In Protective Custody

by Beth Cornelison

  She shrugged out of his grip, glowering at him. “Would you stop grabbing me like that? What is your deal?”

  The man wiped a palm on the leg of his jeans and took a deep breath. Then, raising a hand and lowering his voice, he explained over the baby’s continued howling, “My truck is trapped and probably not driveable. I need wheels. Fast.”

  She narrowed her gaze on him, eyeing him with suspicion. “Why? What’s the hurry?”

  He opened his mouth as if to answer but then closed it again. With another sigh, he fished his driver’s license and some small cards from his wallet. “It’s…the baby. I have to get him home. Quickly.” He stepped closer, and his expression reeked of desperation. But desperation over what? His own situation or the baby’s?

  “Go on,” she prodded reluctantly.

  “He’s…sick.” The man’s black eyebrows knitted in a frown. He glanced away, huffed then pinned her again with a pleading look. “He needs his medicine. That’s why he’s crying.”

  Laura’s breath caught. “Medicine? Oh, my God…what—”

  “Will you help us?”

  “I…of course. But what about your car? The police haven’t written up the accident yet and—”

  “I can’t wait around for the cops to get here. Don’t you hear him screaming? He needs his medicine. Now!”

  “But the other drivers…” Indecision and apprehension swelled in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. When she hesitated, the man grunted and jabbed his wallet back in his rear pocket. With long-legged strides, he stalked over to the driver of the Camry and shoved a business card in the other man’s hand. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotta get the baby home. I’ll be in touch about the insurance. Are you hurt?”

  When the Camry driver shook his head, the dark-haired man hustled over to the pickup and poked a card through the window to the teenager, too. He drilled a hard look on Laura as he returned. “No one’s hurt, and they have my contact numbers. Now can we go?”

  The sounds of the baby’s wailing tore at her heart. What if the child really was sick, and he suffered because she wouldn’t help? How could she live with herself? Then again, how could she trust that this jittery-acting man was telling her the truth?

  The man’s gaze froze on someone or something in the crowd, and his expression hardened. “Oh hell, he’s here! We’re outta time. Where is your car?”

  His tone brooked no resistance.

  “I…the Honda over there.” She tipped her head, directing his gaze across the intersection.

  “Good. Let’s move!” With his fingers wrapped around her wrist, he grabbed the baby seat in his other hand and hustled her toward her Honda.

  “Who did you see? Who’s here?” She stumbled to keep up with his long strides and struggled to keep a safe hold on the baby.

  He cut a sharp glance toward her without slowing his pace. “Never mind. Just get us out of here!”

  “I h-have a phone if you’d rather call your wife to have her bring the medicine here.” They reached the passenger side of her Accord, and he opened the back door. “That way you could take care of the paperwork for the accident—”

  “No.” He put the baby’s car seat in the back then faced Laura. “That won’t work. My wife…isn’t home.”

  When she made no move to get in, he opened the front door and pushed her toward the seat. “Get in! I’ll drive.”

  “But—” Her legs bumped the frame of the car. She lost her balance, dropping clumsily into the passenger seat while clutching the baby to her chest. In the seconds it took her to gather her wits, the man ran around to the driver’s door.

  A flash of panic crashed down on her. Everything was happening so fast. Too fast. She needed to think, to reason with him or… Get out. Take the baby and run.

  But he’d already cranked the engine. With a squeal of her tires, they sped away.

  Chapter 2

  Laura grabbed the armrest to steady herself as her abductor took a corner too fast.

  Abductor. The word rattled through her brain with an ominous ring. Was he really kidnapping her? Had he kidnapped the baby, too?

  He didn’t seem to have a weapon. He’d never threatened her. But his edginess rattled her. That and his no-questions-asked bullying.

  She studied the rigid set of his jaw. “A-aren’t you going to put the baby in the car seat?”

  “Can’t take the time now.”

  “But it’s not safe!”

  He silenced her with a dark glare. “Just hold him for now and sit tight.”

  As he hurtled them around another corner, she spotted her cell phone in the console under the radio. But how could she get it without alerting her abductor?

  She felt the man’s eyes on her and glanced up just as his gaze shifted to the phone. She held her breath. Prayed.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” he growled. Snatching the phone from the console, he jammed it in the map pocket of the driver’s door. Out of her reach.

  Her stomach sank to her toes. So much for secretly dialing 911. Swallowing her disappointment and fear, she searched for another option.

  She glanced down at the infant, the helpless little baby who still screeched for all he was worth. His tiny fingers had clamped around one of her long blond curls, so she gently worked to free her hair from the baby’s fist. When she cuddled him closer to her breast, an eerie prickle crept up her spine.

  “This baby’s not really sick. Is he?” Her voice trembled, as did her hands, her stomach.

  He met her gaze, and the hard determination setting his jaw softened. His coffee brown eyes held a measure of guilt and remorse, but he turned back to watch the road without answering.

  Her thudding heartbeat counted the tense seconds. While the baby’s cries filled the dearth of conversation, she studied the man’s profile. Warring emotions played across his rugged features. A muscle jumped under his square, stubble-covered jaw. His narrow nose looked as though it had been broken once, leaving a slight bump near the bridge. Sweat trickled from a high forehead, dampening wisps of his thick black hair and leaving wet stains at the armpits of the blue golf shirt he wore with his jeans.

  He caught her gaze again, and the intensity of his dark eyes unnerved her, accelerated her already rapid breathing.

  “No. He’s not sick.” His tone was flat, grave.

  His admission caught her off guard. She blinked her surprise, uncertain how to respond.

  Turning away again, he squeezed the steering wheel.

  While his confession spun her thoughts in a hundred directions, a maternal instinct surged inside her.

  Protect the baby.

  She drew the infant even closer to her body and eyed her kidnapper warily.

  He gave her another quick look and muttered a curse. “Don’t look at me like that. I won’t hurt you.”

  Laura raised one eyebrow skeptically to let him know what she thought of his promise. “Why should I believe you?”

  He had the audacity to look offended.

  “I wouldn’t—” He snapped his mouth shut without finishing.

  “Did you kidnap this baby?”

  He shot her an exasperated look. “No! Of course not!”

  His defensiveness intrigued her. What was he hiding?

  She studied the baby’s features, looking for similarities. Same dark hair, same narrow nose. But with newborns it was hard to tell.

  The infant’s screams had tapered to mewling whines. She stroked his small pink face, and her heart melted like ice cream in the sun. She’d trained herself not to grow emotionally attached to the children at the day care, a self-defense mechanism she’d mastered growing up, shuffled from one foster family to another. Yet somehow this tiny life chipped at the walls she kept around her heart.

  On the job, she could indulge her love for children without forming deep bonds. Emotional bonds served only to wound her when they were inevitably broken. She’d already suffered a lifetime of shattered relationships, broken promises, lost loved ones. Her ac
hing soul could take no more. Yet that same painful childhood fueled a fierce protectiveness in her, a desire to see no other child suffer the same fear and isolation.

  “Look, he belongs with me.” The man’s statement called her attention back to the problem at hand. His tone said he knew she needed convincing.

  “Where’s your wife?”

  The muscle in his cheek jumped again. “The baby’s mother is still in the hospital. She…she’s not doing well and—” His voice grew quiet, and his dark expression reflected too much emotion to be faked.

  His obvious grief grabbed her and rattled the cage where she’d locked her own grim memories of loss. “I’m sorry.”

  He acknowledged her sympathy with another lingering gaze and quick nod before turning his attention back to the road.

  Laura swallowed hard, shoving down the painful specter of grief that had shadowed her throughout her childhood, followed her from one foster home to the next.

  The car bounced over a large pothole, and she turned her gaze to the scenery out her window. She didn’t recognize anything about the cypress-dotted flatlands and the isolated road they traveled.

  Apprehension prickled her neck again. “Where are we?”

  “Near my house.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  He started to answer but then seemed to reconsider. “Once you drop me off, you’ll just get back on this road and follow it out the way we came, until you reach the highway into town. It’s simple.”

  Laura gaped at him. “You mean you’re letting me go?”

  “Of course I am.” He scowled at her. “I hadn’t wanted to involve you at all, hadn’t wanted to come back to my house. But with my Jeep trapped at the accident, I didn’t have a choice.” He exhaled sharply. “I have an old truck at home I can use. Once you drop me off, you’ll be free to go. With my gratitude.”

  The news should have elated her. Instead, she puzzled over his strange behavior. If the baby wasn’t really sick, then why the hurry? “You know that leaving the scene of an accident is against the law, don’t you?”

  He winced. “Yeah, I know. But I couldn’t hang out until—” Again he snapped his mouth closed and frowned.

  “Until?”

  “Never mind.”

  “You’ve already admitted the baby’s not sick. So what had you spooked? You said, ‘He’s here.’ Who is he?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I think considering that you dragged me into—”

  “Hey! Do you hear that?”

  Laura paused and listened. For what, she wasn’t sure. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly. He quit crying.” The man craned his neck to see the baby better.

  Glancing down, she found the infant in her arms sleeping with his thumb in his mouth. Her heart squeezed then expanded. Tears puddled in her eyes. Maternal yearnings clambered over dark memories and defensive walls.

  “He’s so sweet,” she whispered. Her fierce protective instinct reared its head again with a vengeance, plucking at her conscience and warming her soul. The little babe in her arms couldn’t do a thing for himself, couldn’t be more precious if he were her own child. Painful longing twisted inside her.

  Drawing a deep breath, she shook off the bout of sentimentalism. Don’t get attached. In a minute, you’ll hand him to his father and be on your way. No looking back. As always.

  “Thank you.” The deep male voice roused her from her tangential thoughts.

  “Hmm?”

  “For your help with the baby. For lending me your car—”

  “Lending my car? Is that what I did? Seems to me you gave me no choice.”

  A sheepish grin tugged the corner of his mouth as he slowed to turn in at a gravel driveway. “Sorry if I bullied you. I really do appreciate your help.”

  Laura took in the ranch-style house nestled in a copse of cypress trees. The red brick and white siding structure had a hominess about it that appealed to her.

  He pulled to the back of the house next to a battered pickup truck loaded with split firewood. Though neatly kept, the lawn lacked much landscaping other than live oak and cypress trees which littered the ground with needles. Rusted wrought-iron lawn chairs sat on his back porch next to a well-used grill.

  Certainly the home didn’t have the appearance of a criminal hideaway. Was that what she’d been expecting?

  “Well, this is home. Thanks again for your help.” He gave her another grin, this one more rakish, and her pulse stumbled.

  While he climbed out and circled the car to the passenger door, she gazed down at the baby. What would happen to him?

  The boy’s father opened the door beside her, and she dropped a soft kiss on the baby’s head. His sweet baby scent, talcum powder and milk, filled her nose and tangled around her heart. The man reached for the child, and a knot of doubt lodged in her chest.

  The day care center where she worked maintained a rigid screening process, assuring a child was never released into the care of the wrong person. But she had no assurance this man had any real claim to the baby.

  Panic streaked through her. Her thoughts tumbled over each other. She needed some confirmation the man was who he said he was, that she wasn’t negligently turning this poor baby over to a kidnapper, before she could drive away in good conscience.

  Asking him for that assurance wouldn’t help. His word alone wouldn’t convince her he had a right to the child. Perhaps something inside his house? Another person to verify his story, an arrangement of blue flowers congratulating him on his son’s birth, a wedding picture of him with the mother?

  Something. Anything.

  She had a responsibility as a childcare worker to protect this baby’s interests. But her own history, her experience as the child needing protection, needing someone to care, made her professional responsibility a personal mandate.

  Protect the baby.

  “Ma’am, I’m really in a hurry. Can I have the baby now?”

  He motioned toward the infant impatiently.

  “I, uh—”

  Without waiting for her to finish, he scooped the boy out of her arms and stepped back. Laura scrambled for a plan. She had to get inside his house, just for a minute, just to reassure herself the baby would be all right. As the man moved quickly toward his carport door, she climbed from her car and called to him. “Hey, may I…use your bathroom before I go?”

  He hesitated as if looking for an excuse to tell her no. “Well, okay…but make it quick. I gotta get going.”

  Get going? He’d just gotten home. Her anxiety cranked another notch. She followed him into the carport where a firefighter’s sooty turnout gear hung on a peg by the back door with black boots sitting below. He fished in his jeans pocket for his keys, unlocked the door, then stood back to let her enter first. “Around the corner. First door on the right.”

  “Thanks.” She scanned the interior with curious scrutiny as she made her way to the bathroom. The decor could be summed up with one word. Masculine.

  Dark colors, wood paneling, hunting trophies. Not a ruffle or frill to be seen. Likewise, she saw no evidence in the bathroom that a woman shared his home. No hairspray or makeup or stockings drying over the shower curtain rod. Laura recalled the way he’d answered her query about his wife.

  The baby’s mother is still in the hospital.

  The baby’s mother, not my wife.

  Did that mean he didn’t live with his son’s mother, that they weren’t married? She knew his private life was not her business, but the oddity of his earlier behavior still bothered her. Something didn’t add up.

  That something didn’t register until she found her way back to the living room. Not only did the house lack any signs of a woman’s touch, she saw nothing, not the first rattle or diaper, indicating he’d expected to care for a baby tonight.

  She watched him bounce the infant, awake now and crying again, while he yanked clothes from the drier and jammed them into a grocery sack. More evid
ence he planned to leave again as soon as she did.

  He spared her a brief glance. “Listen, the baby’s seat is still in the back of your car. Could you leave it on the driveway for me when you go?”

  On the kitchen counter, his answering machine played his messages. “Jordie won’t make Friday’s game. He has a dentist appointment. Thanks, coach!”

  A beep signaled the end of the current message.

  “Are you divorced?” She blurted into the silence before the next message began.

  His head came up with a jerk. His expression clearly said her bluntness stunned him. “Uh, yeah. Why?”

  “It’s obvious no woman lives here.”

  He gave her a slow nod then went back to grabbing clothes to stuff in the paper sack. “You’re sharp.”

  “You also don’t have anything here for a baby.”

  His chin lifted a notch, his expression guarded. “No.”

  “Max, it’s Cheryl,” a woman on the answering machine said. “Where you been hiding, handsome? Call me.”

  Laura spread her hands. “How are you going to feed him or change his diaper with no supplies?”

  Before he could answer, the next message began playing.

  “Caldwell, we know you have the baby!” The voice on the machine spat venom. Icy shivers snaked up her spine.

  “He belongs with us, and nothing you can do will stop—”

  The man crossed the floor in two steps and slapped the stop button on the answering machine.

  Laura gaped at him, speechless. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. Acid churned in her stomach.

  He turned a hard glare at her, his face drawn and grim. “I’m really in a hurry. I need you to go now.”

  Chapter 3

  Accusation burned in the blond woman’s eyes. Deep inside, Max squirmed uncomfortably. Her unspoken disapproval and doubts chafed a raw wound inside him. Jennifer had given him that same look too many times, whether he deserved it or not. And, as with his ex-wife, this woman’s glare caused a flicker of guilt, of responsibility, of disappointment.

  Max knew he could explain the situation to her, try to make her understand, but that would take valuable time he didn’t have. He had to get back on the road. Quickly.