by Rachel Lee
“Amen,” said Blaine. “Wasn’t about to let these gob—commissioners ride roughshod over Ms. Finch, who, by the way, was doing a grand job of standing her ground.”
Wyatt Carter turned to look at Diane. “I’m sorry if I got in your way, Ms. Finch. I’m quite sure you’re capable of handling this matter by yourself. My wife’s like that. But in my opinion, you shouldn’t even have to face this.” He smiled. “I guess I was premature.”
Diane shook her head. “I’ll stand my ground, but it’s nice to have support, Judge.”
“Wyatt,” he corrected again. Then he turned to the commissioners. “I’ve held fire on this subject, but I’m aware that a number of the clerks would like to have a room set aside for nursing their children. Which just goes to show there’s nothing wrong in this county with women bringing their infants to work. If you want something to argue about tonight, I suggest the nursing room would be a good topic. And remember, I hold the gavel.”
Then he strode out, black robes streaming behind him.
“Wow,” whispered Diane.
Blaine was pretty sure that only he heard her. He rocked the baby gently, enjoying watching her drain her bottle.
For a few minutes the commissioners remained silent. Only Madge didn’t look seriously annoyed.
“Is there something else I can do for you?” Diane asked pleasantly. “It’ll soon be time to change a diaper, then I’d like to get back to work on all the projects you’re considering. Some will be more easily accomplished than others, but I need to be familiar with them all to write the plan and start seeking grants.”
Allcoke cleared his throat. “You want a list of priorities?”
“If you can give me one. It might come down to my judgment about how quickly we can gain grant money for some of them. For example, if I can get money in six months for that scenic road, I’m sure you’d like me to do that rather than wait on a grant process that could take years.”
Now heads were nodding with her.
“We’d like your assessment, Ms. Finch,” Madge said. “That would be a great help to us.”
“Just call me Diane, please,” she said. “Very well. I’ll view the proposals and ideas from the perspective of earliest funding. It might take me a few days.”
Holdrum waved a hand. “Take as long as you need,” he said glumly. “After all, we haven’t had anyone working on this in entirely too long.”
“Would you like a presentation tonight, a general outline of what I’m planning to do?”
“That would be nice,” Holdrum agreed. He sighed. “I wish I’d never allowed myself to be pushed into this, Ms. Finch. I’m sorry.”
* * *
“Victory,” Blaine said when they returned to her office and closed the door. At once, Diane set about changing Daphne’s diaper, then burping her gently with a receiving blanket thrown over her shoulder.
“The big guns certainly arrived,” she said. “I never expected that.”
“Well, the whole damn place has been buzzing today because everyone heard about this so-called meeting. Hardly surprising that Wyatt showed up. I’m not prepared to instruct those people on what’s legal and what isn’t. Not my place, and I happen to like my job. But Wyatt...well, all he did was back up what you were saying. You’re allowed to have a kid. The law favors you. When he said so, they could hardly argue.”
Diane paced the small confines of her office, loving Daphne’s baby scents, loving the warmth on her shoulder. The little girl made some cooing noises, then drifted into contented sleep.
“What do you think that was all about?” she asked. “It seemed strange.”
“’Twas indeed. At first I thought it was intelligence gathering, but then I had another idea when they asked the question about the application you supplied.”
She stiffened a little, then forced herself to relax so as not to disturb Daphne. “As in I lied on it?”
“Perhaps. No way to be certain. But I’d sure like to know what eejit was behind it.”
“Me, too.”
Daphne expelled one of her adorable gas bubbles, and Diane used the edge of the receiving blanket to wipe a little milk from her mouth. “This one makes a lot of washing. I’m glad my rental has a washer and dryer. I’d go nuts trying to keep up with all this if I had to use a public laundry. Is there even one around here?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t seen one. The apartment complex has laundries for its tenants, but I guess most folks around here have their own machines, however old. I hear the appliance repair guy does a booming business.”
“I can easily imagine that.” She continued to pace, a glance at the clock telling her it was nearly lunch hour. Well, she’d brought along a peanut butter sandwich for herself and some cucumber spears. No need to go out with the baby, something she tried to avoid because she didn’t think she was ready to deal with even something as small as a cold.
Her knowledge of small children seemed ridiculously limited for a thirty-two-year-old woman. Embarrassingly paltry. For the first time in her life, she thought about getting a how-to book. Mothering for Dummies or something.
She glanced at Blaine and saw that he was watching her carry Daphne with a small smile on his face. “Are you missing babies or something?” she asked baldly.
He blinked, as if startled by her blunt question, then laughed. “I suppose I am. Seems like we always had one in the house needing attention.”
“Most boys would have resented that.” She paused. “Most girls, too, I guess.”
“Me mam worked hard. Everyone pitched in what they could.”
Six kids? She could well believe it. Glancing down at her shoulder, she realized Daphne had drifted off to sleep again, her little fist pressed against her mouth.
“I need to get her a playpen,” she remarked. “I’m not sure where to go, but I have no baby furniture at all.” Then she switched tack abruptly. “How did the judge get involved in that meeting? And why?”
“Wyatt’s a good sort,” Blaine answered. “I know he’s been stewing for a few months about the nursing room and trying to find a way to insert himself.”
“He didn’t have any trouble inserting himself a short while ago,” she retorted, a tremor of amusement in her voice.
“Well, he’s not the sort to be running around shoving his opinion on everyone. The commissioners gave him an excuse. I’m surprised he didn’t show up with a flaming sword.”
“Or gavel,” she answered. She shook her head a bit. “I could have handled it.”
“Sure, and weren’t you doing just that? He made it clear, I thought, that you could deal with any adversaries, but he seemed to be having a problem with their little illicit meeting.”
She nodded her head. “He did bring that up. Rather forcibly. But still mildly.” The judge had a presence to him, she thought. As Blaine did. She doubted very many messed with either of them.
“Well, I need to be getting out there to meet with a man who wants to do some work on his storefront. I don’t know if you’ve gotten around to reading all that stuff yet, but we do have historical preservation ordinances. Gotta make sure he doesn’t get too carried away.”
“Thanks for everything, Blaine.”
“No thanks needed. I had a culvert to talk about, and somehow we never got around to it. Not that it matters, since the meeting never happened.”
She wondered if he were giving her some advice in that last statement. It wouldn’t surprise her. Getting those commissioners into trouble wouldn’t be a very good way to start out, and even the judge had merely warned them.
The door closed behind Blaine, and she decided that she might as well get some work done before Daphne woke up again. She seemed more active during the day now that the confusion level had died down a bit. Diane could only suppose that was good. A baby couldn’t possibly sleep all the time, but it wo
uld be awfully nice if she weren’t awake a lot at night.
After she’d settled Daphne into the carrier, she sat at her desk again and studied the heap of folders. She needed to get that mess—it was a mess, looking like a long-accreting wish list that might be only marginally useful—onto a computer, where she could organize everything by likelihood of a grant and likelihood of ever completing it, then nail down the folks involved about what they really wanted.
Because somehow at least some of this had to be incorporated into the plan when she was getting that straight with all the newer state and federal environmental regulations.
Blaine was going to talk to a guy about his historical facade? The county engineer? Didn’t they have someone to handle that?
Remembering the list she’d seen in one of her drawers, she pulled it out and began to scan names. The date at the top said it was recent, but nowhere did she see anyone in charge of following the historic district rules. Or many rules, come to that. She wondered if that would now fall to her, as it apparently had to Blaine.
One of the downsides to a small rural area, she supposed. Well, she’d wanted more authority and responsibility. It appeared she was about to get it.
Then she looked at the stack of papers again. Damn, she needed an assistant to help get all this stuff into some kind of order. To get it on a computer where she could edit and rearrange easily.
Because she wasn’t just taking over for someone who’d kept everything up-to-date. Nope, she was on an archaeological expedition.
Chapter Four
The meeting with the full city council and commission went off without a hitch, and Diane even got permission to hire an assistant and was offered an adjoining office. She suspected that Judge Wyatt Carter’s appearance earlier had put them all on their best behavior. Not a peep about Daphne, either.
By Friday evening, she’d finished unpacking as much as she could, and took inventory of what she still needed. A chest of drawers would be very useful. A changing table. A playpen that could double as a crib unless she found one she really liked. Some more baby clothes, because at the rate she was going, she’d wear out the washer and dryer on small loads.
Daphne hadn’t come to her with very much, and she hadn’t had a whole lot of time to take care of shopping for her. The social worker had helped her over the first few steps—the car seat, the diaper bag, the set of bottles and formula—but then she’d been on her own, and there hadn’t been much she could do until now.
Nor did she have any idea where to shop or even if she could find what was needed in this town. At that moment, Daphne was wiggling and proving that a receiving blanket wasn’t big enough to create boundaries for her.
At least the floor was wood. That could be lightly mopped and kept clean. If this place had been carpeted, she wouldn’t have dared put the baby down on it, at least not until after one heck of a steam cleaning.
Leaning back in her recliner without lifting the footrest, she watched Daphne with fascination. This little life was absorbing more and more of her attention, something she hadn’t expected. All day long, even while she was working and Daphne was sleeping, thoughts of the baby danced around in the back of her mind. It was, she thought with amusement, exactly like the early days of a love affair.
Daphne was creeping—at least Diane thought that’s what it was. She’d wiggled from side to side, pushing with her legs. The blanket wasn’t exactly helping her, but it wasn’t hindering her much, either. So much effort to move a few inches.
Then Daphne reared up, pushing downward with her arms, and startled herself by rolling over. She’d been doing that all along, at least since Diane had received her, but this time she proved not to be at all pleased by the change of view.
She let out a loud cry and her face turned red as she waved her arms.
“I guess you need to learn to turn over again when you want to,” Diane said with a laugh. Rising, she gently rolled Daphne. At once the incipient temper tantrum calmed. The girl evidently had places she wanted to go. She resumed creeping, only to stop a minute later, close her eyes and fall asleep.
Such a peaceful scene. Amazing how beautiful a sleeping child could be.
The buzz of her cell phone, resting on the box she was using as an end table, surprised her. She reached for it mostly out of habit. She hadn’t been here long enough to create friendships, and her friends from the past usually called on Sunday afternoon when no one was too busy to talk.
She answered, expecting a sales call of some kind.
“Hi,” said Blaine Harrigan. “You were speaking of baby furniture. Freitag’s is open late tonight, it being Friday and all. Would you and the tot like to look around? Plus,” he added, a hint of amusement in his tone, “I’m blessed with a chariot big enough to transport any items you might decide to bring home.”
Diane, who’d just been settling in for a relaxing evening with Daphne and a book, felt a leap of pleasure. An evening with Blaine was bound to be better than a book, and Daphne might actually enjoy the stimulation. For all she didn’t want to expose the baby to some illness, the child did need to see and experience something besides an office and a living room.
And lately all kinds of things had been dancing through her mind, things like a mobile for the baby to watch, little toys she could grab and gnaw on...
“Oh, yes, I’d love that!” Her answer was enthusiastic, but she honestly didn’t know whether her enthusiasm was more for shopping or for being out with Blaine.
She guessed it didn’t matter, though. She not only had a new job and a new baby, but she also had a new life to build. Friends made any locale a far more enjoyable place to live.
Although, she thought as she picked Daphne up in order to change her and dress her more warmly for the outing, the baby would probably limit her social life for a while.
That was okay, she thought as she snuggled the warm little body close. This mother thing was okay, more okay than she’d expected.
* * *
Blaine had been so busy with the culvert and a number of other issues that seemed to spring up like weeds that he’d hardly seen Diane since the day of the meeting.
But that didn’t mean she’d been out of mind while she was out of sight. No, she rather haunted him like a wraith at the edge of his mind.
No, not a wraith, he corrected himself. Damn, the Irish in him was getting the better of his thoughts. A wraith wasn’t a good thing. In fact, the idea of a wraith could make a chill run down his spine, and he didn’t hold himself to be especially superstitious.
But Diane had been haunting his thoughts, popping up unexpectedly at odd moments, accompanied by an impulse to go see her. It had been years since a woman had reached him that way, an occasion he didn’t like to remember because he’d been young and callow and had made an utter arse of himself. Anyone with a hair of sense would have realized she wasn’t interested, that she was merely patting him on the head like a puppy.
He’d survived that and put it in the past, but he hoped he was wiser now. He was certainly older. But there was no escaping the way Diane appealed to him. Easy enough to handle, he assured himself. And right now all he was doing was helping a new coworker settle in.
He dumped all the maps from the back seat of his SUV into the cargo area to make it ready for Daphne’s car seat. It was going to be just like old times, putting a car seat in a car.
The coming autumn was putting a bit of nip in the evening air, so he closed the car door before going to get Diane.
She opened the door immediately, and the smile she gave him suggested that she might have been dealing with a bit of cabin fever. Well, she’d hardly had a chance to do anything except work and care for the babe. She was hunting for an assistant, but every time he popped his head into her office, she’d been buried in files, tapping at her computer or changing a diaper. Not much of a life for such a fine young wo
man who didn’t have any help at home.
The baby was already in her car seat and covered by a light receiving blanket. Blaine took her and peeked under the blanket. “Sure and she’s growing.”
Diane laughed. “Her clothes certainly say so.”
The drive to Freitag’s Mercantile wasn’t a long one. “Well, nothing in this town is much of a drive from anywhere else,” Blaine said. “Freitag’s goes back to the earliest days of this town. I hope you’re liking creaky wood floors and crammed space. I’m thinking we should carry Daphne in without the seat.”
“That crowded, huh?”
“Loaded with all sorts of good stuff. I think the owner’s trying to prevent people from driving to bigger cities.”
Diane laughed. “A noble goal. Business stays at home, then jobs stay at home.”
“I’m in the way of thinking some of the salespeople in there have had those jobs since Freitag’s opened.”
A laugh spilled from Diane again, this time freer and more comfortable than the first.
She climbed out without his assistance and opened the rear door, disturbing Daphne as she removed her from her seat. “Come on, sweetheart, we’ve got all kinds of new things to look at.”
Indeed, thought Blaine as he took charge of the diaper bag.
Woman and child walking into the store. An iconic image, he thought, despite the modern clothes. Damn, he was turning sappy, a questionable thing for an engineer. Logic. Science.
And a woman and a baby.
Laughing at himself, he walked into Freitag’s behind her. Daphne was awake, bright little eyes hopping around, one fist against her mouth. He wondered how long it would be before all the unaccustomed stimulus overwhelmed her.
The baby merchandise was all stashed in a large alcove at the rear of the store. It wasn’t the biggest selection, but it was adequate for whatever Diane might consider to be her immediate needs.
Rubbing Daphne’s back, Diane began to wander around looking at everything. “Changing table,” she remarked.
