Once a Father

by Marie Ferrarella

  “But it’ll pass,” Stone prodded.

  If this was on the level, he qualified silently. And if it was, when it passed, the kid was sure to run off at the mouth about what he’d seen. Canvas bags stuffed with money. Money that El Jefe had sent and that painstakingly had been recorded, not once but twice in two sets of books, only one that would reach the drug lord. The other was for him so that he could keep track of exactly how much he had skimmed off the top before the money passed through the bank account he’d had set up here. The laundered funds then went back to their point of origin, representing investments in Emeralda, the import-export firm that comprised El Jefe’s legitimate business holdings.

  One slipup and it could all be over. He hadn’t gotten where he was by leaving loose ends flapping in the breeze, loose ends that could undo him, Stone thought angrily.

  Bancroft squirmed under the chief’s heated glare. “We don’t know.”

  Exasperated, Stone cursed at him roundly. “Well, who the hell does know?”

  “Nobody,” Bancroft replied helplessly. “She said it’s just one of those things…”

  Though the answers were infuriating him, Stone had no doubt that Bancroft was speaking the truth as he knew it. The man was too dumb, too frightened to lie.

  “So’s a noose if you catch my drift. I want you to stay close to the kid and check him out in another week or so. Ask around. If he so much as makes a peep or clears his throat, I want to know about it.”

  Damn, but this was frustrating. Stone knew what he would do if they were dealing with an adult. He’d have whoever it was terminated in the interest of the great cause. But this was a kid, and maybe a brain-damaged one at that, no matter what the doctor said. He didn’t like the idea of eliminating a kid unless he had no other choice. He had kids of his own.

  Which was part of what had gotten him into all this in the first place, he reminded himself angrily.

  There were walls up no matter which way he turned. Stone glared at the policeman. “You’ve got your assignment. Get out of my office,” he ordered.

  Bancroft didn’t have to be told twice. He limped out quickly.

  When she returned to Jake’s room more than an hour later, Tracy was somewhat surprised to find Adam still there. The firefighter was sitting beside the boy’s bed exactly as she’d left him, his hand extended over the railing, holding Jake’s.

  Adam’s eyes shifted to her as she walked in.

  Jake’s eyes were closed and he looked to be asleep. “Your arm must be numb,” she observed, lowering her voice.

  It had gone past numb half an hour ago. “I can’t feel my fingers,” he confessed. Experiencing that same self-conscious feeling creeping over him again, he slowly eased his hand away from Jake’s and then stood up. Adam wiggled his fingers slowly. They were stiff and it felt as if an army of ants were racing around inside his wrist. “There goes my tennis career.”

  Moving away from Jake’s bed, she looked at Adam, amused. “I thought it was golf.”

  The shrug was dismissive, vague. “Whatever.”

  He wasn’t an easy man to read. Tracy motioned Adam out into the hall and waited until he joined her just outside the glass enclosure around Adam’s bed.

  “You know, you don’t have to be flippant about having a sensitive side.”

  He wasn’t sure exactly what she was referring to and because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, Adam shrugged again. “I just thought the kid might like a baseball glove, that’s all.”

  She was talking about him staying with Jake and holding his hand, about his coming to see the boy in the first place, but she allowed Adam the lie. “Did you at his age?”

  The question brought back memories. He’d been short for his age, and a baseball glove seemed like a magic ticket into the world where all boys were momentarily created equal. “Hell, more than I wanted anything else in the whole world.”

  Tracy crossed her arms before her, her curiosity aroused. It wasn’t easy visualizing him as a little boy Jake’s age, but she tried. “Did you get one?”

  “No.” He recalled how hard he’d tried to hide his disappointment. Even then, he had been bent on hiding his emotions. “We couldn’t afford it. My dad was laid off that year and every dime went to paying the rent and putting food on the table.” He’d pretended it hadn’t mattered to him. But it had. “There were seven of us.”

  “Seven.” What was it like to have six brothers and sisters? she wondered. She would have felt lucky to have had one or two in her life, instead of being an only child. Like the Andersons, she realized. And Jake. “Lucky number.”

  He’d certainly never thought so. Neither had his parents, he was sure, though neither one had ever complained about the size of the family. They had just borne up to it, the two of them, doing what they needed to do in order to provide for the family.

  “Two would have been luckier,” he told her. “Would have given my folks something in their pockets besides lint.”

  She understood what he was saying, but to her there was another criteria to measure by. “Money isn’t everything.”

  Spoken like a woman who probably never had to do without, he thought cynically. He was willing to bet the petite, sexy doctor had never felt deprived of anything more important than tickets to a sold-out concert in her life. “It is when you don’t have it.”

  She had been born into the lap of luxury. A luxury she eventually rejected, preferring to earn her own way. There was just her father now. Her mother had died when she was twenty-two. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember either one of them ever truly being happy. “All the money in the world can’t buy you happiness.”

  He would have loved his parents to have had the opportunity to discover that on their own. “Yeah, but it can sure eliminate the credit collectors that hassle you at all hours of the day and night.”

  Was he speaking from experience, or just pulling her leg? She thought of the upside of having a large family, something she’d once hoped to have herself. Before endometriosis had ended all her dreams. “Bet you had great Christmases, though.”

  Damn it, what did it take to make this woman’s plane land? “I just told you, we were poor.”

  There was poor, and there was poor. In some ways, she knew she’d been poorer than he had been. “There were nine of you, counting your folks. You were rich,” she told him firmly. “Richer than Jake is right now.”

  He began to say something to negate her assumption, then stopped. “You’re one of those Pollyanna types that turns people’s stomachs, aren’t you?”

  She grinned. “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

  “I had a feeling.”

  Turning to look at him, she saw past the scowl on his face. “Don’t act as if you’re some kind of Scrooge because I won’t believe you.”

  Definitely a stomach turner, he thought. “Not that I care what you believe, but why not?”

  That was so easy, it hardly bore stating. “Because if you were one, you wouldn’t have turned up today. And you wouldn’t have waited around yesterday to find out how he was doing.”

  She had a smug expression curving her mouth. Adam found himself wanting to wipe it off. With his own. Surprised, he blocked out the thought. When he spoke, his tone was curt, cold, as he tried to verbally push her away.

  “I told you, I pulled him out of the fire. I like knowing if I risked my neck for nothing.”

  “That sounds very cold and callous.” But it didn’t fool her for a minute.

  His eyes narrowed. Was she finally getting it? “It is.”

  “But you’re not,” she told him. There was no room for argument in her tone. “Why are you trying to convince yourself that you are?”

  He had better things to do than go head-to-head with a stubborn woman with curly black hair. “I didn’t come here to be analyzed.”

  The smile she flashed undulated its way inside him, like a chance encounter with rays of sunshine on an overcast day. He tried to shake off the
reaction.

  “Consider it a freebie.”

  What he considered it—and her—to be was a giant pain in the butt. “I thought burns were your specialty, not shrinking heads.”

  “I branched out a little.” He looked as if he was about to take off. Not wanting him to leave just yet, she changed tactics. “Seriously, I’m glad you came to see him.”

  He didn’t see why his visit mattered one way or another. “A lot of good it did.”

  “Oh, but it did,” she insisted. How could he think that it didn’t? “I saw Jake take your hand. That’s the most response I’ve seen out of him since they brought him in.”

  He still found it difficult to wrap his mind around the fact that Jake hadn’t spoken to anyone, hadn’t said anything.

  “And he really hasn’t said a word? Not to anyone?” Adam asked incredulously.

  “Not a single word.” Though she was trying not to dwell on it, it really concerned her. “Not even a whimper after you brought him in, and I know he was in pain. Painkillers wear off.”

  Adam stared through the glass at the still form lying in the bed. “How long do you think he’ll have to stay here?”

  “Well, his parents had a great insurance plan so there’s no rush for his bed.” It was the side of healing she hated, reckoning with the demands of insurance companies—all the red tape and paperwork that ultimately threatened to dehumanize patients.

  He didn’t quite understand. “The insurance was his father’s, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But his father’s dead.” Didn’t that mean that the policy was terminated?

  She knew what he was thinking. It was a common misconception. “Doesn’t matter, it goes to the end of the month, or, in the event of a dependent’s hospital confinement when the insured dies, the coverage continues until after the patient is discharged.”

  It seemed like little enough compensation for Jake’s loss. “So he has a little leeway?”

  “Yes, luckily.”

  Adam looked at the boy again, feeling his heart twist in his chest. Damn, but he looked like Bobby. “But eventually, he has to be discharged.”

  “Well, yes, he can’t stay in the hospital indefinitely.”

  He continued his thought. “To social services.”

  She didn’t like it any more than he did. “They’d be handling his case.”

  Though he had led his life these last two years trying to distance himself from everything and anything, he still didn’t like the dehumanized way of looking at Jake’s situation.

  “He doesn’t have a case, he has a life,” Adam said sharply.

  Tracy took a step back, surprised by his tone. “Hey, don’t jump all over me. I’m not the one who set the bomb and destroyed innocent lives.”

  She was right, it wasn’t her fault. He had no right to yell at her. “Sorry, I don’t usually lose my temper like that.”

  Because he apologized, she let it slide. “What do you usually do?”

  What he should have done in this case, he told himself. “Not pay attention to things.”

  “But this is different.” It wasn’t a question. It was an observation. One that applied to both of them, she thought, because somehow, it was different for her as well. Jake was alone and she couldn’t bear the thought of that.

  “Yes, this is different.”

  Wheels began to turn in her head. She remembered what she’d wanted to ask him when her pager had gone off. “I suppose, if you feel that strongly about it, maybe I can talk to a friend of mine who’s in social services. She might be able to pull some strings to allow you to have temporary custody of the boy.”

  His head whipped around and he stared at her incredulously. “Me?”

  He sounded stunned. “I’m sorry, did I misunderstand something? I thought you were volunteering.”

  “Well, I wasn’t. I was just being concerned.” Frustrated, Adam searched for the right words. “Look, I can’t take him in. I’m a firefighter. On two days, off two days.”

  Tracy was well aware of the schedule. “Maybe your wife—”

  He cut her off curtly. “I don’t have a wife.”

  “Then why—?” Her eyes automatically went to the plain gold band on his left hand. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to pry into your private life, it’s just that you’re wearing a wedding ring, so I thought—”

  He was going to have to get better control over himself than this, he thought. That’s three times he’d bitten her head off. “My wife died two years ago. I just wasn’t ready to take it off.”

  Moved by the traces of sorrow echoing in his voice despite his obvious effort to mute them, Tracy laid her hand on his. She hadn’t meant to unearth anything painful. “I’m sorry, really sorry.”

  Given the nature of her work, he knew that she had to say those words a dozen times a month if not more.

  But the thing of it was, he believed her.

  Chapter 5

  Adam had no idea what had come over him. Why he was standing here in the middle of a hospital, telling this strange woman things he didn’t readily talk about with either his siblings or the people he knew and worked with.

  Things that were locked away in his soul.

  Maybe there was something to the idea that it was easier to talk to a stranger than to someone who was actually a part of your life. And maybe seeing Jake this way had triggered it, bringing back a flood of memories Adam had struggled for two years to contain if not blot out altogether.

  Yet Adam didn’t want to share this, not with this efficient, effervescent lady doctor who was too optimistic for her own good. Not with anyone. Didn’t want to touch upon things that after all this time, could still slice through him like a newly sharpened hunting knife.

  Hearing her express sorrow at his loss didn’t help mute the feeling.

  “Yeah,” he murmured in response to her condolences, “me, too.”

  He looked at her. Tracy had begun by suggesting something that he’d actually entertained himself earlier today. Hearing it said aloud had made him momentarily feel as if he were being put on the spot, but in reality, he hadn’t really liked the idea of Jake being placed in a foster home.

  Adam supposed the idea of taking him in wasn’t really such a stretch.

  He blew out a breath, “Look, maybe something can be arranged and I can take Jake in until this second cousin can be found and checked out.” He paused, thinking. There were logistics involved here. “I’ll have to get someone to stay with the boy on the days that I’m working at the station.”

  Maybe Tina, one of his sisters-in-law, could be persuaded to take the boy in, he thought. It would require some rescheduling, but nothing that couldn’t be done. Tina was great with kids and a pushover for a hard luck story.

  Tracy studied him as he spoke, making up her mind. If this solemn, stoic man could find it in his heart to try to aid a child in need, then the least she could do was help him.

  “If you can tell me your schedule ahead of time, I could see about having mine arranged so that I can cover for you on the days when you’re working.”

  God knew she had enough leverage to be able to do that, Tracy thought. Ever since she’d discovered that she’d unwittingly allowed her case of endometriosis to go untreated until it was too late and she could never have the children she so desperately craved, Tracy had thrown herself into her work. She’d taken on double shifts, worked an enormous amount of overtime and volunteered to cover for other people when they couldn’t come in. She’d accrued so much extra time that she knew she could easily cull this favor from the head attending physician in the E.R.

  His gaze held her suspect. He wasn’t accustomed to people volunteering to help, especially someone who didn’t know him. “Why would you do that?”

  Her mouth curved in a half smile. “Maybe for the same reason you are.”

  Adam shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  He was doing it because Jake reminded him of Bobby. Because Bobby wa
s gone and he hadn’t been able to save him, but he had saved Jake. Because he had lost a son and the mother of his child and Jake had lost a father and a mother. It gave the two of them a great deal in common, a loss they could bond over, even if nothing was ever said to acknowledge it. The woman standing next to him knew none of this, and, unless he missed his guess, had none of this in her own life.

  Whatever her reasons were, they weren’t his.

  He was being uncommunicative again, Tracy thought, but she let it pass. She didn’t want to argue, she wanted to help.

  “All right. Then let’s say I’m doing it because I love kids and I think that Jake has enough to deal with without having to go through the trauma of being passed from hand to hand in social services.” Tracy leaned against the glass, for the moment her back to the boy whose life they were both concerned about. “What he needs at this moment is time to heal. From the inside out. Being placed in a foster home might not be the best thing for him right now and to be fair, you can’t expect someone to just be able to jump in and handle his special needs at a time like this. Being a pediatric doctor gives me a slight edge in that department.”

  She waited for Adam to say something. When he didn’t, she pressed, “So, is it a deal?”

  He didn’t see why she was asking him. “You’ve probably got more of a say in this than I do, seeing as how he’s on your turf.”

  You’re a strange, strange man, Adam Collins. What makes you tick? Her smile was engaging. “That’s okay, I’ve never been known to throw my weight around.”

  There was something about her smile that seemed to cut through the layers of sadness that were wrapped so tightly, so permanently, around his soul. For a second, Adam stopped resisting and just allowed the warmth that her smile generated to come through.

  “I’ll remember that,” he told her.

  It sounded like a promise, but she knew it wasn’t. The man was just making conversation, nothing more. Tracy glanced at her watch. It was getting close to noon. “Well, I have rounds to make.”

  He nodded, part of him relieved that she was leaving. “I think I’ll stick around a little longer, be here in case he wakes up.”