Marriage for Her Baby

by Raye Morgan

  He’d had his own moments of doubt, but that was over now. The better he got to know Savannah, the more sure he was. She was his and he had to take care of her. It was that simple.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FINALLY IT WAS party time, and for the most part, things went great. Friends of Jill and Connor began to stream in, most of them trailed by toddlers on their chubby, shaky legs. Sara watched them come and hid a smile. It was definitely a day for the short people of the island. Children under five seemed to rule the roost.

  That meant noise, lots of noise, once the beginning shyness wore off and the children were playing in the backyard. Moms and dads hovered at the margins, rushing in to settle disputes or kiss an owwie.

  Most were friends of Jill’s that Sara didn’t know very well. She helped organize games and supply party favors. The food Jill had spread out on the tables was super yummy and Sara took pity on Jake about an hour in, telling him she’d watch Savannah while he ate and did a little socializing.

  She was just helping Savannah onto a rocking horse in the playroom when a friend of her sister’s, a woman named Mary Ellen, stopped in to chat.

  Mary Ellen had a bouffant blond hair helmet, scarlet fingernails and a roving eye. The first thing she wanted to know was all about Jake.

  “Okay, Sara,” she said, giving her an air kiss and then standing back to look at her. “I understand that delicious man in the tight jeans is a friend of yours. What exactly does that mean?”

  Sara bristled a bit. She’d never been all that fond of Mary Ellen. “What do you think it means?”

  She shrugged. “I just want to know if you’ve got dibs on him, or is he fair game?”

  Sara looked at her, chin high, eyes narrowed. This woman wanted Jake. How dare she?

  And yet, she had to admit, Jake was a free man and she had no claim on him whatsoever. Still, Mary Ellen didn’t have to know that.

  “And if he is?” she asked. “Just exactly what are you planning?”

  Mary Ellen looked out the picture window to where Jake was standing talking to some of the others and watching the children play.

  “A lady never reveals her secrets, my dear.” She laughed to show that was just a joke. “Oh, nothing. Everybody knows I’m hopelessly devoted to Hector. But a girl can dream, you know.”

  She winked as though the two of them had an understanding about these things.

  If this woman doesn’t stop, I’m going to throw up! Sara silently screamed. She had a sudden vision of Jake dating someone like Mary Ellen while raising Savannah and it sent a wave of sick agony through her. She would do almost anything to stop that from ever happening.

  “Too bad,” she said sharply. “Better luck next time.”

  “Oh.” Mary Ellen looked disappointed. “So you are actually dating him, are you?”

  “Yes, I am,” she lied. But what could she do? The woman deserved what she got. “He and I have a very special understanding.”

  “Ah.” Mary Ellen had no idea what that meant, but she accepted it with good grace and beat a hasty retreat toward the backyard. Straight to Jake, Sara noticed. He would have a good laugh when she told him about the “special relationship” the two of them supposedly had, but she couldn’t help that now. Oh, well.

  Still, it did point out a factor to be considered. Jake was attractive to women. If he took Savannah, there would be women, and maybe, eventually, a special woman. And no matter how many visitation plans Sara might have, it wouldn’t last. If she thought anything along those lines might work, she was dreaming.

  Savannah was getting fussy. She wanted to go back outside where the action was. Sara pulled her up into her arms and carried her out, and she found herself standing just behind where Jake was talking to another guest she didn’t know.

  “I hear you’ve been deployed in Southeast Asia for the last few years,” the man, who she thought was a friend of Connor’s, was saying to him.

  Jake paused as though this was a topic he really didn’t relish getting into. “You might call it that,” he said at last. “I was definitely in the area.”

  The man nodded wisely. “Something tells me that means you may have spent some quality time at the Mekrob Mansion. Am I right?”

  She’d heard that name before. It seemed to her she’d seen it in news reports. She had a vague impression that is wasn’t a very nice place.

  “I’ve heard it called that.” Jake seemed to shiver slightly. “What a benign name for the reality of that place.”

  “I had a buddy who spent some time there,” the friend told him. “He came out a changed man, pretty much a shell of the person he used to be.”

  “I’ve had friends who had similar experiences,” Jake said, starting to turn away. “Luckily I seem to be able to heal faster than most.” And he began to make his way to the food table.

  Sara watched him go, feeling sick. She knew he’d had a rough time over the last few years. He’d hinted at it often enough. But just how rough was it? She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the details.

  She carried Savannah over to where the children were playing so that she could watch without getting too involved. Friends of Jill’s stopped to talk to her and to admire her little girl. She loved showing her off. With her lively smile and her curly yellow hair, she looked great no matter what she wore.

  Sara held Savannah close, trying not to think about how fast the time was going. In just a few hours, the agency would call and hand out the verdict. She was pretty sure she already knew what it would be. She looked down at her baby’s beautiful face and sang her a soft song. She had to treasure every moment, just in case.

  Savannah’s legs began to kick and she pointed, laughing. Sara looked at the direction she was pointing in. Jake was helping to erect a piece of plywood with the figure of a clown painted on it, with a round cutout where the face should be. He looked through the hole and wiggled his eyebrows at Savannah.

  It was time for the wet sponges!

  This had to be the children’s favorite game. Even two-year-olds could manage tossing a wet sponge. And when they had a target like Jake, making faces and pretending to be hit even when he wasn’t, the laughter never stopped.

  Savannah was still too young for this, but she laughed and laughed seeing Jake take the punishment from the other children. At one point, Sara put a wet sponge in her hand and took her right up to the clown form and let her press it to his nose.

  He yelled as though it was his worse wound yet and Savannah turned red with laughter. Sara’s gaze met Jake’s and his eyes were filled with fun and happiness. She smiled. She couldn’t help it.

  Still, the feeling of dread was always there at the back of her mind. The time of reckoning was at hand.

  By the time Jake had finished his turn in the target zone, he was drenched.

  “Come on in,” Jill said, guiding him into the kitchen, where Savannah was playing with balloons with two older children on the carpeted area of the floor. “Connor will let you use one of his shirts. Sara will show you where they are.”

  “Okay,” he said, still laughing as he pulled a pack of breath mints out of his shirt pocket. The cardboard packaging was ruined and he spilled the mints out onto the coffee table so they wouldn’t be ruined, too, and then he threw away the box.

  Sara was already heading up the stairs and he followed her, pulling off the wet shirt as he went. She avoided looking at his beautiful chest as she took his wet shirt and traded it for one of Connor’s, but as he turned, for the first time, she got a good look at his back in full light and gasped at what she saw.

  There was a crisscross pattern of scarring all up and down the surface. The first thing that came to mind was the evidence left of a lashing. The long purple welts tipped in red looked awfully recent to her and she felt sick.

  “What is that?” she cried before she thought.

  He glanced in the mirror, saw what she was looking at and quickly pulled his shirt on all the way.

  “Just a littl
e memento of my prison camp days,” he said lightly. “Don’t give it a second thought.”

  She stared at him, hand to her throat. “I overheard you talking to that man in the yard,” she said, her voice strained. “So you were at the Mekrob Mansion?”

  “Sara, you don’t want to hear about it. Believe me. It’s in my past and I don’t even think about it much anymore. No problem.”

  No problem. Someone with scarring like that had to be affected in more ways than just the physical. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before. But then, she’d spent a lot of time studiously trying to avoid looking at his naked torso, as if she thought it would have magic powers over her if she let herself gaze too long. And who knew? Maybe it did.

  But somehow, now that she’d seen them and actually brought the scarring up to him, she couldn’t seem to let them go.

  “Jake, they don’t look that old to me. Are you sure you’re psychologically ready to take care of a child with that sort of damage done to you so recently?”

  He looked at her for a second, then grinned, shaking his head. “Oh, yeah. I think I can handle it.” Reaching out, he took her chin in his hand and smiled down at her. “Now you’re clutching at straws, Sara. Cut it out.”

  She flushed but she didn’t look away. Sure she was clutching at straws. She would try anything to win this fight. She wasn’t the least bit embarrassed.

  As they came back down the stairs, the first thing Sara saw was Savannah turning purple and making choking sounds, writhing on the floor, a sight that sent a shock of horror flashing through her. There was no adult in sight and the two children she’d been playing with were just going out the sliding glass door.

  “Savannah!” she screamed, rushing to her. Somehow, Jake beat her to the child and had her in his arms, holding her from behind and pressing in the right place to get a burping sound out of her. Two breath mints came shooting out of her mouth, and just like that, she was breathing again.

  Jill came in at the same time. “I just went out for a second,” she cried, seeing what was going on. “Really! No more than a second. How did this happen so fast?”

  But it wasn’t Jill who Sara blamed.

  “Who left those out where she could get them?” she demanded, sweeping the rest of them up in her hand.

  “I did,” Jake admitted. “I didn’t think...”

  “You didn’t think!” She glared at him, anger hot and painful all through her body. Her baby, her little child, what if they hadn’t found her in time? What if she’d died, or had brain damage, or some other horror? What if?

  “How could you do that? You didn’t think! She could have died if we hadn’t come back in time!”

  Jake’s face went hard as stone. “I should have known better. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Sorry!” Sara wanted to shake him. She was almost sputtering with her anger. “Sorry! What good is ‘sorry’ when...”

  “Sara.” Jill grabbed her hand and pulled her around as though to silence her. “Enough. She’s okay. Jake will know better next time. Give it a rest.”

  Meanwhile, Savannah was back to normal. She’d reached up and put her arms around Jake’s neck and she was babbling to him, nonsense words, but the meaning was clear. She might as well have been saying, “Thank you, Daddy. You saved my life.”

  Sara turned away in frustration. She was trembling with fear and anger. She glanced back at where Jake held Savannah, and she turned and headed up the stairs again, going to her own room and hoping to calm down once she was alone for a few minutes.

  * * *

  Jake watched her go. A black cloud loomed over him. How could he have done that, without thinking? It hadn’t occurred to him—but that was the point, wasn’t it? There was so much he had to learn—so much that didn’t come naturally to him as yet. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  And Sara was right to yell at him. He deserved it. If his lack of care and knowledge did anything to hurt this adorable child in his arms, he would never forgive himself. This parenting thing was going to require a lot of work. Was he really ready to take it on?

  * * *

  The party was finally over. Large hunks of cake and dabs of frosting were littered all over the backyard, but the squirrels would get what Sara and Jill didn’t get swept up. The men were putting away the tools and the plywood characters and the game structures that had been set up around the yard. Jill put away the leftover food and Sara tried to put the twins down. She soon gave up. They were much too excited from the party and all their new toys to think about something so boring as sleep.

  Jake was holding Savannah. He’d been holding her almost continuously ever since the breath mint incident, as though constant apologies were needed for now. Sara watched and felt her anger drain away. How could she be mad at someone who loved her baby as much as she did—regardless of the consequences?

  “I’m going to talk to him,” Sara told her sister once the worst of the devastation had been cleaned up and they were outside, surveying the scene.

  Jake was inside, holding Savannah. She could see him through the sliding glass door. Jill turned and looked at him, too.

  “I’m going to confront him with what his life will be like and how he ought to leave the raising of Savannah to me.”

  Jill nodded, her eyes shadowed with sorrow. “Good luck,” she said softly.

  Sara went in to the room where he sat with the sleepy girl up against his shoulder and sank onto the ottoman in front of his chair.

  “Jake, I need to talk to you.” She was ready. Her heart was thumping. She had to do it now. There was no time left for avoiding this. The agency would be calling in the morning and by then, everything would be too crazy to get a serious conversation in.

  “Is she asleep?” he asked softly.

  Sara craned to see her face and looked at her eyes. They were closed. “I think so,” she told him.

  He smiled. “She feels asleep,” he said, half whispering. “I can’t tell you how much I love holding her like this.”

  That touched her heart. How could it not?

  “Here, let me take her. I want to put her down in her play bed. That’ll keep her out of the line of fire for now.” She settled the baby in the soft playpen, covered her with a blanket and turned back to Jake.

  “I have to say something to you,” she began, sitting back down on the ottoman. “I know you’re not going to like it. But I have to say it.”

  He raised his gaze to hers and looked serious. “Go.”

  She drew air in deeply and began. “I want Savannah. I love her. I’m her mother. Please, please don’t take her away from me.”

  He stared at her, then shook his head. “You’re not going to like what I have to say, either,” he warned. “Sara, I’m her father. And...you’re not really her mother—you’re her aunt. I have a more fundamental right to her than you do. It’s that simple.”

  She drew in a shaky breath and held her head high. “No, it’s not that simple. I’m a woman. I’ve learned how to nurture this child. You’re a man. Your place in the scheme of things is very different. I know you love her. It’s obvious. And she loves you. I’m not saying I want to tear that apart. I’m just saying, we each have our roles, and yours isn’t to be her mother.”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “But yours is.”

  “Yes.” She said it firmly. She wanted him to see how committed she was to this plan. “Yes, I really think so.”

  He shook his head. “Sara...”

  “Hear me out. Jake, you’re wonderful with Savannah. You’re gentle and kind and good to her. But you’re still a man. And she needs a woman to help her become one herself. There are a thousand different ways a girl needs a mother.”

  His frown became fierce. “That’s nonsense.”

  “No. It’s truth. You’ve spent the day taking care of her. Do you want to do the same thing again tomorrow?”

  He grimaced dismissively. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m trying to
get you to think through what it means to raise a little girl. You have to watch her every moment. You have to be there for her for eighteen years, at least. You have to be her support in so many ways.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Yes, but alone? I don’t think you realize how hard it will be.”

  “I can do it. I can.” He glared at her. “No matter what, I can’t walk away. That’s not going to happen.”

  “Of course not.” She touched him, putting her hand on his arm. She wanted him to see that she wasn’t the enemy here. She wanted to be sure she kept open all lines of communication. “You’re her biological father. You have to be a part of her life. But...”

  “I know what you’re saying, Sara. I understand traditional ways. Even though I wasn’t raised that way, we all pretty much have that baked in the cake, don’t we? But extraordinary things happen, and we have to make do. I’m adaptable. I’m ready to adapt to being a single father.” He shook his head and stared into her eyes, emotion clear and determined. “I can’t think of anything I want more.”

  She pulled her hand back. So far, she couldn’t detect one gap in his armor, one area of vulnerability in his logic. She’d attacked and he hadn’t retreated one bit. Was there really any hope lurking in there behind those brilliant blue eyes?

  “How about money?” she challenged. It was the only unexplored thing she could think of. “Will you be able to afford her? Won’t you have to get a job that pays enough to be able to pay for child care, too? What will her life be like with you?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then began to smile. “You know, the funny thing is, if this had happened a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t even consider challenging you for her. And the money, just what you brought up, would have been the major factor.”

  “Really? What’s changed?”

  He shrugged. “My father died. My crazy father who made me grow up in a mountain cabin with no running water so I would be close to the earth.” He shook his head, bemused. “Once he was gone, I found out he left me the royalties on a patent he’d taken out on an invention of his. It was a way to use a specially developed pulley for lifting extremely heavy loads.” He shook his head again, almost laughing. “Go figure. Who knew he was a secret genius? It made a small fortune. And now that fortune is mine.”