The Unclaimed Baby

by Sherryl Woods

  The interior of the place was one step up from the exterior. The bar itself was an elaborately carved relic from another era and the mirrored wall behind it was lined with liquor bottles that went from the rot-gut stuff to the priciest labels on the market. Apparently people from all walks of life in Garden City reached the End of the Road sooner or later.

  There were a dozen or so people scattered around the large room. One group of four, all men, were tipping beers and arguing about politics. A man at the end of the bar was staring with a glassy gaze at the TV, which had been tuned to a sitcom rerun. There were couples in a few of the booths. Every one of them had a thick hamburger and a mound of crispy onion rings in front of them. That was recommendation enough for Cord, whose mouth watered at the sight of them.

  When the bartender finally approached, he greeted Harlan Patrick by name.

  “I hear Laurie’s on her way to Nashville,” he said, obviously unaware of what a sore subject it was. “I’m guessing she’ll have herself a recording contract by springtime. That little gal’s got talent. I’ll bet you’re close to busting with pride.”

  Harlan Patrick gave a grim nod. “She’s got what it takes, all right. Bring me a beer, Jack.”

  Cord ordered a hamburger and onion rings. “I’ll have a beer now, then coffee after.”

  When the bartender had gone, Harlan Patrick grinned at Cord. “Guess that makes you the designated driver.”

  “Okay by me.” He glanced around the room. “You see anybody here who could be our potential grandmother?”

  Harlan Patrick whirled his stool around and looked out over the scattering of people. “No one here who looks a day over forty to me.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Maybe she’s just not here yet.”

  Cord’s gaze fell on a woman tucked into the shadows of a nearby booth with what looked like a double whiskey in front of her. “Then again, maybe she’s just a young grandma,” he said thoughtfully, nodding in the direction of the booth. It was hard to tell too much about the woman, because of the way she’d huddled in a corner of the darkened booth, but she didn’t look like any grandmother he’d ever seen. For some reason he’d been envisioning a white-haired old lady. This woman had hair the color of straw and an outfit meant for someone half her size.

  Harlan Patrick followed his gaze. “Could be. She can’t be much more than forty, but it looks as if she’s been around the block a time or two. I’ll check it out when Jack comes back.”

  Another flurry of customers arrived and it was a half hour before the bartender brought their food and had time enough to chat.

  “Who’s the lady who’s all alone over there?” Harlan Patrick asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in here before.”

  Jack followed the direction of his gesture. “Hazel? Oh, she’s one of the regulars. She’s here by five. Never leaves before closing. I’m not surprised you haven’t noticed her. She stays to herself, doesn’t say much. The lady’s into serious drinking. Can’t say I’ve ever heard her story. All I know for sure is that she pays her check, she’s never rowdy and she gets home under her own steam. Lives a couple of blocks from here and walks. I offered her a ride one night when it was raining cats and dogs, but she refused. Said she didn’t mind getting wet.”

  “Is she friendly with any of the other regulars?” Cord asked.

  “You asking if she picks up men?” the bartender asked. “Not that I’ve ever noticed. Like I said, she concentrates on her whiskey and the music, if we have anybody performing.”

  He glanced up then, spotted a customer beckoning from the other end of the bar and went off to get the man another drink.

  “Looks like that’s the lady,” Harlan Patrick said. “What do we do now?”

  Cord was at a loss. Obviously they couldn’t go and pump her for information. “Watch her, I guess. From what your buddy said, it doesn’t sound as if she’d appreciate the company of a couple of strangers.”

  “Isn’t this going to be a little bit like watching grass grow?” Harlan Patrick grumbled. “Doesn’t look to me as if we’re going to see a lot of action.”

  “You sound disappointed,” Cord said, regarding him with amusement. “What exactly were you hoping for?”

  Harlan Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know. Something dangerous, I guess.”

  “Seems to me you ought to be grateful you were wrong. Now you can get down to the serious business of drowning your sorrows, while I keep an eye on our friend over there.”

  Harlan Patrick swirled his beer around in the glass, took another sip, then pushed the glass aside with an expression of distaste. “To tell you the honest truth, I think I had enough of that last night. It didn’t stop me from thinking about Laurie and I woke up with a splitting headache and a queasy stomach. What’s the point?”

  Cord barely contained his desire to laugh at Harlan Patrick’s despondent tone. Growing up was surely hell. “Is that a pool table I see over there? We could play a little to pass the time.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Harlan Patrick said eagerly. “There’s nothing I like better than taking a man’s money from him over a friendly little game of pool.”

  “Just don’t forget to keep one eye on our lady-friend, in case she decides to slip out before closing.”

  Maybe it was because he was still distracted over his girlfriend’s defection, but Harlan Patrick’s mind was definitely not on pool. A few hours later, Cord was a hundred bucks richer and not feeling one bit guilty about it. The betting had been Harlan Patrick’s idea, after all.

  “How’d you do that?” Harlan Patrick grumbled as they returned to the bar just in time for last call.

  “Concentration and skill,” Cord said simply, pocketing his winnings.

  “All in all, the night has been a total bust.”

  “Not really,” Cord said. “It looks as if our friend is about to head home.”

  “And you want to do what? Follow her? What good will that do? Justin already knows where she lives.”

  “But firsthand information is always best. Are you coming or not?”

  Harlan Patrick eyed his beer with renewed longing, then shrugged. “I’m coming.”

  They climbed into Cord’s truck. He turned on the engine, but not the headlights and waited until Hazel Murdock was halfway down the block before pulling to the edge of the lot and waiting again.

  “I thought you were going to follow her.”

  “I am, but as long as we can see her from here, why pull out?” Cord said. “As slow as she’s walking, we’d just end up passing her and having to circle the block. She’d get suspicious for sure.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Harlan Patrick admitted. “What happens when she gets to her house? You’re not proposing to spend the night outside, are you?”

  “No,” Cord said to Harlan Patrick’s obvious relief. “But once we know where it is, we can come back tomorrow while she’s at the bar and take a closer look.”

  Harlan Patrick’s eyes widened as the implications of that sank in. “Oh, no,” he protested. “Tell me you’re not thinking of breaking in.”

  “Who said anything about breaking in?” Cord asked innocently. “Besides, you were the one hoping to do something dangerous.”

  “I really do not want to land in jail.”

  “Not even to help your sister and that sweet little baby?”

  Harlan Patrick moaned. “You heard what Justin said. He’s going to be ticked as hell if we get ourselves arrested, to say nothing of what Daddy and Grandpa Harlan will have to say about it.”

  Cord regarded him with grim determination. “Then we’ll just have to be sure not to get caught, won’t we?”

  Blast Hazel Murdock, Cord thought the next night as he and Harlan Patrick crept up to her house. He’d been hoping that she’d go off and leave lights blazing so the two of them could do their snooping from outside. For all of his bravado the night before, he wasn’t any more thrilled with the idea of getting ar
rested than Harlan Patrick was. It would definitely be counterproductive to any custody battle, if he had a very recent breaking and entering charge on his record.

  Unfortunately old Hazel apparently saved money on electricity so she could afford her booze. The little two-story bungalow was as dark as a tomb when they drove up in front of it after making sure that Hazel was, indeed, settled in at the bar for the evening.

  “Now what?” Harlan Patrick asked, sounding resigned.

  “We hope she’s the type of woman to leave her front door unlocked,” Cord said. “If not, we start looking for open windows.”

  “It’s twenty degrees out here. How many windows do you expect to find open?”

  “It only takes one. And it only needs to be unlocked, not pushed up.”

  “Why do I think I’m going to regret this?” Harlan Patrick grumbled, but he followed Cord up the walk and reached for the door handle.

  “Wait!” Cord said, grabbing his arm. “You’re not wearing gloves. I am.”

  “Sorry. Apparently I’m a little rusty at breaking and entering.”

  “If the door’s unlocked, it’s only entering,” Cord replied.

  “I want to be there when you try that explanation out on the judge.”

  “No doubt you will be, if it comes to that,” Cord stated as the door eased open on the first try. “Bingo.”

  He slipped inside and pulled the flashlight he’d brought along from his pocket.

  “Mind telling me exactly what we’re looking for?” Harlan Patrick said.

  “Evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  “That Hazel Murdock wouldn’t be fit to raise that baby.”

  “Her evenings at the End of the Road ought to take care of that.”

  “I want more.” He flashed the low beam of the light around the room, which was decorated with framed religious pictures and not one single snapshot of her daughter as far as Cord could tell.

  “So far all I see is evidence of a God-fearing, churchgoing woman,” Harlan Patrick commented, holding up a stack of programs from Sunday services at the church down the block. “I don’t think that’s going to go against her.”

  Cord was forced to admit that the house was well maintained, if not lavishly furnished. There wasn’t a speck of dust on anything and in the kitchen not even a coffee cup had been left in the sink.

  He opened the refrigerator and peered inside. There was a six-pack of beer on the top shelf, a half-used stick of butter and a package of stale cheese slices that had darkened around the edges. Apparently Hazel wasn’t much of a cook.

  The cabinets weren’t much of an improvement. He found a loaf of bread, some peanut butter and a tin of coffee. There wasn’t even a canned vegetable or box of cereal in sight. Under the counter, though, he did find several bottles of whiskey. It was obvious she didn’t confine her drinking to the saloon down the street. It made him wonder how she managed to stay upright on those walks home at night.

  Still, would that be enough to keep her from getting custody? Especially if she worked hard, went to church Sundays, and stayed to herself. Who would testify that she was anything other than a responsible woman, who was willing to take on the burden of raising her grandchild? There were plenty of folks who would probably sing her praises for the sacrifice she was willing to make to care for her daughter’s baby.

  “This place is giving me the creeps,” Harlan Patrick murmured, coming up behind him. “Can we get out of here?”

  “Might’s well,” Cord agreed.

  When they were back in the car and on their way back to Los Piños, Harlan Patrick asked, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Aside from the booze, I’m not sure if there was anything at all there to suggest she couldn’t care for the baby,” he admitted, not even trying to hide his disappointment. “Who knows, though, maybe her drinking will be all it takes? Or maybe when she’s had time to think about it, she’ll decide that she doesn’t want a baby messing up her dull little routine.”

  “I sure as hell hope so, for Sharon Lynn’s sake and for the baby’s.” Harlan Patrick shuddered. “I know I wouldn’t want to grow up in that house. Reminded me too much of a monk’s cell. Is it any wonder that her daughter didn’t think she could go home with the baby? Dear old mama would probably have bombarded her with a diatribe about her sins. I counted four Bibles in the place.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with owning more than one Bible. Some would see that as a sign that she’s a pious woman,” Cord replied.

  “Maybe,” Harlan Patrick said. “But I’ll lay you odds, the words in the Bible weren’t used with love in that house. I’ll bet they were used as weapons.”

  “Unfortunately, unless Vicki reappears, we won’t be able to prove that, and the last thing we want is the natural mother coming back to claim the baby.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

  Cord glanced over at Harlan Patrick. “Thanks for coming with me. I know you had your doubts about the wisdom of going in there tonight.”

  “Somebody had to go along. Besides, you were doing it for my sister.”

  “I just wish we’d accomplished more. I wish I could go back there and tell Sharon Lynn that there’s no chance a court would award custody of Ashley to that woman.”

  “You’ve warned her. We all have,” Harlan Patrick reminded him. “Once she held that baby, there was no way that Sharon Lynn was going to do anything except see this through, even if she got hurt in the process. You get a lot of credit from all of us for sticking by her.”

  “I had no choice, either.”

  Harlan Patrick turned a suddenly serious look on him. “Are you planning on being there for her, no matter how this turns out?”

  Cord knew what he was asking in his roundabout way. “If she’ll let me, I’m in this for the duration.”

  “If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it now. It was lucky for her you walked into Dolan’s that night.”

  “No,” Cord said softly. “I’m the lucky one.” Now all he had to do was figure out how to put a positive spin on all of this for Sharon Lynn.

  Waiting and wondering when the grandmother would appear and snatch the baby out of her arms was driving Sharon Lynn a little crazy. It hadn’t helped matters that Cord had suddenly vanished. She hadn’t seen him for two days now. Nor had he called. It made her realize just how much she had come to depend on his presence.

  On the second day she finally broke down and called her mother.

  “Darling, how are you?” Melissa asked. “I’ve been so worried about you. How’s the baby?”

  “The baby’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound all that terrific. What’s really going on?”

  “Actually I was just wondering if you’d seen Cord around the ranch the last couple of days.”

  “I haven’t, but then I rarely see any of the men outside of your brother. Let me ask your father.”

  “No, don’t,” Sharon Lynn protested, only to realize she was talking to dead air. She could hear her mother calling out to her father as she walked through the house.

  Since there was no way to prevent her mother from asking, she concluded she might as well stay on the line until she had an answer. It was several minutes before the phone was picked up again, but this time it was her father on the line.

  “I hear you’re looking for Cord,” he said. “What’s up? Is there a problem? Do you need one of us to come into town?”

  “Of course not. Everything’s fine here. I was just wondering about out there. Cord hasn’t come down with the flu or something, has he?” She couldn’t bring herself to voice her greatest fear, that he might have taken off.

  “He’s not sick. He’s been at work right on time the past couple of days. I’ve got to admit he’s damned good at it, too,” he said grudgingly.

  Sharon Lynn grinned at his disgruntled tone. “Were you hoping he’d be lousy, so you could fire him? Especially since you didn’t ma
nage to get him to quit.”

  “How’d you hear about that? Isn’t there anything that happens on this ranch that the whole world doesn’t know about?”

  “Not when you’ve never learned to lower your voice,” she teased. “That’s why the whole town always knew exactly what was going on with you and mom, even though you dragged her into the back room at Dolan’s to have your battles.”

  “Okay, smarty, that’s about enough out of you,” her father grumbled, but he was chuckling. “As for Cord, I have no idea where he is, but I’m pretty sure he’s with your brother. They’ve been thick as thieves the past couple of days.”

  That was the last thing Sharon Lynn expected him to say. What on earth were the two of them up to? Probably no good, given Harlan Patrick’s current state of mind.

  “Should I tell Cord you were looking for him?” her father asked.

  “No, I’m sure I’ll catch up with him sooner or later.” She was about to hang up, when another thought occurred to her. “Dad, how is Harlan Patrick handling Laurie’s leaving?”

  “You mean after he got over the shock that she actually left?”

  “Yes, though I still don’t know why that caught him off guard. She’d been telling him for years she was going.”

  “His ego wouldn’t let him believe she’d walk away from what they had.”

  “And his pride won’t let him go after her,” Sharon Lynn added.

  “Why should he?” her father demanded. “She made her choice plain enough. I say good riddance.”

  “Dad, you don’t mean that. You always liked Laurie. We all did.”

  “I don’t like anyone who hurts one of my kids.”

  She grinned at his fierce tone. “Yeah, we do tend to stick together, don’t we? Heck, I might even take a poke at Laurie myself if she turned up again. Ever think we might intimidate the daylights out of anyone who tries to break into our tight-knit circle?”

  “Not the good ones,” he retorted. “Nothing intimidates the ones worth having.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “Could be your Cord’s one of those.”

  She was surprised at the praise, but found herself denying the relationship. “He’s not my Cord.”