The Baby Gift

by Bethany Campbell

  This morning he’d seen her stop her aging pickup truck in front of that same red brick schoolhouse. He’d seen her kiss her daughter goodbye and the child run up the snowy walk to the building.

  He had watched Briana signal for a turn, then pull into his parking lot. She got out of the truck and came up the walk, her arms full of seed catalogs and her breath feathering behind her, a silver plume on the gray air.

  She had been a pretty child, Briana had, and now she was a pretty woman—tall but not too tall, slim but not too slim. She had long dark hair with the hint of a wave and dark eyes that had something exotic in them.

  She looked nothing at all like her father or brother, big Scottish-Irishmen with pale eyes and square faces. No, Briana looked like her mother, a quiet brunette with a slightly Mediterranean air.

  Briana came in the door of the post office. She wore an old plaid jacket and a black knit hat and gloves. The wind had tossed her hair and burnished her cheeks to the color of fiery gold.

  She smiled at him. She had a good smile, but lately—for the past two months or so—he’d discerned something troubled in it, deeply troubled. But he could tell she didn’t want people to know. Franklin was discreet. He pretended he noticed nothing.

  “Morning, Franklin,” she said with a fine imitation of blitheness.

  “Morning, Briana,” he said and nodded at her stack of catalogs. “Folks must be dreaming of spring.”

  “They must be,” she said. “We got thirty-two orders by the Internet this weekend.”

  Franklin made a tsking noise. “That Internet’s going to put me out of business.”

  She set the catalogs on the counter. “Nope—look at all this. It’s bringing you business. And next week, I’ll start sending seeds out. I’ve got a huge pile of orders to fill.”

  “Hmm,” Franklin said, stamping the catalogs. “Well, don’t send every seed away. Save me some for those tomatoes I like. What are the kinds I like?”

  “Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter,” Briana said with a grin. “You’ll have ’em. I’ll even start them for you.”

  He knew she’d keep her word and that she wouldn’t take any money from him, either. That was Briana.

  “You’d save yourself some postage if you’d bulk mail,” Franklin advised, “Keep a mailing list and send out two hundred or more at a time.”

  “Someday,” she said. “I have to talk Poppa into it. Getting the farm into the computer age was tough enough.”

  Franklin nodded but said nothing. Leo Hanlon was a good man, a kindly man, but set in his ways. Didn’t he realize the greatest asset he had on his farm was his pretty, brainy daughter, a woman who wasn’t afraid of new ideas?

  “Well, guess I’ll check the mail and be out of here,” Briana said. “It’s Larry’s birthday. Got lots to do to get ready.”

  “Oh, you got mail, all right,” Franklin said. “One package too big to fit into the box. For Nealie. Maybe from the neighborhood of—oh, from the stamps, I’d say Russia.”

  Briana was always careful to guard her expression, but a light came into her eyes. He thought what he’d thought so many times in the last years—she still had strong feelings for Josh Morris, more than she’d ever admit.

  “I’ll get it for you,” he said. “It’s in the back.”

  The glow faded from her face, and the trouble crept into her dark gaze. “I’ll check our box.”

  He moved toward the back room, knowing, of course, what was in her post office box. It included a letter for Nealie, also from Russia.

  Franklin had got a card from Josh in the morning’s mail. Josh knew the older man saved stamps, and he always remembered to send him colorful ones from his travels. Such a man could not be bad, Franklin thought, no matter what some people liked to say.

  When he returned to the counter, Briana was there, her mail tucked under her arm. She made no comment about Nealie’s letter from Josh. She showed no emotion when Franklin set down the tattered package.

  “It looks like it had a rough journey,” she said.

  “It’s come a long way,” he said. “Across half the world.”

  “Yes,” she said in almost a whisper. “A long way.”

  She picked up the bulky package gingerly, as if it might have some magical power she didn’t want brushing off on her. Then she flashed Franklin a smile and set off, her gait sprightly.

  A man less observant than Franklin might have been fooled by that sprightliness. She had a problem, and from the kind of mail she’d been getting—support groups, medical foundations—he thought he could guess what.

  He prayed to heaven he was wrong.

  JUST AS BRIANA was stowing Nealie’s package in her truck’s cab, a sleek Cadillac swept in and parked beside her.

  Briana suppressed a groan and forced herself to smile, even though the cold hurt her face. The car’s driver, Wendell Semple, heaved himself out of the driver’s seat.

  “Briana,” he said heartily. “Just the woman I want to see. Come over to the café. Have a cup of coffee with me. I need to talk to you.”

  Briana’s smile felt as if it were freezing into place. “Sorry. My limit’s two cups a day, and I’ve already had it. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  Wendell was vice president of the bank. He was heavy with what Briana thought of as a prosperous man’s solid weight. He had a prosperous man’s confidence, as well, the booming voice, the air that all his opinions were important and all his decisions were right.

  “I said I need to talk to you, little lady.”

  She didn’t like his tone and she feared what he wanted to talk about. “Sorry. I’m on a tight schedule.”

  Wendell’s smile didn’t fade, but it hardened. “Briana, this is about money. Tell me. Aren’t you happy with the way I do business?”

  Her heart plunged, and she felt caught out.

  “I’d really like to know,” he said. “Why’d you take all your own money out of my bank? Weren’t you satisfied?”

  Stay out of my affairs, she wanted to snap, but instead she made an airy gesture. “Nothing like that. It’s no big deal.”

  He leaned closer. “It is to me. When I lose a customer, it’s always a big deal. Your family’s done business with my bank for what? Almost fifty years.”

  She said nothing.

  He went on. “We’ve not only done business together, we’ve been neighbors all this time. But now you’ve taken away your personal business. I’d like an explanation. I think I deserve one.”

  “It’s simple,” she lied. “I wanted to try Internet banking—”

  “But why?” he prodded. “Are you thinking of changing the farm account, too? That farm’s an important business in this county. I don’t want to lose it.”

  She turned her collar up against the cold wind. “You won’t lose it. I did it as an experiment, that’s all. To streamline things. I thought I could give more time to the family business if my own’s handled automatically.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Now that sounds good. But is it the truth?”

  “Of course, it is,” she said, lying with spirit. “I’ve got to run, Wendell. We’ll have coffee another time. Tell your wife hello. And that I’m starting her some begonia cuttings.”

  She edged away from him, smiled again and got into her truck. Her heart banged in her chest.

  Wendell stood in the snowy lot, looking like a man who didn’t intend to be thwarted. She gunned the motor and escaped.

  He was prying into her money matters, but money was his business. She didn’t want him to know what she’d been doing. Not him or anyone else.

  She’d changed her finances so all her bills were sent electronically to a St. Louis bank. No one in town saw them and no one in town knew what she was paying or to whom.

  She had things to hide. She had fought hard to keep them hidden. But once again she had a frightening sense of urgency, that time was running out. Now, she thought. I’ve got to do something now.

  HE HAD SPENT five weeks liv
ing in a flat, featureless wasteland of ice, taking pictures of nomads and reindeer and a way of life that was probably doomed.

  He had slept in his clothes on pine boughs, bark and reindeer skins in a tent made of felt and hides. He’d kept from freezing at night with a portable stove that burned peat and pine branches. He stank of smoke and he hadn’t bathed or shaved for over a month.

  Now he was in Moscow, with what felt like a permanent chill in his bones. He stood in the lobby of one of the city’s finest hotels, looking like a cross between the abominable snowman, an escaped prisoner and a bag of rags.

  Other patrons looked at him as if he exquisitely pained their senses of sight and smell. From across the lobby, the pretty desk clerk shot him furtive glances of positive alarm. Josh Morris didn’t care.

  He’d picked the Hotel Kampinski because after five weeks in Siberia, he wanted every luxury in the world, and the Kampinski had them all. It lavished its guests with saunas and masseuses, a gourmet restaurant and fine rooms. It had phones and computers, fax machines and color television.

  He wanted to get in his room, unlock the private bar and open a bottle of real American whiskey. Then he’d climb into the marble bathtub and stay there all night, soaking and sipping and feeling his blood start to circulate.

  Tomorrow he’d put on the Turkish robe the hotel provided, send his clothes out with orders to burn them and have new ones brought from the American store on Arbat Street.

  And then, as the grand finale, he would call his delightful daughter and talk to her for an hour, maybe more. To hell with the long-distance rates.

  Josh wanted to phone her tonight—he hadn’t even stopped over in the village of Kazym to clean up and rest. He’d promised Nealie he’d get through tonight if it was possible, but it was ten o’clock in Missouri now—past her bedtime.

  After he talked to her tomorrow, he’d go shopping and stock up on Russian souvenirs for her. The nesting Matryoshka dolls, a set of Mishka bears, a small—but real— Fabergé pendant. Nothing but the best for his kid.

  Briana wouldn’t let Nealie wear the pendant yet—she’d say the girl was too young and make her put it away. But Nealie would have it and plenty else, besides.

  He thought of buying Briana something—Baltic amber or Siberian cashmere—but she didn’t like him to give her gifts. Still, she would look beautiful in white cashmere with her dark, dark hair and eyes….

  A pang of bitter yearning struck him. He’d lost Briana. But he still had Nealie, and Nealie he would spoil to his heart’s content.

  He reached the registration desk, set down his camera bags and gave the clerk his name and affiliation. “Josh I. Morris. Smithsonian magazine, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.”

  “Ooh, Mr. Morris,” said the desk clerk in her lovely accent. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

  He probably wouldn’t recognize himself, he thought.

  “I made reservations for two nights,” he said. He usually booked himself into the more downscale Mezhudunarodnaya, but he needed serious de-Siberiazation.

  “Your magazine extend it to four nights,” she told him. “They send message that you are to stay and rest a few days.”

  He shrugged. It was a bonus, like battle pay. Besides, they probably expected him to pick up some file shots of Moscow while he was here.

  She frowned slightly. “You have many messages—many, many.”

  He frowned. From the Smithsonian? Did they have another assignment for him already? Was that why he was getting the royal treatment? Good Lord, he thought, were they plotting to send him somewhere even worse? What was worse in winter? The South Pole?

  Visions of emperor penguins danced unpleasantly in his head. He didn’t want another cold-weather assignment. He wanted to get back to the States and see Nealie.

  He shoved the faxed messages unread into his camera case, took his key and headed for the bank of elevators. His room was on the fourth floor, overlooking the Raushskaya Embankment and the Moscow River. Beyond the river were the lights of the Kremlin.

  He took the faxes from the case and laid them on the gilt and glass table next to the phone. The parka, his hat, gloves and boots he put into the laundry bag he found in the closet.

  He stripped down to his skivvies and began running his bath. His underwear would soon join his other clothes in the trash. He unlatched the bar, opened a bottle of whiskey and filled a crystal tumbler.

  Then he carried his messages and his glass into the bathroom. While he ran the bath, he yanked off his underwear and kicked it under the sink. At last he settled naked and belly deep in the hot water.

  He read the first fax. It was from his agent.

  “Morris, Adventure magazine says the Pitcairn Island assignment may be shaping up. Be prepared to move fast if it does. Remember you’re contractually obligated. You’ve owed them an article since hell was a pup. Best, Carson.”

  Josh snorted, crumpled the fax paper and flung it into the gilt wastebasket beside the sink. Adventure had been trying to put that freakish assignment together for years. It was never going to happen. He wished he’d never signed the damned contract. Adventure’s editors were crazy, and their assignments bizarre.

  He settled more luxuriantly into the water and read the next message. It was also from his agent.

  “Morris, Know you’re coming off a tough assignment, but would you consider shooting a piece on Greater Abaco for Islands? Would not take more than a few days. Writer is Stacy Leverett. Would start in two weeks—Feb. 15. Short notice, but Gullickson caught bad bug in Dominica. Best, Carson.”

  For Josh, this was a no-brainer. Abaco with Stacy Leverett? Go to a Caribbean island with a statuesque blonde who looked great in cargo shorts and had a taste for short-term relationships? Just what the doctor ordered for a poor frostbitten man.

  The third fax was yet another from the agent. Carson curtly reminded Josh that he was still on call for another Adventure assignment, Burma. His permission from the Ministry of Tourism might come through within four weeks, and he needed to be ready. But, cautioned the message, remember that if the Pitcairn assignment jelled, it was the magazine’s top priority.

  Josh gritted his teeth. Burma would be a rough assignment and dangerous—typical for Adventure. At the moment, he would rather think of the Bahamas and getting Stacy Leverett out of her cargo shorts.

  He’d go to Missouri for a week and see his daughter, then the Bahamas, then, if need be, Burma. At least Burma would cancel out Pitcairn.

  He sipped his whiskey and looked at the next fax. It, too, was from his agent. Good Lord, didn’t anyone else in the world write to him?

  “Morris, Your ex-wife called from Missouri at ten o’clock this morning, New York time. She says please get in touch immediately. It’s crucial. Best, Carson.”

  Briana? Briana wanted him to call? It was crucial?

  She did not use words like crucial lightly. She hardly ever contacted him when he was in the field.

  Unless something was wrong. Very wrong.

  Visions of the Bahamas and statuesque blondes fled. Instead his mind was taken total hostage by a slim brunette woman—and a very small girl with very big glasses.

  Troubled, haunted by images of his ex-wife and his daughter, he went on to the next fax. Again it was from Carson.

  “Morris, Your wife called again at one. She says she needs to talk to you as soon as possible. Please phone her, no matter what the hour. She says it’s an emergency. Yours, Carson.”

  The last fax was from Carson.

  “Morris, Your wife phoned again at four, Eastern Time. She says please call as soon as possible. It’s urgent. Yours, C.”

  Josh swore under his breath, not from anger but from a deep and instinctive terror. He rose out of the tub, knocking the glass of whiskey to the floor. It shattered, and he stepped on it, cutting his heel. He hardly felt it.

  He wrapped a towel around his middle and grabbed the bathroom phone.

  Getting connected to Missouri
from Moscow was approximately as difficult as arranging a rocket launch to the moon. Josh’s imagination ran to places that were haunted and dangerous.

  He bled on the marble floor. While the transatlantic connections buzzed and hummed, he had time to pull the shards of glass from his heel and pack the wound with tissues.

  Briana, Briana, Briana, he thought, his pulses skipping What’s wrong?

  From across the ocean, he heard her phone ringing. He pictured the little farmhouse—tight and cozy. He pictured Briana with her dark hair and mysterious dark eyes, her mouth that was at once stubborn and vulnerable. He imagined his daughter, who resembled Briana far more than him. His bright, funny, unique, fragile little daughter.

  Then he heard Briana’s voice, and his heart seemed to stumble upward and lodge in his throat.

  “Briana?” he said.

  “Josh?” she said in return. She didn’t sound like herself. Her tone was strained, taut with control.

  He heard voices in the background, those of adults, those of children.

  “Are people there?” he asked.

  “It’s Larry’s birthday,” she said. “Just a minute. Let me take the phone into the bedroom so we can talk.”

  He heard the background noise growing dimmer. “There,” she quavered. “I shut the door. They can’t hear.”

  “Briana, what’s wrong?” he said desperately, but he already knew. “Is it Nealie?”

  “Oh, Josh, she’s sick. She might be—so sick.”

  He had the sensation of falling toward a devouring darkness. “How sick? Is she in the hospital?”

  “I don’t know how sick. It’s—it’s in the early stages. She doesn’t know yet. Nobody in the family knows. You’re the first one I’ve told.”

  “Briana, what is it? What’s wrong with her?” Damn, he thought, his hands were shaking. His hands never shook, no matter what.

  “It’s a—an anemia,” she stammered. “It’s very rare. And—and serious.”

  “How serious?” He sat on the edge of the bathtub, his head down. He felt as if he was going to pass out.