Cradle and All

by M. J. Rodgers

  “What about the baby’s mother?” Anne asked. “Where is she? And why did she suddenly saddle you with sole care of the child?”

  “There are some things I’m not able to talk about.”

  “Not able to talk about? I would think confessing the baby is yours is about as damning an admission as it gets.”

  It was clear to Tom that Anne didn’t often say things she regretted, but she had just now. Two pink ribbons stained her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That was out of line. It’s not my place to judge you. Occupational hazard, I guess.”

  Still, at the moment, she didn’t look like a judge. She looked like a disillusioned woman.

  And Tom knew why. She had thought better of him. The last thing he had wanted to do was change that. But that’s exactly what he had just done. And he knew in his gut that her disappointment wasn’t generated just from the fact that he was a priest, but from the fact that she was attracted to him.

  That knowledge pumped through Tom like adrenaline, lifting the heavy weariness of the sleepless night.

  Anne was soon going to realize that since the baby was with his father, her concern as a judge had ceased. And when she realized that, she’d leave, no doubt never to return.

  Tom had no intention of letting that happen.

  “Do me a favor?” he asked.

  Anne looked up cautiously as he approached. “What?”

  “Hold the baby while I take a shower?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t have a good track record with babies. Every time I’ve held my sister’s kids, they’ve wailed their heads off.”

  “That’s no problem here. This one’s already wailing.”

  Before she could think of another objection, Tom gently laid the crying little boy in Anne’s lap.

  She carefully closed her arms around the baby, gathering him gently against her. The infant’s harsh wail ended abruptly. With a soft sigh, he settled his little head against her breast, closed his eyes and went to sleep, just as though he had done it a hundred times.

  Blessed quiet reigned.

  “You’re as good as an African drumbeat,” Tom said with a happy grin.

  Anne flashed him a look that could have pounded a few tom-toms.

  But when her eyes settled back on the baby, her lips drew into a soft smile.

  “What’s his name?” she asked, and her voice was suddenly a deep throaty sigh with a touch of wonder in it.

  That change in her voice made Tom pause. “Tommy for now.”

  Anne heard an odd note in Tom’s voice. But when she looked up, he had already turned and entered the hall leading to the rest of his quarters.

  Tom Christen was proving to be one complicated, perplexing man. She looked again at the tiny bundle of warmth in her arms. And this was his sweet little baby. Incredible. She still couldn’t quite get her mind around it.

  Who was the child’s mother? Where was she? Why hadn’t Tom married her?

  Even as she asked those questions, Anne knew she was being foolish. Her official interest in the case had ended the moment she learned that Tom was the baby’s father. The smart thing for her to do was hand the baby back to him as soon as possible and get the hell out of there.

  And since Anne prided herself on being a smart woman, that was exactly what she planned to do.

  * * *

  DR. FELIX DORN warmed his stethoscope on his forearm before placing it on the tiny chest of the wailing baby. He leaned forward, his wispy white hair standing straight up as he listened intently to Tommy’s heart and lungs.

  The baby’s thrusting hand grasped the edge of the doctor’s horn-rimmed glasses, pulled them off his face and flung them onto the floor. The doctor ignored the interruption and continued his examination.

  Anne picked the doctor’s glasses off the floor and handed them to Martha Dorn, who was holding on to little Tommy while her husband examined him.

  “What’s wrong with him, Doctor?” Anne asked.

  Tom noted the tiny crease of concern between Anne’s eyebrows. He knew the moment he’d showed Anne the baby’s rash that she would insist on rushing Tommy to the nearest doctor. Tom had counted on both her decisiveness and take-charge attitude. She hadn’t disappointed him.

  Dr. Dorn removed his stethoscope, calmly retrieved his glasses from his wife’s outstretched hand and set them back on his nose. Although he and his wife had moved to Cooper’s Corner to retire, Felix Dorn was not unwilling to see the occasional patient.

  “The rash is roseola, Mrs. Vandree,” Dr. Dorn answered. “It’s a viral infection. Fairly common. He’ll be grumpy for the twenty-four hours or so that he has it.”

  “What can be done for him?” she asked.

  “Just be patient,” Dr. Dorn said. “He’s probably had the fever for several days. The rash is the last stage. He seems a bit thin.”

  “He gets hungry regularly,” Tom offered, “but he doesn’t take much from the bottle.”

  Dr. Dorn’s white caterpillar eyebrows shot up. “Bottle?” He turned his sharp eyes on Anne. “Don’t you know how important a mother’s milk is for a baby’s health?”

  “I didn’t give birth to this baby,” Anne blurted out in immediate protest.

  “An adoptive mother can still breast-feed,” Dr. Dorn said, totally undeterred. “I’ll give you a list of things you’ll need to start taking, along with the techniques to get the milk flowing. Now, when you shower, I want you to use a bath sponge to toughen up your nipples so that—”

  “But I’m not the baby’s adoptive mother, either,” Anne managed to interject.

  “Then what are you doing with this baby?” Dr. Dorn asked in confusion.

  “Dear...” Martha spoke up, grabbing her husband’s arm to gain his attention over the baby’s screaming. “Anne brought the baby in to help out Father Tom. It’s the one that was left at the church last night. The one Philo and Phyllis were telling us about this morning?”

  “Oh, he’s that baby.” Dr. Dorn’s glasses slipped to the end of his nose. His pale-blue eyes peered over the rims at Anne. “When a woman brings me a baby, I assume it’s hers. Pity he isn’t. You petite types are always the best milk producers.”

  The doctor turned back to Tom. “Let him eat as much as he wants, as often as he wants. The baby formula Philo carries at the general store will have to do, I suppose, since there’s no one around to provide a mother’s milk.”

  Dr. Dorn sent an admonishing glance at Anne, as though she was still somehow responsible for that. With silent amusement, Tom watched Anne exhale in frustration.

  Martha Dorn handed the screaming baby to Tom.

  “Keep him cuddled and feeling secure,” Dr. Dorn said. “A baby bonds with his parents, especially his mother, by three months. This poor little fella is no doubt in separation anxiety on top of being grumpy from the roseola.”

  “What do I owe you, Felix?” Tom asked, handing the baby to Anne in order to get at his wallet.

  The baby stopped crying the instant Anne wrapped him in her arms.

  Felix and Martha Dorn turned to stare at her and the baby.

  “Babies his age don’t generally take to strangers,” Dr. Dorn said in a tone that sounded a bit more like that of a suspicious detective than an easygoing country doctor.

  “Is it true that you, too, arrived in town last night?” Martha Dorn asked Anne, as though she were trying to make her inquiry sound merely conversational.

  “He’s got your nose,” Dr. Dorn said as he looked from Anne to the baby.

  “Both purely coincidental, I assure you,” Anne said, not missing the open speculation shining out of both wrinkled, aged faces before her.

  “If you say so, dear,” Martha Dorn said just a bit too sweetly.

  Anne glance
d at the ceiling as though asking for help, or strength, or both. It took every ounce of Tom’s control not to smile.

  He held up his wallet, trying to catch Felix Dorn’s attention.

  “Don’t be silly, Tom,” Dr. Dorn said, waving away the offer. “You know I’m retired. I’m just happy to help out where I can.”

  * * *

  “WOULD YOU DO something for me?” Tom asked Anne as they exited the doctor’s house and headed toward his car.

  The look she flashed him left no doubt about how dangerous it was for him to be even thinking of asking her for a favor at the moment.

  Tom bit his lip to hold back his smile. “I’d just like you to take a look at my shopping list to see if I’ve missed anything.”

  Anne shifted little Tommy to her right side as she glanced at the list Tom held out. “Just diapers and formula? How long will you have Tommy?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Days? Weeks?”

  “Could be. You think I’ll need something else?” Tom asked in his most innocent tone.

  “Well, to start with, baby cream, lotion, blankets... You’d better write this down.”

  Tom slapped his pockets. “Don’t seem to have a pen on me.”

  Anne sent him the lethal look of a judge boring a hole in a defendant’s feeble excuse. Tom smiled at her, hoping to be granted some mercy. It wasn’t working. But Tommy’s muffled little sigh against Anne’s breast softened her expression. The kid had great timing.

  “I’d best come with you,” she said.

  “Whatever you say,” Tom replied as he held open the car door for her.

  * * *

  TOM CARRIED THE crying baby down the narrow aisles of Cooper’s Corner General Store. He’d read once that the Occupational Health and Safety Act protected employees from excessive noise in the workplace. Obviously, OSHA had never recorded the decibels of a wailing baby or every parent would be issued mandatory protective ear wear.

  “Here they are,” Anne called out from a few steps in front of him.

  As Tom watched, Anne picked up every one of the diaper packages to compare their features. He knew it would be a while before she made her selection. She had been just as meticulous with the other items on the shopping list she had carefully prepared. This was not a woman who made careless choices.

  Tommy whacked Tom’s ear with a flailing hand. Tom caught the tiny hand in his and stroked it gently. This business of being a parent was no picnic. It had only been one night and Tom was already done in. It wasn’t from lack of sleep or even the baby’s constant crying. It was from his inability to ease the little boy’s sorrow.

  Giving comfort was a big part of Tom’s job. The knowledge that he was in over his head with this tiny baby was humbling.

  Tom cuddled and rocked and wondered what magic Anne’s arms carried that calmed the baby so quickly. Maybe he should try them and find out for himself.

  Anne finally placed a large package of disposable diapers in their cart and checked it off her list. “Okay, we have the formula, bottles, baby wipes, soap, shampoo, cream, lotion, cotton swabs, blankets, diapers. He arrived in a car seat, so that’s covered. Next is the crib.”

  “No need to spend money on a new crib,” Lori Tubb said as she sidled up to Tom. “I’ve got a perfectly good portable one I use for my grandchildren, and serviceable sheets, as well. I’ll drop them off at the church this afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Lori,” Tom yelled over the baby’s crying as he turned to smile at his parishioner.

  Lori was short and rotund, with a sunny disposition, dark eyes and hair. She and her husband, Burt, were owners of the village’s café and longtime members of the church’s vestry, the body of laypeople who, along with Tom, were responsible for running the Church of the Good Shepherd.

  “May I hold him?” Lori asked.

  Tom nodded and handed the little boy to her.

  The baby’s cry immediately escalated into a screech. “Oh, my,” Lori said. “Does he have colic?”

  “Dr. Dorn says he’s getting over a viral infection,” Tom yelled.

  Lori bounced the baby as she glanced at the contents of the shopping basket. She pulled out the blankets Anne had dropped in just a moment before. “I’ve extra blankets, so you don’t have to waste your money on these. I’ll just put them back on the shelf.”

  “You hold it right there, Lori Tubb,” Phyllis Cooper, co-owner of the general store, said as she walked up behind her.

  Lori turned to bravely face Phyllis, who was only a couple of inches taller but whose wild cloud of gray-blond hair made her seem a great deal more formidable.

  “I was just trying to save Father Tom some money, Phyl.”

  Phyllis grabbed the blankets out of Lori’s hands and dumped them back into the shopping basket. “You think Philo and me would charge Tom for these baby things? We know it’s hard enough on him, assuming the care of this little abandoned boy.”

  “Sorry, Phyl,” Lori said, sincerely contrite.

  The baby’s screams rose until they seemed to be vibrating the glass bottles on the shelves. A customer in the adjacent aisle headed for the door.

  “Let me see if I can quiet him,” Phyllis said as she took Tommy out of Lori’s arms. Phyllis rocked and cuddled the little boy, but Tommy’s unhappy tirade raged on.

  “I’ll take him outside,” Anne said, lifting the baby out of Phyllis’s arms.

  But the instant Anne settled the baby against her chest, little Tommy’s screaming stopped. All eyes turned toward her.

  “You certainly seem to have a way with him,” Lori remarked, her tone ripe with growing interest.

  “How lucky for Father Tom that you just happened to be around,” Phyllis said, her eyebrow lifting with possibilities. “I heard you were staying up at the B and B. You here to help Father Tom find this cute little baby’s mother?”

  “No, I’m just filling in the blanks on the shopping list,” Anne said.

  “Really?” Phyllis flashed Tom a speculative look before turning back to Anne. “I didn’t know you and Tom knew each other that well.”

  “We don’t,” Anne said.

  “Yet here you are, pitching in to help him,” Lori added. “And on your vacation, too.”

  Anne’s eyes dropped to her list. “You’ll need something to carry him around in, Father Christen,” she said in her very formal judge’s tone. “I doubt you’ll want to use a towel again.”

  It was clear to Tom that Anne had caught the growing speculation coming from both Phyllis and Lori and was trying to cut it off in the bud.

  Anne obviously didn’t have a clue as to the kind of women she was up against.

  “The baby carriers are on the next shelf,” Phyllis said, pointing. “I’d recommend the over-the-shoulder sling. Keeps the baby close and frees the hands without giving you a backache. Any idea who the mother is, Father Tom?”

  “Trudi saw her car,” Lori said before Tom had a chance to respond.

  “When was this?” Phyllis asked, swiveling around to face her.

  “She was walking down Church Street last night when it whizzed right past her,” Lori said.

  Tom knew he didn’t have to ask any questions at this point. Not with Phyllis Cooper around. She was as good as any prosecuting attorney when it came to grilling a witness.

  “Did Trudi get the license number?” Phyllis asked.

  “No, it was going by too fast,” Lori answered.

  “But she got a good look at the driver?”

  “Just enough to see it was a woman.”

  “What did the woman look like?” Phyllis pushed some more.

  “I tell you, Phyl, she didn’t get that good a look.”

  “She had to have noticed whether the woman was young or old.”


  “Well, of course the woman was young. What mature woman would abandon her baby?”

  “How is Trudi doing?” Tom interjected quickly, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was suddenly going.

  “Turning into a real good waitress,” Lori said. “Glad you talked us into hiring her.”

  “She seems to take a lot of walks at night,” Phyllis said. “I’ve seen her out in all weather.”

  “She works hard,” Lori declared almost defensively. “I don’t see anything wrong with her wanting a little time to herself.”

  “Young girls shouldn’t be walking the streets alone at night,” Phyllis said.

  “She’s perfectly safe in the village.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Phyllis warned. “You never know who could be pulling off the highway.”

  The general store’s front bell tinkled as a couple came in, and Phyllis went off to wait on them.

  “I’ll check around the village to see if I can round up some baby clothes,” Lori said. “Never can have enough.”

  “Would it be possible to send Trudi by with the crib?” Tom asked. “I’d like to talk to her.”

  “Sure thing,” Lori said. “And remember, Burt and I have raised five babies of our own. You need any help, you come see us.”

  After Lori had left, Anne sent Tom an accusing look. “Either one of those women could have helped you prepare this shopping list.”

  “But you were the one who was there when I needed it prepared,” Tom said as he pushed the shopping cart toward the baby carriers. “Besides, Tommy obviously prefers you.”

  * * *

  “OKAY, I ADMIT MY curiosity has gotten the better of me,” Anne said as Tom put the last of the supplies in the back of his sleek, midnight blue sports car. “Where did a priest get a Porsche?”

  “An addiction from my previous life,” Tom confessed as he closed the back. He walked around and opened the passenger side for Anne.

  “What did you do in this previous life?” she asked.

  “I was in construction.”

  Her eyes glinted up at him. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Shall I invite you over to see my power tools?”

  A reluctant smile tugged on the corners of her lips. “I would think that a guy who wore a hard hat would be into trucks.”