Baby In His Cradle

by Diana Whitney

  The silky little animal gazed up with moist dark eyes, twitched a velvet gray nose.

  “You are just adorable,” she told it. “And I don’t care what Samuel says, I think Snowdrift suits you perfectly.”

  But as she spoke, Samuel’s warning circled her mind. You’ll wish you hadn’t let yourself love him. A nervous weight settled in the pit of her stomach. It was a bittersweet prophecy, one that had come too late. But Ellie wasn’t thinking of the sweet furred animal cradled in her arms; she was thinking of Stanton Mackenzie.

  In twenty-six years of living, Ellie had never allowed herself to love anyone. Then she’d met Stanton, been swept into an affair both deceptive, cruel, yet she couldn’t allow herself to regret it without regretting the issue of that relationship—her beloved son.

  Daniel was the core of her universe now, the most precious person in her life. Ellie despised Stanton, despised the lies, despised what he was trying to do to her and to their child. But as much as Ellie regretted the nature of their relationship, she could never regret the precious result, a beautiful son to cherish and protect, even from the man who had fathered him.

  The back door bumped open. Samuel backed inside carrying a good-size cage. “It’s a ’coon trap,” he explained, setting the cage on the table. “My father used it when raccoons raided the root cellar.” He levered up the spring-loaded door, clipped it open with a snap secured to the top wire so he could arrange the blue towel inside.

  Ellie eyed a peculiar spouted bottle hanging upside down inside the cage. “What on earth is that?”

  “A hamster tube. I found it in a box of my brother’s stuff out in the shed.” Samuel unhooked the bottle, filled it in the sink. “Rory was big on gerbils. He must have raised three dozen of them.”

  “Rory is your brother, right?”

  “Right.”

  Ellie had always wished for a sibling. “It sounds like you had a good relationship with him.”

  “He was a pain in the butt.” The reply was startling, but issued with good humor. Samuel snugged the filled bottle inside the cage. “Rory was four years older, so he always got to do the fun stuff, like stay up late and go the park with his friends. I hated being left behind, hated the way he gloated that rank had privilege. As soon as I was old enough, I got even.”

  Reluctantly relinquishing the bewildered bunny, Ellie stood back as Samuel gently placed the diminutive animal inside its temporary home. “Dare I ask how you managed that? Getting even, that is.”

  “Hmm?” Samuel rubbed a fingertip between the rabbit’s ears before lowering the spring-loaded closure mechanism. “Oh, I became my brother’s shadow. If he went to the park, I went to the park. If he went to play baseball, I hung on the sidelines to laugh when he struck out. And when he went on his first date, I was in the movie line right behind him making kissy sounds until his face was red as a tomato. Say, would you get some of those newspapers from the screen porch?”

  Ellie complied without comment, spread the newspapers beneath the wire-floored cage in that quiet corner of the living area. “Sounds to me like you were more of a pain to Rory than the other way around.”

  “That’s what kid brothers are for. Making Rory miserable became my life’s vocation. I was good at it, too.” Samuel placed the cage on the newspapers, crouched to watch the confused rabbit hobble on its splinted leg to sniff out its new surroundings. “He’ll need food. I’ll gather buck brush leaves, and some other evergreens that rabbits graze in winter.”

  “There are carrots in the root cellar. I could chop one up for him.”

  “He might like that.”

  Baloo arrived at the cage site. The animal circled, sniffing madly, then came nose to twitchy nose with the caged bunny. The bunny scuffled backward. Baloo offered a helpful bark. The bunny spun on its splint, emitted a frantic squeal.

  Samuel tugged on the old hound’s collar. “You’re scaring him, ’Loo.” Baloo whined once, heaved a rejected sigh, then lumbered over to curl up in his bed for a well-earned nap. Samuel stood, rubbed the small of his back. “I’ll start dinner.”

  “I’ve already started it.”

  “You don’t have to cook every meal, Ellie.”

  “I like to cook.” A flick of her wrist dismissed his protest. “We’re sharing chores, remember?”

  He frowned like a man unused to sharing anything. “You aren’t nesting, are you?”

  “Nesting?” Ellie laughed, shook her head. “Dang, you caught me. I’ve been fighting this overwhelming urge to shred newspapers, but decided to make tuna casserole instead.” An image of gingham curtains brightening the rustic windows instantly flattened her smile. Maybe Samuel’s observation wasn’t so far off the mark after all. Ellie was comfortable here. She felt safe, far removed from the outside world and its dangers. In the five weeks since her arrival, the homey cabin with knotty pine walls had become her sanctuary.

  It had become her home.

  Twisting the hem of her borrowed flannel shirt, Ellie turned away, shifted uncomfortably. “Dinner will be ready in half an hour,” she murmured, still trying to shake the gingham curtain thing. “Why don’t you, ah, read or something?”

  She could feel his perceptive gaze on the back of her head as surely as if those cool blue eyes were boring into her skull, reading her thoughts. Seeing the gingham.

  All he said was, “Okay.” Boots scuffled. The couch creaked. Ellie exhaled, couldn’t stop herself from picturing a braided rag rug in front of the rustic woodstove. Earth tones would be particularly cozy. And fat clay pot, terra-cotta, with a few dried dogwood twigs. Some bayberry clusters for color. A couple of cushy throw pillows for reclining in front of the fire to relax in each other’s arms. Her head on Samuel’s shoulder, his lips brushing her hair, her face, her throat. Those long, healing fingers caressing her breasts, moving down to her bare thighs—She groaned at the sensual image.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Hmm?” Ellie glanced over her shoulder, met Samuel’s suspicious gaze. Her voice squeaked like a startled mouse. “Nothing, why?”

  “You groaned.”

  “Groaned? Me?” A high-pitched laugh bubbled like madness between her lips. “Heavens, no, not me, uh-uh, absolutely no groaning. My stomach must have growled, that’s all. I’m totally famished. Are you? Famished, that is. What are you reading, that real-estate stuff again? The way you’re studying, one would think you’re preparing for some kind of a test. Are you? Studying for a test, that is. I could understand if real estate was, well, interesting. I suppose it is interesting to a Realtor, but you’re not a Realtor. Unless you’re planning on becoming a Realtor, which would explain why you spend so much time reading stuff boring enough to suck your eyeballs dry. Unless you really like it, but you don’t seem to. Like it, that is. You always have this glazed expression on your face, kind of like the one you’re wearing right now because I’m really not making any sense at all, am I?”

  Samuel stared at her as if she had a bug on her nose.

  “Well, better check that casserole,” she chirped, then spun on her heel, hustled into the kitchen wishing the pine floor would heave up and swallow her whole.

  It was past ten when Samuel finally laid the book down, rubbed his eyelids with a pained sigh. The generator, which had been humming for half an hour or so, suddenly turned itself off. The cabin fell silent.

  Ellie looked up from knitting a cozy baby coat out of yarn unraveled from one of Samuel’s old sweaters. “I told you that real-estate stuff would suck your eyeballs dry.” When he made no response, she laid her knitting aside. “Tell me about it.”

  A startled glance bounced toward her, then away. “You’re not interested.”

  “Neither are you.”

  His jaw set sharply, the muscles jittering beneath his ear. He said nothing.

  “It’s a waste, Samuel, a tragic waste of your talent and ability. You’re a trained medic, able to react coolly in crisis, to calm fear with compassion. People instinctively respond to
you, trust you.” Her gaze fell on the cage on the far side of the room. “So do animals. You’re a gifted healer, Samuel, so why are you holed up in the wilderness studying sell-points, mortgage terms and market analyses?”

  Shoulders rippled, arms crossed tightly across a chest so rigid that it could have been carved in granite. His eyes focused on nothing, pinpoints of blue in an expressionless face. But deep within the blue depths a shadow of darkness emerged, a veil of pain so acute that Ellie’s chest constricted in response. There was agony in those eyes, and the misery of the damned.

  As if on cue, the fire flickered and dimmed. Samuel stood suddenly, put another log in the firebox, then bade Ellie good night and retreated to the loft.

  Hours later, Ellie lay awake listening to his tortured moans, the sharp rasp of breath being forced into unwilling lungs. Nightmares had claimed him again. They were becoming worse, she thought. More frequent, more frightening. She didn’t know what terrors persecuted his slumber, what horrors he relived in the private hell of his tortured mind. All she knew for certain was that Samuel Evans was emotionally wounded, a man at war with himself.

  Ellie would have given anything on earth to understand why.

  Chapter Seven

  Samuel’s pancakes grinned up at him. By now he was used to having his food wink and smile at him, so he merely plucked a raisin eye to dip in the happy halfmoon of syrup.

  Standing at the cookstove, Ellie balanced Daniel in the crook of one arm while flipping flapjacks. She was humming softly while her baby son gazed up, sheer adoration glowing in tiny eyes that grew darker by the day. At six weeks old, the baby was plump and happy. He smiled reactively now, followed movement with a wise and greedy little gaze. Daniel whacked his tiny hands when excited, puffed out a quivering lip when annoyed. He was developing a real personality. Samuel was nuts about him.

  If he’d been honest with himself, he’d have recognized that he was also nuts about the child’s mother, but being honest with himself simply wasn’t Samuel’s forte. Instead, he harbored personal expectations far harsher than those he attached to the rest of the world. When it came to emotion, particularly intense emotion, Samuel either rationalized his feelings or ignored them all together.

  So as he gazed at Ellie, hungrily absorbing every nuance of expression, every quirk of the adorable dimple accenting a lush and alluring mouth, he chalked a queasy flutter in his chest up to guilt. Ellie was working. Samuel wasn’t.

  He pushed away from the table, leaving his own oneeyed meal cooling on the plate. “You sit down and eat. I’ll finish cooking.”

  As she glanced back, a glossy swing of hair fell forward. She shook it away, waved the spatula like a scepter. “Nay, knave, for if thou touchest these priceless orbs, thy fingers shall feel the sting of my wrath.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means that if you come within ten feet of this griddle—” A vicious swish of the spatula provided adequate demonstration.

  “That seems clear enough.” Samuel stood warily. “At least let me take Daniel.”

  “You can’t eat and hold a baby at the same time.”

  “If you can cook and hold him, I can eat and hold him. Besides—” Samuel eased the child from Ellie’s grasp, tucked him in the crook of his own arm “—Daniel and I need some quality man-time.”

  “Man-time?” She chuckled, scooped a batch of completed pancakes from griddle to serving plate. “Is that requisite male-bonding stuff?”

  “Hey, don’t scoff. Psychological studies have proven that positive gender connection is crucial to a child’s emotional development.” The remark was issued lightly, without thought. Only when Samuel saw the sparkle drain from Ellie’s eyes did he understand cruel implication in his clumsy comment. “That’s not what I meant, Ellie.”

  “I know.” She grabbed the batter bowl, turned away to spoon fresh batter onto the griddle, but not before Samuel saw the corner of her mouth quiver.

  He shifted Daniel in his arms, instinctively snugged the child against his chest. “Lots of happy, healthy children grow up in single-parent homes. It all depends on how much they’re loved. Daniel is loved, Ellie, deeply loved. That’s what really matters.”

  The griddle sputtered with each poured circle. “I know that, too.” She gave her head a bracing shake, set the bowl aside and wiped her hands on a tea towel. “Your breakfast is getting cold.”

  Fearing any further attempt to explain would simply make matters worse, Samuel settled Daniel in the crook of one arm, returned to the table and finished his meal in silence.

  But his mind wasn’t silent. Thoughts circled like vultures, worries about Ellie’s future, and Daniel’s. If there was any justice in this world, Ellie and her son would never be separated. Samuel knew the world wasn’t just, life wasn’t fair. Bad things happened to good people. Samuel had tried to change that. He’d failed.

  Samuel wouldn’t fail with Ellie, wouldn’t allow Daniel to be taken away from her. At the moment he didn’t have a clue how to stop that from happening. He just knew that he would stop it. Or he’d die trying.

  With the aid of a small propane heater, the screen porch temperature hovered just above freezing. A bitter cold snap had turned the snowpack to ice, and the mountain itself into a tree-studded glacier. The clear February sky and crisp air was deceptive, cruelly inviting. Before taking Baloo out for a romp, Samuel had donned four layers of clothing, and wrapped a wool muffler around his face. Neither man nor dog seemed daunted by the frigid weather.

  Ellie was most certainly bothered by it. Having spent most of her life in California’s central valley with its killing summer heat and benignly mild winters, she was unaccustomed to cold intense enough to freeze spittle in midair.

  Not that she’d tried to validate that colorful scenario. She’d take Samuel’s word for it. Right now her biggest problem was completing the laundry chores without shivering herself into a muscle spasm. The portable heater helped, but not enough. The contrast of icy air on wet hands was brutal, and the soapy wash water, comfortably warm when she’d filled the tub, had rapidly cooled to barely tepid.

  Teeth chattering, she hurried through her laundry chores, scrubbing garments against the ancient washboard, cranking them through a squeaky wringer bolted to the side of an old washtub resembling a relic from another century, then tossing wet clothes into a basket strategically positioned beside the heater to keep the damp laundry from freezing. After all that, she had to drain the tub, refill it with clear rinse water and repeat the grueling process.

  By the time she lugged the basket of clean, wet laundry into the kitchen, her shoulders ached fiercely and her back throbbed like it had been flattened by a snowplow. She hoisted the basket to the table with a grunt, then dragged herself back to the screen porch to flip off the portable heater and save what precious fuel was left.

  That’s when she noticed that the washtub was still full of water. Perplexed, she checked the drain cap. It was open, but the water wasn’t draining.

  “Damn,” she muttered, giving the tub a peevish kick. After bestowing a few descriptive adjectives on the hapless hunk of metal, she trudged outside to check the drain hose, and found exactly what she’d feared—a frozen ice spout attached to a completely clogged, utterly useless pipe.

  Frustrated and freezing, she hurried back to the screen porch to consider her options. Leaving the wash tub full of water until the drain thawed was not one of them. Within hours the tub would be fit only as an ice skating rink for rodents, useless for days, perhaps weeks. Laundering diapers in the kitchen sink struck her as a bit unsavory, so she had little choice but to empty the tub by hand before the wash water froze solid.

  A small bucket ought to do the trick. Ellie found one, and went to work.

  Samuel bounced the pinecone on his palm. “Third cedar from the clearing,” he announced. Baloo eyed the target tree, issued a doubtful whine as his master prepared for the pitch. Samuel focused, lowered the pinecone to his chest, and had just raised his
knee for a wind-up kick when a bloodcurdling shriek ripped the quiet mountain air.

  “Help! Help me!”

  Samuel dropped the pinecone. “Ellie?”

  “Samuel!”

  “Ellie!” He leapt forward, his feet slipped and he went down in a cursing heap. The surefooted hound dog issued a heroic howl and took off at a clumsy gallop leaving his frustrated master slipping and sliding on the icy crust.

  Samuel finally skidded his way to the back of the cabin, and found Baloo frantically circling Ellie’s prostrate form. His heart sank to his toes. “Oh, God.”

  He slid down the embankment to the shoveled shed path where Ellie lay on her side, twisted awkwardly and almost motionless except for one hand flailing wildly in a vain attempt to block the hound’s slobbering assault on her face. “Stop!” she sputtered, pushing at the worried animal’s muzzle. “Do you want to end up with your tongue frozen to my ear? Oh, for goodness’ sake... Samuel, help!”

  “I’m here, honey, I’m here. Where are you hurt?” Kneeling behind her, Samuel yanked the wool muffler away from his mouth, tried to lift Ellie’s shoulders. She shrieked, but didn’t budge. He yanked again. She shrieked again, then went into a sputtering fit as Baloo wiped a juicy canine kiss across her open mouth.

  It took a moment before Samuel recognized the full extent of Ellie’s predicament. He rocked back, sat on his haunches and stared in abject astonishment. “How in the world—?”

  “Don’t ask.” Her shoulders vibrated either with a resigned sigh or silent laughter. Since her face was turned away from him, Samuel couldn’t be certain, but when she spoke again, her voice quivered with unmistakable amusement. “Well, you’re the expert. What does the rescue book say about silly people who freeze themselves to the ground?”