Cradle and All

by M. J. Rodgers

  Reaching into the basket, Tom pulled out the last two chicken sandwiches, along with a thermos of hot chocolate. He handed Anne a sandwich and poured them each a cup of the chocolate.

  Anne didn’t know if it was because she had missed breakfast or because the fresh air was adding a special seasoning zest, but the sandwich tasted wonderful and so did the hot chocolate. She polished them off in record time.

  She stroked the sleeping baby in her arms, enjoying the feel of him, the sun on her skin. The sky was clear as glass. The trees all around them were full of songbirds, and a hawk circled lazily overhead. From deep within the trees came the sound of water rushing over rock.

  “Nature’s always been the best cathedral,” Tom said as he lay on his side watching her, his comment perfectly mirroring her thoughts.

  “Did you grow up in the country?” Anne asked, curious to know more about this very different man.

  “Far from it. I was born in Boston, brought up in New York City.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s as far from it as it gets. Brothers? Sisters?”

  “Only child.”

  “Maureen said the vestry was at first concerned that you’d never been married. They thought it odd.”

  “Do you think it odd, Anne?”

  “You don’t get to ask the questions now,” Anne said. “It’s my turn. So, why haven’t you married?”

  He hesitated before he answered, and she could feel his eyes on her. “I’ve been waiting for my soul mate.”

  “I hear that term a lot these days. Never been clear about its definition. So, what’s the difference between a marriage mate and a soul mate?”

  “None, if you’ve selected right.”

  “You know what I mean,” Anne said, her eyes rising to his.

  “A person who is only a marriage mate will see the mistakes in what you do. But a soul mate will only see the love.”

  Anne wondered if there really were relationships in which each partner only saw the other’s love. “Sounds wonderful,” she admitted. “And totally unbelievable.”

  “Wonderful, unbelievable things are called miracles, Anne. And they happen all the time.”

  No, Anne didn’t believe in miracles. But a priest obviously had to. She also imagined he had to be extra careful to marry the right person. Was that why he wasn’t marrying the mother of his child? He didn’t believe she was his soul mate?

  “What made you decide to become a priest?” Anne asked after a moment.

  “It’s a long story and best left for another time.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Because as the lead in that story, I’m not always a sympathetic character,” Tom admitted. “I’d prefer you learn about some of my good points first.”

  “You have some good points?” she asked, not able to resist the opening.

  That got a grin out of him. “A few.”

  “Name one.”

  “Well, let’s see. I don’t rob banks.”

  “The former prosecutor in me is impressed. Anything else?”

  “I’m a good listener.”

  “So was my beagle...after I got him fixed.”

  Tom’s laugh was deep and vibrant, and resonated like fine music inside her. A whole chorus of her own feminine chords was eagerly joining right in. She was going to have to be very careful. Tom was proving far too likable for her own good.

  “My turn to ask questions,” he said. “Where are you from?”

  “I never really know how to answer that question,” Anne admitted. “I was born in California, but I was only there the first couple of months of my life. My father was a career military officer. We moved every eighteen months.”

  “The travel must have been fun,” Tom said.

  “Sometimes, but I lost a lot of friends and memories.”

  “Memories?” Tom repeated.

  “The kind that come back when you pick up an old photo or something else from your past.”

  Anne told him then about being invited to her college roommate’s home for Thanksgiving and seeing all the stuff she had in her bedroom—dolls, toys, books, old school papers and report cards. Anne had never been able to keep any of those things. “When you’re always moving,” she explained, “you have to travel light.”

  “I understand,” Tom said, and oddly enough, Anne could see that understanding right there on his face.

  Before she knew it, she was telling him about the places she had lived, how her father had finally retired and moved to Boston, the thrill of getting the news when she had been accepted into law school, and later, the recruitment call from the Boston prosecutor’s office.

  “I was with them for eight years,” Anne said.

  “Twice as long as your marriage,” Tom commented. “You must have liked it better.”

  “When I put some really serious sinners behind bars.”

  “And when you didn’t?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t like to think about the ones that got away with what they had done.”

  “No one ever really gets away, Anne.”

  “Maybe not, but it sure would have been nice to see them pay for their sins in this lifetime.”

  Tom rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. To Anne it seemed pale after the rich blue of his eyes.

  “So you decided to become a judge to see that those serious sinners got what was coming to them.”

  Anne laughed. “Hardly. I handle mostly probate, divorces, adoptions and deadbeat dads. Not exactly hardened criminals.”

  “Then something else made you change jobs?”

  She hesitated for a moment. These were not things she normally talked about. Still, it was surprisingly easy to talk to Tom. She supposed that was part of what made him a good priest.

  When he was a good priest.

  “I was on the fast track with the Boston district attorney’s office when the governor called with the offer of the judgeship here in the Berkshires,” Anne said. “I was ready to turn it down.”

  “And then?”

  “Then suddenly my marriage was falling apart and the job offer began to sound like a chance for a new start.”

  “So, taking the job here was a way to try to distance yourself from the pain,” Tom said with understanding. “Did it work?”

  “It helped,” she admitted. “Although I never planned to stay in either the job or the Berkshires. I froze in these hills my first winter here. But before I knew it, a year had gone by and somehow the job had grown on me.”

  “How do you mean?”

  His question wasn’t casual. There was genuine interest in his voice, and Anne found herself trying to put into words what it really felt like.

  “Law sets the standard for what’s right and wrong. Every time I hand down a decision, I’m impacting lives, possibly changing them forever. I can’t afford to be wrong. The job’s exacting, humbling and exhilarating all at the same time.”

  “I know what you mean,” Tom said.

  Anne realized Tom wasn’t just politely agreeing with her. She hadn’t thought of it before, but it must be like that for a priest, as well—impacting lives, possibly changing them forever.

  “If you don’t want to talk about why you became a priest, can you at least tell me why you’re in the Berkshires?”

  “I came because my bishop asked me to, and the Church of the Good Shepherd accepted me. I’ve stayed because of the people.”

  “Anyone in particular?” Anne asked, wondering if he intended to tell her now about the mother of his child.

  “No one in particular,” Tom said. “And everyone in particular.”

  “That was helpful,” she said with sweet sarcasm.

  Tom flashed her a grin. “Last summer Phyllis Cooper came by with flowers
for the altar. She found me making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for those seniors we visited today. Every Sunday since, I’ve received a basket like this one. Clint Cooper donated the sandwiches today, made from the fresh chicken that Ed Taylor, a local farmer, supplies. Martha Dorn bakes the cupcakes Shirley likes so much. The superb hot chocolate is from the Tubbs’ café. The basket, cup and utensils all come from Philo and Phyllis’s general store. These people give from their heart, Anne, because they have so much heart to give.”

  And so, it seemed, did Tom. He was that combination of opposite qualities that Anne never would have imagined possible—a man capable of great commitment to his parishioners, but no commitment to the woman with whom he had conceived a child.

  The realization that she was still strongly drawn to him, even knowing the latter, was dangerous to Anne’s peace of mind, even her sense of self. Men didn’t change, no matter how much women wanted to believe they would. She saw ample evidence of that every day in her court. If she let herself feel something for Tom, the likelihood was that he would treat her just like he was treating Tommy’s mother.

  “Don’t believe it, Anne,” he said.

  She looked over at him and realized he had been watching her. “What?”

  “Whatever it was about me that suddenly put that frown on your face,” Tom answered.

  The man was also a little too perceptive for comfort.

  “Let me take Tommy for a while and give you a chance to stretch out,” Tom offered.

  Carefully, as though afraid to break the blessed spell of quiet, Anne handed Tom the sleeping baby. She lay on her side and watched the gentle way Tom cradled the baby to him, how he smiled as he tenderly stroked his son’s hair.

  Then Tommy stirred and stretched, opened his eyes, took one look at Tom and let out a wail. “Well, it was a nice twenty seconds while it lasted,” Tom said good-naturedly.

  He went about the business of changing the little boy’s diaper, and Tommy continued to wail throughout the entire process.

  “Maybe he does have colic,” Anne said.

  “He just wants you to hold him,” Tom said.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He scooted over to Anne and handed her the freshly diapered baby. Tommy immediately snuggled close within her arms and stopped crying.

  “I rest my case, Judge.”

  Humor shone in Tom’s eyes as the sun streaked gold through his hair. He suddenly reminded Anne of a blond Lucifer—the brightest and best of all the angels, before his fall.

  Tom was close beside her—so close that she could smell the clean, woodsy scent of him mixed with that enticing spice of incense.

  “The boy knows where he wants to be,” Tom’s deep voice said. “I don’t blame him.”

  She could feel his breath against her hair as he spoke, the warmth of his long, lean body. Slowly, with focused intent, Tom’s eyes caressed her light copper bangs, her high cheekbones, her too-short nose, her too-wide mouth. Only, when his eyes touched them, her features no longer felt flawed, but beautiful.

  Anne had never been made love to with just a look before. Her face felt hot at the same time that chills raced up her spine.

  “I promised my mother I’d never get involved with a Porsche man,” she said, hoping Tom couldn’t hear the hint of panic in her voice.

  His eyes brushed the pink rising in her cheeks. “I’ll put it up for sale tomorrow.”

  Suddenly Anne was finding it very difficult to draw in a steady breath.

  “What will you ask for it?” she said.

  His eyes focused intently on her lips. “Thinking of making me an offer?”

  “Maybe I’d best check out the mileage first,” she said, acutely aware that they were no longer talking about a car.

  His eyes rose to hers. “Keep in mind, Anne. A little mileage often makes an engine run smoother and handle better around the curves.”

  His voice was way too warm and she felt way too hot.

  “No need to worry,” he said, as though reading her mind once again. “As much as I’m tempted to offer you a test drive, they’re not in keeping with the policy of the management.”

  With one swift, fluid movement, he shifted back to the other side of the blanket.

  Anne’s heart pounded in her ears.

  She was used to fending off physical advances. Hell, she could handle them in her sleep. But she hadn’t been prepared for Tom’s restraint. And she knew from every sizzling nerve ending in her body that it was a great deal more dangerous.

  When she met Tom’s eyes across the blanket, there was no mistaking the heat still in them. Or how perfectly he con-trolled it.

  She had never met a man like him. She was beginning to think that might be because there were no other men like him.

  Anne’s cell phone screeched, distracting her thoughts. She sat up, dug the phone out of her shoulder bag, flipped it open and said hello.

  “It’s Fred,” her friend’s voice said in her ear. “I’ve got a possible sighting on that old rusty-red VW Beetle you were looking for.”

  “Great,” Anne said, suddenly wondering if it really were. “Where?”

  “One of the guys who came on shift a few minutes ago says he saw it going into a campground north of here the night before last. Ready for the directions?”

  Anne dug out a pen and paper from her shoulder bag and jotted down the information Fred gave her. She thanked her friend and flipped the phone shut.

  “The VW?” Tom asked.

  “About forty minutes from here,” Anne said, as she began to rise, the baby still in her arms.

  Tom shot to his feet. He wore the look of a different man.

  “You get the baby in the car. I’ll take care of this stuff.”

  Then, with an efficiency that amazed her, he gathered the remnants of their picnic lunch and beat her to the car.

  * * *

  TOM DROVE THE Porsche into the campground thirty-two minutes later. They met no other cars on the road. It was late in the season for skiers and early for campers. All the trailer hookups they drove past were empty.

  “You realize the sighting was the night before last,” Anne said. “She may have come and gone.”

  “Let’s see if there’s anyone around,” Tom said. “Hiking in this area is popular year-round. Someone might have seen her.”

  Anne sensed a focused intensity in Tom. Whatever his relation to the mother of his child, it was clear to Anne that he really wanted to find her.

  The area was heavily wooded, and trees blocked out the warmth of the sun.

  They saw an RV pulled off onto a side road and stopped. Anne felt the cold when Tom got out of the car to go knock on its door. She was glad she was staying within the warmth of the vehicle.

  A thin, dark man wearing a noisy yellow shirt answered Tom’s knock. From the shake of his head, Anne knew before Tom returned to the car that he hadn’t seen the old VW Beetle.

  Tom took the winding road farther up into the hills. They climbed slowly, looking out the windows for any sign of the rusty-red car. They stopped once more for Tom to ask questions at the door of another RV on the other side of the campground. But no one answered Tom’s knock.

  When the Porsche started to slide on the icy road, Tom turned the car around and headed back.

  “It was a long shot that she’d still be here,” Anne said after a moment.

  “Yes,” Tom agreed.

  “Fred will call if there are any more sightings,” she added.

  “Yes.”

  Anne knew Tom was disappointed, and her words weren’t helping. She gave up, settled back and let the quiet grow between them as she gazed out the window.

  White pines and spruce, thick with age, lined the road. They were majestic in their grandeur,
silent sentries to thousands of sunrises. Beneath their dense canopy of green, the forest floor was covered in a white sheet of frost.

  Birds flittered in and out of the branches. Soon they’d be building nests. This was Anne’s favorite time of year in the Berkshires—when new life boldly asserted itself, transforming the bareness of winter into the vibrant green and gold of spring.

  She wasn’t looking for it. Which was why when she saw it, she wasn’t sure she had.

  Anne came forward in her seat. “Stop!”

  Tom’s reflexes were instantaneous. The car came to a halt before Anne had time to take another breath.

  He turned to face her. “What is it?”

  “Back there. Between the trees. I saw a flash of something red.”

  Tom slowly backed up the car, following Anne’s pointing hand. She peered out the window, waiting once again to glimpse that flash of red. But when they reached the spot where she thought she had seen it, there was nothing there.

  She shook her head. “I could have sworn...”

  Tom shifted the car into neutral and set the brake. “Wait here,” he said as he slipped out of the driver’s seat.

  She watched as he walked over to the edge of the road. He peered into the thick underbrush, then dropped to his knees. A minute later he got up, walked a few paces down the road, then squatted again to survey the terrain.

  He was trying to approximate the height range of her vision out of the passenger window, she realized. When he suddenly stiffened, she knew he had seen it. Without hesitation, he started down the steep slope.

  Anne was out of the car in a flash.

  By the time she had reached the spot where Tom had gone over the side, he was already pushing through the frosty underbrush in the deep gully below. She made a mental note to add mountain goat to Tom’s growing list of talents.

  Anne was freezing in the icy air, but she stood rooted to her spot on the road. About fifty feet in, Tom came to a stop and started clearing away fallen branches and debris. A moment later the fender of a rusty-red VW Beetle came into view.