it. The tears flowed, though less like a dam bursting and more in sobbing fits and starts.

Adam slapped the mail down and came to her. He started to touch her arms, then thought better of it. He tried to put his arm around her shoulders, but their shaking made that difficult. Finally he crooked one finger under her chin and lifted her face so he could look her in the eye as he said, “I don’t understand.”

“I haven’t seen my mother since my grandmother’s funeral.” And at the mention of that, Josie felt completely and utterly alone all over again, just as she had the day of that funeral when her mother had driven off with her grandmother’s car loaded down with anything of value from the house she and Josie had shared. “I spoke to her a time or two, but she called
me.
I don’t have a number to call her. She stays on the move most of the time.”

“On the move?” He dropped his hand and reached out to get a napkin from the dispenser on the counter. He handed it to her.

“Not running from the law or anything like that. At least not that I know of.” She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, then grimaced. “Seems like Nathan might come by that tendency to stray from both sides of the family. You can’t be too shocked by that, I mean, you and Ophelia…”