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“Miss Duncan?”
Liz turned toward the voice and saw a teenager hovering in the hallway. Slight, with long dark hair and big eyes, she was pretty, if too thin. Liz searched her memory for the name, then smiled.
“Sophia?”
The teenager nodded shyly, then ducked her head. “Yes. Hello.”
Her English was stiff and heavily accented, but amazingly clear. As Liz’s Russian consisted of da and nyet she wasn’t in a position to complain.
“You’re still here,” she said as she approached the girl, leaving David in Maggie’s well-manicured clutches. “I wasn’t sure you would be.”
Sophia shrugged. “I like to work with babies. They let me.”
“You’re an amazing volunteer.”
Liz had met Sophia on her last visit. The teenager showed up every day to help out with the babies. Liz hadn’t been able to learn much about her family. Maggie said the staff suspected she was an orphan herself and made her welcome. No one knew where she went each night or how she supported herself, but she was brilliant with the children and the orphanage needed all the help it could get.
“How is Natasha?” Liz asked.
“Good. Big.” Sophia smiled. “She makes noise.”
Liz’s heart clenched. “Like she’s trying to talk?”
The teenager nodded. “Many children were sick, but not Natasha. She is strong. She—”
Sophia caught sight of David approaching and froze. Liz quickly introduced the two, mentioning that David worked at the United States embassy.
Sophia relaxed a little when he greeted her in Russian. Liz sighed. If she’d known she would one day adopt a Russian baby, she would have paid more attention when her nana had tried to teach her the language.
“Ready?” Maggie asked.
Liz nodded and the social worker led her toward the nursery.
The babies were kept on the second floor. Cribs filled three large rooms with big windows that let sunlight rain onto the scarred but clean hardwood floors. Stacks of diapers and other supplies lined the walls. In the cribs some babies were sleeping, while others cried. On the other side of the hallway were the playrooms where the staff and volunteers interacted with the babies, a few at a time. But there was never enough staff or resources.
Liz followed Maggie into the middle room, then down the center aisle to the last crib on the right. Liz’s heart beat faster and faster until she wondered if it would simply take flight. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, not when she saw a dark-haired baby happily staring up at a brightly colored mobile made up of carousel horses.
“Natasha,” she whispered as she stepped next to the crib and dropped her purse on the floor.
She smiled down at the big eyes, the chubby cheeks and perfectly shaped mouth.
“How’s my girl? How’s my very best little angel?”
Moving slowly so as not to startle the baby, she picked up Natasha and held her close. Her scent was as familiar as her face. Yes, she’d grown, but Liz would have recognized her anywhere.
“Natasha, I’m back. I told you I’d come back and here I am.”
She knew the baby couldn’t possibly understand or remember her, but Natasha didn’t squirm or complain. Instead she relaxed into Liz’s arms, as if sensing everything was going to be all right.
Liz heard footsteps. She turned and saw David and Sophia walking toward her. The teenager’s expression tightened slightly, as if she were uncomfortable.
Probably all this western emotion, Liz thought humorously. Strangers hugging babies as if their lives depended on the moment. No doubt the teenager thought they were odd.
“You’ve done wonderfully well with her,” Liz told her.
Sophia nodded, then slipped out of the room. David moved closer.
“So this is the lucky little girl who gets to go home with you,” he said lightly. “She’s a beauty.”
“I know. And she’s really smart.”
He grinned. “You can tell that how?”
“Instinct.”
Liz laughed as she spoke. David glanced from her to the baby she held. He didn’t know much about kids, and this one pretty much looked like all the others he’d seen. What made her special was the love in Liz’s eyes.
He hadn’t been able to figure out the adoption angle. Liz was young, healthy—why wouldn’t she have a baby of her own? But now that he saw her with the infant, he knew she was already a goner. Whatever her reasons for coming here, she’d made the decision to fall for Natasha.
Was that what happened with an adoption? Did the parents make a conscious decision to open their hearts to the children? He’d never considered the relationship in those terms—that it was love by choice. Is that what had happened with the Logans when they had adopted him and his sister?
“I’m shaking,” Liz said, then grinned. “I know, I know. You think I’m crazy.”
“No. I think Natasha is a very lucky little girl. You love her with your whole heart. I can tell.”
“Really?” Liz beamed at him. “I do. I just hope she knows it, too. Doesn’t she look great? They’ve really taken care of her.”
“Sophia was telling me that she spends her volunteer time with three different babies, including Natasha.”
“I know. She’s amazing. Maggie told me when I was here before that Sophia is one of their best volunteers. She showed up three months ago and started helping.”
Liz tucked Natasha closer and tickled her tummy. “How’s my best girl? Can you laugh for me?”
Natasha gave a little squeal and kicked her feet.
David glanced at his watch. “I need to head back to my office.”
Liz returned her attention to him. “Thank you so much for stopping by. I know it was weird and a lot to ask, but I’m really grateful.”
“Not a problem. I’m glad I had the chance to meet her.” He touched the baby’s bare foot. “When do you get official custody?”
“I’ll be allowed to take her back and forth to the hotel with me starting tomorrow. All the legal stuff happens after that.”
“So you’ll be missing her tonight.”
“Probably.”
“How about a distraction? We could have dinner.”
Liz sighed. “I would love to but I can’t promise that I’ll be perfect company. I may be a little on edge about the adoption. Is that okay?”
Since thoughts of her had kept him up most of the previous night, he didn’t see the problem.
“Sure. Maybe I can take your mind off things.”
He’d meant the statement casually, thinking more of conversation than bed, but at his words her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed.
Instantly heat cranked up in his body. Blood flowed fast and south.
She cleared her throat. “That would, um, be terrific.”
“I was going to offer to cook, but maybe we should go out.” Safer for both of them to be in public, he thought.
“You cook?” She sounded surprised.
“Very well. In fact, I do a lot of things well.”
Their gazes locked. Need grew until it filled the massive room and threatened to push them out of control. David wanted her with a desperation that stunned him. Had there been even a hint of privacy and time, he would have gone to her right then.
But there wasn’t either and Liz held a baby in her arms. Definitely a clue to back off.
“We should go out,” he said at the same moment she told him, “I’ll come to your place.”
The words hung in the air.
What he wanted to do and what he should do battled within him.
He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and scribbled down a phone number.
“Call me at the office,” he said as he tucked the paper into her purse. “If you want to go out, I know some great places. If you want to stay in, I’ll cook.”
Then giving in, because he didn’t have a choice, he leaned close and pressed his mouth to hers.
Their lips clung in a kiss that was both sweet and passionate. He could taste her and the promise of what could be between them. He wanted to pull her close and touch her everywhere. He wanted to push his tongue into her mouth to discover what made her moan and squirm and surrender. He wanted a lot of things.
Instead he straightened.
“Call me,” he said as he brushed his fingers across the baby’s cheek and smiled at the two of them.
“I will,” Liz promised.
He walked out, pleased to notice that she’d been more than a little breathless when she spoke.
David arrived back at his office in time for the weekly briefing where ongoing cases were brought up to date and potential problems were discussed.
He collected the files he would need and headed for the conference room. As he walked, he pushed thoughts of Liz out of his head. No way did he want to be distracted by her, even though she was the best kind of distraction he knew.
Forty-five minutes later, most of his staff had filled him in on what was happening in Russia and the other former Soviet countries. Ainsley Johnson spoke last.
“Another child has been taken from an orphanage,” she said, sounded determined but weary. “This makes fifteen in the past twelve months.”
David flipped to his file on the black market baby ring. While he didn’t have jurisdiction to investigate on Russian soil, the theory was that many of the babies were making their way to the States.
“They’re all the same,” she continued. “The babies are all healthy, too young for official adoption, and just vanish from their cribs. They’re between two and eight weeks old, both boys and girls.” She shook her head. “That’s the end of the pattern. Different orphanages have been hit at different times. No one on the staff suddenly goes missing, no one has extra money. Outsiders are carefully screened. So who’s doing it?”
David noticed she didn’t ask why. There was no need; the motive was clear. Money.
He thought about Natasha and how the baby had looked in Liz’s arms. He wouldn’t want anything to happen to either one of them.
“None of the babies taken were up for adoption?” he asked.
Ainsley shook her head. “Technically they would be as they got older, but none had gotten very far in the process. No potential parents had arrived to visit, if that’s what you mean.”
He gave her the name of a couple of contacts. “They might know something.”
“Thanks, boss.”
They concluded the meeting and David headed back to his office. As he went, he wondered about the babies who had been kidnapped. Were desperate couples paying for children they couldn’t get any other way?
From that thought it was a short trip to Liz-land where he quickly got lost in the memory of their brief kiss. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had it so bad. There was definite chemistry between them.
Torn between what he wanted and what he knew was the right thing to do, he briefly considered withdrawing his offer to cook. He had a feeling if she showed up at his place that night, they weren’t going to get to dinner.
“This is so stupid,” Liz said as she brushed the tears from her cheeks.
“You will be back tomorrow, yes?” Sophia said as they walked toward the stairs.
“I know. It’s just that I’m here and I want to take her with me. I hate the thought of her spending another night here. She’s all alone.”
The teenager stared at her. “You love the baby?”
Liz sniffed, then nodded. “More than I can say.” Pain inside of her grew. “I keep telling myself it’s just for a few more hours. Then I can take her with me and we never have to be apart.”
At the front of the orphanage, Liz paused and looked up at the gray building.
“She’s okay here, isn’t she?” she asked desperately. “She won’t think I’ve abandoned her?”
Sophia’s big eyes remained solemn. “She will be here in the morning. Soon you take her to America and give her a good life. So many people come and take babies for a better life. Is right, yes?”
“I hope so.”
Sophia offered a slight smile, then waited with Liz for the cab she’d called. Liz had thought about going back to the hotel to freshen up, but suddenly she couldn’t wait to get to David’s place.
She handed Sophia a piece of paper with David’s address, which she got when she’d phoned him a while ago. The teenager gave it and other instructions to the cabdriver.
“The fare is set,” Sophia told her. “Don’t pay more.”
“Thank you. I’ll be back in the morning.”
