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“Time to eat again.” Dylan touched his big blunt finger to the baby’s cheek, but the movement seemed forced and wooden to Lana. “Every two hours. Just like clockwork. It’s gonna be a long night and an early morning tomorrow, buddy. No sleeping in.”
“You’re starting the renovations tomorrow?”
He nodded. “Time’s money in this business. The electrical contractor’ll be here at seven, the plumber at noon.”
“That’s a lot of noise and confusion for a baby. And what about the paint?”
“Paint? We’re a long way from paint.”
“No, I mean the old paint. You’ll be banging around, knocking it off the walls and woodwork. It looks really old. It’s got lead in it, I’ll bet. You can’t have Greg here, if that’s the case.”
“Hell, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You said you had nieces and nephews. That means you must have siblings. Couldn’t one of them watch over Greg for a few days?”
“My brother and his wife are in New Jersey, and my sister’s husband’s in the military. They’re in Germany for the next eighteen months. My dad’s got his hands full taking care of Mom.”
“Then you’ll both have to come home with me.”
He spun around. “We can’t do that.”
Lana had the feeling that her brothers’ reactions would echo Dylan’s. They were leery enough of her giving parenting lessons to a complete stranger. When they found out she was inviting him to live under her roof, there would be hell to pay. She almost smiled but didn’t, because for some reason her heart was beating so high up in her chest it made her short of breath. “Yes, you can. You want me to give you parenting lessons. Okay, you’ve got me. But not if I have to worry about Greg being exposed to God knows what up here. Come home with me, or the deal’s off.”
CHAPTER THREE
“HE’S JUST THE CUTEST little thing.” Brittany Carson warbled the words and blew bubbles on Greg’s tummy as he cooed and gurgled in his carrier on the counter of the showroom at Oh, Baby! “I could just eat him up.”
“It looks like that’s what you’re doing,” Janette Malkovitch, Lana’s manager, said. “He’s not candy, you know.”
“He’s better than candy. He’s precious, aren’t you, sweetums.” Greg cooed louder. “He likes me best,” Brittany said. In just three days’ time he’d become a much happier baby. Lana couldn’t help wondering if it was because he spent so little time in his father’s company. In the few days Dylan had been living under her roof he’d tried hard, but his heart wasn’t in it. He treated Greg like a half-tame baby animal, kept him clean and fed and his diaper changed, but never once had Lana seen him pick his son up just to cuddle and coo over him as Brittany and Janette were doing.
“You have work to do.” There was a sharp note in Janette’s voice that wasn’t lost on Lana. She glanced around the display area. It looked fine. Brittany was a conscientious and focused kid, even if she did have five earrings in each ear and her navel pierced, which fortunately didn’t show in the clothes she wore to work. Nor did the two tattoos she’d gotten over the summer.
“Oh, lighten up, Janette,” Brittany countered. “We’ve sold two of those really expensive solid cherry furniture suites since he’s been here. I mean, when customers come in and see him lying in the bed or swinging in his swing, they can’t help themselves. They buy the works, even if they just came in to window-shop. I think we should consider keeping a baby here all the time.”
Janette was divorced with three kids and an ex-husband who was six months behind on child support. She was slightly more immune to Greg’s charm than Brittany, but only slightly. “Honey, if you’re that susceptible to a man’s come-on already, you’re in for a lot of heartbreak.” But she was grinning when she said it, and she bent to give Greg a kiss. “Men are all alike. They smile and look deep into your eyes and let you think you’re their moon and stars. When all they really want is for you to fill their stomach or warm their beds, preferably both.” Janette ran the tip of her finger along the satiny curve of Greg’s cheek. “Are you hungry, little man? Hmm, I bet you are.”
“He is due for a feeding. I’ll warm his bottle.” Brittany looked up as a very pregnant young woman entered the store. It was her responsibility to greet customers. “Sorry, little guy. You’ll have to wait,” she whispered, moving away from the carrier.
“You go get Greg’s bottle ready,” Lana said, raising a hand to wave Brittany back. “I’ll wait on her.”
“Thanks.” Brittany picked up Greg’s carrier and disappeared into the back room to heat his bottle.
Janette made a clucking noise with her tongue. “You’re spoilin’ that girl as bad as this baby.”
“I look at it as an advanced course in domestic studies. When I was her age we had to carry around a ten-pound sack of flour with a beeper attached to it for two weeks. It’s not nearly as much fun as practicing on a real baby.” Lana put down the Beatrix Potter catalog she’d been perusing and smiled at the young woman standing uncertainly just inside the door. “May I help you?”
“Hi. I was told you have car seats…used car seats. The social worker at Maitland Maternity sent me here. My baby’s due any day and I won’t be able to leave the hospital without one.” The young woman was dressed simply in cotton slacks and an oversize T-shirt that strained across her bulging middle. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and her face looked haggard and too careworn for someone her age. Another of the single mothers-to-be from a nearby women’s shelter who received free prenatal care at Maitland Maternity, Lana guessed. Sent to take advantage of the gently used car seats she collected from customers and friends, and friends of friends.
“Right over here,” she said, leading the way to the corner of the store where she kept several of the seats on display with a sign inviting customers to donate their car seats when they were no longer of use. “Choose the one that will suit you best.”
“I…I don’t have much money,” the young woman said.
“That’s okay. The cost is whatever you can pay.”
“Really?” Her face lit up. “That’s great. I…I was really worried about getting a good one. I only have a few bucks…”
“Whatever you can afford,” Lana repeated gently. “I think you’d like this one.” She picked up a car seat that doubled as a carrier. “This will do wonderfully until the baby’s about six months old.”
The young mother’s face fell again. “But…they told me my baby will need to be in a car seat until—”
“When he outgrows this one, you come back and trade up to a full-size model,” Lana said, giving her best imitation of a used-car salesman. “No extra charge.”
“Great! I’ll take it.”
“Fine, here it is. Janette will show you everything you need to know about fastening your baby in safe and snug.”
“Thank you. This is a load off my mind.” She followed Lana to the counter.
“You really should let me publicize this little program of yours. I could do a lot more for you if you’d let the PR people at the clinic run with it.”
Lana turned to find the regal figure of her godmother, Megan Maitland, standing beside a mahogany reproduction of Prince William’s cradle.
“Aunt Megan.” Her mother’s longtime friend had suggested long ago that the Lord siblings call her that, and Lana still did. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day? I thought you were going to take some time off to spend with Connor and Lacy and little Chase.” Megan had recently been reunited with Connor, the grown son she had been told had died at birth.
“I’m on my way home now, but there’s something I need to talk to you about.” Megan motioned toward the back of the store. “Can we use your office?”
“Brittany’s back there feeding Greg. Remember I told you at the party I was giving baby basics lessons to…my new landlord.”
“That includes keeping his child here in the store?” Megan looked around.
“It does for the time being. As a matter of fact, he’s staying at the house.” Megan looked surprised. Lana pointed to the ceiling. “Lead paint. It’s not safe for the baby. They’re staying in the maid’s room.”
“Do your brothers know this?”
Lana laughed, but it sounded thin and nervous even to her own ears. “Well, no. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell them just yet. Or Shelby, for that matter.”
“Certainly, if that’s what you want.”
Lana was surprised Megan didn’t pursue the subject. She seemed distracted, and Lana wondered what she was doing here at this time of day. It must be important.
“Come over here. We can be private enough.”
Lana led the way to an alcove filled with framed prints and quilts and Noah’s ark figures displayed in an antique cupboard. Once they stepped inside they were out of sight of Janette and her customer. “Now, what’s up?”
Megan didn’t return her smile. “I’d like you to come out to the house tonight.”
“You know I never turn down an invitation for dinner with you.”
“This isn’t just a dinner invitation, dear. I received something in the mail yesterday that concerns you. All of you.”
Lana began rearranging the Noah’s ark figures on the piecrust table in front of her. Something in her godmother’s voice set off an internal alarm. She flicked the switch on a music box and watched the little animals move around the ark, two by two, as it played Brahms’s “Lullaby.” Her hands were trembling. Only one person in the world would try to contact all four of them through Megan Maitland. “It’s from our mother, isn’t it?”
“Yes, apparently it is.”
Lana couldn’t quite trust herself to speak. After twenty-five years of silence, her mother had apparently just dropped back into her life—into their lives. “Apparently? You mean there’s no name on…the letter? Is it a letter? Did she give you a phone number, an e-mail address?”
Megan squeezed Lana’s hand. “There was a note and a box of baby things. The note was just like the first one, Lana. The one that was pinned to Garrett’s shirt all those years ago. No return address. No signature. Nothing to identify who wrote it. For some reason, even after all these years, your mother doesn’t want you to know who she is.”
“VAN ZANDT DEVELOPMENT.” Dylan tucked the cell phone between his ear and his shoulder and went on looking at the schematic for the updated wiring he’d have to install to bring the building up to code.
“Dill Pickle? Is that you?”
“Mom?”
She giggled at his shocked tone. “Oh, dear, did I say that out loud?”
“Yes, you did,” he said, turning his back on the drawing, giving his mother his full attention. “You haven’t called me that since I was two.”
“It must be these painkillers. I swear my head feels two feet across. I had to dial you three times to get the call to go through.”
“How are you feeling otherwise?”
“I want out of this bed and this horrible contraption. I can’t even get up to go to the bathroom. How could I have been so foolish? I only fell two feet from the second step of the ladder.” In his mind’s eye he could see her shaking her head, her curly brown hair barely streaked with gray. “I really, really do have to lose some weight. The doctors have all been very nice, but I know that’s what they’re thinking. ‘If you weren’t so heavy, Mrs. Van Zandt, the injury to your ankle wouldn’t have been so severe.’”
“Mom, you’re not fat.” But she wasn’t skinny, either. He couldn’t remember her as anything but pleasingly plump. His parents were both nearing sixty, active and healthy except for his dad’s high blood pressure and now his mom’s broken ankle. Nevertheless, they were looking forward to turning over the business to him in a few years and retiring. That’s why he had to make this project work. They’d put a big chunk of their savings into it and let him take out a loan against the company assets.
“I’m not skinny, either. And I’m bored witless already, as you can tell. How’s Greg? How are you two doing? Should I send your father up there to help out?”
“We’re doing fine, Mom. And Dad needs to stay there with you and the office. The bids for the new gymnasium at the high school are coming up next week. We’ve got a good chance at getting the job.”
“I know, I know. But there are other things just as important as the school bid. Like my little Greggy. Are you sure he’s okay?”
She was beginning to sound tired, her words slurring now and then, but Dylan knew better than to try to cut the conversation short. Even half zonked on painkillers, his mother wouldn’t stand for that. She sensed how conflicted he was about his son. She had accepted the little guy wholeheartedly, but Dylan wasn’t fooled. His mother could count. She and his dad had to be aware that Greg could have been conceived during the time Jessie had lived apart from him. But it made no difference to Linda Van Zandt. Greg was her grandchild, just as his sister Christy’s and his brother Trent’s kids were. “He’s fine. I…I’ve got someone to help with him.”
“Who’s that?” His mother’s voice was razor sharp again, just like her wits.
“Her name’s Lana Lord. She’s the tenant in the store below my apartment. The store called Oh, Baby!”
“I’ve heard that name.”
“It was on the architect’s drawing of the new facade, remember?”
“Oh, yes, a baby store. I read an article about one of them in the business section of the Statesman once. Supposed to be a real growth industry. Lots of waited-till-it-was-almost-too-late professionals having babies and spoiling them rotten. Did I tell you about it? They have more hair than sense and buy whole new sets of furniture for every baby they have. Thousands of dollars worth. Then they just pitch it and start over.” She sounded shocked by the waste. “Why, I still have Grandma Parsons’ high chair and crib. It was good enough for me and Billy Joe and Gracie and the three of you. It’s good enough for Greg when I get it painted, and someday it will—”
“Mom, do you want to hear about Lana Lord or not?”
“Of course I do. It’s the medicine. I just run on and on.”
“You always run on and on, Mom.”
She laughed. “Okay. Tell me about this woman who’s taking care of my Greggy.”
“She heard him crying the first night and came upstairs. She’s keeping him with her in her store during the day. I’ve got him with me at night…at her house.” He didn’t have to tell her that. She wouldn’t know where he was if she called on the cell phone. But if she did find out, there’d be hell to pay.
“Her house? You’re living with this woman you only met three days ago?”
“We’re staying in the maid’s room. The house is huge. A big old Tudor monstrosity, cold and damp as the dickens.”
“I see. Then she must be one of the Austin Lords.”
“She is.” Dylan didn’t elaborate, although his mother’s silence told him she wanted more details.
“Well,” she said after a silence. “I’m glad Greg’s out of that musty old apartment. I mean, the paint has to be lead-based—”
Was he the only adult in Texas who hadn’t thought about lead paint on the walls? He cut her short. He could hear someone coming up the steps from Lana’s store. Only she had the key. He glanced at his watch and frowned. It wasn’t five-thirty yet. Something must be up with Greg. Another bellyache? Diarrhea? “I’ll call you back, Mom. Someone’s here.”
“Okay.” There were voices in the background. “My roommate’s getting visitors, and this call is probably costing me a fortune. I’m sure the hospital doesn’t have a five-cents-a-minute plan. Dylan, you’ll give me your number at this woman’s house, won’t you? I don’t like being out of touch.”
“You can always reach me at this number. But I’ll call you as soon as I get hold of the new one. I’ll let you talk to Greg, how’s that sound?” he asked, half teasing.
“Wonderful. I miss him so much.”
“I know you do, Mom. We’ll be out to see you this weekend. I promise.”
“Good. Take care of that precious little boy of ours.”
“I will, Mom.”
He broke off the connection and turned. Lana was standing in the doorway of his apartment, the living room of which was now doubling as his field office. “Hi,” she said.
She was holding Greg against her shoulder, against her heart. She was patting his back gently, absently, as though it were the most natural rhythm in the world. He couldn’t feel that way when he held the child. He wondered if he ever would. Physically, he was more comfortable with him in his arms, but there was no personal feeling there, no warmth, no connection.
“You were on the phone. I hope we didn’t interrupt you.”
“No,” he said. “I was talking to my mom.”
“How is she?” She continued patting Greg’s back as she moved around the room, stopping to look at the architect’s rendering of the facade of the building where it was taped to the wall between the big front windows.
“Pretty spaced out on painkillers. She was worried about Greg. I told her we were staying with you. I promised to give her your phone number. I hope that’s okay.” It still felt strange to him to be in her home, even though the place was so big he never saw her unless she came into the kitchen while he was getting ready to feed Greg.
“Of course it’s okay. There used to be a separate line running into the maid’s room. We can have it turned back on. I’ll call the phone company today.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’ll be sure to send you the bill.” She smiled. He didn’t like being in her debt, and she knew it.
“Thank you.” He didn’t smile back. He couldn’t. He never knew what to do, how to react to her teasing. Jessie had never teased him. But then their marriage had been based on her needs and his promise to his dying buddy to take care of his wayward sister. Love hadn’t been part of the equation.
