SOMEBODY'S BABY

by Marilyn Pappano

At the door, Sarah stopped and faced Daniel once again. "It must be nice, Daniel, to be so perfect. To never make a mistake, to never be faced with choices that are all bad. It's just a shame that, in creating such perfection, a few things got lost. Things like humanity and compassion and understanding. But you don't miss them at all, do you?"

  There was a tightness in his gut, as if he'd taken an unexpectedly painful blow. He stared at the place where she had stood long after she was gone.

  This is ridiculous, he told himself. She was a stranger, a woman he'd spent one weekend with. She meant nothing to him. Why, then, should her insult carry such power? Of course, no man liked to be told that he lacked the qualities that made him human, but, coming from Sarah, the words should be meaningless. They sure as hell shouldn't hurt … but they did.

  Zachary was the first to break the strained silence. "Maybe…" He cleared his throat and hesitantly looked at his friend. "Maybe you should let her see Katie." When Daniel started to protest, he rushed on. "Just a couple of hours a week, with you there. Is that asking so much?"

  "It's too much. Just yesterday you were advising me not to give Katie to her if she showed up next month. Now you're saying I should let her spend time with her?"

  "Yesterday we were talking about a woman I'd never seen before, and—"

  Daniel interrupted angrily. "If you think she's that pretty, Zach, believe me, you can have her—easily. She went to bed with me; she'll jump at the chance to do it with you."

  Zachary made an impatient gesture. "Shut up, Daniel," he commanded in a disgusted voice. "We're talking about a woman who would beg you if she thought that would make you let her see her baby again. Maybe you would get a kick out of that, out of seeing her on her knees."

  Daniel's gaze dropped to the floor. He didn't want to make Sarah beg. He just wanted her out of his life, out of Katie's life. He wanted to continue living with Katie, caring for her, loving her, as he'd done the past eleven months.

  He didn't want to lose her.

  And that was what would happen. He was sure of it. Sarah would take one look at Katie and fall in love with her. And Katie—she adored everyone, but she would especially love someone as soft and pretty and sweet as Sarah. There would be ties between them that the little girl wouldn't understand, but she would feel them, and everyone else would know it.

  If he ever allowed Sarah to get reacquainted with Katie, when they went to court, he would surely lose. The jury would take one look at him, the big fierce hermit who lived all alone at the top of a mountain, and at Sarah and the daughter who loved her, and they would give Katie back, and he would be alone—for the rest of his life.

  Since he was unable to give the answer that Zachary wanted, Daniel changed the subject. "Did you find a private detective in Nashville?"

  "I've got a call in. I should hear from him today or tomorrow."

  "She said Beth would be in touch. Who is that?"

  "Her lawyer, Beth Gibson. She's very good."

  "Better than you?"

  Honesty was stronger than ego. "A whole lot better," Zachary answered. "That's why she's got a thriving practice in Nashville, and I'm here in Sweetwater."

  There was more to it than that, Daniel knew. Sweetwater was Zachary's home. The Adams family had settled here not long after Patrick Ryan had arrived some hundred and eighty years ago. Like Daniel, Zachary had roots here. Unlike Daniel, he also had family and friends and people who counted on him. He couldn't leave all that for the city.

  Daniel vaguely remembered Beth Gibson from last year. She had been attractive in a sharp, flashy, sophisticated way, with long red hair and the only truly green eyes he'd ever seen that weren't courtesy of tinted contacts. He didn't remember anything else about her, except that she had brought him his daughter.

  "You don't have any idea why Sarah sent Katie to you in the first place?"

  Daniel shook his head. "But I could make a few guesses."

  Zachary looked annoyed. "You know, Daniel, you may have to face the fact that Sarah might not be the cold, selfish, heartless bitch that you think she is. Why did you pick her out in the bar that night? What made you choose her over the other women there?"

  The lawyer was asking him to remember the motivation behind something he'd done more than two years ago. Something private. Something he would rather forget.

  Daniel had been lonely that night, lost, out of place in the bar, and Sarah had looked that way, too. She had been pretty; she'd had a nice smile, and that voice… Something about her had touched him from the beginning, in ways that were new and different for him. He had thought…

  He scowled darkly. He'd thought a lot of things, and all of them had been wrong. She'd turned out to be nothing like the woman he'd thought she was.

  Zachary was waiting for an answer. Why had he chosen Sarah? "Maybe because she was the one who was willing," Daniel said coldly.

  "That was it—just sex? No attraction, no interest?" Zachary waited for answers but didn't get any. "Did it seem that she made a habit of that—letting strange men pick her up?"

  "To tell you the truth, Zach," Daniel said, feigning boredom, "the weekend wasn't special enough for me to remember details like that. I can't even tell you if she was any good in bed."

  Zachary was interested in the reason for the harsh statements. Was Daniel trying to convince him that the time with Sarah had been sordid and tawdry, and so she must also be sordid and tawdry? Or—and Zachary thought this more likely—was he trying to convince himself?

  "So she was a whore who picked up men in bars and slept with them for kicks," Zachary said in a pleasant matter-of-fact tone.

  A muscle clenched in Daniel's jaw at the lawyer's choice of words, though he didn't deny them. But he knew it wasn't true. He remembered other things about that weekend. Like the fact that the look in her eyes had been sad, lost. Like the fact that it had been a long time since anyone had held her close. Like the fact that she had slept the sleep of exhaustion both nights, as if a good rest was something that came as rarely as the close embraces.

  He stood up, his nerves too highly charged to remain still any longer. "You do whatever it takes so I can keep Katie, all right?"

  "Even if it means destroying Sarah?"

  Daniel stared at him for a long time, his dark eyes bleak, then walked out of the office, the question unanswered.

  Sarah didn't matter. He told himself that all the way home. Even if she was all soft and pretty, even if she was Katie's mother, she didn't matter. Katie was the important one. He didn't care what happened to Sarah as long as Katie was all right.

  He glanced down at his daughter snoring softly beside him. She had enjoyed her short stay with Alicia. At the diner she had been the center of attention, and she loved attention. She had been playing the lovable cute baby for all it was worth when he'd picked her up, then had promptly fallen asleep as soon as she was settled in her car seat.

  Dear God, he loved her. She was the only person in his life who he could say that about. Was this gut-wrenching fear the way divorced fathers felt when they lost custody of their children? When they were demoted from full-time fathers to weekend visitors, then finally replaced by stepfathers?

  Well, that would never happen to his daughter. Just as Katie didn't know the meaning of the word mother, she wouldn't know what a stepfather was, either, not from personal experience. He would make sure of that.

  When he approached the Peters place, he slowed down. The little yellow car was in the driveway, and there was a flash of red moving across the yard. Sarah, in her red shirt. He pulled the truck to the edge of the road and watched her for a moment. She was half carrying, half dragging an old wooden ladder. His eyes narrowed until he was scowling as fiercely as ever.

  Surely she wasn't planning to use the ladder. Even from this distance he could see that it was in sad shape, having been left to weather and rot in the years the house had been empty. But when she leaned the ladder against the house, he admitted that she did indeed intend to u
se it.

  He turned off the engine and climbed out of the truck, leaving the door open so Katie's sleep wouldn't be disturbed. There was no reason for him to interfere, he insisted even as he walked along the rutted driveway. She was a grown woman. If she chose to act like a damn fool, what business was it of his? He should get back into the truck and go home.

  But he didn't. If she climbed that ladder, she would probably get hurt, and if she got hurt, God forbid, it would be left to him, as her only neighbor, to take care of her. By interfering, he was only saving himself from future problems.

  Sarah adjusted the ladder against the house, setting it firmly on the ground. She had found it in the old shed out past the driveway, and she knew it wasn't very sturdy, but it was all she had. She couldn't very well go to town and buy a new one. She had tested the rungs, with the ladder lying flat on the ground, and they were weak, but she thought they would hold her weight long enough to get her to the roof. If they broke then … well, getting down would be a lot easier than getting up.

  She stepped on the first rung, sliding her foot next to the side rail, hoping the wood would be stronger there. When she put her weight on it, it creaked but held firm. Cautiously she moved to the next rung, gripping the splintering rail tightly, hoping that the wood wouldn't give way beneath her.

  She was more than five feet off the ground when the rung broke. The force of her weight hitting the next rung broke it, too, but the third one held her. She was breathing hard and her hands were burning from the slivers of wood she had picked up as she slid, but she was safe.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  Sarah was so startled by the voice that she would have slipped again if Daniel hadn't caught her and lifted her, his big hands on her slender waist, to the ground.

  He quickly withdrew his hands and settled them lightly on his hips. He had touched her only for seconds, but his palms were burning from the contact. She had been so light in his grasp, too light for a full-grown woman. He noticed again how slim she was and wondered about her pregnancy. Had she grown clumsy and heavy at the end? Had she had any difficulty giving birth to his daughter? Why had she gone through it alone, denying him the chance to help?

  To draw his mind away from the questions, from her warm softness, he repeated his harsh question. "What are you doing?"

  Her heart was starting to slow, her breathing returning to normal. She tilted her head back and met his blue gaze evenly. "I was going up to the roof."

  "On that?" He gestured to the ladder with its aged and decaying wood, its cracks and splinters and broken rungs. "Are you stupid, or just putting on a good act?"

  Desperate was more like it, she thought with a humorless smile. It had been cold last night and was bound to get colder. "There's something in the chimney," she said patiently, her voice made sharp by the effort it took to stay calm. "I don't want to build a fire until I clean it out, and since that's the only ladder here, I don't have much choice."

  "This house has been empty for years. You need to have the fireplace inspected before you use it. Terry Simmons can do it for you, and he'll clean it while he's at it."

  Sarah looked down at her hands to avoid his stare, keeping the palms turned inward, out of his sight. There were several large splinters in each hand, one deep enough to bring blood, each surrounded by angry red swelling. As soon as he was gone, she would dig out the wood slivers and bathe her hands. "I can't afford to have someone inspect it," she said honestly, "and I have to use it. It's the only heat in the house."

  Daniel looked from the ladder to her. He should leave her here. Maybe the cold would drive her away. Maybe the realization of how inconvenient life could be up here would override this sudden urge to see his daughter, and she would return to Nashville where she belonged. And maybe she would make it to the roof and fall and break her neck, or maybe she would get sick from the cold, and damn it all, she was still Katie's mother. She had given him the most precious gift in his life.

  "I'll get my ladder and check it," he said gruffly.

  Sarah drew herself taller. She still had to tilt her head back to look into his face. "No, you won't. I'll take care of it myself."

  "You can't."

  She gave him a look that could only be described as haughty. "I'll manage." In the years since Tony's illness had been diagnosed, she had done everything for herself because there was no one to do it for her. She had learned to be alone, to be independent and strong, to make decisions and choices that no mother should ever have to make.

  Before he could argue with her, she shifted her gaze to his truck. "Is Katherine with a baby-sitter?"

  "Yes," he replied, and hoped that Katie wouldn't wake up crying and prove him a liar.

  "You'd better go now," she said flatly, trying to hide her disappointment that another woman was caring for her daughter, holding her, feeding her, soothing her tears, while she wasn't allowed to see her. "I've got work to do."

  "I'll be back in an hour or so." To ensure that she didn't try something stupid while he was gone, he pulled the ladder down and without effort heaved it across the yard toward the dilapidated shed it had come from. When it hit the ground it splintered into a dozen pieces, as he had known it would.

  Sarah watched him walk to the truck, climb in and leave. She knew he would be back. After all, Daniel Ryan was a man of his word, wasn't he? He had said he would come back, so he would. He had said he would give Katie back at the end of the year, and he would do that, too. She had to believe in that, had to believe in him. It kept her going.

  Daniel grumbled all the way back into town. It was a trip he normally made only once a month or so, but now he had made it three times in two days—all because of Sarah Lawson.

  Katie's stubbornness had definitely come from her. Her refusal of his help hadn't been the standard "oh, you don't need to do that but I'll accept anyway" turndown. She didn't want help—or was it only his help that she didn't want? If it had been Zachary or old man Peters or any other man in the county, would she have turned him down, too?

  He was satisfied with most areas of his life, but he was well aware of more than a few insecurities when it came to women. By no stretch of the imagination could he be considered attractive, and a lot of women were put off by his size. His solitary life-style had given him peace, but had left him lacking the social graces demanded by most women. They weren't easy to talk to, to confide in, to be intimate with, physically or emotionally. It was easy to believe that women—Sarah Lawson included, in spite of their weekend together—found him as unacceptable as he imagined he must be.

  But it didn't matter. He didn't want a woman's interest, especially Sarah's. He had the only things he needed to be happy: his land, his business and Katie. There was room for a woman—just not much desire for one, and even less need.

  Bonnie Adams, Zachary's mother, agreed to keep Katie for a few hours. It was the first time Daniel had ever left her with anyone else, except for the hour with Alicia today. Bonnie politely probed the reasons behind his unusual behavior, but he just as politely brushed her off.

  "Supper's at six-thirty, Daniel, if you'd like to stay when you pick her up again," she invited when it became apparent that she wasn't going to learn anything from him.

  He gave a noncommittal response, kissed Katie goodbye and left for the nineteen-mile drive home. When he passed Sarah's house—old man Peters's house, he amended; nothing around here belonged to Sarah—it was quiet. He continued up the mountain to his own house, loaded a long aluminum ladder into his truck and went back to Sarah's—to the Peters'—place.

  There was no sign of her. She was probably inside, he guessed, watching the soap operas or doing something else totally useless. He stuck a flashlight into his back pocket, carried the ladder to the same spot where the wooden one had stood, wedged it firmly in place and climbed the rungs to the top.

  The roof needed a lot of work, he noticed as he made his way carefully across it. The chimney needed work, too; many of the bricks were
cracked, and the chinking was gone in great patches. The house needed a tenant who would love it and keep it in good repair, or it needed to stand empty until it fell in on itself. What it didn't need was someone like Sarah, who didn't know how to take care of it and couldn't do it on her own, anyway. She wasn't needed by anyone or anything here; why couldn't she accept that and leave?

  Shining the flashlight into the chimney, he found the obstruction that Sarah had seen from below: several years' accumulation of birds' nests built on the ledge inside the chimney. He removed them and tossed them off the roof in the back, then shone the light on the brick sides. Considering how long the house had been empty, the chimney was remarkably clean. Old man Peters must have cleaned it when he and his wife moved out.

  He put the flashlight into his pocket again and climbed carefully down the ladder. Living alone for so many years had taught him caution. If he was injured on his mountain-top, it could be weeks before anyone found him, so he didn't take risks.

  Why then, he wondered grimly, did he go looking for Sarah as soon as he was back on the ground?

  He found her in the living room. The room was empty except for the old broken-down sofa placed in front of the stone fireplace, but it was as clean as soap and water and hard work could make it.

  She was sitting on the floor in front of the broken window, her head bent while she worked diligently with a pair of tweezers.

  "You ought to get that window fixed," he said gruffly, gesturing to the broken pane.

  Sarah nodded without looking up. "Mr. Peters is supposed to be out sometime this week."

  "Tell him to fix those broken boards on the porch, too."

  She nodded again.

  Moving a few steps closer, he watched her for a minute, then asked, "What are you doing?"

  She looked up then, her cheeks a faint red, her eyes unquestionably damp. "I have a splinter from the ladder," she replied softly, extending her right hand to him.

  Little more than an hour ago, she had made it clear that she didn't want his help. Now she was silently asking for it. He should have felt some satisfaction, but he didn't. He didn't want to take her hand, didn't want to touch her again. But, just as he hadn't walked away earlier, he didn't do it now.