Made in Heaven

by McGoldrick, May

  Though she’d handed the phone to him directly, she could hear Jada’s tears--the broken phrases--and the plea for them to come right away.

  They’d both dressed in a flash and raced downstairs. He hadn’t been able to start the cab, and had dashed back into the house. In about five seconds, he’d burst out the door again, waving toward the Range Rover.

  Meg pressed her foot hard on the floor mat, trying to brake for him as a car suddenly pulled out of parking space and into their path, but Evan jerked the vehicle onto the empty sidewalk and around the unsuspecting slowpoke. She didn’t even want to think what would have happened had anyone been stupid enough to be walking there.

  They screeched to a halt in front of the hospital in record time. Stepping out of the car, he clutched her hand, and Meg had to run to keep up with Evan’s long strides.

  Jada was slouched against the wall in the hall of maternity ward. Her puffy, red eyes spoke clearly of how shaken she was. When Evan opened his arms, she walked straight into them and began to sob. He stared grimly at Meg over the young mother’s head.

  “They aren’t giving my baby to me, Evan. I can’t take him home.” She cried softly into the tissue that Meg offered her, and tried unsuccessfully to dry her face. “They’re saying that he has a heart murmur or something, and because he is underweight, they want to keep him here a few more days.”

  “Where’s the doctor?” Evan pulled back and looked into the young woman’s face. “Do you mind if we talk to him again?”

  “No.” Jada shook her head, and then flashed a look of anger. “But I’m not a fool, Evan. I heard everything that he had to say. He’s not letting my baby go, but I am not leaving here without him.”

  Meg watched, feeling completely useless as the raw emotions of the young mother burst to the surface. Standing there, she remembered that horrible day five years ago, when she had stood her ground and angrily demanded the doctors and nurses release her husband. She simply couldn’t understand that Robert was dead.

  No! They were lying to her. He couldn’t have gone like that. Without a warning. Without a word of good-bye.

  Evan’s calm words penetrated her thoughts. She reached up and dashed away at a tear from her own cheek.

  “You stay here with Meg. Let me go and talk to him. I’m the fool. And I’ll ask the same questions again and again until he gives us the answer that we want to hear.” He leaned down and looked directly in Jada’s eyes. “You don’t want to do anything that would hurt little Ted by taking him out of here before he’s ready.”

  Jada choked out a soft cry and shook her head. “I love him, Evan. I love him more than anything else in my whole life. But I won’t live through this if they take him away from me! I couldn’t put him up for adoption--these social workers talked to me again about that. But I couldn’t. I can’t! Now I am afraid I’m going to lose him anyway!”

  “You’re not going to lose him. Nobody is going to even try to do that! Do you hear me? Nobody will take Ted away from you.”

  Meg moved close and put an arm around the young mother’s shoulders. “How about if we wait in your room, sweetheart. Just give him a chance to go and find out whatever he can.”

  As Jada nodded, Meg looked up at Evan and for an instant their gazes locked. She knew he would do whatever needed to be done. Whatever was humanly possible.

  Meg didn’t think her legs were much steadier than Jada’s as the two of them moved back into her room. Seeing her bags and the baby’s belongings already folded and ready to go on the bed brought another pang of sadness to Meg’s heart. She sat the young woman in the chair in the corner, and then pulled up the straight chair beside her.

  The next half an hour, though, had to be one of the longest she’d ever experienced. There was no point trying to cheer her up. Meg offered her a cup of juice and a pillow, but Jada just withdrew into her shell. Holding the young mother’s hand in her own, listening to the hospital sounds, Meg felt totally helpless.

  When Evan walked into the room, they both straightened at once. But rather than spilling out all he knew, he pulled a chair from the other side and sat before them.

  Meg listened silently as he went through and started explaining why the doctors had decided to keep the baby in the hospital for another day or so. He also added that Jada was encouraged to spend as much time as she liked with the baby--keeping him company. And then he started talking about the heart murmur and despite the fact that a large number of children are born with them--and have no further complications--because of Ted’s size, the doctors just wanted to be on the safe side. They simply wanted to run some tests--just in case.

  He went on and explained exactly the sequence of tests that they would perform--electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, and a few others--but Meg’s mind was already drifting back to Robert. His condition could have started just as simply as Ted’s. Maybe if they’d found his problems when he’d been younger. She forced herself to focus on the discussion.

  “I’ll take you home,” Evan was saying. “You can drop your things off at the apartment, and I’ll drive you back here as soon as you’re ready. We need to be sure that...”

  “I can’t jerk you around like a chauffeur.” Jada seemed calmer, more composed--but somehow Meg knew this was all a pretense, perhaps for Evan’s sake. “You’ve already...”

  “Listen to me, young woman. I’ve already told this to you before. Until your father returns from his trip, you are...”

  “I know. I’m your responsibility.”

  Jada came to her feet and moved to the bed. She absentmindedly began to jam everything into the small backpack.

  “This is no trouble for me.” Evan came to his feet and ran a hand through his hair. “You have that baby to think of. Why don’t you leave everything else to me?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Jada whispered, never turning.

  “You’re the one making more of this than there is. From what I just heard, these kinds of procedures are quite common these days. So there is no reason for you to act like it’s the end of the world.”

  There was no response from Jada.

  “I know, it’s not fair to drag a kid like you through this whole business like this--but if you weren’t so stubborn about protecting the scum-bag that...well...then you wouldn’t be feeling this miserable and alone. It takes two to make a child, and it takes two to take care of it.”

  As Meg saw Jada’s chin drop to her chest, she came to her feet and stared sharply at him. She whispered quietly to the young mother. “How about if we have him drop us off at your place. We can find a way back here, ourselves. He’s just trying to be helpful, but he’s upset, too. I think he needs to cool his jets. What do you say?”

  Jada considered for a moment and then turned her dark eyes toward her appreciatively.

  “I’d love to have you hang with me, but this can’t be the way you imagined spending your vacation! Babysitting a rotten teenager? I don’t think so.”

  Meg put her arm around Jada and squeezed her, placing a kiss on her cheek. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Meeting you has been one of the highlights of my life.”

  When she pulled back, she saw the tears again gathering in her eyes. Without warning, the young woman put her arms around her and hugged Meg tight.

  Holding her protectively in her arms, Meg ran a hand down the young girl’s hair and thought of how Jada was nearly the same age of any daughter she and Robert would have had, if they’d had children of their own. Biting her lip, she blinked back her own tears.

  But she was no child. She was a woman. A young mother. One who was being forced to face the problems of adulthood and motherhood all in a same roll of the die. And she needed to be treated as an adult.

  She saw him move into her line of vision. Evan Knight. The man who no doubt had the best of intentions, but who had not a clue of the turmoil in this young woman’s mind. Jada simply didn’t need fathering right now. She didn’t need someone to make her decision
s for her.

  “I’ll take few days off,” he started. “I’ll...”

  “You don’t need to, Evan.” Meg was the one this time who cut him short. “We can call you when we need you.”

  His darkening glare told her that he was clearly not happy with her intruding into what he considered his responsibility. She’d explain it to him later. She had no intention of interfering with a supportive relationship that was essential to Jada and the baby. She didn’t want to replace Evan. She only wanted to complement him.

  “I’m here with nothing to do and nowhere to go. So I thought, rather than you losing some pay and missing work, I can hang around and spend time with Jada. This sure beats doing the same touristy things I have been doing every other time I’ve been down here.”

  “She’s right, Evan,” Jada added, turning and facing him. “I would just as soon have Meg with me than have you get in trouble with your boss.”

  To Meg’s thinking, most men would have been relieved to hear what they were saying to him, but instead, Evan looked genuinely ticked off.

  Picking up the giant teddy bear from the chair and stuffing it under his arm, he started toward the door.

  “I have some things to take care of. I’ll meet you by the car.”

  Jada was first one to speak after Evan disappeared through the door.

  “I think I hurt his feelings.”

  “No, I made him mad...but he’ll get over it.”

  Jada sank against the bed. “I’m the one that made a mistake. I can’t allow other people’s lives to be ruined trying to help me. If I’m stupid enough to have unprotected sex--if I am old enough to have a child--then I’d better be old enough to walk or take a cab back and forth from our house to this hospital.”

  Meg couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t know. Walking is one thing, but taking a cab--especially with a maniac driver like Evan--I don’t think anyone is ever old enough for that!”

  As the trace of a smile brightened Jada’s face, more than ever before Meg thought that everything would work out. The teenager had intelligence, good sense, and she was well aware of her responsibilities and the rough road that lay ahead of her.

  Meg glanced at the open door. And that was much more than she could say about herself.

  CHAPTER 15

  Evan cursed out aloud. The first thing he was doing tomorrow was to buy Jada a new goddamn cell phone. She'd lost hers last week and wasn't answering her home number.

  He shouldn’t have let those two get away with what they did.

  Still brooding this morning, he’d driven Jada and Meg back to the apartment in the project off Memorial Boulevard. They’d specifically told her they’d call when they needed him.

  And did they call? he steamed. No, dammit! Females!

  For crissakes, he should have known they wouldn’t call. They’d never called. He’d been home all day, sitting at his computer, patient as a time bomb.

  What was he supposed to be doing? Ignoring his responsibility?

  Plunking himself down at the table again, he stared angrily at the computer screen and the jumbled mass of gibberish he’d written. He’d worked the whole goddamn day and hadn’t even been able to write a decent murder scene. He’d thought it would come easy to him today. Hell, all he had to do was imagine Meg as the victim and himself as the murderer. But somehow he couldn’t do it. In his warped mind, he was more inclined to feature her as a lover than as a corpse. As an opinionated, big-mouthed, interfering mistress.

  And Aggravating. And kind-hearted. And sexy, with a body that...

  “Don’t start,” Evan muttered sharply, disgusted with himself.

  They had gone back to the hospital, that much he knew, since he’d called there himself this afternoon and talked to one of the nurses. But it was past nine o’clock now, and they should have arrived back home already.

  Friday night in Newport. Evan just hoped that between the two of them, they had enough brains to catch a cab or something back to Jada’s house. He didn’t even want to think of the trouble they might run into if they’d decided to walk.

  For the first time in a millennium, he leaped out of the chair and picked up the phone on the first ring. Jada couldn’t even get two words out before Evan let her have a piece of his mind. But that was nothing, compared to what he was saving for Meg, who got the phone as soon as Jada could pass it to her.

  “I heard you shouting from the other side of the apartment, and I wasn’t even trying to listen.” She never gave him a chance to cut in. “For a man your age, you are the biggest baby! We had every intention of calling you, but when visiting hours were over, Jada just wanted to get some fresh air and...”

  “Please don’t tell me you two walked home!”

  “Jeez, Evan, of course not! Jada only delivered two days ago. We took a cab up to the corner of Bellevue and Memorial Boulevard...and walked from there. It wasn’t far, and...”

  “I can’t believe you could be so irresponsible...”

  “Really, I don’t see why you’re so bent out of shape.”

  “For a woman who lives in a city, how could you be so completely clueless to dangers of...”

  “This is Newport, Evan! Not New York.”

  “And where do you think the well-to-do New York rapist hangs out on the weekends?”

  “You’re ridiculous!” she scolded. “If you could only hear yourself. Listen, Mrs. Jeffers is here, and Jada is going to bed. So if you’re done chewing us up...”

  “What are you doing? Staying over?”

  “No! I’m walking home.”

  “You step out of that place and I swear I’ll wring your neck with my own two hands.” He let out a frustrated breath. “They have riots in that neighborhood at night, Meg. Between there and here, there are drug pushers and weirdoes lurking in every dark alley.”

  Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Sounds like a lovely spot to raise a child.”

  “Jada knows how to live in those streets, and Little Ted will be safe, because most of those kids are scared shitless of her father. But you, on the other hand, are fair game.”

  There was a pause on the other end. “Fine! I’ll call for a cab--even though I know you’re only saying these things to scare me for nothing.”

  “Just wait there,” he ordered, his voice becoming calmer. “I’ll come and pick you up.”

  “Why? Not done chewing me up for today?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not.” Evan paused for effect. “But that’s not the only unfinished business we have...if you recall.”

  From the long silence Evan could tell that she had picked up his hint. Even through the phone, he could tell she was smiling. It was that cute, almost shy, little half-smile. Dammit, he thought, for the past couple of hours--in between trying to murder her--all he’d been able to think of was how much he wanted to crawl into bed with her tonight.

  “I don’t know, Evan.”

  “I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll be waiting outside.”

  “No! Inside!” he ordered. “Hear me, Meg? You wait inside!”

  “I’ll be here.”

  She hung up on him, and he gave the place a quick and cursory look. Hell, everything looked okay, he thought as he pulled on a clean shirt and headed out. Pausing at the door, he stopped and crossed the room to the kitchen. Pulling two bottles of wine out of the cupboard, he looked at them. White or pink, he mused, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “Hell,” he muttered, stuffing them both into the fridge. “She probably likes red!”

  Outside, the cab would not start again. Evan sat for a moment, and then banged the wheel with his hand. He’d bought the damn thing used six months ago, but not even once had it given him any trouble...until this week. And the strange thing was that he couldn’t figure what was wrong with it. He was pretty good with cars. In his younger days--before he had a Porsche to piss in--he’d kept his own junks running. But come Monday morning, he knew he’d be dropping this lemon
yellow clunker at the garage.

  Before giving up completely, Evan looked around and made sure no one was watching. Feeling stupid even as he tried, he jiggled the wheel three times...the way Meg had done it. No luck. Obviously, there was no magic in his touch.

  As he crossed the threshold into the house, he contemplated taking one of Phil’s cars, but something inside him made him climb the stairs three at a time to his own apartment. Going to the kitchen, he picked up the keys to his Mercedes.

  *****

  Despite all his warnings, she was waiting by the curb when he pulled into the lot in front of Jada’s building. When he brought the car to a stop, Evan watched her study the expensive sports car carefully before hesitantly climbing in.

  He watched her every movement keenly. But all of the reprimand he’d saved up sailed right out the open roof as soon as he looked into her serious face. She ran a shy hand over the leather seats before sitting back.

  Evan found himself putting both hands on the wheel to stop from reaching over and pulling her against him. The urge to devour that sexy mouth was nearly overpowering, but the sudden click of her seatbelt drew an amused smile to his lips.

  “Nobody bothered you, I take it.”

  “Actually, a gang of kids came by, so I shot them and dragged their bodies into the shrubs over there.”

  “Oh, that’s a good spot.” Evan backed the convertible out of the space.

  “I’m amazed Phil allows you to drive his expensive cars around dangerous, old Newport at this hour of the night!”

  He knew she intended it as a joke, but somehow--realizing that she had automatically assumed the car belonged to Phil rankled his male ego.

  “Is Jada already asleep?”

  She studied the gadgets on the dash. “You were driving this thing around the Point section last night! Weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I was!” Evan felt his gasket ready to blow. “It was me all right. As you’ve already guessed, I’m nothing more than an errand boy for the great master. I house-sit Phil’s bed and breakfast. I drive his cars around and fill up his stinking gastanks when he commands. I even pick up and drop off his girlfriends whenever the lord of the manor wishes it!”