A Firehouse Christmas Baby

by Teri Wilson

  “Carpooling,” Madison echoed. “Kind of like sharing a donkey in Biblical times. You have to admit it’s sort of romantic.”

  “You have got to stop,” Felicity said, even though her heartbeat kicked into high gear at the sight of Wade’s masculine profile behind the wheel of the LFD’s small utility vehicle.

  Good gravy, he was handsome.

  She swallowed hard. Listen to yourself. You’re actually starting to sound like a Vermonter.

  On any other day, Felicity would have considered that a good thing. Alas, today wasn’t any other day. Today was the opening night of the Lovestruck living nativity scene, and she was about to spend hours pretending that she, Wade and their fake baby in a manger were a family. She was just about ready to call an Uber to take her back to Manhattan.

  Why on earth did I agree to this?

  “I should probably go before your Aunt Alice sends out a search party,” Felicity said.

  Madison’s aunt owned the yarn store next door to the yoga studio and was as plugged in to Lovestruck’s social scene as she could be. She’d apparently been the city’s volunteer coordinator for the living nativity display for decades, which was the other major reason Felicity had agreed to participate. No one wanted to disappoint Aunt Alice.

  “Jack and I are bringing the girls later, so keep an eye out for us!” Madison gave her a quick one-armed hug so as not to crush her costume and waved at Wade while Felicity locked up the yoga studio.

  “Have fun.” Madison grinned and headed toward Main Street Yarn while Felicity’s face went warm again.

  The awkward truth of the matter was that Madison and her husband were 100 percent correct. There had definitely been sparks between Felicity and Wade at the wedding last month—so many sparks that Felicity had been grateful for the dozen or so firefighters in attendance. In the back of her mind, she’d almost hoped that once she moved to Lovestruck, something would come of those sparks.

  But moving day happened to fall on the morning after Wade delivered the baby and, well...

  She couldn’t go there. Felicity’s new life in Lovestruck came with a strict anti-baby policy, even if those babies were on the periphery. It was a matter of self-preservation. The only exceptions were Emma and Ella, Jack and Madison’s twins, because she couldn’t exactly avoid her best friend’s stepdaughters. She could, however, avoid Wade Ericson and his baby-saving aura.

  Except for now.

  “Hey, Felicity.” Wade’s mouth curved into a lazy grin she felt down to the tips of her toes.

  “Wade,” she said primly, and then frowned once she managed to drag her gaze away from his chiseled features and flirty dimples long enough to realize he wasn’t dressed in anything remotely resembling Biblical garb.

  He was dressed in his regulation dark blue LFD T-shirt and cargo pants, which had the annoying effect of reminding Felicity that he was a bona fide hero. Equally annoying—the apparent firefighter fashion code that required the sleeves of his T-shirt to intimately hug every bulge of his rock-hard biceps. It was snowing, for heaven’s sake. Shouldn’t he be wearing a coat? Or better yet, a drab brown robe?

  “Where’s your costume?” she blurted, feeling ridiculous all of a sudden in her virginal attire.

  “It’s at the station. I got stuck on a call for a medical assist and came straight from the hospital.”

  Of course you did, thought Felicity. She wondered if the medical assist involved an infant, but she didn’t dare ask.

  “I didn’t want to be late picking you up.” He strode to the passenger’s side of the car in three easy strides and held the door open for her. “Do you mind if we swing by and get my costume on the way?”

  “Sounds great.” She aimed for a beatific smile, but it quickly turned awkward as she tried to scoop miles and miles of blue silk into her arms so she could climb into the car.

  So much for looking angelic.

  Wade laughed, deliciously low. “Here, let me help.”

  He gathered an armful of fabric trailing the ground behind her, and Felicity did her best not to stare. Why did a vision of herself as a bride and Wade helping her with the train of her Vera Wang suddenly flash in her mind? Good gravy, indeed.

  “Here you go,” he said, gently placing the blue silk onto the seat of the car beside her. “All tucked in.”

  Then he reached across her to fasten her seat belt, and Felicity didn’t dare breathe.

  But it was too late. She could feel his warmth, and his swoony firefighter scent—reminiscent of a campfire under a snowy starlit sky—was already making her head spin.

  Too close. Way too close.

  She muttered a thank-you and closed her eyes until she heard the car door shut.

  “Thank you, by the way,” Wade said as he climbed behind the wheel.

  Felicity felt herself frown. “For what, exactly?”

  “For not asking if my medical assist involved delivering another baby.”

  At first Felicity thought it was a joke, but the serious set of his jaw told her otherwise. “Is all the attention getting to be too much?”

  “Not exactly, it’s just...” Wade shook his head as they headed toward the firehouse at the far end of Main. “I don’t know. It’s not something I want to keep dwelling on, that’s all.”

  “I understand,” she said, a little too quickly. “No baby talk tonight, I promise.”

  He turned to smile at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Interesting. Wade seemed different, for lack of a better word. Ordinarily, he was all easy charm and flirty banter. But, if he didn’t want to dwell on baby-related conversation, she was all for it.

  “Here we are.” He shifted the vehicle into Park in front of the firehouse and glanced at Felicity’s costume filling up most of the space in the floorboard. Then his mouth hitched into a half grin that made him look much more like the old Wade who’d lowered her into an over-the-top dip on the dance floor at Jack and Madison’s reception. “Given your billowy robes, do you want to just stay here while I run in and change real quick?”

  She nodded. “That would be a definite yes.”

  “I’ll be Bethlehem-ready and back in a flash.” He winked, and it seemed to float deliciously through her.

  How was she going to do this for the entire festival? Thank goodness there would soon be a number of live sheep between them to serve as a buffer.

  She took a deep breath and toyed with the gold locket she always wore on a chain around her neck. Everything was going to be fine. The Joseph costume would probably work wonders in helping her forget about Wade’s biceps. But, just as she was beginning to feel the tiniest bit confident about the coming hours, a sharp rap on the car window caught her off guard.

  She gasped, heart hammering. And when she swiveled her head to see who’d knocked on her window, her surprise crystalized into panic.

  A young girl stood on the other side of the glass—she couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. She wore a long puffer coat that gave the impression of being part winter attire and part security blanket, and the pink knit hat on her head had a fuzzy pompon on top. It fluttered in the icy Vermont wind. But Felicity couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the bundle in the girl’s arms.

  A baby.

  The infant was so tiny, so delicate. It looked like a newborn. What was a baby this fragile doing out in the cold?

  Felicity fumbled with the controls but couldn’t get the window open, so she opened the car door and tumbled outside in a pile of blue silk. Only then did she notice the tears streaming down the teenager’s face.

  “Are you okay?” Felicity asked, and a terrible fear began to swirl low in her belly.

  Please don’t let this be what I think it is.

  The girl sniffed. “I need you to take my baby.”

  Felicity swallowed hard, panic beat
ing its frantic wings against her rib cage. She’d heard of this kind of thing before—the Safe Haven law, which allowed parents who were unable to care for their children to anonymously leave them at a designated place like a hospital or police station.

  Or firehouse, she thought, glancing at the building where Wade had just vanished inside. Her gaze darted to the apparatus bay, hoping against hope that another firefighter would notice what was happening and come rushing to her aid. But the bay was empty, and then she remembered that the fire department was always a big part of the Christmas festival. They were probably all already down at the town square, passing out candy canes from atop fire engines wrapped in twinkle lights.

  “Um, why don’t you let me go get someone to help you?” Felicity said, trying her best to calm the tremor in her voice. The girl seemed frightened to death. “There’s a fireman right inside. I’m sure he’ll know what to do.”

  “No! No way. He might recognize me. Google said I could leave the baby here and someone could adopt him and give him a real home. I don’t even have to leave my name.” The girl waved a hand at Felicity’s costume. “And look at you. You’re the Virgin Mary, right? It’s like a sign.”

  It wasn’t. It couldn’t be, but the girl seemed so desperate, and Felicity was beginning to worry about what might happen if she didn’t take the baby. “I want to help you. I do. Please just let me get a firefighter...”

  The girl thrust the whimpering infant toward Felicity. “Please. I would’ve just dropped the baby off at the doorstep, but I didn’t want to leave him alone in the cold. Please just take him and give him to the fireman.”

  Leave the baby out in the cold?

  Just the mention of that dangerous possibility had Felicity reaching for the child and holding him tight against her chest. He mewed like a kitten, so tiny, so fragile, and at that very first contact with his soft little body, time seemed to stop. The snowflakes drifting down from above danced in aching slow motion. The sounds of the Christmas festival down the street faded into background noise. All Felicity seemed to hear was the infant’s tiny puffs of breath and the beat of his sad little heart, crashing wildly against hers. She felt herself start to shiver, and she knew without a doubt it had nothing to do with the cold.

  Felicity took a deep breath as her mothering instincts came back in full force. Muscle memory was a wondrous thing—as much as she wanted to resist the sweet, unfortunate child, she knew just how to hold him to warm his chilled little body. He stopped whimpering and burrowed into her embrace. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep herself from crying.

  Hold it together.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to leave your name, in case you change your...” Felicity looked up, and her voice fell away.

  The girl was already gone. She’d left nothing behind with her newborn child except a trail of scattered footprints in the snow.

  “It’s okay,” Felicity whispered against the baby’s downy head. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  But she wasn’t altogether sure if she was talking to the baby or to herself. She rocked back and forth in an effort to soothe them both, and when Wade called her name, the sound was like music to her ears—the sweetest Christmas carol she’d ever heard.

  “Felicity?” He stopped dead in his tracks, his brown robes whipping in the wind as every last bit of color drained from his face. “Is that...”

  She nodded, and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “A baby.”

  A Christmas child.

  Chapter Two

  Wade was from Lovestruck, born and bred.

  He’d grown up on pancakes with real maple syrup and bright autumn leaves bursting with colors as vivid and bright as those lined up in his crayon box. He’d taken his first steps at the library on Main Street, where his mom had been the head librarian until she’d gotten sick. In high school, his first job had been tending sheep on the weekends at a small, family-owned farm on the Vermont Cheese Trail.

  Wade loved Vermont’s harsh winters and messy mud season just as much he loved its picturesque covered bridges. His childhood hadn’t exactly been idyllic—until his father finally left for good—but he’d never wanted to live anyplace else. Never even considered it. Applying to the Lovestruck Fire Department straight out of the Fire Academy had been a foregone conclusion.

  Being a firefighter in a town like Lovestruck was different than working for a big-city department, though. When Wade was a rookie, he’d had to wait nearly three months to work his first actual fire.

  He’d been so prepared. So ready. And as the days turned into weeks, week into months, his readiness had seemed to smolder into something less bright, less intense—anxiety. The more time he’d had to think about it, the more worried he became that when he finally saw his first fire, he might do something wrong. Make some fatal mistake. He had needed to get it over with, just to prove to himself that he had what it took to run into a burning building. He’d heard about rookie firefighters freezing up on their first hot run, and his deepest fear had been that it might happen to him. Especially since he’d had months to worry about it.

  Cap had tried to quell his anxiety by reminding him to never wish for a fire. Ever. If he spent his entire career doing safety equipment checks and rescuing cats in trees, it meant his community was safe and sound. Wade agreed, of course. But when he had finally gotten his first code red call, the rush of adrenaline he’d felt as he’d entered an apartment building marbled with smoke and heat had been a relief.

  He’d done it. At last. He hadn’t panicked at the sight of out-of-control flames, nor had he gotten claustrophobic from the oppressive weight of his gear. Once the fire had been safely put out, Cap had snapped a photo of Wade’s ash-covered face and his bright white smile. The picture still hung in his locker—a reminder that he had what it took to be a first responder. He would always choose to run toward danger when others were running away from it. Always.

  Wade never worried about freezing up again.

  But that’s exactly what happened when he exited the fire station dressed in his Joseph robes and saw the baby in Felicity’s arms. He just couldn’t seem to make himself move. He could only stare at the infant’s upturned nose and plump cheeks, nipped pink from the cold. This wasn’t just any baby—it was the baby. His baby.

  No, he tried to tell himself as his heart pumped so hard and fast that he couldn’t seem to take a full breath. Not yours. Not really.

  He’d helped deliver the child, that’s all. He certainly wasn’t the baby’s father.

  But for some nonsensical reason, the thump of Wade’s heart and the rush of blood in his ears sounded eerily like one word, repeating itself over and over again.

  Mine. Mine. Mine.

  He’d know that child anywhere. The baby in Felicity’s arms was the same infant he’d helped to deliver two weeks ago. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. What he couldn’t seem to figure out was what the baby was doing here, at the firehouse without his mother. Nor could he figure out why he was gripped by a sudden urge to wrap the child in his arms and never let go. The instinct to protect the tiny, innocent baby was crippling.

  Still, all he could seem to do was stare at Felicity as if she’d somehow morphed into the actual Virgin Mary in the few minutes he’d been gone.

  What the heck is happening?

  His throat went bone-dry as all his worst rookie fears suddenly seemed to be coming true. Probably because when it came to babies, he was still very much a rookie, regardless of what everyone else in Lovestruck might think.

  “Wade?” Felicity blinked up at him with eyes as bright as the bluebells that grew wild behind the firehouse every spring. “I...”

  She shook her head as her bottom lip began to wobble, and tears streamed down her face, the fear in her expression seemed to mirror his own. If he didn’t get ahold of himself and do something, he was going to have a crying w
oman and a potentially abandoned infant on his hands.

  The baby began to cry. And the sound of his lonely, plaintive wail, coupled with his tiny, scrunched-up face snapped Wade into immediate action. He bolted toward Felicity, brown robes dragging behind him along the snowy ground.

  “What happened?” he said, reaching for the child as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  The relief in Felicity’s eyes as she handed the baby over to him was palpable, but her empty arms told another story. She suddenly didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, as if she longed for two very opposing things at the same time.

  Or maybe Wade was just projecting.

  “You were inside.” Felicity pointed toward the firehouse with a shaky hand. “And a girl knocked on the window of the truck. She looked panicked, so I climbed out and, the next thing I knew, she shoved her baby into my arms.”

  Wade nodded, encouraging her to continue as he tried to remember everything he’d ever heard about how to properly hold a newborn.

  Support the baby’s head and neck. Be mindful of the soft spot. Make sure the baby’s face is turned out to allow him to breathe.

  He must have done something right, because the infant stopped crying, and Wade’s heart stopped aching quite as badly as it had just moments before.

  “I’m sorry.” Felicity pressed her fingertips to her lips and shook her head. “I tried to get her to stay until I could get help. I told her you’d be out in just a minute, but she said you might recognize her.”

  And that’s when Wade knew for certain that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. The child in his arms was indeed the famous baby he’d helped deliver two weeks ago. Deep down in his gut, he’d known all along. But he’d been holding on to a sliver of hope that he was wrong.

  He glanced down at the baby, marveling at how light the child felt in his arms. As dainty as a snowflake. “Did the mother say anything else?”

  Felicity nodded. “She said, ‘I need you to take my baby.’ She said she’d read on the internet that she could bring the baby here and someone would adopt him. I tried to get her name, but she said she didn’t have to.”