by Gayle Wilson
“Of course,” Claire said.
Her eyes left Minger’s and found Griff’s. In them he read all that he was feeling. Hope, of course. And the fear that this wouldn’t be what they were hoping for. That in spite of what Minger said, in spite of his reaction to the woman who had called, this might not be what they had been praying for.
“She’s naturally concerned that she’ll be in trouble,” Minger said. “But as far as we can tell, she really is innocent. Totally unaware of what was going on. And we’ve had a doctor check out the baby, Ms. Heywood. If this is your daughter, she’s none the worse for her experience. And if she is your baby, I think you’ll have to thank this woman for that.”
“If this is Gardner,” Claire said quietly, “I assure you I intend to.”
“Do you think we can see her now?” Griff asked. Minger had explained enough. It was time to do this before Claire reached her breaking point, something he had been anticipating since Jake’s death. Griff wasn’t sure how much more she could take. With the question, Minger’s eyes shifted to his face, probably wondering who the hell he was and why he was here.
“You want to see the woman?” he asked.
“We want to see the baby,” Griff corrected.
There would be time enough for expressing gratitude. If Minger was right. But right now...
“Of course,” Minger said. “I’ll have them get her.”
He picked up the phone on his desk and punched one of the buttons. “Bring the kid up,” he said.
“Alone,” Claire suggested softly. “May we see her alone?”
Minger looked up at her as he put the receiver into its cradle. His lips pursed, and then he shrugged. He took his suit coat off the back of his chair and held it, the loop at the neck hung over one beefy finger as they waited.
So far tonight they had managed to escape the media’s attention. The news crews had been stationed in front of the precinct house, lights and cameras set up behind the barricades the cops had erected to keep them away from the front entrance.
They had come in one of the back doors, arriving in Claire’s grandfather’s car. Hawk had backed Claire’s out of the garage of the Georgetown house ten minutes before they themselves had left, drawing most of the media who had been waiting in the cold darkness outside it away with him.
And Jordan, who had volunteered to drive them here, had somehow managed to lose most of the others. The small success had generated more satisfaction than it probably deserved, Griff thought. Something that had finally gone right. As he hoped releasing the pictures to the media had.
This was the moment of truth, he supposed. He wasn’t sure Claire could stand it if this woman turned out to be one of the crackpots he had warned her about. But Jake had said that the baby hadn’t been harmed. That hurting her had never been part of his plan. If this were on the up-and-up, then at least Jake hadn’t lied about that.
The door opened, and a young, black female cop came in. She was holding a bundle wrapped in a pink blanket. The covering had been drawn around the baby’s head, probably because of the damp January chill that pervaded the police station.
It had been long after dark when they’d gotten the call. Long after the evening news broadcasts where the story had run. But the wheels of the bureaucracy turned slowly. Even in situations like this.
The woman’s eyes touched on Claire’s face and then on Griff’s before they settled questioningly on Minger’s. The detective tilted his head toward Claire, and the cop walked over and held out the baby.
Claire hesitated a few seconds. Griff saw the ratcheting breath she took before she reached out and took the child from the officer’s arms, the transfer as smooth as if they had done it a hundred times.
Then, after another quick, inquiring glance at Minger for direction, the officer stepped back, removing herself from whatever would happen next. Claire’s hand was trembling enough for the movement to be visible as it slowly lifted.
She touched the edge of the blanket, and then, without looking at any of them, she turned it back, revealing the face of the sleeping child.
After that, she remained completely still, looking down at the baby’s features a long time. Almost as long, Griff thought, as it had taken Jake Holt’s gun to reach its destination. An eternity of waiting.
Finally, her eyes lifted. To meet his rather than Minger’s, as he’d expected. Griff realized that their blue shimmered with tears, one of which had already escaped, making its slow way down her cheek, which was totally devoid of color.
He couldn’t read what was in them, however. It was neither the triumph he had been hoping for nor the despair he had feared. It was almost as if she were looking through him. As if she didn’t see him at all, and his thundering heartbeat faltered.
Then she broke the connection between them to look at Minger. She nodded, a small up-and-down motion of her head, quickly made, before her eyes returned once more to the face of the sleeping baby she held.
Chapter Fifteen
“Holy Mother of God, I said to myself when I seen the news. Not blasphemy, you understand,” Rose Connor said earnestly, her eyes moving from Claire’s face to Griff’s. “But I was that surprised, I can tell you. He seemed such a nice man.”
She paused, her eyes again searching each face. There could be no agreement for that assessment, of course. Neither he nor Claire would ever feel that Jake Holt was “such a nice man,” Griff thought. Not now.
“And yet here was this darling he’d brought me. Which must be, I knew, the baby they was looking for.”
Without asking permission, Rose Connor leaned closer to Claire, smoothing a proprietary hand over Gardner’s head. The baby was awake now, disturbed by the noises of the squad room they’d passed through on the way to the office where Rose Connor was waiting to meet them. Claire held the little girl upright, securely against her shoulder, but the baby seemed enthralled by her surroundings, dark eyes trying to take in everything.
“I don’t know how to thank you for looking after her,” Claire said.
Griff was aware that she had to force herself not to turn her body and move the baby away from this woman, who was, despite everything. a stranger. That tendency to overprotectiveness would take awhile to disappear, he supposed. If it ever did. And he certainly couldn’t blame Claire for feeling it.
“That’s my job,” Rose Connor said proudly. “And my joy. Looking after the little ones. I looked after my brothers and sisters when I was only a bit of a girl myself. So I’ve been doing it all my life, you might say. I don’t suppose...” The pleasant lilt faltered, Rose Connor seeming shy for the first time. “I don’t suppose you need someone,” she said finally, raising her eyes hopefully from Gardner’s face to Claire’s. “To look after her, I mean.”
The broad, winter-reddened fingers dipped under the baby’s double chin for a tickle. Despite the strangeness of her surroundings and the lateness of the hour, Gardner grinned, new teeth prominently displayed, and then she ducked her head as if embarrassed to respond to such blatant cajolery.
“I have a nanny,” Claire said softly, her eyes meeting Griff’s above Rose’s shoulder. “But...we want to do something to compensate you for your trouble, of course.”
“Oh, no trouble,” Rose said, smiling back at the little girl, whose eyes were again fastened on her face. “He paid me. Give me the money up front, he did. For two weeks. And it hasn’t been quite that, now has it?”
Not quite two weeks, Griff thought, and yet everything about his life had changed. Both their lives—his and Claire’s.
“Not quite,” Claire said, her eyes still on his.
He nodded to let her know that he’d do something very generous for Rose Connor. “We’ll stay in touch, Mrs. Connor,” he said. “To let you know about Gardner. About how she’s doing.”
“I’d appreciate that. You get attached to them so fast. But it’s just Rose,” she corrected. “Never was a Mrs. Too old to hope for that now,” she added, laughing.
/> Then she stepped back, moving away from the baby. She plucked her coat, a serviceable gray wool tweed, off the coat rack. And when, with Griff’s help, her ample girth had been stuffed into it, she retrieved the knitting she’d been working on from the table and put it into a tapestry sewing bag. Finally, almost reluctantly, she removed the strap of a well-worn vinyl purse from where she had hung it over the back of her chair.
“You keep that darling good and warm on the way home,” she said. “It’s a bitter night for having a baby out.”
“We will,” Claire promised. “Detective Minger has your address?”
“All the particulars,” Rose assured her with a smile. “I thought I was in trouble for sure. All them questions.”
“You’re not in trouble,” Griff said. “And we will be in touch.”
“Well, I’ll be looking forward to hearing about the darling, no mistake about that. No matter how long or how little they’re with me, they’re mine, you know. For the moment. And I don’t ever forget them.”
Her eyes fell again to Gardner, who was chewing her fist. She had been following Rose’s movements with big brown eyes.
“She looks like you,” Rose said, her gaze moving consideringly from the baby’s face to Griff’s. “You’d think for a girl, she’ll take some after her mother, but I’m guessing from the looks of her she’s going to be all you when she grows up.”
Griff studied his daughter’s face. He was unable to see any reflection of himself, other than the obvious one of shared coloring, in the baby’s delicate features. Claire had said the same thing, however, so there must be something of him in the softly rounded cheeks and doll-like mouth. His daughter, he thought again, almost in wonder. His daughter, and he realized this was the first time he had seen her face.
“You take care of her,” Rose Connor ordered. The pleasant voice had softened. “You take good care of the both of them.”
Griff’s eyes lifted to Claire’s, seeking permission perhaps to do just that. She had been watching him, but whatever emotion he had surprised in her eyes was hidden by the quick fall of her lashes. Then she lowered her face, cupping her hand on the side of Gardner’s head and pulling it gently toward her. She pressed a kiss on the silken down of her daughter’s hair before her eyes rose again to meet his.
And whatever he thought he had seen in them before was gone.
WHEN THEY GOT BACK to the house in Georgetown, there was no one there. Hawk had picked Jordan up at the police station. They had left the keys to Claire’s grandfather’s car with the desk sergeant. It seemed the old man had gone as well, maybe taking a taxi back to his daughter’s house or to Maddy and Charles’s.
However the arrangements for emptying the big, dark house had come about, they found themselves alone. Together and alone for the first time since that night on the cruiser when Claire had made it clear she wasn’t willing to resume their relationship. At least not the same relationship they had once had.
And maybe, despite the daughter they had conceived together, she never would be, Griff acknowledged, looking out into the winter darkness. Claire had taken the baby upstairs to put her down in her crib. She hadn’t invited him to accompany them.
He had retreated to the kitchen, where only this morning, sitting at the round oak table, they had finally planned the strategy that had been successful in securing Gardner’s return. Unlike the one Jake had planned for them, he thought bitterly. Unlike the operation Jake had controlled from the beginning.
With the others around during the last four days, there had been less tension between him and Claire, just as mere had been in the Keys. There had been too many distractions to be able to dwell on all the unresolved issues that lay between them. The CIA’s lie about his death. The fact that he hadn’t told Claire they didn’t intend to kill Diaz. Her long-ago decision not to tell him she was pregnant. And of course, underlying those was still the central question that had driven them apart.
If he and Claire and Gardner were ever to become a family, all of those, he supposed, would have to be discussed. If Claire were willing to discuss them. And he wasn’t sure at this point she would be. He knew, however, that she would come back downstairs tonight, to doublecheck the locks if nothing else. Claire Heywood had never run from anything in her life. Nothing except who and what he was, he reminded himself.
And it was always possible, of course, that she would choose to do that again. Maybe leaving him alone down here, purposely excluded from her joy in Gardner’s homecoming, was her way of telling him that. He took a deep breath, wondering if she would ever forgive him for exposing their daughter to the world he had inhabited for so long. A world that, despite his retirement, Griff knew he could never completely escape.
It was his past. His life. His world. And its echoes and images had probably been too clearly demonstrated to Claire during the last few days for her to ever be able to forget that.
“I could make some coffee,” she said.
He turned and found her standing in the kitchen doorway, watching him. She was still wearing the dark slacks and white sweater she had put on this morning. There were smudges of exhaustion under her eyes, and her mouth was tight again, almost as if it had forgotten how to relax.
“No,” he said. “Thank you, Claire, but...no.”
The silence drifted between them, as wide as the stretch of shining white kitchen floor that separated them. Wider even, because it was full of regret. Too many mistakes. And all the baggage of the past. Of their divergent views of the world. Of their roles in it.
“You must be tired,” he said. “You probably want to get to bed.”
Despite his offer, he didn’t move away from the sink where he had been standing when she had come into the room. Looking out at the night through the windows above it. There was nothing out there, of course. Nothing threatening. Nothing dangerous. There was only the safe, pleasant quietness of the exclusive neighborhood where his daughter would grow up. Maybe without him.
Claire nodded, her eyes on his face. She seemed to be waiting, but there was nothing else he could say. Nothing that could erase the nightmare he had brought into their lives. Nothing that would change the possibility that no matter what precautions they took, his past might again touch them. Contaminate them with the violence he had lived with so long it hadn’t seemed so terrible to him anymore. Not until it had threatened those he loved.
He didn’t even have the right to do for them what he had once believed he was good at. The one thing in this insane world that had always made sense to him. The commitment his entire professional life had been built around. Standing guard over those we love.
Claire took a step forward and then another. The leather flats she wore echoed slightly on the ceramic tile. Just before she reached him, she stopped, her eyes again searching his face. Almost as if she had never seen it before. Or as if she were trying to imprint it on her memory. With that thought, his heart began to pound, just as it had at the station.
She had done this once before. Sent him away. Told him to get out of her life. And in his pride, he had refused to beg. Refused to change who he was because he knew he was not what she thought him to be. But this time...
This time, he admitted, he would beg if he had to. His mind briefly visited the nursery upstairs, a room he had never seen, but a room where someone had opened a window one cold dark night and stolen a baby. His baby.
Claire was crying, he realized suddenly. The slowly welling tears emphasized the blue of her eyes, their color as intense as that of the shallows around the island where Jake had taken them.
Slowly she raised her hand. And he forgot to breathe. Forgot to hope. He only knew that whatever she demanded this time, he couldn’t agree to. He couldn’t leave the two of them alone again.
Standing guard. It was all he had that was worth offering. His life, willingly given, for either of theirs.
Her hand flattened. Palm up, she held it out before him. Several long heartbeats passed before he accep
ted that this was an invitation. Exactly like one he had once made. The night she had shown up at his door.
He had demanded no explanation for why she had come, despite the bitter things she had said to him. He hadn’t needed an explanation of why she was there. It was enough that she was. Enough that when he held out his hand, she had laid her cold, trembling fingers into it and let him draw her inside.
Unquestioning now, as he had not questioned that night, Griff put his hand into hers and felt her fingers close around it. Warm and strong, they didn’t tremble tonight. Not even when they led him on the same journey they had taken together once before.
CLAIRE HAD LEFT the bedside lamp on when she came downstairs to find him, and its soft light was welcoming. And familiar. He had often spent the night here. More often than she had come to his house in Maryland.
And tonight, given all that lay between them, that familiarity was soothing. The door to the adjoining room was not completely closed. He assumed that what had once been Claire’s upstairs office had been transformed into a nursery for Gardner.
Knowing their daughter was sleeping next door had been inhibiting, at least in the beginning. But of course, any anxiety either of them had felt when they entered this room quickly faded.
After all, for him there could be no doubt Claire wanted him here. No doubt about the message she had intended when she’d offered him her hand. That night, the last night they had spent together, was too clear in their memories for either of them to doubt the significance of her gesture.
And so, when he had finally pulled her to him, slipping his hands under the soft wool of her sweater and tracing, through the silk of her skin, the outline of each rib as his fingers moved upward, his mouth sought hers, certain of her response. He had not been disappointed.
That night on the yacht all the things that had come between them had seemed insurmountable. Here, tonight, they seemed unimportant. And that was because of Claire’s generosity. In issuing her invitation, she had demanded nothing. Asked for no explanations. Either for who he was or for what he had done. Or for what he had allowed to happen to their daughter.
