A Lawman for Christmas

Without realizing it, she tightened her grasp on her mother’s hand, squeezing it so tight that her own fingers began to ache.

“Your mother’s child,” the E.R. physician said, and then he chuckled. “And I would think the ‘where’ is self-explanatory.”

Feeling as if the floor had just melted away beneath her feet, Kelsey stared at her mother. “You’re pregnant?” she cried. Before her mother could say anything, Kelsey shifted her eyes to the doctor. “She’s pregnant?” she cried incredulously.

Dr. David smiled kindly and nodded. “It would seem so.”

Kelsey felt as if she’d just leaned against the mirror and fallen through the looking glass. “But that’s not possible.”

“Why not?” the policeman asked.

Kelsey didn’t know what stunned her more: the fact that her mother was pregnant at fifty or that the muscle-bound cop with the X-ray vision had the audacity to question her reaction.

Her eyes flashed as she said, “Because—because she’s my mother and she’s already got five kids and this part of her life was supposed to be over.” Pushing past the policeman, she rounded the foot of the bed to get closer to the doctor. “Doctor, I don’t mean to doubt you, but are you sure there’s been no mistake? Lab results get switched all the time. Maybe you got my mother’s tests mixed up with someone else’s.”

“Granted there are mix-ups on occasion,” the doctor allowed, “but I’m happy to say, we have a low incidence of that. Blair Memorial has been ranked one of the leading hospitals in the country for the last ten years in a row now.” He turned to face Kate. “You are pregnant, Mrs. Marlowe,” he said with finality. “You’ll need to start right away with pre-natal care. I could give you the name of an excellent doctor—”

“I already have one,” Kate replied, her words coming out slowly, impeded by the half dozen scattered thoughts racing through her mind. Taking a deep breath didn’t help steady her nerves. She looked at Kelsey. “Your father’s going to be stunned.”

“He’s not the only one,” Kelsey replied. Try as she might, she couldn’t visualize her mother “in the family way.” There were photographs in the family albums of her being pregnant, but that was a long time ago. And, at the time, her mother had been younger than she was.

Breaking the tension, Morgan leaned forward and took Kate’s hand in his. “Congratulations, Mrs. Marlowe. A baby is a wonderful thing,” he told her with feeling.

Kelsey laughed shortly. “Spoken like a man who’s never had one.” Where did he get off, anyway, voicing an opinion? He was a stranger.

To Kelsey surprise, Morgan looked as if he was about to say something in response, then obviously changed his mind. Instead, he merely nodded at Kate. “Good luck to you,” he said as he began to withdraw.

Sensing that the E.R. physician wanted to go over a few more things with her mother before she was signed out, Kelsey stepped to the side.

The policeman had turned around to leave. Kelsey suddenly remembered something.

“Wait,” she called after the departing policeman, then hurried to catch up to him. “Officer Donnelly, was it?”

Morgan stopped and turned around. “Morgan,” he corrected. He liked things to be professional and formal, but in her case, something prompted him to be more familiar.

“Morgan,” Kelsey repeated, inclining her head. “Where’s my mother’s car now? You didn’t have it towed away, did you?” If it had been towed away, there would be a mountain of paperwork and red tape before she could get the car back, not to mention that there would be a hefty fine.

“No, it’s still where she left it. Just a little past the intersection of University Drive and Campus Road.” Morgan paused, debating.

It had been a slow morning. No reason to believe the afternoon wasn’t going to be the same. Bedford was deemed one of the safest cities in the country. Helping out a citizen came under the heading of good public relations. The chief was always after them to work with the citizens and promote goodwill.

“I could take you over there if you like,” he volunteered, “and then you could drive it to your mother’s house.”

“Then what would I do with the car I drove here?”

“Right.” Morgan had forgotten about that. He thought for a moment. The solution was simple. “Tell you what, you bring your mother home first, and I’ll follow you in the squad car. After you get her settled, I’ll take you to your mother’s car.”

That was really going out of his way, she thought. Once upon a time, she would have taken his offer at face value. But that was before Dan. “And why would you do that?” she asked suspiciously.

“The Bedford police department aims to please,” he told her simply. And then he looked at her for a long moment. She felt as if he were peering right into her. “Are you always this suspicious?”

“Only when things seem to be out of sync.” And then she considered her mother. Talk about out of sync. “A baby,” she murmured, shaking her head.

He was still scrutinizing her, still looking into her soul. Kelsey bristled at the thought.

“Why does that bother you so much?” he asked, and then guessed at the reason. “You’re the youngest, aren’t you?”

Kelsey squared her shoulders. “That has nothing to do with it.”

In his opinion, that had a great deal to do with it. But he had no desire to get into any sort of a discussion with her about it. He had a feeling she did not give up easily. “If you say so.”

Kelsey caught her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s just that…”

Morgan anticipated her words. “Don’t say she’s too old,” he cautioned. “Your mother looks like a young, vital woman.”

That was only half the picture. “Who already has a life and five children.”

“Now she’ll have six.”

Kelsey stared up at Morgan. He certainly didn’t sound like a typical male his age. She placed him in his late twenties. Most men in that age bracket fiercely resisted anything that seemed remotely close to domestication.

“You like babies?” she asked, studying him as she waited for an answer.

She had a long wait ahead of her. Rather than answer, he nodded toward her mother’s bed. “The E.R. doctor’s leaving. Better help your mother get ready. I’ll wait for you at the E.R.’s registration desk.” He pointed toward doors that led outside the emergency room.

Without waiting for a response, Morgan walked away, heading toward the doors. Leaving her with a basketful of questions.

Chapter Three

“He seems like a very nice man,” Kate commented to Kelsey.

Morgan had helped Kate out of the wheelchair that the hospital’s insurance policy required for all inpatients leaving the premises, then gently eased her into her daughter’s car. True to his word, the young policeman followed behind them as Kelsey drove her home.

Kelsey lifted one shoulder in a dismissive half shrug. “He’s okay for a policeman.”

She glanced up into her rearview mirror. If she was hoping that he’d taken off instead of following them, she was disappointed. In true law enforcement style, Donnelly drove a sensible distance behind them.

Kelsey sped up.

So did he.

She had a gut feeling that Officer Morgan Donnelly was not an easy man to shake.

She couldn’t really put into words why, but the fact that he trailed behind them annoyed her. Kelsey knew she was unreasonable, that the policeman had been extremely accommodating and made things easy for her. She should be grateful.

But policemen as a species were not really high on her approval list right now. Not since she’d broken up with Dan. Moreover, she wasn’t exactly in the best of moods. For one thing, she was still shaken up by having to rush to the hospital, not knowing what to expect when she got there. For another, the news of her mother’s current delicate condition had completely thrown her for a loop.

If one of her brothers had told her that they were expecting, she would have been instantly overjoyed. This was something else again. It would take getting used to.

Kelsey could feel her mother’s gaze.

Glancing briefly to her right, Kelsey asked, “What?”

“Since when do you have something against policemen?” Kate asked.

Ordinarily, her life was an open book. She and her mother were more than family—they were friends and she valued her mother’s insight and judgment. But this had been a very personal hurt. Because she hadn’t wanted to endure her brothers’ teasing, not to mention their questions, no one had even known she was seeing Dan at the time. And afterward, when she’d felt like an idiot because Dan had been stringing her along, well, she didn’t feel like sharing that, either.

It definitely wasn’t a topic she wanted to raise now.

Kelsey shook her head. “Mom, I don’t want to waste time talking about policemen.”

Kate smiled. “What do you want to waste time talking about?”

“I don’t want to waste time at all—” Kelsey realized that her voice was tense. But then, this wasn’t an everyday situation. Stopping at a stoplight at an intersection, she slanted another look at her mother. “Mom, what are you going to do?”

Clearly puzzled by the question, Kate asked, “About?”

“World peace,” Kelsey retorted, her tension getting the best of her. And then she flushed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so flip. About the baby, Mom. What are you going to do about the baby?”

Her mother never hesitated. “Start eating healthier, exercising more. And giving up that glass of wine I always have with your father at dinner.” The light turned green and Kelsey pressed down on the gas pedal. There was just the slightest shift in her mother’s voice as she asked, “What else would I do?”

How in heaven’s name do you ask your mother if she was considering an alternative to giving birth? For one of the few times in her life, Kelsey felt tongue-tied. Taking a breath, she forced herself to forge ahead.

The words came out haltingly. “Well, I thought maybe, because you’re not twenty-four anymore…”

Reading between the lines, Kate took pity on her. “I know how old I am, Kelsey. And the doctor says I’m definitely healthy enough to go the distance.”

Yes, her mother was healthy and energetic and all those good things. But having a baby was a life-altering decision. Her mother had to know that. “What about after the distance? This doesn’t just end with delivery.”

Kate made no attempt to hide her amusement. “Are you under the impression that you’re telling me something I don’t know, Kelsey? I don’t have that short a memory, sweetheart.”

Kelsey hadn’t meant to sound insulting. Because her mother was with her, she slowed down rather than raced through a yellow light. “No, of course not, it’s just that—that I’m worried.”

Kate patted her hand just as the light turned green again. “Don’t be. This baby thing threw me for a loop, too, but I’m already getting used to it. It’ll mean changes, but it’ll also mean that I get to hear a sweet little voice say ‘Mama’ again.”

“I can call you Mama again if you want,” Kelsey volunteered as she took the on-ramp to the northbound freeway. “What about the diapers and the sleepless nights and the cost?”

In Kate’s mind, the reward was a great deal more than the sacrifice. “What about the love?” she countered.

Kelsey spared her mother a quizzical glance. “Five of us loving you—not counting Dad—isn’t enough?”

Her mother’s laugh was warm, reassuring, as if she sensed the ambivalent feelings Kelsey was going through.

“There’s always room for more, Kelsey. Always room for more. A mother’s love is infinite. It’s not a pie with only so much to go around so that if you slice it seven ways instead of six, there’ll be less for everyone.” Kate shifted in her seat for a better view of her daughter. “I’ll still love everyone the same way, Kelsey. There’ll just be one more at the table, that’s all.”

She was grateful to her mother for not saying that this was ultimately not her business to meddle in. But then, both her parents had made all of them feel that they were a unit, not parents and children or worse, individual strangers. In her family’s case, although individuality was encouraged, at bottom it was a case of one for all, all for one.

And she needed to get behind this newest phase, Kelsey told herself sternly.

There was sympathy in Kelsey’s voice as she asked, “Then you’re okay with this, Mom? With being pregnant, I mean?”

“I am wonderful with this,” her mother assured her. Her eyes danced as she said, “Children keep you young.”

For the first time since she’d rushed out of the school, Kelsey laughed. “I thought you said that children give you gray hair.”

“That, too,” Kate acknowledged. “But gray hair happens at any age. I had an aunt who started going gray at twenty-five. And the dividends are so wonderful. Look at you,” she added to make her point.

“You’re not afraid?” Kelsey asked, thinking of how she would have reacted if she were in her mother’s shoes.

Kate let out a long breath. A great many emotions shifted through her. Joy was foremost, but other emotions, as well. “I’m terrified.”

“Terrified?” Kelsey looked at her, then back at the road. How could her mother be happy and terrified at the same time? “You certainly don’t act it.”

Kate was nothing if not honest. It was the cornerstone of her relationship with everyone in her family. That and love.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not. The prospect of bringing a new life into the world is always terrifying. Will he or she be healthy? Will I do a good job raising him or her—”

Kelsey stopped her. “Seriously?” she asked incredulously.

“Seriously,” Kate responded.

How could her mother possibly even spend half a second wondering? “Mom, you’ve got to be the world’s greatest mother. You know that.”

“What I might know and what the baby thinks are two very different things.” Kate closed her eyes, momentarily slipping back into the past. “Remember when you packed up your storybooks and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, determined to run away from home because you were so angry at me?”

Kelsey had forgotten all about that until just now. The memory evoked a nostalgic laugh.

“I remember,” she said with feeling. “You took Trevor’s side against mine.” She recalled how hurt she’d felt. Running away had been her only way to retaliate. She was convinced her mother would come searching for her, tears streaming down her face. After a sufficient amount of time, she would have forgiven her mother’s transgression and returned.

God, had she ever been that young? Kelsey wondered.

“I mediated, I didn’t take sides,” Kate corrected. “And you were a little bully,” she added with great affection. “You kept hitting him because you knew he wouldn’t hit you back.”

Kelsey shook her head. If anyone should have run away from home, it was her mother. “How did you put up with all that?”

The answer was simple. “Love makes everything easier to deal with.”

“I guess,” Kelsey murmured.

She’d never had that in her own life. Oh, she loved her parents and her brothers dearly, and she was even getting there with her new sisters-in-law. But as far as eventually having her own life partner, someone who would be there at her side until the end of time, Kelsey sincerely doubted that would ever happen.

At the moment, she was still working on trying to be okay with that scenario. So far she wasn’t having all that much luck. But eventually, she’d get used to it, she promised herself.

Kate took a deep breath as Kelsey pulled the car up into the driveway. In a way, she was mentally bracing herself for what lay ahead. She turned to her daughter. “I’m counting on you to be there for me when I tell your father about the baby, you know.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Kelsey assured her, turning off the ignition. “I’ll bring the smelling salts.” She saw her mother looking at her, arching one very expressive eyebrow. “You’ve got to admit this is going to hit him like a bombshell.”

“Not a bombshell,” Kate protested, softening the description. “Maybe a little like getting caught in an unexpected summer downpour.”

“If you say so. Hey, wait, let me help you,” Kelsey cried as her mother opened the passenger door and began to get out.

“Kelsey, I’m perfectly able to—”

Her mother didn’t get a chance to finish. Morgan had pulled his car up behind them and was now at the passenger side of Kelsey’s vehicle. Placing his hand beneath her elbow, he was gently helping Kate out of the vehicle.

Kate smiled her gratitude as she gained her feet. “Thank you, Morgan.”

“My pleasure, Kate.”

He said it as if he meant it. What was the man’s angle? Kelsey couldn’t help wondering. Why was he being so accommodating?

“Once you’re settled in,” Morgan continued, “your daughter and I will get your car.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Kelsey protested. She couldn’t ask her brothers for help, but there were other people she could summon. “I’ve got friends I can call—”

“I’m sure you do,” he said, cutting her off. “But I like seeing things through. It won’t take long,” he promised, addressing Kate again. “Besides, I’ll be off duty soon.”

Kelsey eyed him a little uncertainly. “I don’t know much about being a cop,” Kelsey admitted, “but don’t you have to sign out or something?”

“Don’t worry about ‘or something,’” he told her. “I’ve got it covered. For all intents and purposes, I’m all yours.”

Kelsey was about to quip “Lucky me” but stopped herself at the last minute when she realized that Morgan was no longer talking to her. Her mother was the recipient of the “I’m all yours” comment.

“This is all very nice of you,” Kate protested, “but don’t you have something else you should be doing?”

Morgan shook his head. “Not at the moment. This all comes under the heading of ‘protect and serve.’” He slanted a look in her direction.

The man was obviously anxious to get going, Kelsey surmised. “Do you need anything before we go, Mom? Maybe you should lie down. I can take you up—”

Kate placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “I’m pregnant, Kelsey, not fragile. I’ll be fine, trust me.” Dropping her hands, Kate fished out a set of keys from her purse and held them out to her. “Here, you’ll be needing these.”

Kelsey merely smiled and accepted the keys. This wasn’t the time to tell her mother that she knew how to hotwire a car, having learned how from one of the boys she’d dated while in high school. A boy who, once her brothers got wind of him and his reputation, never showed up at the house again. When it came to outsiders, her brothers had been fiercely protective of her. They still were.

“I’ll be back soon, Mom,” she promised, brushing a kiss against her mother’s cheek.

“Don’t forget, Kelsey, you’re having dinner here tonight,” Kate reminded her.

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” Kelsey promised.

Kate turned toward the departing policeman. “You’re invited, too, Morgan.”

Kelsey stared at her mother, speechless.

The invitation took Morgan by surprise, as well. It was a couple of moments before he found his tongue. “Thanks, but I’ve got plans.”

He hadn’t, but in his judgment, this evening would be tough enough for the woman without making her husband share it with some total stranger.

Kate inclined her head, accepting his answer. “Some other time then, perhaps.”

“Some other time,” he echoed.

Morgan understood the worth of a line like that. It might have actually been uttered in the belief that “some other time” would happen, but he knew it wouldn’t. The woman’s gratitude, which had prompted her to tender the invitation in the first place, would quickly fade as she returned to her routine and the need to make the invitation a reality would fade along with it.

Still, it was a nice gesture, Morgan thought, following the attractive woman’s equally attractive daughter outside.

“She’s a nice woman, your mother,” Morgan said, finally breaking the silence that had followed them into his squad car. The silence had spilled out throughout the vehicle and accompanied them for the first five minutes of the trip. It threatened to continue indefinitely.

“She is,” Kelsey agreed. “Mom is one of a kind.” She shifted in her seat, curious. “How long were you following her?”

Morgan glanced at her before looking back at the road. “Excuse me?”

“You said you saw her weaving erratically in the lane. How long were you following her? A minute? Two? Three?”

Morgan shrugged. “A minute, maybe two. I turned on Harvard where it intersected University Drive. Your mother had just driven by.”

“And when you turned on your siren, she crashed into the bushes?” Kelsey asked.

Morgan knew where the young woman was going with this. She probably thought that his following her mother had made her nervous and that she’d hit the bushes because of him, not because she’d fainted. But Kelsey was wrong.

“I hadn’t turned on my siren—or my lights yet,” he added. He’d witnessed other accidents that hadn’t turned out nearly as well. “All in all, your mother’s a very lucky woman.”

“Mom likes to call it the luck of the Irish,” she told him.

His father’s father had emigrated from Ireland when he was a boy. “Is your mother from there?”

“Why?” Kelsey asked guardedly.

“No reason. I just thought I detected a slight accent.”

Periodically her mother tried to lose her accent, but her father always protested, saying he really loved the slight Irish lilt in her voice.

“The same could be said about you,” Kelsey pointed out. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No,” he deadpanned, “I live in Tustin,” he said, mentioning the name of the city next to Bedford.

She frowned. He was deliberately being obtuse. “That’s not what I meant.”

Morgan dropped the act. “I know what you meant, Ms. Marlowe. I’m from Georgia originally. Now do I get to ask a question?”

“As long as you understand that I don’t have to answer if I don’t want to.” Her eyes met his. The ground rules were accepted. “Go ahead.”

“Is this chip on your shoulder something recent,” he asked amicably, “or is it some congenital thing?”

She opened her mouth to retort that it was none of his business what she had on her shoulder, but then she closed it again. She could almost hear her mother reprimanding her. And she’d be right. She was taking out her tension—and Dan’s behavior—on Donnelly. Because he’d come to her mother’s aid, he didn’t deserve this.

“I’m sorry if I’m coming across a little testy—”

He laughed shortly. “Little being a relative term here,” he interjected.

“Okay,” Kelsey backtracked, “a lot testy,” she admitted. “But nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

He glanced at her thoughtfully. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Ms. Marlowe, but ‘this’ didn’t happen to you. It happened to your mother. She’s the one you should be thinking about, not yourself.”

“I am thinking about her. About how awful it would have been if she’d been hurt.” She drew herself up, taking offense. “And just where do you get off lecturing me, Donnelly?”

“Not lecturing,” he countered mildly, “just pointing the obvious out. Your mother’s okay. A bit shaken up, but okay. That makes her one of the lucky ones.”

Something in his voice caught her attention. Donnelly wasn’t just spouting rhetoric, he was speaking from firsthand experience. Undoubtedly, as a policeman he’d seen things the average person hadn’t, and they’d left a lasting impression. He was right. She had to take a page out of her mother’s book and just focus on the positive.

Kelsey took a deep breath. She stared down at her hands. They were folded and clenched in her lap. She willed herself to relax as she tried to banish the tension gripping her.

“Yes, it does,” she acknowledged. Kelsey knew she owed this policeman a debt for being so nice to her mother. A debt she didn’t take lightly. “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t even thank you for taking my mother to the hospital. You could have just called for an ambulance and gone on your way.”