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With that, the little woman, whom generations of Dolphin Bay children had been unable to upset, burst into sobs.
Chapter Three
Touched by Agnes’s distress, Blake placed a consoling arm around her shoulders. His neighbor was the closest thing to a mother he’d ever had. From the day he’d first moved in beside her, she’d plied him with home-cooked meals, freshly baked cookies, friendly introductions to the neighbors and unconditional acceptance. And she was his staunchest ally and coconspirator against the tyranny of their mutual enemy, Vienna Pitts. To see Agnes so visibly disturbed wrung his heart.
“Is Annie all right?” he repeated, afraid that by leaving the baby with his neighbor, he’d created a situation that had caused both Annie and Agnes grief.
“The little darling’s sleeping like a rock.” Agnes wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “It’s my older sister, Patricia, in Sarasota. She’s had a stroke. I have to go to her as soon as possible.”
“Of course you do.” Marissa’s calm, no-nonsense tone reassured Blake, who, in his concern for Agnes and Annie, was glad the attorney was there. “What can we do to help?” Marissa added.
Agnes flashed Marissa a teary smile of recognition mixed with gratitude. “Good to see you again, Marissa, dear. If you can help take care of the baby, I’ll leave immediately. I’ve already packed.”
Blake noted the tremor in Agnes’s hands and her distraught tone. “No way I’m letting you drive to Sarasota in your state of mind. You’d have an accident before you reached the Sunshine Skyway.”
“But I’ll need my car to get back and forth to the hospital.”
“I’ll drive you in your car,” Blake said, “and catch a bus back.”
Marissa shook her head. “I’ll drive Agnes in her car. You can follow in your truck and bring me home.”
Agnes hugged Marissa. “You’re a sweetheart.”
“But what about Annie?” Blake felt a sudden panic. He’d counted on Agnes to help with the infant. How could he take care of the baby without Agnes’s guidance and assistance?
“I have a carrier in my car,” Agnes said. “We’ll take her with us, then switch the carrier to your truck for the ride home.”
“That’ll work,” Marissa said. “Blake, you get the luggage. I’ll take care of the baby.”
Momentary relief surged through him at Marissa’s offer, but concern closed in again when he realized that Marissa’s help would only be temporary. With her law practice, she’d have no time for baby-sitting. His thoughts whirled like tires in deep mud, but he couldn’t come up with a solution for his dilemma. He shook away the effort. First things first, and right now he had to get Agnes to her sister’s bedside ASAP.
Agnes scurried into the house with Marissa close on her heels. Blake followed.
In the attractive and tidy family room, Agnes’s suitcase stood on the floor beside the crib the older woman kept for her baby-sitting clients. Blake reached for the luggage, and Marissa peered into the bed at the sleeping child. Blake stopped short, entranced by the glow on Marissa’s face.
With rosy lips parted, green eyes shining and a softness to her expression that gently twisted his heart, Marissa gazed at Annie as if in awe.
“She’s beautiful,” Marissa said softly.
Blake couldn’t decide who was the more breathtaking: the adorable infant with brilliant strawberry-blond curls, long eyelashes sweeping flushed cheeks and a rosebud mouth—or his childhood friend.
He had to clear a lump in his throat before he spoke. “She’s a cutie, all right.”
Stuffing tissues in her purse, Agnes bustled out of her bedroom. “I’m ready if you are.”
Tearing his gaze from the charming picture Marissa and Annie made, Blake grabbed the suitcase. Marissa scooped the child in her arms so expertly Annie didn’t stir from her deep sleep.
“There’s a diaper bag.” Agnes pointed to a table beside the crib. “I filled it with supplies I keep on hand for baby-sitting.”
Blake had to give his neighbor credit. Even in her concern over her sister, Agnes hadn’t lost her usual efficiency.
Marissa swung the bag over her shoulder and cradled Annie in her other arm. Blake held the door open for her and, as they exited past him, was struck by the melange of fragrance, baby powder mixed with Marissa’s subtle wisteria perfume. Agnes followed and closed and locked the door.
While the women climbed into Agnes’s car, Blake went to his back door, where Rambo stood waiting, tail wagging furiously in greeting, a lopsided grin on his canine lips. “C’mon, Bo. Do your business, then hop in the truck. We’re going for a ride.”
Bo woofed in delight, turned a few ecstatic circles and bounded to his favorite elm tree to relieve himself. Sometimes the dog took almost an hour to sniff and mark every bush and tree in the yard. But he either was excited about a ride or sensed the urgency in Blake’s voice, because he loped immediately to the truck and jumped into the rear seat of the cab as soon as Blake opened the door.
As a result, Marissa and Agnes were only a block ahead when Blake turned out of his drive onto the street.
“We’re going to Sarasota,” Blake told Bo, “so Agnes can take care of her sister who had a stroke.”
Blake had long ago stopped questioning the logic of speaking to an animal who couldn’t talk back. As intelligent as Bo was, Blake figured the dog understood most of what he said. Besides, talking to his pet made living by himself less solitary.
“That’s Marissa, my old high-school friend, with Agnes.” Blake flicked his turn signal and followed Agnes’s car onto the main drag that led to the interstate. “I hadn’t seen her in eighteen years, but she’s as easy to talk to now as she was when we were teenagers.”
Bo woofed in response.
“She’s almost as easy to talk to as you are, boy,” Blake said with a grin. “Except you don’t argue with me. I’m going to need some powerful persuasion to get her to help me with Annie. Marissa’s always been a straight shooter. Now that she’s an attorney, I don’t know if she’ll bend the rules like we did sometimes when we were kids.”
Recalling Marissa’s appearance when he’d first seen her again in her office and her expression when she gazed at Annie, Blake couldn’t help thinking that Marissa’s unwillingness to bend rules wasn’t the only thing about her that had changed. Years ago, Blake had considered her a good pal, just like one of the guys. No way could he ever look at her in that same way again. She’d grown into a stunning woman, one who heated his blood and quickened his pulse, especially when he recalled the trim fit of her very professional suit, showing off her undeniable attributes from head to toe. And her wisteria fragrance was enough to drive a man wild. How could any male juror keep his mind on a trial when Marissa stepped in front of the bench?
“She’s grown up to be quite a woman.”
Bo rested his head on the back of Blake’s seat, licked his master’s ear and whined.
“She likes dogs,” Blake assured Bo, hoping Marissa would be around often enough to get to know Bo well.
He shook his head to force his longing thoughts away. Marissa may have turned into a mouthwatering adult female, but that fact was no concern of Blake’s. He wasn’t looking for a woman to call his own. He’d decided long ago that marriage and family life were out of the question for him. Bounced from one foster home to another while growing up, he’d never learned how to deal with intense relationships. He’d be a disaster as a husband and a father, probably even as a lover, because he wasn’t equipped with the skills to maintain lasting intimate ties to anyone—except Bo, of course, who forgave all Blake’s shortcomings.
“No reason, though,” he said over his shoulder to Bo, “that Marissa can’t still be our buddy. Right, boy?”
Bo barked in enthusiastic agreement and stuck his head out the open driver’s window, his grin widening as his fur blew in the wind, while Blake struggled to make the sophisticated Marissa of today fit the image of his old teenage pal—and failed.
TWO HOURS LATER, with Agnes safely settled at her sister’s bedside and Annie asleep in the carrier in the back seat beside Bo, Blake headed the truck north over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge toward Dolphin Bay. The startlingly vivid lavender, mango and rose of the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico reminded Blake anew why he loved the area. He and Marissa had watched hundreds of sunsets together as kids, and the sight made him feel young again, ready to tackle anything. Even taking care of a three-month-old infant until he found her a good home.
Beside him, Marissa pulled her gaze from the spectacle of the setting sun. Keeping his attention on the traffic, from the corner of his eye, he caught her staring at him. She was even more beautiful than he’d first thought, with her hair ruffled by the wind and one silken leg crossed over the other, revealing a delectable knee and shapely thigh where her skirt had crept higher.
Feeling suddenly awkward at the turn his thoughts had taken, he strove for a neutral subject. “Lucky that the doctors could intervene so quickly with Patricia.”
Marissa nodded. “Today’s medications, if administered in time, can alleviate the effects of a stroke. She should be out of the hospital in a few days.”
“But Agnes plans to stay a couple weeks. She’ll wait on Patricia hand and foot once she’s out of the hospital. Lucky sister. If I was sick, there’s no one who’d take better care of me than Agnes. Once when I was down with the flu, she almost drowned me in chicken soup, hot toddies and tons of sympathy.”
Marissa twisted on the seat toward him and intensified her gaze. “You realize,” she said in a no-nonsense tone, “that you have no choice now but to turn Annie over to the authorities.”
“Because Agnes can’t take care of her?” Blake shook his head. “I’ll hire a nanny. I’m sure there’re plenty of competent people out there who can help me care for Annie until the right adoptive parents come along.”
Marissa sighed, her warm breath stirring the air in the truck and Blake’s senses, as well. “That’s not the point.”
“Sure it is. How can you hand a sweet little angel like Annie over to a cold impersonal system? It’ll break her heart.”
“Foster parents aren’t monsters.” Marissa’s frustration with him was evident in her firm statement and the jut of her very pretty chin.
“Some are,” Blake said quietly, struggling with memories he’d promised himself he’d forget.
Marissa sat silent for a moment, as if digesting what he’d said. When she spoke again, her voice had lost its edge, her posture relaxed. “But you really have no choice. Everyone will know you have her. Unless you leave town with the baby.”
“I can’t leave. I have a business to run.” Blake reminded himself of the appointment he had with the developer the next morning, the appointment he’d canceled today because of Annie.
“Dolphin Bay’s a small town,” Marissa continued. “Eventually someone’s going to turn you in. Vienna Pitts has already tried.”
In the back seat, Bo emitted a low growl at the mention of his neighbor’s name.
“I’ll have to turn you in myself,” Marissa continued, “if you don’t. Not reporting an abandoned child is a criminal offense.”
He glanced at her sharply before returning his gaze to the road. “You’re sure of that?”
“I can’t name the exact statute, but I’ll bet my law degree that’s the case.”
Blake tightened his grip on the steering wheel and didn’t attempt to hide his disgust. “All I want is to keep a sweet little kid safe, and that makes me jail bait? What a country.”
Marissa placed her hand on his arm, and his flesh tingled beneath the smooth warmth of her skin. “Look at it this way. What if Annie had been left on old man Sellars’s front porch?”
“The guy who abused his dog?” Blake shuddered at the memory of the sad, emaciated little pooch.
“Imagine how he’d treat an infant.”
“I don’t even want to go there,” Blake admitted.
“That’s why the laws are on the books, to protect children from falling into the wrong hands.”
“But I’m not like Sellars. I just want to help her.”
“I know that.” Her immediate agreement stroked his ego. “But the law doesn’t, the courts don’t. Not without a proper investigation. And if you’re serious about helping Annie find the right parents, the last thing you need is to get on the wrong side of the system. They’re the ones you’ll have to work with to make sure Annie’s placed in a good home.”
Blake kept his eyes on the traffic while his mind went into overdrive. Motivated by memories of his own unhappiness as a child, he’d hoped he could spare the little bundle deposited on his doorstep the same fate. Too confident that he could simply follow his heart and do what was right, he’d counted on a smart lawyer to manipulate the system in her favor. Behind him, Annie stirred and cooed in her carrier, obviously awake but also content. How could he place her in the same circumstances that had caused him so much grief?
“Any suggestions?” he asked Marissa. “Not that I’m agreeing to turn her in,” he added quickly.
“I know what caring for Annie means to you,” she said softly.
Her empathy wasn’t empty words. More than anyone else in the entire world, Marissa knew what he’d been through, knew how often, just as soon as he’d begun to put down roots, develop attachments to his foster family and feel as if he belonged, something had occurred that necessitated his removal to another foster home.
In his first placement, it had been his foster mother’s discovery that she was pregnant with twins. Suddenly there was no room for a rambunctious five-year-old who wasn’t their own. In his second home with an older couple, Mr. Flint had had a heart attack, and his wife, burdened with his care, couldn’t keep up with eight-year-old Blake. And then there were the Barbers, the place in his memory where he refused to go. Marissa, however, had seen his welts and bruises. Covering up the evidence of abuse in summer shorts and T-shirts had been all but impossible.
Beside him, Marissa sat silently for a long time, seemingly lost in thought as they exited the Skyway and headed through St. Petersburg on the interstate.
“Do you trust me?” Her unexpected question broke the stillness.
Blake flashed her an appreciative look. “That’s why I came to you in the first place.”
“Then let me think about this and make a few calls when we get back to your house.”
“You won’t turn me in?” Blake wondered for an instant if his trust had been misplaced.
“Not until we’ve exhausted every option,” she said. “But I’d be lying if I promised not to. I have a responsibility to the law. And to Annie.”
Her last statement hurt. “I feel a responsibility to the kid, too.”
MARISSA SAT in the authentic Stickley arts-and-craft-style chair, with its deep, comfy cushions, and cradled Annie in her arms. Bo curled at her feet. The friendly animal had taken a liking to the child and dogged the steps of whoever held her. Opaque sage-green draperies, drawn across the windows at Marissa’s back, shielded the room from the prying eyes of Vienna Pitts, ever vigilant across the street.
The child’s weight felt comforting against Marissa’s heart and filled her with a soothing contentment. Annie sucked the last of the formula from the bottle provided by Agnes, and her tiny eyelids fluttered. Even though the baby was dropping into sleep, Marissa was reluctant to place her in the crib Blake had moved from Agnes’s house into his living room. She liked too much the feeling of completeness that holding Annie provided.
Blake came in from the kitchen with an earthenware mug of steaming coffee and set it on a table by her elbow. With his own mug he settled into the chair opposite hers in front of the hearth. Instead of flaming logs, inappropriate in the Florida heat, the fireplace held a massive terra-cotta pot of verdant, healthy ferns, a testament to Blake’s skill with plants. His simple but impeccable taste was evident in every corner of the room, from its pale camel-colored walls to the rich-honey finish of the heart-of-pine floors, and the Hal Stowers beachscapes on the walls. Blake’s business must be booming for him to afford such art. She smiled inwardly, glad that the homeless friend of her childhood finally had such a special place of his own.
“Did you finish your calls?” he asked.
She nodded. While he’d moved baby equipment from Agnes’s and fixed a supper of Spanish bean soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, she’d called her mother to say she wouldn’t be home until later. Then she’d tracked down Debbie Arnold at home. Debbie, whom she’d known in law school, had opened a family law practice in Dolphin Bay after graduation.
Marissa stiffened at the thought of what she had to tell Blake, felt Annie jerk in response and forced herself to take a deep breath to relax. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”
Bo raised his chin from his paws, cocked his ears and turned his head, homing in on the distress in her voice.
His gray eyes bleak, Blake peered at her over the rim of his coffee mug.
To delay delivering bad news, she rose, carried Annie to the crib and tucked her in. Bo followed, turned around three times, then lay beneath the crib. Marissa would have liked to hold the child longer, to appreciate her baby scent and relish the weight of the infant in her arms, but she recognized the folly of growing attached to a baby she might never see again.
Resisting the urge to comfort Blake with a hug, she returned to her chair. No other man she knew would have placed himself in Blake’s position, creating so much trouble for himself for an unknown baby. How had such deep kindness developed in someone who’d received so little of it as a child?
And Blake had always been kind, she reminded herself. She remembered the time in middle school when he’d wiped away her tears after the class bully had teased her for being a skinny runt. Blake had insisted that good things came in small packages, then made her laugh by telling silly jokes. She wished now she could tell him what he wanted to hear.
Instead, squaring her shoulders, she came out with the harsh truth. “There’s no getting around it. You have to give Annie to the authorities. If you don’t, you could face charges.”
“What kind of charges?”
“Serious ones. Interference with custody is a felony offense.”
Obviously undeterred by the dire possibilities, he set his handsome mouth in an unyielding line. “I can’t accept turning her in. There has to be another way.”
She hesitated, not wanting to fan false hopes, but he had to know the facts. “There is a slight possibility you could get her back.”
Hope suffused his face with an appealing light, like a kid who’d just been granted a special wish. How could a man look so mature and yet so boyish at the same time? Women all over Dolphin Bay had to be throwing themselves at his feet, even though he’d insisted earlier in her office that he had no love life.
“How soon could I get her back?” he asked. “Immediately?”
“No.”
“How soon?”
