Suddenly Daddy and Suddenly Mommy
Page 46
“Mrs. Buchanan,” he said soothingly, trying to calm her, “I’ve seen dozens of kids the past couple of days with the very same symptoms your son has. Trust me, this is a simple case of the flu.”
She rattled off a list of medications and treatments the hospital should begin to administer immediately. When he protested, Jaina planted both feet on the floor and, though she couldn’t have been more than five years older than him, wagged a maternal digit under his nose.
She’d been cutting articles out of newspapers and magazines since the day Liam had come into her life. The shoe box she kept clippings in to start with had soon overflowed with ideas and tidbits about baby care and child rearing, and Jaina had had to move her collection to a larger box. If she believed Liam had meningitis, Connor thought, then the boy had meningitis!
Connor stepped up and, crossing both arms defiantly over his chest, threatened to use the doctor’s stethoscope in a way he’d never believed possible. The commotion alerted the resident’s superior, who examined Liam herself and ordered a battery of tests that, in the end, proved Jaina correct.
If they had listened to that resident, Liam might be seriously ill right now, instead of sleeping contentedly as they awaited his release forms. Connor’s relief was so great and so heartfelt, it nearly drove him to tears. Jaina might be stubborn and opinionated, but she was kindhearted, loving and bound and determined to do the right thing.
Almighty God, help me, please, he prayed.
A moment of silence passed before she cut him a sidelong glance. “What did you say?” she whispered.
Well, you said you were going to tell her how you felt, and that you would do it tonight. He turned her to face him, then drew her near. “I said, ‘I love you.’”
Wide-eyed and breathless, Jaina licked her lips, swallowed, blinked.
He tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “Well…?”
“Well what?” she asked, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
He made a “come on” rolling gesture with his right hand. “This is where you’re supposed to reciprocate.”
Tilting her head, Jaina studied his face for a long, silent moment. Then she wrapped her arms around his chest and snuggled close. “Reciprocate.” She sighed. “Such a romantic word!”
Connor grinned, then kissed the top of her head.
“I love you, too,” Jaina said. She took a step back and looked deep into his eyes. “I think I’ve loved you from the moment we met.”
He remembered the conversation he’d had with Kirstie about the girl of his dreams. “I can top that,” he said tenderly.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve loved you all my life.”
She nodded as though she understood. And then she said, “We made quite a team tonight, didn’t we?”
Laughing, he shook his head. “I’ll say. That resident won’t forget us any time soon.”
“I imagine we were quite a sight…you in your tuxedo and me in my evening gown…threatening to do bodily harm if our son wasn’t given the proper care.”
“Our son,” he echoed. “I like the sound of that.”
“Kirstie was right,” Jaina said. “Together, we’ll be good for Liam.”
“Together… I like the sound of that, too.”
“So do I.” She snuggled close again. “When we get home, I’d like to do some rearranging.”
He’d lived with her long enough to know that she could pick some odd times to move furniture, knickknacks, pictures… “Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow, sweetie? Because I’m—”
“No,” she said, bracketing his face with her hands, “it can’t wait.”
He took a deep breath. She had just saved Liam’s life. How could he refuse her anything? “Okay,” he agreed, smiling. “Soon as I change out of my tux. What do you want to move?”
“Me.”
“You?”
“What’s the matter…you don’t want a roommate?”
A roommate?
She drew his face near, then kissed him, hard and full on the lips.
Epilogue
Six years later
“Mommy, Susan is in my room again.”
Jaina trudged up the stairs and stood in Liam’s doorway, one fist on her hip. “Susan…”
The four-year-old stuck out her tongue at her brother. “He called me a geek!”
“Liam, what have I told you about calling your sister names?”
The seven-year-old hung his head. “That it isn’t nice?”
“No, it isn’t.” To Susan, she said, “And neither is sticking out your tongue.” The little girl looked at the floor, too. Their mother knelt on the floor and held out her arms. Both children flew into them. “Now, what do you say we go down into the kitchen and whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies? If we’re very, very quiet,” she added in a whisper, “maybe we can finish before your little sister wakes up.”
Liam rolled his big blue eyes. “Not a chance. Kirstie will smell the dough and she’ll—”
“Don’t pick on her, Liam,” Susan said. “She’s just a baby.”
“Not baby. My teacher said when you’re two, you’re a toddler.”
The brown-eyed girl looked to Jaina for confirmation, and when her mother nodded and pointed at herself, she said, “Oh, I get it. A baby lives in here.” Grinning, she patted Jaina’s well-rounded tummy.
“Right you are, Suzie-Q,” Connor said from the doorway. “Did I hear something about chocolate chip cookies?”
“Daddy!” the children chorused, snuggling into his outstretched arms.
“Can I measure the flour, Mommy?” Susan asked, clapping her hands.
“And can I break the eggs?” Liam wanted to know.
Connor helped Jaina to her feet. “I’ll tell you what,” she suggested, giving her husband a sideways hug. “If you go outside and play quietly while Mommy and Daddy talk, the two of you can do all the work all by yourselves!”
They scrambled from the room and thundered down the stairs, squealing with glee, reminding her what a happy six years this had been. The children had both learned to ride the horses Connor bought from a farmer on Marriottsville Road, she’d sold The Chili Pot to Eliot, and her parents had retired to Florida. Skip had married a coworker and now had two children. The Buchanan peace was nearly constant.
She had even returned to singing, at weddings and funerals and in the church choir.
Once they were alone, Connor pulled her into a bear hug. “C’mere, you,” he growled lovingly, “it’s been a long, hard day and I need a kiss.”
“But…it’s not even lunchtime yet.”
He grinned. “So whatcha gonna do…sue me?”
She took his hand, led him into their room and closed the door. “Maybe we can settle this out of court,” she suggested.
Connor took off his tie and smiled as Jaina picked up her guitar. He sprawled across the neatly made bed and tucked his hands under his head.
He could be patient because experience had taught him that when her song ended, the real music would begin….
Dear Reader,
Years ago I read a newspaper article about a young woman who had abandoned her baby. She’d wrapped him in a receiving blanket, the report said, tucked him into a cardboard box and left him at the emergency-room doors of a local hospital.
On that same day, at that very hospital, I gave birth to my first child. I couldn’t stand to be apart from her, not even for the few minutes it took me to bathe! Needless to say, I had a lot of trouble identifying with that young woman….
TV newscasts kept audiences updated on the baby’s condition. And, oh, what a beautiful little being he was! I came up with a dozen scenarios about why this could have happened. Had his mother been too young? Too poor to take care of a helpless infant? What dreadful trauma had driven her to such desperate measures?
The answer, two decades later: Suddenly Mommy.
All my best,
P.S. They never fo
und that baby’s mother. He was placed in foster care until a loving couple made him part of their family. But now and then, as my own children grew and thrived, I wondered whatever became of his birth mother. And when I do wonder, I say a prayer for her, because surely, wherever she is, her heart aches every time she thinks of that day….
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6504-6
SUDDENLY DADDY AND SUDDENLY MOMMY
SUDDENLY DADDY
Copyright © 1998 by Loree Lough
SUDDENLY MOMMY
Copyright © 1998 by Loree Lough
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*Suddenly!
**Accidental Blessings