ONCE UPON A WEDDING

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "Jess, tell me the truth," she said softly as she patted the baby's back and waited for the tiny body to relax again. "How did you get Judge Pollard to grant you temporary custody?"

  "I told him that I was arranging a private adoption pursuant to the mother's deathbed wishes."

  Hazel's mouth went dry, and she hugged Francey closer. "You did?"

  "What the hell. Like you said, it's worth a shot."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  Jess sprawled on the big leather sofa in the McClanes's den and watched Ty splashing brandy into a glass. Over their heads in the guest room Hazel and Cait were getting the baby settled in the small folding crib.

  "Make it a double," he said when Ty lifted his eyebrows in his direction.

  "That bad, huh?"

  "If you call having my life turned upside down in a little less than thirty-six hours bad, yeah."

  Ty made it a triple. "I'd join you, but I'm on call," he told him, recapping the decanter.

  "The downside of being a world-class surgeon," Jess said as he accepted the balloon glass. While Jess sipped, Ty settled his still-lean frame into "his" chair, the one Cait tried to give away at least once a year without success, and hoisted a long leg over the arm.

  "How long did you say it took you to drive up from Pleasanton?"

  "Four hours." For a trip that had rarely taken Jess more than two in the past. "My car still smells like sour milk."

  Ty grinned. "What can I say, buddy? Babies spit up."

  "And mess their pants—"

  "Diapers."

  Jess poured a big slug of brandy down his throat and waited for the knots in his gut to ease. "Pants, diapers, whatever you call 'em. Hazel must have gone through half the box we bought before we left Pleasanton."

  "Sounds familiar."

  "Every time I got up to speed, she was having me pull over. Hell if I know how folks with kids ever get anywhere on time."

  "Careful planning – and a lot of luck."

  Ty made it sound easy, Jess thought, but then, Ty was crazy in love. He would do anything for Caitie and those kids of theirs.

  "Have you found me a baby nurse yet?"

  Ty rested his head against one of the padded wings. He and Jess were the same age, but Ty's hair was nearly all gray now, while Jess's still had more black than gray.

  "Not yet, but I just put out the feelers a few hours ago."

  "You know a lot of nurses. There must be one or two who you trust to take care of a newborn."

  Ty shot him a wry look. "Seems to me you said you learned patience after they hacked off your arm."

  "I did."

  "How about showing me some, then?"

  Jess studied the brandy in his glass. "Odds say we're just wasting our time, anyway."

  "You're really serious about trying to adopt this baby, then?"

  "I gave my word to Henry Pollard that I am, so I'd better be."

  "Why? Because you feel an obligation to the baby's mother?"

  Leaning forward, Jess set his glass on the coffee table in front of him. He'd had enough to drink. "Partly. And partly because, corny as it sounds, I can't stand the idea of a total stranger taking Silvia's child. Not when they took just about everything else from her."

  He shook his head and leaned back against the soft cushions again. "But now that I've had some time to consider it, I think I have to be out of my mind."

  Tyler propped both arms behind his head and regarded Jess thoughtfully. "Sounds to me like you're scared."

  "Damn straight I am! What do I know about raising a little girl?"

  "About as much as I did, I imagine. Which is about as much as most fathers."

  Too restless to sit any longer, Jess got to his feet and walked to the window overlooking the big backyard. Toy trucks littered the sandbox he'd helped Ty build, and twelve-year-old Kelsey's bathing suit was hanging over the mesh fence ringing the pool. Two cats, one gray and one a startling white, were curled in separate chairs, sleeping.

  "Hell, Ty, my life is arranged around the things I can do, not the things I can't. But with a child…" he shrugged "…that's not always going to be possible."

  "You've done all right so far."

  Jess turned his back to the window and angled a hip against the wide sill. He respected Ty as much as he'd ever respected anyone in his life, and he still shuddered when he remembered the times he'd visited Ty in state prison.

  Somehow, though, Ty had survived hell and come back a better man. But then, Ty had always had a need to put others first. Until that fateful afternoon at the track, Jess Dante had always been number one to Jess Dante.

  He drew a deep breath. "I'm not sure I can hack it if all of a sudden she decides she's ashamed of her old man because he's a cripple. Dumb, huh?"

  "No, not dumb. Understandable." Ty glanced around the comfortable, well-appointed room before returning his gaze to Jess. "I'm still an ex-con, even if my name has been cleared. There's always a chance my kids will someday be ashamed of me for that."

  "It's not the same thing. You were innocent."

  "And you're still as much of a man as you were before you lost your arm."

  Jess stared down at the ornate pattern woven with such care and skill into a valuable oriental rug. There had been a time when he'd considered himself a man because he had the ribbons and trophies and the notches on his bedpost to prove it. These days he didn't quite know what he was. Sometimes he thought he was afraid to find out.

  "Maybe, but I'm also a realist." He glanced up to find Tyler watching him.

  "Yeah, right, Dante. That's why you're going to fight the odds and the system and your own doubts in order to adopt a child who you're not even sure will appreciate it if you win."

  "Look, Ty, I've already been through this with O'Connor and—"

  Ty's pager trilled, interrupting the conversation. Flipping it off, he got to his feet and reached for the phone. "This is Dr. McClane," he said when the call went through.

  While Tyler listened to the voice on the other end, Jess walked to the big stone fireplace and looked at the framed snapshots crowding the mantel.

  His favorite was the one of Hazel and him taken at Jesse's christening. She was holding Jesse in her arms and smiling for the camera, but the lens had caught a strange, wistful look in her eyes. Sometimes he wondered if a man could fall in love with a photograph, and then reminded himself that a man had to believe in love first.

  "Okay, give me ten minutes."

  Tyler's crisp command whipped Jess from the past to the present. Turning, he asked, "Problems?"

  Tyler nodded, his expression grave. "An accident on the freeway, two dead, two critical. One is a four-year-old with a crushed chest. She's on her way to the hospital now via Life Flight."

  Jess thought about a child's tiny bones and the damage sharp steel and broken glass could do in the wink of an eye. "Poor kid. I hope she makes it."

  "Yeah, me too." Tyler grabbed his car keys from the drawer. "Gotta go. I'll see you when I get back."

  "Good luck."

  "Thanks."

  Ty opened the door just as Hazel was raising her hand to knock. "Oops, sorry," she said with a tired grin as she and Tyler nearly collided.

  "My fault." He bent down to kiss her cheek, then jerked his head in Jess's direction. "Sorry I have to run out on you all. Daddy there will explain."

  Without waiting for an answer, Tyler loped down the hall, yelling his wife's name. Jess thought about the quiet rooms in his own house, filled only with the sound of his own voice or the TV he snapped on as soon as he walked in.

  "Cait said that he was on call," Hazel said as she came into the den. "Looks like he got one."

  Jess nodded. She'd shed her linen and silk as soon as they'd arrived at the McClanes's. Dressed now in a shirt and jeans borrowed from Cait, she seemed very different from the efficient professional who had gotten the baby packed up and ready to travel with very little fuss.

  "Appa
rently there's been a bad accident on one of the freeways," he explained. "Ty's been called in to operate on a little girl with a crushed chest."

  Hazel grimaced. "At least she's in good hands."

  "If she makes it to the hospital."

  Even then the poor little thing would go through hell and back before the splintered bones finally mended and the intractable pain stopped clawing at bruised nerves and torn flesh. Hang in there, kid, he thought. You can make it.

  Hating the memories, he slipped his hand into his pocket and manufactured a smile. "How's the baby? All settled?"

  "Sleeping like the adorable little angel she is."

  "When her underdrawers aren't wet, you mean?"

  Hazel grinned. "A minor glitch in her heavenly persona."

  "Spoken like a doting aunt."

  She grinned, but Jess saw the same wistful look in her eyes that he'd just noticed in the photograph behind him.

  "Actually, I came down to tell you and Ty that Cait and I are going shopping."

  "Shopping?"

  She nodded. "For baby things. Cait made a list of the things you'll need before you take her home."

  "Uh, right. I hadn't thought … you'll need my credit card."

  "I think it would be easier if I used mine, and we can settle up later."

  Jess nodded. "How long will you be gone?"

  "No more than a couple of hours."

  Jess frowned. "What about the baby?"

  "I'll leave a bottle in the fridge. To warm it, just stick it in the microwave at half power for about a minute. Without the nipple, of course."

  Jess had visions of scalding the kid's tiny little throat. "What if it's too hot?"

  Hazel was busy rolling down the sleeves of the shirt she'd borrowed from Cait. It was some kind of almost white shiny material that looked terrific on her. Glancing up, she gave him a quick smile that had him thinking of his teen years, when he would get embarrassingly hard just looking at a pretty girl.

  "Just shake a few drops on your wrist to test it before you give it to her."

  Jess stiffened. "Oh yeah?" he drawled, deliberately loading his words with hard-edged sarcasm. "How am I supposed to do that – with my teeth?"

  He waited for the fumbled apology, the flustered look, the carefully disguised pity that he hated about as much as he hated to look at himself in a full-length mirror.

  Instead, impatience crossed her face as she glanced at his empty sleeve. "If that's what it takes, yes."

  She consulted her watch before adding coolly, "We should be back by six, but if we're not, there are plenty of diapers on the bureau next to the crib."

  Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked out.

  * * *

  Hazel held up a doll-size shirt with tiny shell-pink ruffles around the sleeves and neck.

  "How about this?"

  Cait looked up from the terry sleepers she was sorting. They'd hit every department store in the mall, filling three shopping bags before Cait had remembered this baby boutique.

  "It's adorable," she said with a tender smile, "but she'd only be in it a week or so before it would be too small."

  Reluctantly, Hazel refolded the soft little shirt and replaced it on top of the stack before sorting through another pile for a larger size.

  "Why do I feel like I've suddenly dropped about a hundred 10 points?"

  Cait laughed. "When I was carrying Jesse, I read all the books, attended every class the Ob/Gyn clinic offered, even made out the ideal schedule for a newborn. Let me tell you, I was ready."

  "I was there, remember?" Hazel said dryly. "By the time you delivered, I was seriously considering selling my practice and moving to Maui."

  "It wasn't that bad," Cait grumbled.

  "Worse. Remember the night you called me at three in the morning because you couldn't decide whether to use disposable or cloth diapers?" Hazel shook her head. "Let me tell you, Cait – at three o'clock, I couldn't have cared less."

  Hazel watched Cait's cheeks turn pink. "Well, there was all that talk about landfills and the ecology versus the absolute horrors of diaper rash and water waste."

  Hazel held up her hand. "Please! Save all that for Jess. I'm just Francey's honorary aunt, remember?"

  Cait selected six sleepers in various colors and sizes and added them to the items already piled on the corner of one of the display tables.

  "I assume Jess plans to hire a nanny."

  "He's going to have to. At least until Francey's considerably older." Hazel fingered a fluffy rainbow quilt and thought about his awkwardly endearing attempt at gentleness when he'd held Silvia's hand.

  "He claims he doesn't like children."

  Cait's startled look probably mirrored her own earlier look. "Are you kidding? He's crazy about Kels and Jesse. He'd spoil them rotten if we'd let him."

  "I mentioned that. He said that they're different." She added the quilt to the pile.

  Cait shook her head. "Still, the thought of Jess actually becoming a father is a bit mind-boggling."

  Hazel glanced at her friend questioningly. "Because of his disability?"

  "Oh Lord, no! Mostly because he's such a man's man. All hard edges and tough surfaces. It's hard to picture him playing dolls and choosing school clothes and discussing the facts of life with a daughter."

  Hazel worried her lower lip, debating how much to reveal. "It all happened so fast, the baby's birth, Silvia's death. And to tell you the truth, I all but shamed Jess into petitioning for adoption."

  "Hazel, there are a lot of things I'm unsure about but one thing I'm not – no one forces Jess Dante to do something he doesn't want to do."

  Hazel took scant comfort in Cait's words. Jess had a deep vein of decency that could push him into doing something he might regret.

  "He didn't say much, but he took Silvia's death hard."

  "Deep down, Jess is a very emotional man. Trouble is, he doesn't know it."

  "Or maybe he deals with his emotions differently than we do."

  "Most men do."

  Cait nodded. "He's not like other men, though, is he? And I'm not just talking about his disability."

  "He does tend to keep a person off balance, that's for sure."

  Off balance and up half the night trying to erase the memory of a brief kiss that had been meant to soothe and ended up lighting fires.

  "Did you ever see pictures of him when he was racing?" Hazel glanced up in time to see Cait roll her eyes. "Talk about a stud! Thick black hair to his shoulders, the devil's own smile. Lord, I can't imagine anyone resisting Jess Dante when he was in his prime."

  Or ever, Hazel added silently, thinking about the funny feeling in the vicinity of her diaphragm whenever he was around.

  "He talked a little about his wife last night. Apparently she was pregnant when she left him – with his best friend's child no less."

  Cait's eyebrows flew up. "He told you that?"

  Hazel nodded. "Among other things. Why?"

  Cait turned her back to the counter and sagged against it. "Hazel, Jess has been as close as a brother to Ty and me for five years and never … not even once – has he ever talked about his ex."

  "Maybe you didn't ask."

  "Are you kidding? You know me and my insatiable curiosity. Of course I asked. He was very sweet about it, but let me know in very clear terms that his past was not, I repeat, not a subject he cared to discuss.

  "With Ty, then—"

  "Nope. I know, because I asked. Ty said the same thing. When it comes to the ex-Mrs. Dante, Jess is a clam."

  Hazel stared down at the miniature shirt in her hands. Instead of Francey, however, she was seeing Jess and the loneliness she'd sensed in him before he'd looked into the mirror behind the bar and seen her watching him.

  "He'd had some Scotch. Maybe that's why."

  "Or maybe there's something about you that gets to him, Hazel. Something he trusts in you and no one else."

  Hazel felt her lips curve. "Whatever the reason, I
'm not about to fool myself into believing I'm anything more to Jess than a sometime friend – and a darn good shrink he can count on in a pinch."

  Cait made a small sound of protest. "C'mon, Hazel, where's your spirit of adventure? Of romance?" She manufactured a leer. "Of lust?"

  Hazel laughed. "Tucked away where it'll be safe from idiots like you." And safe from a haunted, deeply caring man who had locked away far more than that.

  "May I ring these things up for you?"

  Neither Hazel nor Cait had noticed the clerk approaching, and her cheery question gave them both a start.

  "Yes, please," Hazel said, digging in her bag for her checkbook, while Cait and the clerk carried everything to the cash register.

  "What's the next step?" Cait asked, while the clerk folded each garment before ringing everything up.

  Hazel watched a young mother pushing a stroller between the counters. Her baby was bigger than Francey, but she had the same look of wonder in her dark eyes.

  "The next step is to draw up the papers giving Jess temporary custody while his application for adoption is being processed."

  "I thought that had already been done."

  Hazel shook her head. "Francey is still a ward of the court. Jess is simply acting as a foster parent at the moment."

  "Sounds complicated."

  "It is. Apparently the lines of legal responsibility get fuzzy when the mother is an inmate and the birth father has relinquished all rights."

  "What about the mother's deathbed request for Jess to take the baby?"

  "Verbal wishes. It could have helped if she'd written it down and had it witnessed. Still, Dr. Benoit and I have already agreed to sign depositions to that fact."

  Cait grimaced. "Jess didn't exactly endear himself to Teri Grimes and some of the others at Protective Services when he was trying to get Ty access to Kelsey."

  "I know. That's why I promised to go to bat for him."

  "I don't have to tell you how tough Teri can be, especially now, when there are more strongly qualified, hopeful couples than there are babies.

  "It's not fair, Cait. Just because Jess is missing an arm, he has to fight just to do the right thing."

  "Let me know if I can help, okay?"