by Dana Corbit
“At least they have a plan going forward.”
“Brooke does, anyway,” Carla said with a sigh. “She said she’s changed her mind. She wants—”
“To keep the baby,” Shannon finished for her, nodding. “You already shared that with us.”
Carla rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in the V formed where her wrists touched. “What am I going to do?”
“Come on, sweetie. You know what you’re going to do.” Shannon reached over to pat her shoulder. “You’re going to support your daughter in the same way you’ve supported her every minute since she told you she was pregnant. Every minute since she was a little girl with a scraped knee.”
“But how can I support...this?”
Shannon didn’t miss the mother’s meaning. It was so much easier to get behind her daughter’s decision when it didn’t mean causing more upheaval and financial strain by bringing the baby into their home and lives. Not to mention the humiliation of having all of the neighbors know the truth. But Shannon couldn’t allow her resentment over the mother’s reaction to keep her from helping this family that would need her support more than ever.
“I understand that it’s hard,” she began. “But please try to respect Brooke’s decision. Whether she chooses to place her child with a loving family or to raise the baby herself, she will always have to live with that decision. Believe me, I know. So it has to be the right choice for her. And, as her mother, you’ll have to live with however you choose to respond to her decision.”
Suddenly, Carla’s eyes widened. “But this baby will be a preemie. He or she might not even survive. How will Brooke bear it if she has just decided to mother this child, and then she has to bury her baby?”
“Try to have faith.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You believe that God is capable of healing, right?”
“Of course I do.” Carla appeared anything but sure.
“Then you have to trust Him to do it here. Your daughter and your grandchild will need your support, but right now more than anything they need your prayers.”
Carla could only nod as her eyes filled with tears once more, so Shannon gathered her in her arms for a long hug. Finally, Carla pulled back from her.
“I need to get back in there to Brooke.”
Only after the woman disappeared through the door leading deeper into the emergency department did Shannon notice that Mark hadn’t been the only witness to their conversation; Blake was there, too. She wasn’t sure when he’d returned from the cafeteria, but he sat next to Mark, watching her with wide eyes. He didn’t look away when he realized she’d caught him watching, either.
How much of their conversation had he overheard? Had he been there for the part about young mothers living with the consequences of their choices? Was Blake beginning to understand her own painful decision to place him for adoption? If he did understand, did that mean he would finally forgive her? Maybe Blake would give her the chance to build a relationship with him after all. Maybe she would have the chance to be the kind of mother to him that she always should have been.
After several seconds, longer than he was usually able to maintain eye contact, Blake lowered his gaze to his hands in his lap, making a project of entwining his fingers in several different formations. But the man sitting next to him was still there, as if waiting for his turn to receive Shannon’s notice. Didn’t he know she couldn’t ignore him if she tried? He watched her for a long time, and then he smiled, his approval warming her as much as his gaze.
Funny thing about hope, it was contagious. If there were possibilities for a relationship between her and Blake, could she and Mark have a chance, as well? Despite the unlikely way they’d met, despite that trusting a man seemed impossibly hard to her, despite everything, she was tempted to open herself to the possibility. Maybe. Just maybe.
Hope was contagious, all right. She just worried it was dangerous, as well.
* * *
The final minutes of the holiday had slipped away by the time that Mark’s truck rolled up Hope Haven’s driveway, the gravel crunching too loudly beneath its tires. The line of cars that had filled the long drive earlier had been whittled to two. As he parked, Mark glanced in the rearview mirror, expecting Blake to have already crashed in the backseat. Instead, the boy sat up straight and was staring back at him in the glass.
“Is she... I mean, are they going to be okay?”
“Well, the doctor said the longer they can delay her delivery, the more they can develop the baby’s lungs and the better chance for a positive outcome,” Mark said, repeating some of the words he’d heard outside of Brooke’s hospital room.
“Sounds like a nonanswer to me,” Blake grumbled.
“Yeah, I guess it does.” Mark chuckled.
“They just don’t know what to say.” Shannon shifted to sit sideways in the front passenger seat. “Brooke and the baby will be fine. They have to be.”
“How do you know that for sure?” Blake asked.
For a long time, she said nothing, but then she shook her head. “There’s no way to know that for sure. I just have to believe it.”
Blake sighed. “Somebody’s finally telling the truth.”
“That’s not the whole truth, Blake,” Shannon said. “The doctor told us to go home since all we could do tonight was wait and hope for a healthy delivery. But she was wrong. We can do more than that. We can pray.”
“You’re right,” Mark agreed. “We can do that.”
He had to admire her confidence. She’d been a rock during this whole ordeal, whether she realized it or not. She’d supported Brooke until her mother had arrived and then had bolstered the girl’s mother, offering a loving demonstration for Blake at the same time. For him, too.
“Is it okay if we pray and get some sleep?” Blake asked with a yawn. “Not necessarily in that order.”
The adults laughed.
“He’s right. I’d better get inside. The other girls are still pretty upset.” She sighed. “They’re worried they’ll develop complications like Brooke did.”
“Does that happen often?” Mark asked to stall her.
“Teen moms are more likely to have premature deliveries than other mothers, and there can always be complications in pregnancy. But we do everything we can here to decrease the risk by giving the girls good prenatal care. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
“Maybe it will finally be dry enough for us to fix those gutters,” Mark said.
She nodded. “And then maybe you could take a look at the roof over the porch where it always leaks.”
“That chores list sure keeps growing.”
Chuckling, she pressed her fingertips to her lips. “Our offers of help around here are few and far between.”
“I see.”
“Well...” She placed her hand on the door handle.
“Wait.” He didn’t want her to go. Even if he hadn’t had the chance to be alone with her again to find out if that kiss had meant anything to her, too, at least they’d shared the same space for the past several hours. He searched for another way to stall, but there wasn’t anything left to say to keep her there.
“Here, let me get that for you,” he said finally.
He rounded the truck and opened the door for her, allowing light to flood into the cab. As she twisted to climb out, shadows of exhaustion under her eyes became apparent. With a glance toward Blake, who’d already settled into the backseat and had closed his eyes, Mark reached out to help her down to the running board. She stared at his outstretched hand for several seconds and then rested her hand in it, so small and soft when compared to his own. After she’d descended the step to the ground, the touch lingered, as intimate as a kiss. A promise made without words. Did she feel it, too?
“Good night, Miss Shannon
,” came a sleepy murmur from the backseat.
They jumped, jerking their hands back and looking inside the still-open door. Blake’s eyes were closed just as they’d been before. They exchanged a secret smile and closed the door, the truck’s interior light flicking off, leaving only a subtle glow coming from the back porch and barn lights.
Blake had called her Miss Shannon like the Hope Haven residents did, but it surprised Mark how much he wished the boy had called her Mom instead. Where in the beginning it had been so easy for him to blame her for deserting her child, now he saw the selflessness of her act. Even as a child herself and even at the expense of her own happiness, she’d tried to do what was best for her son.
She cleared her throat. “Well, good night.”
“Good night.”
She shivered, making him aware that the wind had picked up. The scent of the air had changed to a tangy crispness, as if the rain they’d endured all week was but a precursor to snow. With a wave, she trudged toward the house.
“Shannon,” he called after her.
She stopped, pausing for a few heartbeats before looking back over her shoulder. Was she bracing herself for whatever he had to say?
“At some point, we’re going to have to talk about what happened today.” He would have said “the kiss,” but he could tell from her wide eyes that she knew what he’d meant.
“I know.” And then she smiled.
It was all Mark could do not to stalk across the yard and take her in his arms right then and there. The very thing he shouldn’t have done the first time. The timing couldn’t have been worse, and he knew it. His wounds from being burned in his marriage were still fresh, the skin grafts covering them just beginning to take. And Shannon was in no position to be even considering romance now, either—not with Blake just reentering her life and seesawing before her between stranger and son.
He should step back from her for both of their sakes, but he couldn’t do it. From that first day when she’d needed him to step up for her son, Shannon had drawn him to her. She’d effortlessly unlocked the dead bolt he’d set over his heart, and now he was perilously close to allowing her to make a home for herself there, complete with wind chimes and a welcome mat.
No, now wasn’t the perfect time. But after the legal matters regarding Blake’s custody were settled, after the boy he’d promised to care for was comfortable in his new life, then just maybe he would be ready to take the risk of loving Shannon.
* * *
“The praise service was great, wasn’t it?” Shannon asked over her shoulder as they passed through the sliding-door entrance of the unfamiliar hospital Sunday afternoon.
“As good as any church service in a house could be, I guess,” Blake said.
Trailing behind them through the door, Mark chuckled. “So you’re a huge fan of services in regular church buildings, then?”
Blake made a noncommittal sound, but Shannon didn’t buy it. His eyes had been as damp as anyone’s at the praise service where they’d celebrated the healthy delivery of Brooke’s baby girl and Brooke’s improving health.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I thought it was amazing.” She frowned at them over her shoulder as they passed a gift shop and large waiting room, but she was too happy to hold the expression. “Such a great way to end Thanksgiving weekend. We had so much more to be thankful for than we ever knew at dinner on Thursday.”
“Yes, more than we knew,” Mark agreed.
Shannon swallowed, her pulse picking up as layers of possible meaning in his words enfolded her like a hug. She forced herself to look at the signs leading to the pediatric intensive care unit, trying not to read too much into his words. But since she’d overanalyzed every conversation they’d had, every unintentional look, each accidental touch in the past three days, she didn’t expect now to be any different. Before, she’d given herself the excuse that they’d all had too much time to think while they waited and prayed for the safe delivery of Brooke’s baby, so what was her excuse now?
Mark had seemed to have no trouble keeping his thoughts on the tasks at hand while he and Blake completed several outdoor projects at Hope Haven before Blake had to start at his new school and Mark had to return to work. What if the kiss she and Mark had shared had been just a kiss to him, a momentary lapse in judgment, while it had meant everything to her?
Was this what love felt like? This feeling of walking a tightrope in heels, with neither a pole for balance nor a safety net to protect against tragedy. She wasn’t certain, but the one thing she did know for sure was that those feelings she’d once had for Scott hadn’t been love at all. Not like this. Still, this wasn’t the first time she’d mistaken a guy’s motives. Mark knew her history, knew her weaknesses. Had he, for some reason she would never understand, used that knowledge against her?
“Why is the baby in a different hospital than Brooke?” Blake asked as they rounded yet another corner in the maze of halls.
“She needs to be in a hospital with a pediatric ICU for a while so the doctors had to transfer her,” Shannon explained.
“But Brooke’s still in the other hospital. Who’s going to be with the baby?”
“A lot of times when a baby has to be transferred to a hospital with a pediatric ICU, the father will be the one to visit until the mother can be released from the other hospital, and they can come together.”
“But not girls like her,” Blake grumbled.
“No. The dads aren’t often in the picture.”
She sensed both Mark and Blake watching her and waiting for her to add “like yours,” but she didn’t bother. They all knew that story now in varying levels of detail. There was no need for her to berate a guy who’d never been there and would never be there. Some things just were what they were.
“Don’t worry. She’ll be at the hospital as soon as she can be.”
With one last turn, they approached the ICU nursery. It had a limited viewing space, and even most of those windows were shaded by miniblinds.
“Which one do you think is Lilly Ann?” Blake peeked through a small area of open blinds at several incubators. Their tiny, struggling occupants rested under different types of lights, machines and monitors attached with cords to their tiny arms, noses, heads and feet.
Shannon and Mark exchanged a grin over Blake’s use of the name Brooke had given her baby. Again, electricity flickered, at least on her end.
Mark squeezed in, bumping Blake with his shoulder. “If I were to guess, I would say she’s the one with Brooke’s mom sitting next to her.”
Sure enough, the girl’s mother wore a sterile gown and sat next to a baby with a little pink cap and a diaper. Not in an incubator but on a tray of sorts, the baby looked as if she was getting a suntan under a warming light.
“She’s so much bigger than the other babies in there,” Blake pointed out, indicating several small, frail infants, some with deep red skin, some appearing to struggle for each breath.
Shannon nodded. “At thirty-four weeks and almost five pounds, she’s what they call ‘late preterm.’ She’s not expected to be in the pediatric ICU for very long.”
Those other sweet babies across the room drew her attention. Many would face more significant challenges in the weeks and months to come than any of them could imagine. She whispered a prayer for them and their parents.
Just as her eyes opened, a nurse exited through the nursery door, and the melody of a lullaby followed her. From the way her mouth was moving, Carla appeared to be the one singing to the baby next to her. She must have sensed that someone was watching because she looked up and smiled when she recognized them. Crossing to the window, she opened the blinds wider so they could get a better look and then returned to her seat. She pointed to the preemie next to her and mouthed the words, “That’s my grandbaby.”
A lump wedged itself
in Shannon’s throat, and her eyes felt damp. Brooke’s mother was supporting her daughter’s decision after all. She prayed that the teen’s father would get behind her, as well. The family had a long road ahead of them, but she just knew that with hard work and a lot of prayer, they would be all right.
“You did a good thing.”
The sound of Mark’s voice called her back from her musings, and she turned to him, lifting an eyebrow.
“We heard what you said to Brooke’s mom.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she said, as flustered by his approval as she was flattered by it. She sneaked a peek at Blake, unsure whether he was listening. “Carla was overwhelmed. I just wanted to help her see that at that moment, her daughter’s choice about whether to keep her baby was the least of her worries.”
His gaze was warm, measuring. “You helped that young woman. You made a difference for her, her child and her whole family. It’s okay to be proud of that.”
The baby lay so still, the only recognizable movement coming from the rise and fall of her chest, and even the breathing she did with assistance.
“I just hope Brooke made the right decision.” She still couldn’t get past her worries over the baby’s fragile health.
“She did...because of you.”
The baby startled in her sleep and kicked her feet, her hands fisting as she started to cry. Lilly was stronger than she appeared, all right. The infant’s show of strength surprised Shannon almost as much as Carla’s change of heart regarding her grandchild. But more surprising than either of those things was that the last comment, that last vote of confidence, had come not from Mark, but from Blake.
Chapter Twelve
Mark moved with efficiency in the locker room, buttoning his navy uniform shirt, pinning on his shield and adjusting his weapon. Normally, after a few days off, he would have been itching to get back to work, suffering from withdrawal from his fellow troopers, who were more a family to him than his real family. Today, though, he only wanted to pull his shift without fanfare and get back home. Just over a week and so much had changed.
