INTERRUPTED LULLABY

by Valery Parv

  They pulled up outside a rundown Federation cottage and Bill shot Zeke a look of confusion. "Hey, this is my place. I don't have room for guests."

  "We're not staying." Zeke got out and opened the driver's door. "You are."

  "This is also my car."

  "And you'll get it back tomorrow in pristine condition. I'll even have it washed for you."

  Still grumbling, Bill relinquished the driver's seat to Zeke then helped Tara into the front passenger side. "Make sure he takes care of this baby," he instructed her.

  "I'll do my best, but you know Zeke." This was another example of how he went his own way.

  "Sure do." He leaned into Zeke's window. "I need it back tomorrow. I have a job to do in the afternoon."

  "Guaranteed." Zeke started the engine.

  She heard Bill say, "I take it you plan to leave the dog here for a few more days?"

  "He's minding the puppy?" she guessed as Zeke gave his friend a wave of thanks and drove off.

  "He loves every minute of it. Do him good to have somewhere to put all that affection he stores up."

  "He isn't in a relationship?"

  "He was, but she left. His working hours aren't exactly compatible with a happy home life."

  It didn't take irregular working hours to destroy a relationship, she was tempted to point out. An excess of independence and a reluctance to trust could do it equally well. "Where are we going?" she asked.

  "A secret hideaway not even Bill knows about."

  Thoroughly intrigued, she watched the streets as he drove steadily northward until they were on the outskirts of the city where the houses were more imposing and the gardens larger. The wide streets were lined with mature trees, giving the area a country feel. "Peaceful," she murmured.

  He looked pleased. "Exactly why I bought it."

  She blinked in surprise. Zeke didn't believe in permanence, in tying himself to bricks and mortar. He'd always said he preferred to own property as investments rather than homes. When he bought the puppy, he had told her he planned to buy a house, but she hadn't believed he meant it. "You've bought a house here?"

  "This one. Welcome home, Mrs. Blaxland."

  The torrent of emotions unleashed by his choice of words almost made her miss her first sight of the house. It was lovely, she saw when her vision cleared enough to focus on it. "It reminds me of an English country cottage," she said.

  "Exactly why I bought it. It has a history, a past."

  The very things Zeke himself felt he lacked, she knew. "I love the dressed stone foundations, and the mellow color of the bricks."

  "The seller was born in the house and only sold it because he's moving into a retirement home. He told me the bricks are from an inner-city church that was demolished last century. The kauri floorboards and pine doors are from an old city council office. There's also a marble fireplace from the same building."

  Her throat threatened to close as she walked up the flagstone path, noting the ancient wisteria twined around the verandah, which was shaded by a bull-nosed iron roof. She ran a hand appreciatively over the carved wooden balustrade edging the verandah. If Zeke wanted permanence, he had found it in this place. It had already stood for more than a century and looked set for a couple more.

  He glanced at her hand. "Is that bothering you?"

  She realized she had been twisting the ring Zeke had placed on her finger and she stopped abruptly. "Not really." She was glad he hadn't asked about the house because it was bothering her. This was a place to shelter generations of one family. She could almost hear the shouts of children as they raced around the cottage garden. She could see a swing hanging from the Moreton Bay fig tree.

  She turned away, not wanting Zeke to see how troubled she was by dreams that were out of her reach. She wished he had never shown her the house. How she was supposed to stay here, she had no idea.

  He rested his hands on her shoulders and spoke close to her ear. "Something is bothering you. Was it the scene at the airport?"

  She took refuge in the distraction. "It wasn't pleasant."

  "Put it out of your mind. No one knows I own this place yet and the title deeds are registered in the name of a trust, so we won't be traced easily." He frowned. "The only problem is, I haven't had time to furnish it yet. A few period pieces came with the house, but that's all."

  The lack of furniture troubled her less than the lack of a firm foundation for her and Zeke. She had told herself she could handle it, but here in his house, she was no longer so confident. Having his ring on her finger, however spuriously, didn't help. "Maybe we should go to a hotel after all."

  He bounded up the front steps, key in hand. "Too risky. Besides, I want to show you the house."

  She held back as he pushed open the front door. In a surprise move, he swung her into his arms. "What are you doing? Put me down."

  "Carrying my bride over the threshold," he said with a laugh. "It's traditional, isn't it?"

  Cradled against his chest with her arms linked around his neck, she struggled to speak. "I think we have the order wrong again."

  "It's becoming a habit with us." He set her down inside the door. A heartbeat passed while he looked at her against the backdrop of his new home, then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "Welcome home."

  It wasn't her home and never would be, but in his arms she felt more at home than any place on earth, and she surrendered to his kiss with a sigh. She had promised herself she would accept only as much as he wanted to give. She might as well start now.

  When he lifted his head, his eyes were full of questions. "Seeing you here makes me wish this was our home," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You make me wish a lot of things."

  She shook her head. "Don't say them, please. Let's be content with what we have."

  "Are you content with it?"

  What choice did she have? "Of course," she lied. "We'd better get our bags inside."

  "I'll get them. You look around. There's champagne in the kitchen." Intercepting her quizzical look, he explained, "I planned to open it on my first night here, but we need it more now. There's no food, but we can send out for pizza."

  The kitchen was one of the few rooms that looked ready for occupation, she soon found. A magnificent cedar slab table and chairs dominated the generous floor space. It wasn't hard to imagine how lovely the room would look with kitchen knickknacks and floral-print fabrics adding to the country atmosphere.

  She had to hunt for the refrigerator, finding it was paneled in the same beech timber as the cupboards. In it she found a bottle of French champagne sitting in solitary splendor on the top shelf.

  She was wrestling with the wire fastening when he came in. "I've put our things in the bedroom."

  "Bedroom?"

  He took the bottle from her and opened it efficiently. "There are four, but only one is furnished. After yesterday, I didn't think you'd mind."

  She stopped herself from blushing but it was close. He was right, she didn't mind. "We don't seem to have any glasses."

  He opened a door on a walk-in pantry. There should be jars of home-made preserves on the shelves, she thought, but there was only an unopened pack of disposable glasses. "They should be crystal for such an important moment, but these will have to do."

  It was a day for compromises, the ring on her finger weighing so heavily that she wondered if it was the greatest compromise of all. She had made the choice, she reminded herself, and knew that it was no real contest. She wasn't giving up anything. She was gaining a love beyond anything most people ever imagined.

  She remembered what she'd told herself on the island. Was it only this morning? It seemed like half a lifetime ago. She had realized that Zeke, who didn't believe in forever, was planning a future with her, whether he knew it or not. He might regard the ring as a convenience, but it was a huge step for someone so resistant to committing himself. Now he had brought her to the first real home he had bought in his life. She had to start seeing things throu
gh his eyes. He was making the only commitment he knew how.

  She raised the plastic glass of champagne he gave her and felt joy flooding through her. It was easy to say, "To us." Whatever was missing from their relationship, they had one another. She wouldn't allow anything else to matter.

  His gaze was warm as he touched his glass to hers. "To us."

  The bed was a magnificent four-poster, too cumbersome to be moved out of the room, Tara guessed, so Zeke had bought it with the house. A light-as-air duvet and two feather pillows had evidently been made to fit the huge bed. They would have to make do without sheets.

  She was again assailed by a vision of children bouncing on the bed between her and Zeke. Stop it, she ordered herself. What was it about this house that made her imagine such things?

  She was already showered and in bed by the time Zeke came upstairs. "I just got a call from Bill," he said.

  "Has he located Ross Fine yet?"

  "A man answering his description was seen near the family home late this afternoon, but when Bill called the house, Jenny Fine denied knowing where her husband was."

  She cupped her hands behind her head. "Do you believe her?"

  "Bill said she sounded strained, but that could be due to her husband taking off." He shrugged out of his shirt a little too carefully, as if a great weight settled on his shoulders. It was confined when he said, "Right now, I'm too tired to think about it."

  When he got into bed, there was a huge gap between them and he made no move to close it. She was tired, too, she told herself. With Zeke it was cumulative, coming on top of weeks of draining investigative work. She couldn't blame him if all he wanted to do was to sleep.

  All the same, she couldn't help thinking it was a lonely way to spend a wedding night.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  « ^ »

  She awoke next morning, surprised to find she had slept for ten hours straight. Zeke was already up, so she dressed in a white shirt and navy pants she'd thrown into an overnight bag before leaving Phillip Island, and joined him in the kitchen.

  When he offered her a share of the leftover pizza she pulled a face. "Not for breakfast," she said with a shudder. "I have some fruit in my bag."

  "Think of the protein and carbohydrates you're missing."

  She retrieved an apple from her bag, polished the fruit on her sleeve and bit into it. "I'll take my chances, thanks."

  He took a deep breath. "Tara, I'm sorry about last night."

  She kept her expression bland. "What about last night?"

  "I was so dog-tired, I went to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. I didn't mean to neglect you."

  Guilt welled up because it was exactly what she had felt but she shook her head. "It's okay, I was asleep in minutes, myself. It was quite a day."

  He had plugged his phone in to a power outlet to recharge, and she started when it rang beside her. Zeke picked it up. Seconds later, the pizza dropped from his hand. "What the blazes…?"

  She saw him blanch and alarm shrilled through her. "What is it? What's wrong?"

  He held up a hand. "Where? When? Are you sure? I'm not putting her through this if there's any chance it's a mistake."

  His eyes met her over the compact phone. For once she couldn't read the expression there. He had come to his feet and looked primed for action. But why? And against what? What didn't he want to put her through?

  He braced himself against the table as if his legs had trouble holding him up. "Then it must be true. We'll be there as fast as we can."

  "What is it?" she repeated as he ended the call. He was breathing as erratically as a long-distance runner at a finishing line.

  He grabbed her hand. "We have to go. I'll explain on the way."

  "Why can't you tell me now?" she asked, but he tugged her along, slamming the front door behind them before urging her into the car. Bill would have to wait to get his car back she realized as Zeke slammed it into gear and roared out of the driveway as if the hounds of hell were chasing them.

  Sure that their rate of travel had nothing to do with the speed limit, she braced herself to hear sirens behind them, but none came. "Can't you slow down? Where are we going?"

  "Ross Fine has surfaced at his wife's place. It seems he was there when Bill called, but Fine made his wife promise not to tell anyone. Luckily, she managed to get to a neighbor and call Bill back."

  "Did Ross hurt her?"

  "Worse, much worse. He took a baby hostage."

  "Oh, no." The idea of anyone using a helpless infant for their own ends made her feel ill, but she didn't understand how it involved Zeke or herself. "You can't believe you're responsible?"

  "More than you possibly know," he muttered.

  There had to be something more. "That does it. Stop this car right now and tell me the rest."

  He reacted almost too quickly, the sudden deceleration throwing her against him as he screeched to a halt across a driveway. When he turned to her, his face was white. "There's no easy way to say this, but the baby he's holding is probably Brendan."

  She rammed a knuckle against her mouth to stifle a scream. "No, it's a cruel hoax. Brendan is dead. I held his body."

  "You held a baby's body, but there's every chance it was the Fines' child, not ours." Zeke's voice was icy. Touching him, she found his body was the same.

  Her thoughts whirled. "What about the DNA test?"

  "Fixed by Fine while he worked at the hospital. When his wife insisted on getting one done, he used details from a test on an older child by his previous relationship, changing the name and birthdate to match their present child. It satisfied his wife at first, but recently Ross has been acting so strangely that she became convinced he had switched her dead child for a healthy one. Without telling him, she had another test done and the baby isn't theirs. Since only one other boy was born at the same time, it has to be ours."

  "Oh, God." The universe spun around her and she gripped Zeke's arm. Her baby was alive. She couldn't afford to faint now, while he was in the hands of a man known to be mentally unstable. Horror rang in her voice as she said, "We must do something."

  "We're about to. Ross is asking for us and we're not going to disappoint him."

  He slammed the car into gear and pulled out again, the tires spitting gravel. This time they were intercepted by a police car, but as soon as Zeke identified them and explained the situation, the officer led them through the traffic, lights and sirens clearing their way.

  The Fines' house was on the other side of the city, taking almost forty minutes to reach it at breakneck speed. By then, the street was blocked by a fleet of official vehicles and watched over by TV crews and some of the press Tara recognized from the airport.

  "How did they get here so quickly?" she asked as they were escorted through the throng.

  "Scanners tuned into the emergency frequencies." His clipped tone suggested he wasn't coping much better than she was. She slid her hand into his. He squeezed her fingers, getting her message. Whatever happened, they were in it together.

  A police officer approached them with a pinch-faced woman in tow. Tara recognized her immediately, although she hadn't been sure she would. "Jenny Fine?"

  The woman nodded. "I'm sorry it's come to this. If I'd only done something sooner, but whenever I suggested something wasn't right about our baby, Ross told me I was imagining things. But I'm not, am I?" Her voice wavered and her eyes flooded with tears.

  Tara felt her own eyes fill. "Thank you for having the courage to speak up."

  "Ross won't hurt the baby, I know him. He just couldn't stand to lose another child."

  So he stole theirs. Tara bit the accusation back. It wasn't Jenny's fault and she had done all she could to put things right. Tara could barely imagine what she must be going through now. She touched the other woman's hand in wordless response.

  Jenny nodded as if Tara had spoken. "I guess I wanted to believe he was ours, too, although he didn't look anything like Ross or me,
or our other baby."

  The police officer went on alert. "Is there another child in the house?"

  Jenny shook her head. "Ross's son from his first marriage lives with his mother. Our other baby died at four months. Crib death, they said. He just didn't wake up next morning. Ross wasn't the same afterward."

  "You knew Ross was sick, didn't you?" Tara interposed.

  "Because his marriage had broken up, and then we lost the baby. But he was able to go back to work. He told me he's all right now."

  "Obviously he isn't all right."

  The police officer frowned. "That's all we need."

  Jenny protested, "He isn't crazy. He loves Vaughan—I mean, your baby."

  Tara's stomach twisted into knots. "Then why is he holding the child hostage?"

  "He thinks you want to take him away."

  "Of course I do, he's my child," Tara all but screamed.

  "He's convinced himself the baby is really ours. I believed it, too, until I started reading the stories in the newspaper. We argued about it and Ross stormed out. I didn't know what to do. Then yesterday he came back, but made me promise not to tell anyone he was there. He said people were following him. I guess it was the police. When I suggested we should get some help, he started threatening me, and I ran out of the house. Tom, our neighbor, is good to me. He urged me to call the police, and promised to be there for me, when this is all over."

  "You did the right thing," Tara said. It took everything she had to be patient with Jenny, when all she wanted to do was to go to her baby.

  The other woman's eyes brightened. "The irony is, I'm pregnant again and this time everything is going really well. If Ross had only been patient…"

  At a sign from the officer, a policewoman shepherded Jenny away. Tara saw a good-looking man a little older than Jenny intercept them and place an arm around her shoulders. Jenny's face lit up and Tara felt a flicker of hope pierce her despair. If that was Tom, Jenny and her coming child would be all right.

  Tara felt Zeke's arm go around her. "It's true, our baby is alive," she said in a faint whisper. After months of mourning, it was nearly too much to take in.