A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Read online

  “She hasn’t said a word,” the police officer said. “Not since I found her. No, that’s not quite true,” he added, as if telling the story exactly the way it had happened was important to him. “She said something, but I couldn’t understand her.”

  Gemma nodded. She looked back up at the man with the child in his arms. He was taller than she was by six inches, at least, and his sober expression reminded her of old “Dragnet” reruns. But this man was the looker that Jack Webb had never been. He was, in fact, as ruggedly masculine and appealing as any man she had ever seen.

  “She seems to like where she is,” Gemma said. “But you’re going to have to turn her over to me eventually.”

  “Is anyone else here? In case you have a problem?”

  She knew exactly what he was asking. At first glance she didn’t necessarily inspire confidence. She was small-boned and deceptively fragile in appearance. She had wide pale green eyes that always made her seem a little lost, and fine shoulder-length blond hair that looked as if it should be tied up in ribbons.

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’m trained for this.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then held out his arms. The little girl began to shriek. Gemma had taken in his skeptical expression as he’d tentatively offered the child. Now he snatched her back as if Gemma was planning to roast her for supper.

  “No!” The little girl clung to him, refusing to let Gemma take her.

  “Well, she knows one word,” Gemma said.

  “She doesn’t like you.”

  Gemma couldn’t be angry at him. He probably had children of his own. He was probably an exceptional father. “Officer…?”

  “Riley.” He balanced the little girl against his chest.

  “Does she have a name, too?”

  “Not one we know.”

  “It’s not that she doesn’t like me,” she explained patiently. “It’s just that she’s comfortable with you. She feels safe.”

  “I don’t know anything about kids.”

  She suspected he knew a lot more than he thought he did. “Were you the one to find her?”

  He gave a gruff nod.

  “I’ll bet she sees you as her rescuer.” She brushed the little girl’s lank brown hair off her filthy forehead. The child flinched.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “The question is, what are you going to do? If you have to leave immediately, I’ll have to take her and that will be that. But if you have a few minutes to help calm her, that would be better.” For both of you, she added silently.

  “I guess I can stay.”

  She tried not to smile. She knew that, deep down inside, he had absolutely no intention of relinquishing the child until he was sure she was okay.

  A second cop came up the walkway to stand behind Officer Riley. He grinned at Gemma appreciatively. “You a foster kid or a foster mom?”

  Since there had been nothing provocative about the comment, she gave a friendly nod. “We’re going to take the transfer slowly. Could you use a cup of coffee?”

  The man clapped his hand on Officer Riley’s shoulder. “I’ve got to run back to the station before we sign off.”

  Officer Riley looked pained. “Go ahead. Just stop and pick me up when you’re finished.”

  The other man nodded and took off again.

  “Come on in.” Gemma stepped aside. “I have a rocker in the living room. Let’s try that.”

  “Is anyone else home? Will we wake up your husband? Kids?”

  “No, I live alone.” She didn’t add that this child was her first placement. He was edgy enough about leaving the little girl.

  She watched him do a covert examination of the house as he followed her into the living room. She had moved into the house one year after her husband’s death. She still had more work to do on the old shingled colonial, but she was proud of what she had accomplished so far.

  The week she moved in, she had stripped 1970s orange shag carpeting, and sanded and varnished the oak floors underneath. She had removed four layers of wallpaper and painted all the walls with indestructible paint made especially for children’s rooms. She had decorated with attic finds and garage sale specials, but the overall effect was warm and homey. Better yet, there was nothing here that was more important than a child who might accidentally damage it. It was a house designed for children, and even though she had lived in it for only a year, it was home.

  She settled Officer Riley and his bundle in an old wicker rocker that had once graced someone’s front porch. She had painted it white and sewed a colorful red-and-blue-checked cushion for the seat. Now it sat beside her front window, where she could watch the world go by as she rocked a progression of children to sleep.

  She was more than ready for that experience.

  Officer Riley looked incongruous against the lacy wicker. She wished that she hadn’t randomly tied red and blue ribbons through the canes. It was too hard not to smile at the sight of a large-boned, six-foot cop in a sober black uniform framed by two dozen perky little bows.

  “I made her a snack,” Gemma said.

  “I already fed her a cupcake.”

  “Oh. And it stayed down?”

  He looked uncomfortable, as if that was something he hadn’t considered. “Yeah.”

  “That’s a bonus.” She left and returned with a plate of crackers, cheese and grapes, and a glass of milk. She set them on a table beside him, then went to the sofa for an afghan, which she carefully tucked over the child on his lap.

  She realized Officer Riley’s face was just inches from hers. He seemed to realize it, too, although he didn’t shift in the seat. “She wasn’t dressed when we found her. My partner loaned her this sweatshirt.”

  He had eyes of such a dark gray they were nearly black, hooded, guarded eyes that told her as much about the man as a six-page biography. She straightened. “I’ll be sure he gets it back. I have clothes of all sizes here. I’ll find her something comfortable to wear after she’s had a bath.”

  “You’re going to give her a bath tonight?”

  “We’ll see how she does. I’m going to take my cues from her.”

  He seemed to relax a little. “Good.” He directed his attention to the child on his lap. “Are you still hungry? The nice lady’s made you something to eat.”

  “She can call me Gemma.” Gemma reached for the plate and squatted beside the chair, holding out a cracker to the child. The little girl considered it, then lifted it from Gemma’s fingers.

  “She eats slowly, like she’s not sure where her next meal is coming from.”

  “She’ll have plenty to eat here. But probably nothing as good as a cupcake from her personal hero, Officer Riley.”

  She got to her feet and started to move away, and she was surprised when he touched her hand. She did not believe in electricity between men and women. She had never experienced it, despite having a satisfactory sexual relationship with her husband in the years before their marriage began to disintegrate. But she felt the oddest sensation when Officer Riley touched her. A stirring inside her. A restless fluttering of her senses.

  After Jimmy’s death, she had sworn off men, and she hadn’t yet regretted that decision. But now she wondered how easy it was going to be to keep that vow.

  “My name’s Farrell,” he said.

  “Farrell Riley. Born to be a cop?”

  His lips twisted into a wry, humorless smile. “Not even close.”

  She wanted to probe, but not as much as she wanted to move away. She already knew that this man, with his steel gray eyes and his roughly chiseled features, was complicated right down to his soul. She didn’t need a man, and she didn’t need complications.

  She just needed the child sitting on his lap, and the other children who would pass through her life.

  “I’ll leave you two alone.” She took a step backward, then another, before she squared her shoulders. “I’ll be in to check on you in a few minutes.”

  “We’
ll be here.”

  She went back into her kitchen, with its sunny yellow walls and red tile floor. But when she got there, she leaned against a counter and wondered why Farrell Riley had made her feel things she had given up believing in a long time ago.

  Chapter 2

  Farrell always had his morning coffee at the kitchen table where he read the headlines, the sports section and the comics. He wasn’t a slave to routine, but the simple morning ritual gave him pleasure. He liked good Colombian coffee, the way sunlight freckled the walls and floor of the old duplex, the sounds of his neighbor’s children playing in the backyard. He liked waking up slowly in his own apartment, with no one to answer to except the landlord.

  This morning the paper still lay on the front porch, and the coffee remained in the can. He shrugged into a sweater and slid his feet into loafers, grabbing his car keys off the hallway table on his way out the front door.

  Farrell had been sure it wasn’t a good idea to give Gemma Hancock his telephone number. He still didn’t know what had possessed him. Last night he had rocked the little girl to sleep and tucked her into a warm, clean bed in a cheery pink room, and he should have been done with her then. The child was in good hands. He couldn’t have asked for a kinder, more conscientious foster mother. Almost anyone else would have pried her from his arms and scrubbed her within an inch of her life. Gemma had been more concerned about the child’s spirit.

  Gemma Hancock.

  He started the engine and backed carefully out of his driveway. Gemma Hancock had been a real surprise. At first glance she had reminded him of dandelion fluff: one good puff and she would scatter in a thousand different directions. She was delicate in appearance, one of those women some men wanted to spend their lives protecting from reality.

  She wasn’t fragile or scatterbrained, of course. She was filled with good sense and goodwill, and she seemed to know acres about kids. What she didn’t know was that Farrell Riley didn’t get involved. He had left his phone number on a whim, that was all. She wouldn’t have called him if she had figured that out. But she had called him.

  The phone had been ringing as he stepped out of the shower. He had dripped water on his bedroom carpet as he answered it.

  “Officer Riley?”

  He had recognized her immediately. She had a soft, sweet voice that would soothe any child in crisis. “Mrs. Hancock?”

  “Gemma. Right. Our little one is inconsolable this morning. I don’t know if it will help or hurt things more, but if you’d like to stop by sometime in the next couple of hours, I think she’d be awfully happy to see you.”

  Our little one.

  He almost hung up the phone at that point. Did he really want to know what happened to this child? Did he really want to go back to the house with the cheerful cream-colored walls, the polished woodwork, the kitchen with its red tile floor, its slate blue cabinets, its cheerful yellow wallpaper?

  He hesitated long enough to make her contrite. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “You probably have a family of your own that keeps you busy. It’s just that—”

  He wasn’t sure why he answered that. “No, I don’t. I’ll come over in a little while. Just as soon as I’m dressed.”

  There was a short pause, then an audible intake of breath. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then we’ll look forward to seeing you.”

  Now, as he pulled up in front of the old shingled colonial with its wide porch and Easter bunny wreath on the front door, he wondered again exactly what he was getting into. He didn’t know anything about kids or women so maternal they were willing to nurture somebody else’s children.

  But even as he told himself this made no sense, he knew why he had come.

  He had come because he couldn’t make himself stay away.

  At the front door, he heard the little girl’s wailing before he could raise his hand to knock. A moment later Gemma answered with the screaming toddler resting on her hip.

  Gemma had a beautiful smile, a Madonna, earth mother, the-world-works-exactly-the-way-it’s-supposed-to smile, and she used it now. “She doesn’t like baths.”

  “I suspect she’s had very few.”

  At the sound of his voice, the little girl raised her head from Gemma’s shoulder and stared at him.

  Something clenched inside him as her tears forgot to fall. “Hi, sweetheart.”

  She pitched her little body toward him, and he took her from Gemma’s arms. “Do you mind?”

  “Except for ten minutes in the bathtub, she’s spent the last four hours welded to that very hip. No, I don’t mind.”

  “Has she been screaming since she woke up?”

  “No. We made friends over breakfast. But in her eyes, the bath was not a plus.”

  He examined the child. Her newly washed brown hair was clipped back from her face with pink poodle barrettes, exposing a skin so pale, she looked as if she’d never seen the sun. And even though her face was clean, there were still dark circles beneath her eyes, circles that didn’t belong on a child’s face. “You washed away a month of dirt.”

  A shadow crossed Gemma’s face. “I almost wish I hadn’t.”

  He cocked his head. He didn’t understand.

  “She’s got some nasty bruises,” Gemma said.

  The fury that had simmered since he had found the child in the closet threatened to erupt. He swallowed. The child rested her head against his chest and sniffed and shuddered.

  “I have an appointment with the pediatrician this afternoon for a good checkup.” Gemma stepped aside so he could enter the house.

  He followed her to the kitchen. The house smelled like cinnamon and yeast, and as they neared the kitchen, the smell of coffee joined the others with mouthwatering intensity. His stomach rumbled.

  Gemma stopped at a restaurant-sized stove and motioned him to a seat at the table. “We were up early, so I baked fresh cinnamon rolls. Our little friend helped me. She can shake a cinnamon can like nobody’s business.”

  Our little friend. Farrell settled the child against his chest. She had burrowed her fingers into the yarn of his sweater with fierce possessiveness. Obviously the sweater would go before she did.

  “How do you like your coffee?” Gemma asked.

  Farrell looked up. Gemma, in a leaf green dress the color of her eyes, was standing in front of him with a plate heaped with fragrant rolls.

  For a moment he could think only about how he liked his women. Not warm, soft-spoken and infinitely feminine, like this one. He liked his women remote, casual and ready to move on at a moment’s notice. He didn’t encourage relationships. He dated, and sometimes he dated long enough to have sex. But he carefully chose women who didn’t want more, women who for their own reasons wanted no ties and no heartaches.

  This woman was one big heartache waiting to happen.

  “Maybe you’d rather have juice. Or tea?” She wrinkled her forehead. “No, you’re definitely not the tea type. A cop who drinks tea?” She laughed.

  “I like my coffee black.”

  “Easy to please.”

  He watched her search for the perfect mug, then pour coffee right up to the rim. He did not want to notice the way she moved, as if she was slow dancing to music that no one else could hear.

  She didn’t hover. She set the mug far enough from him that the child couldn’t grab it; then she settled herself across the round oak table, which was set with place mats shaped like brightly colored pieces of fruit. His coffee sat on an apple, hers on an orange. A half-eaten bowl of cereal with a child-sized spoon beside it rested on a banana.

  “I hope we discover her name.” Gemma sipped her coffee with unconscious grace.

  “Has she said anything today?”

  Gemma looked at the little girl. “No, but she understands what we say to her, don’t you, honey? I’ve told her that’s what I’ll call her, because her hair is the color of honey.”

  “Does she know what honey is?”
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br />   “She does now. I showed her, and she dipped her fingers in the jar. That kept her busy for a little while.”

  “How did she sleep last night?”

  “Sporadically.”

  “I’ll make it my business to follow up on this.”

  Gemma didn’t ask him to elaborate. Both of them knew he was talking about finding the little girl’s parents. “Well…” She smiled. “So, Officer Riley…” She appeared to make a decision. “Farrell. Does this happen to you often?”

  “Does what happen to me?”

  “Do you find yourself in strange kitchens providing support and counseling?”

  “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “Well, I appreciate your coming, and so does she.”

  “How do you handle everything when you have a whole bunch of needy kids at the same time?”

  “I don’t know. This is my first placement.”

  For a moment he didn’t comprehend. “Your first…?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Yes. I just finished the training last week. That shows you how desperate the county is for good homes.”

  “Then you’ve never—”

  She stopped him with a wide grin. “Don’t worry. I’ve been training all my life to do this. I have a degree in child development, and I taught preschool for three years before—” She halted abruptly.

  He never probed. He did now. “Before?”

  The grin disappeared. “Before my husband died.”

  “Oh.”

  She sat back, taking her coffee with her. “I taught middle-class children who went straight from their mornings with me to music classes and gymnastics. They saw their pediatricians and dentists every six months, wore designer clothing with matching hair ribbons or baseball caps, and read me stories. I wanted to do something more personal and challenging. So here I am.”

  “If you wanted challenging, you picked the right job.”

  “I know.”

  The cinnamon roll melted in his mouth. He tore off a hunk and held it out in front of him. The little girl took it and repeated the behavior he remembered from last night. She nibbled.