Rick was trying not to puke.
“How old is he?”
“Three months.”
“Three months old and his own father did this to him?”
“Yeah. Crazy world we live in, isn’t it?”
“People really are capable of anything, aren’t they?”
“Some people are.”
Rick didn’t get it. He didn’t want to get it. He wanted to grab Carrie and take her home. To protect her from every ugly thing that existed in the world. To keep her safe and secluded and alive.
Which was exactly what Sue had accused him of wanting to do. Suffocating her.
She let him bathe Carrie after dinner, standing over him with Jake in her arms. And she followed him into the nursery to watch as he kissed the girl and laid her gently on her back. “Sweet dreams and God’s care, little one,” he whispered. Just as he’d done every single night of Hannah’s life. And as he’d do every single night he put any children, present or future, to bed. Some things were just that important.
As he turned, Sue met his gaze for the first time that night. Her eyes were bright with tears.
“I…”
“Shhh.” He indicated the crib. “It’s okay.”
And it was. Whatever it was. He walked behind her into the hall.
“I guess I’ll be going,” he said, but he didn’t move. “Unless…do you need some help bathing him?”
Maybe, with his help, she could wash the baby without applying pressure to his injury.
“I…” She looked at him and then away. “Thanks,” she said, heading toward the bathroom again, and the infant bath secured inside the tub. As soon as he was inside, she turned back to Rick.
“Prepare yourself.”
He’d been looking at the little guy’s face all night. He was prepared. Or thought he was. Until she unsnapped the sleeper covering Jake’s discolored and misshapen body. Then he made a dash for the toilet and threw up.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SUE LAY BACK in the chair in her family room, Jake lying on her chest, sound asleep. She’d changed into a soft cotton pajama top and flannel pants an hour before, while Rick made them a salad and toast for dinner. She’d tried to resist, but Carrie was in bed. She wasn’t playing favorites. And tonight she needed a friend.
She needed Rick.
With one hand resting gently at Jake’s back, she reassured the unconscious child that he was safe. Her heartbeat beneath his little body would hopefully do the same.
“What happened to his mother?” Rick asked, tie gone and the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone as he lounged in a corner of the couch.
Like he was going to stay awhile. Sue wasn’t going to tell him to leave.
“She’s in rehab.”
His expression didn’t outwardly change, but Sue felt the tension emanating from him. “Let me guess,” he said calmly, “she won’t sign papers to give him up.”
“She’s trying to get herself clean.”
“Umm-hmm.” He had the air of one who’d seen it all too many times before. And he had. But…
“Everyone deserves a chance, Rick,” she said, more desperate after meeting Nancy Kraynick to open him to the possibility. If he couldn’t get this point, every one of them could lose. Carrie, Nancy, him. Sue. “I’ve seen and heard of many cases where the birth of a child is the miracle a misguided person needed. Not everyone who does drugs is addicted for life. Not everyone falls back.”
“Got any statistics on that?”
Her heart sank. “No.” But she had a feeling he did.
“Last year’s stats say that only 58.2 to 69.1 percent of clean addicts stay sober.”
He wasn’t simply reacting emotionally and irrationally to his mother’s petition for adoption, based on his own experience. He’d done his homework.
Rick Kraynick was a fair man.
He just wasn’t always right.
“That’s over half, Rick. Which means a good many second chances end happily.”
“Tell that to Jake,” Rick said softly, pinning her with a half-lidded stare. “Tell him that you’re willing to take a 41.9 percent chance that he’ll be beat up again.”
“People aren’t statistics, Rick,” Sue said. “Society tries to make us numbers, to give us numbers, call us by numbers, judge us by numbers, but we’ll never be numbers. Every single one of us is an individual with a unique set of circumstances. And not one of us is the same today as we were ten years ago.” She was afraid she sounded like a psychology textbook. But he had to get this. He just had to. “Those circumstances shape who we are. They change people. And no one’s perfect. Everyone screws up. We’ve got to be able to give second chances. To get them. Or we’re all doomed.”
“We aren’t talking about everyday mistakes, Sue. And you’re kidding yourself if you think Carrie isn’t a case number. Jake is, too. And all the other children that pass through here.”
“Their paperwork is assigned a case number for filing purposes. The children are not numbers. Think about what you’re saying….” She had to keep her voice down, her heart steady, for the sake of her precious little guest. “If we just went by numbers, we lose everything human about us. You’re negating the most important factor here, Rick.”
And not just concerning Carrie, though it did concern her. Greatly.
“What’s that?”
“Heart.” She met his gaze, silently begging him.
So far, Nancy Kraynick—and they both knew that was who they were talking about—had impressed her. Sue had a feeling the grandmother, not yet fifty years old, was never going to forgive herself for the mistakes she’d made in her life.
“Your mother learned hard lessons,” she dared to venture. “And sometimes it’s the hardest lessons that serve us the best.”
“Forgive me if I’m not much interested in my mother’s lessons learned,” Rick said, sitting forward. “Not when my little sister’s no longer on this earth because of her.”
“So the parents are to blame for every kid that commits suicide?”
“You think if Christy had a loving, attentive, sober mother at home she’d have been buying drugs off the streets and been pregnant at age fifteen?”
“It happens.”
He stood. “This is getting us nowhere.”
He was right. It wasn’t. But it felt right having him there. Like he was part of the room. Of the household.
Of her life?
“Just for the record,” he said, slipping back into the shoes he’d kicked off when he sat down, “I think what Jo Fraser did, giving your mother up for adoption, was one of the most incredible, selfless and loving acts I’ve ever heard of. She must have known the life she had to give your mother would have been hard. And it seems to me that she loved her enough to sacrifice herself, her own happiness and needs, to give her daughter the best chance at life.”
“My mother grew up feeling as though she never really belonged. If Jo had kept her, she’d have not only belonged, she’d have probably had a brother who loved her, who was her friend, rather than one who always resented her.”
“Maybe. Or she might have been a teenager buying drugs on the streets.”
“Jo did great by Adam. And by Daniel and Joe, too.”
“But none of them were considered illegitimate. I’m guessing from what you’ve said that their family was thought of with compassion. Respected. They had assistance and support from good families, opportunities at school. Add Jenny to that mix and not only does she become the bastard child, but Jo’s reputation would have been tarnished, the opportunities would have been fewer and the boys would have suffered, too. Their lives might have been completely different.”
“Maybe.” Sue wasn’t going to stand. Wasn’t going to see him out. She didn’t want him to go.
“And even if your uncle wasn’t the best of brothers, wasn’t good to your mother, that happens in families everywhere,” he told her. “I see it often enough in the schools. You’ll have three ki
ds in a family who are great. They excel in academics and sports, have a lot of nice friends and obviously love each other. And then there will be one who keeps the parents up at night.”
Sue didn’t want him to be right.
Because she was right, too.
Which meant they were forever going to be on opposite sides of the fence.
So where did that leave them?
And where did it leave Carrie?
RICK WAS ALMOST AT the front door when he thought he heard a noise at the back of the house, down the hall by the vacant nursery where Danny and Donnie had slept.
He stopped. Listened. Told himself he was imagining things. And to get out.
He heard it again. Not a bang. Not quite a tapping. More like a grinding.
Moving quietly so he could listen, he turned back to the family room, to see if Sue had heard anything. With her head facing down the hall, she was slowly rising from her chair, both arms wrapped around the baby still asleep against her.
She glanced his way when he got close. And the fear he read in her eyes had adrenaline speeding through him.
She’d heard something, too. And whatever caused it was obviously not a familiar house sound that Sue could explain away.
“You stay here with him,” he barely whispered, leaning right up to her ear. “And call 911.”
Sue nodded, shielding the baby and sending Rick a silent plea. One he instantly understood. Jake was safe. But Carrie was in the back of the house.
Grabbing a candlestick off the mantel, the only thing close by that offered any protection in the baby-proofed room, Rick moved stealthily down the hall, keeping as much to the wall as he could. He recalled an old board game he’d played as a kid. Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the ballroom…But he’d rather overreact and have everyone safe than be taken unawares.
He heard the sound again, on the right side of the hall. And it was definitely grinding. Like someone, or something, was gnawing at wood. Or prying wood.
A squirrel maybe. Or a coyote?
Sue’s bedroom door, on the left side of the hall, was open. She’d left a light on. Her curtains were drawn, but what he could see of the room appeared undisturbed.
“Yes, that’s right…” Sue’s voice was faint in the distance, reciting her address.
The twins’ nursery was next. It, too, as much as he could tell from a brief glance into a darkened room from the dimly lit hallway, appeared empty.
His goal was Carrie. Once he knew the little girl was safe, he’d be more thorough in his exploration of the rest of the house.
His niece was in her crib, exactly as he’d left her. Lying on her side, sound asleep. The mobile above the crib had stopped.
He heard the sound again. Behind him. Between him and the family room. This time more clearly. It was rhythmic, and accompanied by a slight squeak.
Someone was prying something.
Candlestick in hand, Rick slid his free arm underneath the sleeping baby, scooping her up into the protective cover of his arm and chest, like a football.
With the child safe against him, Rick’s concern diminished. If someone was breaking in, surely he’d be more swift about it, and a little quieter?
Taking Carrie to Sue, who now had Jake strapped to her chest in a baby carrier, he settled the little girl into her foster mother’s arms. “I didn’t see anything,” he murmured quietly. “But the sound is definitely coming from back there. I’m going to go take a second look.”
She nodded, her face still lined with concern. “The police are on their way. Just in case.”
Rick stopped at Sue’s door. Made a quick check of the bathroom adjoining her room, and didn’t see anything that could explain the noise. He headed for the unused nursery. He hadn’t heard the sound since he’d returned from the family room.
It was the last thought Rick had before something blunt and hard came down against his left collarbone, followed by excruciating pain.
Instinctively, he swung his movable arm, his right arm. The hand with the candlestick. And heard a grunt as he felt a connection.
Still reacting without thinking, Rick threw himself toward the noise, toward a shadow just inside the door of the empty nursery. He landed on top of a wiry, obviously male body that was shorter than his, but just as strong.
“Give it up, you son of a bitch,” he said, hardly aware of the pain searing his left shoulder as he realized that Sue had been in very real danger. Sue and her babies.
“Not…without…my…sssson,” the man hissed, his breath laced with the smell of liquor. “He’s mine. I want him.”
With a shove against Rick’s left shoulder, the man rolled the two of them, until he was on top. But using the momentum the other man had started, Rick managed to get the guy back underneath him.
Dropping the candlestick to get ahold of one of the man’s arms, he brought his knee up for a quick slice to the groin and, bracing against the pain in his shoulder, grabbed for the intruder’s other hand.
That hand held a gun.
“Hold it right there.”
The light flashed on and Rick briefly registered Sue standing in the doorway, alone, with her own gun pointed straight at the head of the man beneath him. Keeping hold of the man’s wrists, Rick shifted so that he was out of range of her shot. And held on.
“Drop the gun.”
The man fought, kicking and pushing against Rick, who fought right back. He had babies at stake. And a woman he cared about a great deal. This son of a bitch was not getting away from him.
“I’d do as she says,” he told the man, able to hold him so that the gun pointed to a back wall. The weapon went off.
Rick banged the man’s wrist against the floor. And the gun went off again.
He saw the black shoes on the floor beside him before he realized that they had guests. Welcome guests.
Not sure how he ended up standing next to Sue while two uniformed officers handcuffed the man he’d been wrestling with, Rick was only thankful that no one had been hurt.
“Oh, my God, Rick, your arm. What happened?”
“Nothing, it’s fine.” He could hardly feel it.
“Not the way it’s hanging, it isn’t. Officer, can you call an ambulance?”
“There’s already one here.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SUE DIDN’T EXPECT TO SEE Rick again that night. She’d listened carefully to the officer’s instructions to make sure to lock her door behind them, but, while still shaken by what had happened, she wasn’t afraid of any further danger. Jake’s father, who’d found a way to post a $50,000 bond earlier that day and had broken into Social Services to get his son’s record, was now locked up again. Without bail.
She hoped for a good long time.
No longer scared, she’d still rolled the babies’ bassinets into her room. And figured she’d probably be awake the rest of the night. There was something daunting about giving up consciousness when it was still dark outside and you’d just had an intruder.
Maybe that was why she was lying under the covers, still dressed in the jeans she’d put on after the officers left, with her cell phone in her hand.
She answered on the first ring, because it was Rick calling.
“I’m coming up the street. Will you let me in?”
“Of course. I…how’d you get here?” His SUV was still in her drive.
“A cab.”
He’d phoned from the hospital. Told her he had a broken collarbone and that, other than wrap his arm in a sling, there was little they could do about it. He’d said he was fine. But nothing about coming over. She’d thought he was staying there for the rest of the night.
“I’ll meet you at the door.”
HE DIDN’T LOOK NEARLY AS good as he said he felt. His face ashen, his hair disheveled and his eyes reflecting the pain he wasn’t admitting to feeling, Rick stood stiffly in his wrinkled work shirt and pants. “I had to come get my car, and couldn’t go home without making sure you and the kids
were all right.”
Sue crossed her arms. “You aren’t going home, and don’t bother wasting your energy on argument,” she said. “If you think I’m going to have you driving like this, you’re nuts.”
Rick swayed. “They put something for pain in my IV,” he admitted. “I was thinking about sleeping it off in my car.”
Because he didn’t think he could ask her for help? Sue had to clasp both hands behind her back to keep from touching him, reassuring herself that he was all right. That she was.
“Do you need anything to drink?”
“No.” He handed her some papers. Instructions for him. Instructions she was going to read and follow just as soon as she had him out of his torn clothes and lying down, so she didn’t have to worry about him falling down. “I’m…are the babies okay? Can I see them?”
“They’re fine.” She checked the front door one more time and then, with the papers in one hand, slid the other around his back and led him down the hall to her room.
She needed him in her bed tonight, close enough to touch, close enough to hear if he wanted anything.
But even with Rick sound asleep next to her, an ice pack on his wound, and the babies’ breathing clearly audible on either side of the bed, Sue lay wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling.
TWO WEEKS OF WEARING a sling was too much for Rick. He had no idea how he was going to stand two months of the torture. He’d much prefer to not wear the sling and suffer any consequential pain.
Except that he didn’t want the bone to heal crookedly.
So as he let the agency people into his home, to score through all of his private details, as he submitted to interviews, went to work, he wore the damn sling.
He wore it on his visitation nights, when he held and fed Carrie.
The only exception he made, the only time he didn’t have the cotton strapped across his chest, other than when he showered, were the few times he made love to Sue. He refused to have anything between his skin and hers.
They already had too much between them.
Friday, April 10, nine days after the break-in, the day his mother was to have had her final interview with the agency and either be rewarded or denied placement, the six-month trial period before the final adoption, passed without event. Because of Rick being in the picture, her appointment had been postponed.
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