Hannah cleared her throat. “Your sister became one of my cases when she was pregnant. She was an addict who tried to stay clean for her baby.”
Jackson felt his stomach churn with revulsion as a memory of his sister, strung out, falling into his arms, bulldozed him into the past again. He hated Louise’s weakness. He hated that she hadn’t trusted him enough to keep her safe. He hated that Louise had taken the easy way out. She had abandoned him and the reality of their lives in favor of mind-numbing drugs. She had sold her soul, her body, for a cheap fix. The sound of Hannah’s voice reached in and brought him back.
“We found a group home for her and she did really well. She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy little girl that she named Emily.”
Jackson stared straight ahead, avoiding her probing stare. Don’t look over at the baby. She had named the baby after their mother, who had died when they were both children. When they were still friends. When they would tear through the woods bordering their home playing Batman and Robin until their mother would call them in for dinner, always with a smile, always with a home-cooked meal. That was all a long time ago. Such a different world that sometimes he wondered if it had happened at all.
He stared into his lap, seeing his mother’s smile, so like his sister’s. It was an image he rarely indulged in because if there was one thing that could bring him to his knees, it was the thought of his mother, of his sister, of what his life once had been. To him, that was weakness, and he abhorred weakness in himself and others. “I heard that Louise died. I didn’t know there was a baby.”
“You didn’t go to the funeral.”
“I didn’t really think there was a point.”
“She killed herself.”
He nodded, ignoring the twisting in his gut. “I know.”
“It came as a total shock to all of us. I found a baby on a church doorstep. Her baby. Emily. She was one month old. Your sister left a note to find the baby’s uncle, Christopher James.” He didn’t have to look at her to know there were tears in her eyes.
Christopher James. Chris, as his mother and sister had called him. He swirled the whiskey in the glass, watching as the flames from the fire danced in the amber liquid. He knew no amount of the stuff would ease the pain. He had understood that nothing could ever take away gut-wrenching pain or sick memories. Louise hadn’t learned that lesson.
Emily. His sister had a baby. This baby. Maybe she was better off without his sister. He knew first-hand blood meant nothing when that person was a substance abuser. He had learned that the hard way. Jackson looked up at Hannah. “What about the baby’s father?”
Her green eyes were filled with pain that couldn’t be false. A part of him hated that—hated that the compassion and pain were so genuine. And a tiny, tiny part of him that didn’t want to acknowledge it felt comforted by her.
Hannah shook her head. “She didn’t know who the father was. You are Emily’s only relative. You are documented as her next of kin.”
He needed to shut this down before she got crazy ideas into her head. “So what do you want from me? To sign some papers—?”
“I want you to adopt her.” Jackson felt like someone had ripped his insides out with one hard tug. It was ridiculous. Absurd. It was one thing to inform him that he had a niece, and quite another to expect him to adopt her.
“Are you kidding me?” He bit back the profanities that he thought were missing from that statement to try and keep this civil.
She shook her head slowly.
He was speechless. She actually wanted him to keep his sister’s baby. The sister who turned on him, betrayed everything he’d ever done for her and tried to ruin him. He turned away from Hannah in disgust. Hannah was responsible for bringing all of this to him. He hadn’t asked for this crap. He should have let her drive away. Adopt a baby. It was so insane, the idea of him taking in a baby, that he didn’t even try and process it.
“Jackson?” He heard the concern in the soft voice that tried to coax him into speaking. He knew exactly what she was doing now. She wanted him to talk, to open up. Fat chance in hell. His muscles tensed even tighter. He stared into the fire. “You don’t know anything about me. I run a company. I work twelve hours a day and live in a penthouse in downtown Toronto. I don’t know anything about babies. I don’t want a baby.”
It didn’t faze her. She folded her hands on her lap and stared at him levelly. “She is your flesh and blood, Jackson. It was your sister’s last wish.”
“My sister was a junkie. I offered her help hundreds of times and she refused. If she wanted what was best for her baby she would have taken the help being offered and sobered up. Blood ties mean nothing to me.”
She nudged her chin toward his drink. “I changed my mind. Could I have a glass of whatever you’re drinking, please?”
He was surprised by the request. He nodded, walking across the room. A moment later she accepted the snifter of whiskey and took a sip while he sat down. He didn’t want to be impressed that she didn’t cough as she swallowed.
“I know you didn’t have a good relationship with your sister, but Emily is just a baby,” she said leaning forward.
He shrugged and ground his teeth together. This was not his problem, no matter how hard she tried to make him think it was.
She frowned at him when he didn’t answer. “She’ll be placed in foster care if you don’t adopt her.”
He tried not to feel anything, especially the ugly emotions that had consumed him for years. The bitterness, the anger… no, he wanted to continue feeling nothing.
…
Hannah crossed her legs in front of her nervously and watched as Jackson digested that last piece of info. She tried not to panic. It didn’t look as though she got through to him at all. The only sign she had that he processed what she said was the rigid, tense lines in his body. If she completely angered him, she’d ruin her chance at getting him to agree to this. But if she stopped now, he might not let her broach this again and tomorrow she was leaving.
“The foster care system is a place for children who don’t have any family capable of caring for them. Your sister thought she could trust her daughter to you.” Hannah would have given anything to have been adopted by some long-lost relative who had come forward to rescue her, to know that she was connected to someone.
She held her breath. He looked into the bottom of his empty glass and then up at her. “Well, I’m sure there’s lots of great people out there who want a kid.”
“There are, but there are also no guarantees. And in the meantime she’ll be in foster care. You don’t know where she’ll end up—”
“It’s not my problem. If my sister wanted me to have anything to do with this baby she would have contacted me when she was born.”
“She said she’d tried so many times in the past, but that you refused to see her. After Emily was born, I think something happened. She became fragile again. I don’t think she could have handled your rejection.” Hannah couldn’t filter out the accusation from her voice. She had her own guilt to work through for not noticing any signs that Louise was failing, but her brother did too. Hannah knew she was too emotionally close to this case, but her past collided with baby Emily’s and she was desperate to honor Louise’s wish.
He scowled at her. “Did she tell you that after I spent years protecting her she bailed on me? That I searched for her and tried to help her? That she and her addict friends broke into my house and trashed it, stealing everything of value I had? That I almost lost everything when I started out because I trusted her?”
Oh, Louise had told her all right. When Louise had been sober she’d confided so many things to Hannah. And whenever she spoke of her older brother her voice had been filled with such pain. She had stopped seeking him out after that night of the break-in. She’d told her of their childhood—before and after their mother had died.
Hannah stared at the handsome, strong lines of Jackson’s face and tried to picture the fun-loving, energetic b
oy that Louise had described. She tried to see the teen who had always stepped in to defend his sister against their father. The one who took beatings to spare his younger sister. And she could see it, she could see the boy that had become stronger, taller, and had finally been able to overpower their father. She could see all of that—Jackson was strong and loyal. If he felt that need to protect his sister at one time, surely he would do it for her innocent baby.
Hannah placed her empty glass on the side table. “Your sister had a lot of regrets. How your relationship ended up was her biggest. She was humiliated. Louise said as soon as she got her life together, she was going to try and reconnect with you. She was devastated by how she treated you. You were her protector.” Her voice trailed off as she watched his jaw clench and unclench. She could tell he struggled with his control. Jackson finally broke the silence, his voice harshly tearing through the calm.
“It’s a little late for regrets, isn’t it?”
“You can’t change the past. Your sister is gone, but you have a niece who needs you. Emily hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s not her fault that her mother killed herself.”
Hannah watched his lip curl into a smile that tried to appear mocking, but the pain was etched on his face so strongly that Hannah could almost feel it herself.
“No, and it sure as hell isn’t my fault either. She’ll be better off with someone who wants a child.”
Hannah squeezed her sweaty palms in her lap. “It doesn’t work that way. No one magically gets placed with the world’s best parents. She needs you. You are her uncle. She needs someone tied to her past. She needs someone her mom trusted. What better person is there?”
Jackson tilted his head back and she studied the strong line of his jaw and neck. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t want her baby.”
“Stop thinking of yourself.”
He jerked his head around to meet her eyes. She could read the surprise in his eyes—and the anger.
Hannah concentrated on the sounds of the crackling fireplace and Charlie’s soft snore. The tension in Jackson’s frame was contagious. The air felt hot and prickly.
“You think a bachelor who has never even held a baby is a good choice for a father—the man that abandoned his family and changed his name to forget them? I turned my back on my sister. I refused to see her, I refused to talk to her.” He finished off the rest of his whiskey with a sharp swallow. Hannah felt the pain of his regret, even if he wouldn’t admit to it. It was embodied in every tightly wound muscle in his body, in the lines in his face. He regretted what had happened with Louise and that gave Hannah hope that there was still a chance. She wanted to tell him everything—about her past, about the other reason she wanted him to adopt Emily. But she couldn’t talk about that and stay detached. She was already in way over her head.
“You are her uncle.”
“Stop saying that.”
Hannah looked into his eyes and then nodded. “Louise made mistakes, Jackson. Her baby shouldn’t have to suffer for them.”
“Why the hell do you care so much anyway?”
She clenched her hands to keep from shaking. “I don’t want her to enter the system,” Hannah whispered, almost choking on the words. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to block the image of handing over that baby to some foster family, not knowing what would happen to her. She had broken a cardinal rule—she had gotten too close to Louise and Emily. She wouldn’t be able to keep Emily safe once she left Mrs. Ford’s. She wouldn’t have unlimited access to her like she did now. She held her breath as she waited for him to say something. It was obvious he didn’t want to hear what she said. “You’ll regret it,” she said softly, forcing herself to walk over to him on legs that felt like jelly. She watched his jaw clench at her words. She felt the heat of the fire on her face, the flames attacking the pile of logs, the strength of the fire burning any hope she had of Jackson agreeing to this.
But she had to tell him. “This decision will haunt you. It won’t erase your past and it definitely won’t take away your pain. Emily will be gone, but that anger, that resentment you feel toward your sister won’t go away. It’ll eat away at you until you’re not the same person anymore. You’ll be going about your life and then you’ll stop every now and then and wonder what happened to that little baby. You’ll wonder if someone is looking out for her the way you did for Louise. You’ll wonder if the system failed her the way it failed you.”
“Enough!” He growled into the fire, sounding more like a wounded animal than a man. Hannah didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He finally turned to look at her, his brown eyes dark and void.
“You don’t know a damn thing about me, Hannah. I don’t know what the hell made you think you had the right to come here and find me, but that was your first mistake. You don’t know a damn thing about my life, so don’t apply your ideals to me. Tomorrow, when the road gets plowed, go home.”
Chapter Four
Hannah tried not to let her smile waiver as Emily drifted off to dreamland. She decided that a smile should be the last thing Emily saw before she went to sleep.
Emily sighed deeply, made a little sucking motion with her rosebud lips, and finally succumbed to a deep slumber. Hannah held on to her smile for a second longer before reaching for her phone. She needed to call Allison. She knew her best friend and fellow social worker would be out of her mind with worry. Seconds later her friend’s voice greeted her on the other end of the line.
“Allie? It’s me,” Hannah whispered into the phone.
“Oh my God! I’ve been calling you for the last four hours!”
“I know, I know, reception has been sucky, I’m sorry—”
“Why would you have bad reception? You live down the street from the office.”
Hannah cleared her throat, preparing for the onslaught she was about to endure from her friend. “Well, I’m not exactly in Hope’s Crossing right now.”
“Oh my God, you didn’t—”
“I did. I’m here.”
“Hannah, I thought I talked you out of that crazy idea. You could be charged with kidnapping.”
“Mrs. Ford signed off on me taking Emily up here.”
“Fine, but what about Jean? She’s going to chop you up and kick your butt out of the department.” Jean, their boss, played everything by the book. She hated that Hannah took chances and resented that Allison wasn’t afraid of using her contacts and friends to help a child. Allison had helped Hannah out more than once, so Jean had it out for both of them.
“Not if I get Emily’s uncle to adopt her. I had no choice, Allie. You know that. I screwed things up with Louise. The least I can do is make sure Em is placed with her uncle,” Hannah said, sitting on the large bed.
“What happened to Louise wasn’t your fault. I know you were close to her and I know your history, but you’ve put everything on the line here. Louise wouldn’t blame you for backing down.”
“Not going to happen,” Hannah said, staring at Emily. Hannah had made a makeshift bed for the baby beside her, careful that it wasn’t too soft and that she couldn’t fall off.
“Have I ever told you you’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met? I will do everything on my end to hold off the witch-hunt. So, you’ve met Louise’s brother? And I’m assuming he’s met Emily?”
Hannah fidgeted with the hem of the long shirt Jackson gave her to wear. “Technically yes, we’ve all met.”
“What do you mean technically met?”
Hannah glanced over her shoulder, and lowered her voice. “Well…”
“What did he say? Will he do it?”
No. And that crushed her because every now and then during the evening with him she would catch glimpses of the man she thought he might be. But everything that came out of his mouth contradicted that. Maybe she was a dreamer, a hopeless romantic who wanted to believe that the reclusive, handsome billionaire would drop everything to save his innocent niece. But Jackson wasn’t like that at all. Scratch that. He
was handsome, more than he deserved to be considering his attitude. And he was a self-made billionaire, which again made things even worse because that meant he had drive, talent, and brains.
“Hello, what did he say? Is he going to adopt her?”
The image of Jackson Pierce telling her to get the hell off his property sprang to mind. “He hasn’t exactly agreed yet,” Hannah said, wishing her phone would lose reception.
“He said no?”
“It was just shock talking, I’m sure. Listen, I’ll call you when I’m on my way back. The weather is brutal out here, so I’m stuck for the night. But he’s a great…” Hannah tried not to choke on her lie. “…a great host and we’ll be fine. Oh dear, I think Em is waking up. I’ll talk to you later, Allie. You’re the best.”
“Hannah,” her friend groaned. She could just picture her blue eyes filled with worry.
“Bye,” Hannah whispered, not giving Allison a chance to ask any more questions. Hannah hoped to hell some sort of a miracle would happen between now and tomorrow morning.
In the crisp, bright morning that would surely follow the blizzard, maybe he’d have some sort of awakening… An odd noise interrupted the droning sound of the wind outside. She glanced over at Emily. It wasn’t her. What was it?
She paused, listening.
Just wind.
Then she heard it again. It came from the hallway. Her heart started pounding and she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her bare feet padded across the room and she stopped at the door and listened again.
Nothing.
She opened the door slowly and peered into the hallway. Everything was dark except for the small bedside lamp she’d left on in her room. Jackson’s lights were off. She flicked on the hallway light and tiptoed close to the great room… and then she heard it, a mumbling, almost a groan. She turned around and walked to stand outside Jackson’s room. It was definitely him.
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