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Not thath is friends had said as much. But he suspected, by the wariness in their eyes, the shared glances when they thought he wasn’t looking, that they thought so.
He’d known Mark, and through him, Darla, for years. Had hired him, in fact, to be the high school basketball coach when he’d been principal of Globe High.
Rick stopped the Nitro in front of a large yard with a smallish house set far back on the property, about ten miles south of San Francisco. It was just after four on Wednesday afternoon. The Samsons would absolutely not approve of this visit.
He could hear a baby crying as he approached the front door, and his heart lurched. Carrie? His flesh and blood?
She sounded hungry.
Rick knocked. And then, seeing the button beside the handle, rang the bell.
The crying stopped. Footsteps approached, on what sounded like a wood floor.
Wood floors were drafty. And…
The door opened.
“Oh. You’re not Barb.”
Rick stood there, taking in the sight before him.
Gorgeous, feminine—untouched by the trappings of accessories—the woman had a pure beauty. And babies. Three of them. One strapped to her front in a baby sack. The other two on either hip.
He wondered which of them was his niece.
He met the woman’s dark brown eyes, taking in her impatience, the blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, the T-shirt and jeans and bare feet. “Can I help?” he asked over the crying, motioning to the babies in her arms.
“No,” she said. She was bouncing her babies. One of whom, the crying one, needed its nose wiped. His nose wiped, if the blue sleeper was anything to go by. “But as you can see, I’m busy, so—”
“I’m Rick Kraynick.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Kraynick,” she said, backing up enough to be able to close the door.
“Wait! Which one is Carrie? I’m standing here. What would it hurt to point her out to me?”
“If you don’t leave this instant, I’m going to call the police.”
Obviously his suit and tie and shined shoes had done nothing to reassure her that he was a good guy. He’d left the jacket on, just in case, in spite of the almost seventy degree temperature.
“I’m going.” But he couldn’t take a step back. Not yet. All three babies were adorable. But one…she reminded him of…“Just tell me which—”
Her foot shot to the door. And just as she was kicking it shut in his face, the crying infant in blue spewed what had to be a full bottle of formula, as though shooting a ball from a cannon. The sour burst hit the face of the baby in the carrier, who promptly started to cry. It covered Ms. Bookman’s arm and chest, her floor, her door and Rick’s shoulder.
The shooter, once he was done, let out the most piercing wail Rick had ever heard.
He was one sick puppy.
Without further thought, Rick stepped inside the still partially open door. Relieving Ms. Bookman of the boy, he placed the smelly baby against his chest so he could rub his back. Soothe the ache.
Some skills, once learned, never left you.
“Go ahead, tend to them and yourself,” he said, loudly enough to be heard over the crying. “There’s no cure for colic but patience. And soft pressure on the stomach. I’ll follow you so you can keep me and shooter here in your sight at all times.”
“I can’t—” The baby still in her arms started to cry.
Reaching for his wallet while juggling the messy baby, Rick threw it on the table. “My license is in there,” he called out over the noise. “My school ID is as well. And all my credit cards. They’re yours while I’m here,” he added. “And I can’t kidnap Carrie while you’ve got her…Go!” he called, sending her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
With another worried look in his direction, she went. Rick followed, making sure to stay in view at all times.
Chapter Six
IT DIDN’T TAKE SUE LONG to get the babies cleaned up. Or herself, either, once she had the girls settled on a blanket on the floor with several brightly colored toys in their vicinity, encouraging exploration. She’d have liked to change, but they had a stranger in their midst.
Settling for hot soapy water and a couple of baby wipes, she was as good as she was going to get.
Rick Kraynick, in the meantime, standing within sight at all times, managed to get three-month-old Jacob cleaned up and to sleep.
“You’re very good at that.” Something about his splayed fingers covering the baby’s entire back, his forearm supporting Jacob’s diapered bottom so tenderly—and competently—made her more aware of the man than she should have been. Than she wanted to be.
She reached for Jacob. And her fingers brushed against the solid warmth of Rick Kraynick’s chest, where the baby was nestled.
“I’ve had some practice.”
Jacob didn’t stir as she laid him in the newly changed bassinet in the family room.
“You have a family of your own?” she asked, handing Rick a wipe for a spot he’d missed on his shoulder. Why wasn’t his wife there with him on his mission of mercy?
“No.”
So he was unattached. The fact made him no more attractive. Made no difference to her. Right?
He’d said he’d grown up in foster homes—a great place to get child care experience. His lack of wife, his life, were not her business.
She headed toward the door.
“Sorry about the suit,” she said, jittery and anxious to be rid of him. She had to get dinner started. And she didn’t need any more complications right now.
He didn’t follow her to the door. Instead, Rick Kraynick, baby wipe still in his hand, watched as Carrie rolled over. And over again. To reach the bright yellow rattle that was her favorite. It went straight to her mouth. And Sue wondered, not for the first time, if the little girl was going to teethe early.
She’d rolled over a couple of weeks sooner than Sue had expected, too.
Her visitor’s expression—soft and filled with pain, too—called to her, making her nervous.
“Mr. Kraynick, you have to go.”
He nodded. “That’s her.”
He was moved by the baby. And why did she care? This man was a total stranger to her. So why didn’t he seem like one?
“I’m not going to—”
“I know—confirm or deny. But you don’t need to. That’s Carrie.”
He was right. But then, he’d had a fifty-fifty chance.
“You need to leave.” Please. Before I do something I’m going to regret. Like let you stay.
“She seems to be a happy baby.”
“Mr. Kraynick.” Barb would be arriving soon to collect the two babies she’d had to leave with Sue when her third had a reaction to this morning’s inoculation, running a fever of 104, and had to be taken to the emergency room. “You have no idea which of those babies might or might not be your niece. Now I’m asking you to leave.”
“I heard you,” he said, still watching the baby.
Sue opened her mouth to threaten to call the police. He was breaking the law, refusing to leave her home. And then she noticed that his eyes were glistening.
And it occurred to her that they’d both buried a family member that week.
“Mr. Kraynick.” She hadn’t meant to allow any softness in her voice. He really had to go. His presence was causing her to feel things she couldn’t afford to feel.
“She…I’m sorry. She looks exactly like…someone I used to know…” His voice faded away.
Just when she was going to lose her battle with herself and allow him to pick up the baby, Rick Kraynick, the oddest man she’d ever met, turned, thanked her for her kindness and walked out of the room. And out of her life.
“I CAN’T STOP THINKING about her.”
“Rick, come on, man. What are you doing?” Mark easily dribbled around him and went for the layup. He scored.
Again.
And rebounded his own ball. Holding it against his side, he stopped and stared at Rick. “You aren’t seriously considering trying to get her yourself, are you?”
“I’m not just considering it, I’m going to do everything in my power to get her.” He’d given up on family. On making a family, or hoping for one. But he was not turning his back on family that already existed. Period. His mother aside. Her he’d written off years ago. “She’s my flesh and blood, man. She’s my sister’s child. And I know I can be a good father to her, give her a happy life. Hannah certainly had no complaints.” With a lunge, he stole the ball from the former college all-star point guard, took it out to the three point line and back to the basket for a score. And when Mark rebounded, he played him one on one until he stole the ball a second time.
In the end, the score was even. Rick was no more out of breath than his former employee as they headed into the locker room.
“I wish you’d reconsider this baby thing,” Mark said as they sat, a bench apart, untying the shoes that they left in the lockers behind them in between these Friday workouts.
Half an hour had passed since either man had said a word to each other.
“ ‘This baby thing,’ as you put it, isn’t negotiable,” Rick grunted.
“It’s ludicrous, man. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment.”
Disappointment? That would be a step up from the hell that had been his constant companion since he’d lost Hannah the previous fall.
A darkness that had dissipated, for hours at a time, since he’d heard about the orphaned baby living half an hour away from him. He was meant to do this.
“You really think they’ll give a baby girl to a single guy? Come on, man, they don’t even like to give them to couples who are living together and not married, let alone to a man living alone.”
Rick didn’t bother to respond. He wasn’t just a man. He was Carrie’s uncle.
He stripped off his shirt and shorts, dropped them in a pile in front of his locker and strode to the shower.
The two men had just secured their lockers when Mark spoke again.
“It’s not fair to her, either, is it?” he asked, his chin jutting as he faced Rick across the bench. “To be a stand-in for what you lost?”
“No one, I repeat, no one, will ever replace Hannah.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Mark’s gaze was filled with an empathy the two men didn’t generally share with each other. “You think I don’t know that while you might be breathing and moving, you’re no longer alive? I watched you dust yourself off back in high school, each time you got moved to another family.
And then again when Sheila took off. You’ve done it again. You go to work, you rule with your firm but fair hand, but you’ve got no heart.”
“Then you don’t need to worry about me using some-one else’s baby to replace my own, do you?”
“I’m worried that you’re going to take a little girl from the chance of a loving, two-parent family, and bring her to a house of grief.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you don’t think I’d stand a chance getting her, isn’t it?”
“Ah, Rick, come on. This is me. I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah.” Rick was the first to drop his gaze. “I’m kind of worried about me, too. But everything else aside, man, rest assured, I’m positive this is the right thing for me to do.”
Grabbing his keys, he headed for the door.
“MA, DO NOT LET Uncle Sam make you feel guilty about that necklace.” With Carrie on her hip, little newborn William sleeping in his car seat carrier on the floor, and three-month-old Michael napping in a swing, Sue used her free hand to straighten up the family room Saturday morning. Picking up toys. And talking into the Bluetooth her parents had bought her for Christmas the year before. “That’s what your father says, too,” Jenny told her, “and I know you’re both right. But I’ve spent a good part of my life wishing Sam and I were closer. Looking for something I could do to show him how much I love him. And…”
“He had no business assuming that Grandma’s diamond necklace would go to him.”
Michael sighed, but didn’t wake up.
“Well, he did, actually,” Jenny said.
“We had dinner with your aunt Emily and uncle Sam last night,” Luke added. “He’s ordered Emily and Belle to have nothing to do with Adam and the rest of the Frasers, and wanted your mother to agree to stay away from him, as well—”
“Which, of course,” Jenny interrupted, “I didn’t agree to, but it turns out that our dad told him the diamond would be Sam’s when both he and mom were gone.”
Our dad. Those words took on a whole new world of meaning now that they knew Robert had been Jenny’s dad biologically as well as legally.
Her mother seemed to be taking the deceit a whole lot better than Sue was.
“But Grandma wanted you to have it,” she said now. “Just don’t do anything rash, Ma. Give yourself time to get used to the idea of not having been orphaned. And I’m glad you told him you weren’t going to obey him. You need to get to know Uncle Adam.”
God, how strange was that? Joe’s dad, her uncle?
She hadn’t talked to her boss since the day of the will reading. Was kind of afraid to, actually.
She’d thought his adult coolness toward her had been because of her rejection in high school. But if that was the case, all would be well now, right? Maybe she’d rejected him because, on some level, she’d sensed they were related.
