Heat flooded her cheeks. How had he known? Of course Mack would know. Mack, to whom she’d confided her girlish disappointments, who understood how much her sister’s behavior had influenced her own. “Yes.”
“Then trust me, Thea.”
He stepped back slightly, just enough for him to lift the lacy veil and push it back away from her face. Yes, she trusted him as she’d trusted no one else in her life. All other thoughts splintered as Mack lifted his hands to cradle her face, his thumbs tracing the line of her cheekbones, his eyes dark and unreadable as his gaze floated over her eyes, her cheeks and nose, before settling on her mouth. His handsome face blurred as he moved closer, lowering his head to hers as her eyelids fluttered shut.
Mack brushed his lips against hers, and Thea forgot to breathe. When he finally settled his mouth over hers, she looped her arms around his neck and drew him even closer. This was the man she’d married, the man she’d raise a family with. The man who’d stolen her heart.
Somebody cleared their throat. “I hope you two don’t plan on acting like that in front of an impressionable child.”
The judge’s words sank in. Sarah. The only reason Mack had asked her to marry him in the first place. That, and a feeble effort to save her reputation, as if that could ever be repaired. Thea broke off the kiss and pressed her lips together. How long would they tingle like this? When had the room grown so warm? Did kissing always drive every thought from your mind, or was it just kissing Mack?
She stole a glance at him through thick lashes. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt. Did that mean he’d felt something, too, that the vows they’d made, the kiss they’d shared had forged an unbreakable bond between them? Or was she reading more into his feelings because her own were such a tender mess?
A hand at her shoulder turned Thea around to where Maggie stood, happiness lighting her eyes. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
The women watched as Beau gave Mack a hearty slap on the back.
“And bravo!” The redhead waved a hand in front of her face as if she was warm. “I’m going to have to go home and kiss my husband after watching that.”
Thea had never blushed as much as she had this morning. “I made an idiot out of myself, didn’t I?”
“An idiot, for kissing your husband? If so, then there’s a lot of us idiots who enjoy kissing our husbands.”
Thea didn’t have time to respond before Beau swooped over and gave her a kiss on her cheek. She absently accepted his congratulations, her thoughts still in a tangle. After the way she’d returned his kiss, did Mack think she was anything like her sister? Would her behavior ruin their chances of adopting Sarah?
A loud pop echoed in the room as Judge Wakefield slammed a book shut, shaking Thea out of her thoughts. “If you all are finished pawing at each other, we’ve got other business to attend to before my next appointment.”
She risked a glance at Mack. He looked as if he held himself on a tight leash, the muscles across his back and arms stretched with tension like a lion ready to jump its prey. What good would it do to strike out at Wakefield when the man had already made up his mind? She pressed a hand to his arm, steeling herself against the anger she knew would be reflected in his eyes.
Mack turned, his eyes flashing as his hand covered hers, all the protectiveness he’d shown toward Sarah now focused on her. “I won’t let him talk about you like that.”
If possible, Thea’s heart melted a little bit more. She curled up against his side. “Let’s just sign whatever papers he needs and get this over with.”
Mack nodded, then turned back to face the judge. “What is there left for us to do?”
The older man glanced past them to where Maggie and Beau stood. “As this is a private matter, you’re free to go. Thank you for your participation.”
The judge continued to shuffle papers as Mack and Thea said goodbye to their friends. Maggie pulled Thea close for a hug. “If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. Just know there’s a whole bunch of us praying for you.”
People prayed for them? The thought touched a place in her heart that had been numb for years. “Thank you,” she managed.
After their friends had been escorted outside, she and Mack returned to their place in front of Judge Wakefield’s desk. “Again, I ask you,” Mack started. “What is there left for us to do?”
“Nothing, really.” The older man shucked off his robes, hung them on a nearby coatrack then pulled his chair away from his massive cherrywood desk and sat down. He shuffled through some folders before finally pulling one out and opening it. “I’ve already approved the two of you to act as Sarah’s guardians until the final decree comes through. Until then, the state will monitor the child’s progress, so they’ll be sending out a social worker in the next few weeks.”
“No!” The word burst out of Thea without warning. She didn’t want anyone from the state near Sarah, not after what she’d witnessed Georgia Tann and her political cronies do to countless children and their families during her time in Memphis. Stealing children away, never to be seen by their parents again for trumped-up legal reasons, signed off on by Miss Tann’s pet judge.
Judge Wakefield studied her over his wire-rimmed glasses. “Do you have a problem, Mrs. Worthington?”
“Thea?”
She glanced up at Mack. Questions clouded his expression, questions she’d have to answer sooner rather than later. But not now, not in front of the judge. How could she convince Judge Wakefield to change his mind without going into the sordid details?
“It’s just...” The hairs on the back of her neck rose. What could she offer as a perfectly reasonable explanation for her outburst? “Your honor, Sarah has just recovered from the chicken pox and is due to have major surgery in a matter of days. Her immune system has already been compromised, and the more people she’s in contact with, the more likely she’ll contract something else.”
“Which will delay the surgery even longer,” Mack interjected.
God bless Mack! He may not understand her reasons, but he was backing up her explanation as any good husband would. “So you see, sir, I’m thinking about Sarah’s well-being.”
“I see.” The man fell back into his chair, his fingers steepled over his waist. “I know it seems as if I’ve given you a difficult time with this adoption, Sheriff, but I only want to do what’s right by the child.” He shook his head. “So many judges don’t take their responsibility as seriously as they should and the child is always the one who suffers for it.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his desk, studying them for a long moment. “While I can waive most of the social worker’s visits, she will need to visit your home at least once to check out the child’s living conditions. Maybe that can be arranged before you bring the baby home from Ms. Aurora’s. That should satisfy the state requirements.”
Thea didn’t know what to say. Everything she’d ever heard about Judge Wakefield had left her with the impression he was a stickler for the law. An old coot, she’d once called him. Maybe the man had a heart after all.
Mack recovered before she did. “That’s kind of you, sir.”
“‘Thank you’ will do just fine.”
Mack’s face broke into an extraordinary smile. “Thank you. I can’t begin to tell you how much this means to us.”
“You’re welcome.” The man closed the file in his hand, pushed it to the side, then grabbed another one. “Now, get out of here before I change my mind.”
“Yes, sir.” Mack caught Thea’s hand in his and tugged her toward the door.
Thea felt as if she were floating. Married and with a new daughter all in one day. A real live family of her own. Maybe not the way she’d always dreamed, but she didn’t care. She had Mack and Sarah. At the door, she turned back toward the judge. “Thank you again, sir.”
; Judge Wakefield glanced up at her, a glimmer of a smile playing along his lips. “Wait until you’ve been married to that one for a while. Then let’s see just how grateful you are.”
* * *
The evening sky had turned a bruised purple by the time Mack turned the squad car onto Cheatham Hill Road. The chill of the late-fall evening nipped at Thea’s fingers through the thin cloth of her gloves. A comfortable silence had fallen over them since they left Maggie and Beau back at the diner, an array of tin cans and old shoes tied to the back of the squad car, announcing their marriage to the folks in Marietta.
Thea stole a quick glance at her husband. In the fading light, she could barely make out the pink edges of the scar that peeked out from under his hair. The ache she felt at the hurt and confusion he had to have suffered was almost overwhelming. But had that accident been enough to make him give up his dreams?
Mack could still go to college and do all the things he’d planned. Be a lawyer, settle down and have the family he’d dreamed of having. An image of him, dressed in a well-cut wool suit, briefcase in hand, coming through the door to her and Sarah popped into her thoughts. Her putting the last touches on dinner while Mack played with their daughter. Him wrapping his arms around her waist, his lips brushing a gentle kiss behind her ear right before he whispered I...
A sharp turn onto an unfamiliar dirt road jerked Thea out of her daydream. She whipped around to face Mack. “Where are we going?”
“We need to talk somewhere where no one is likely to bother us.”
“What’s so important that we can’t talk about it at home?”
A smile played along the corner of his lips. “I like how you said that, as if you already consider my house your home.”
Anywhere Mack was would be home to her, but he didn’t need to hear that right now. “So why can’t we talk there?”
“My sources tell me that some of the guys are planning an old-fashioned shivaree at our place this evening.”
Thea laughed. “I thought that kind of thing went out with hooped skirts and parasols.”
“There are some in our community who still live by the old ways. So while they’re trying to figure out where we are, I thought we’d talk about what happened with Judge Wakefield today. I want to know what you have against social workers.”
Thea straightened, her hands clasped in a tight knot in her lap. She wanted to let the topic drop, but she knew that wasn’t fair. If she had the opportunity to pry the facts out of him about his injury, she wouldn’t let him back away from the truth, no matter how painful it was. Why should she expect any less from him now?
They bumped along for several minutes until they reached a small clearing shadowed by a circle of tall trees. Long stems of wild grass swished against the metal doors as Mack maneuvered the car into a patch of fading light.
Recognition dawned as she glanced around, then back at Mack. “This is Lover’s Pass.”
“You’ve been here before?” he growled as he shoved the car into Park.
His question felt more like an accusation. “Petey Henderson brought me here after a basketball game my junior year. But we didn’t stay long once he found out I was nothing like Eileen.”
“And that was the only time you’ve been here?”
“I figure the answer to that question would be obvious, seeing how I’d never been kissed until...” Her words faded into the waning light. Until you kissed me.
She thought she heard him mutter “Good” as he turned off the engine.
The keys jangled in the ignition as Mack turned to face her, propping one knee on the seat beside her. “All right. Now, I want you to explain to me why you have this problem with a social worker coming to evaluate us.”
Thea swallowed. How could she ever explain everything that had happened without making her sister sound worse than she was? There wasn’t any way, and Mack deserved the truth. All of it.
But that didn’t mean it would be easy for her.
“Eileen spent most of her life looking for love, wherever she could find it. When she got into her teens, she started looking for anyone who could make her feel special. Most of the boys were willing to give her lots of attention, but only in exchange for a good time, and after it ended Eileen would be heartsick about what she’d done. But that didn’t stop her from searching. Midway through her sophomore year, Eileen realized she was pregnant.”
Mack shifted back slightly in his seat. “She never looked...you know, while we were in school.”
It was kind of sweet, his awkwardness with discussing such a delicate matter. If only the topic didn’t involve her sister. “Eileen didn’t start to show until she was six months along, and by then, school was out. That summer she stayed close to home. She talked about keeping the baby and becoming the kind of mother we never got to have.” Thea drew in a steadying breath. “I really believed she was going to turn over a new leaf.”
“But in the end, she gave her baby away.”
If only it had been that simple. Thea shook her head. “No, Eileen wanted to keep her baby. She told me as much. But Momma...” She swallowed against the thick knot forming in her throat. “The shame of having a pregnant teenage daughter was just too much for her, so the thought of an illegitimate grandchild was unbearable. Weeks before Eileen’s delivery, Momma got in touch with someone she’d grown up with in Memphis—a woman named Mrs. Cook who knew how to handle adoptions.”
“Your mother thought she could change Eileen’s mind?”
Disgust for what her mother had done almost cut off her breath. “Momma didn’t plan to give Eileen much of a choice. She had heard about a woman up in Memphis who’d had a lot of success getting children adopted to wealthy people, like movie stars and such. Mrs. Cook promised to deliver the baby to that woman. She arranged to be in town, and met Momma that night at the train station, just hours after Eileen gave birth.”
“That was why I drove you to the train station that night.”
She nodded, sorry she’d had to involve him in her family’s sordid problems. “Eileen called me at work, half out of her mind with grief. She’d overheard Momma on the telephone with Mrs. Cook.” Thea hesitated. “I would have told you what was going on that night, but I was so ashamed. What kind of person would give her grandchild away?”
In the fading light, she could make out the sharp angle of his jaw. “Is that why you left that night like you did?”
There was a harshness to his voice she couldn’t decipher. “Eileen was so desperate for her baby. She wanted to go after him herself, but she was in no fit state to travel. I couldn’t sit back and do nothing. I knew if I didn’t follow Mrs. Cook, my chance at recovering the baby would be less than zero. I had my savings for college in my pocket so I bought a ticket and followed her.”
“You went after the child,” Mack whispered.
She nodded. “I promised Eileen I’d bring him home. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. The first couple of times I went to see Mrs. Cook, she denied knowing what I was talking about. I finally got in touch with the woman who ran the children’s home where the baby had been placed, a Miss Georgia Tann. She told me the baby had died.”
Mack shifted forward, his particular scent of lemon-lime aftershave and something purely him comforting her frazzled nerves. “There have been rumors floating around about Miss Tann for years.”
“You mean the rumors of her stealing babies from their families and then selling them to the highest bidder?”
“I didn’t want...”
He’d tried to spare her feelings. “Thank you. But I’ve faced the truth of the situation many times over the last eight years and it still didn’t bring Eileen’s child home.”
Mack’s hand covered hers. When had he moved so close to her, his shoulder brushing up against her own? “It’s not your fault, sweethear
t.”
The endearment wound its way around her heart until she thought it would burst, but the joy quickly faded. He just wanted to comfort her, that was all. “That’s not how Momma and Eileen saw it. When I called to tell them what had happened, Eileen refused to speak to me and Momma, she told me not to bother coming back home.”
“That’s why you’re so sure Eileen wouldn’t give up her baby girl? Why you thought Ms. Aurora stole Sarah away? Because you thought she was like Georgia Tann?”
Thea gave a shaky shrug. “I only knew what my mother was telling me, and from what I’d seen of Miss Tann and her allies, I thought it was a possibility. But not now. I was so wrong about Ms. Aurora. I told her as much when I apologized to her. She adores those kids and they love her to death.” She sighed. “I guess I just wanted my family back, that’s all.”
“But Thea, you have a family, one with you and me and Sarah.” Mack took her hand in his, warmth running up the length of her arm at his touch.
Yes, Thea thought. She did have the family she’d always wanted. Why, with all she had, did she still feel all alone?
Chapter Thirteen
“Got some news from Judge Wakefield’s office this morning I thought you’d like to hear.” Red burst through Mack’s office door a week later without so much as a knock.
“Good afternoon to you, too.” Mack finished the thought he’d been writing on an upcoming case, then lifted his head to see his friend had made himself comfortable in the leather wingback chair in front of his desk. “Did it ever occur to you that I might be busy?”
“Still trying to catch up from your bout with the chicken pox?
“Yes.” But that wasn’t altogether the truth. Since marrying Thea he’d been keeping shorter hours. Work hadn’t held the same appeal as going home to find his lovely bride poring over cookbooks or covered in paint from decorating the nursery. Their drives out to Ms. Aurora’s to see the baby and Mrs. Miller included interesting discussions of the news around town as well as updates on their friends. It was a vast improvement over what his life had been, yet he craved more. More time with Thea, more laughter. He smiled to himself. And lots more kisses.
The Baby Barter Page 18
