The Baby Trail (Baby Bonds #2)

by Karen Rose Smith

  “You don’t have to cook for me,” Tiffany was quick to assure her, as if she didn’t want to be a bother. “I can get my own.”

  “Some nights I might work late and you’ll have to get your own. For tonight, I think it will be nice to eat together, don’t you?”

  After swallowing hard, Tiffany’s gaze met Gwen’s. Tears were bright in her eyes. “I’d like that a lot.”

  Already Gwen felt close to this girl. And that was almost as scary as loving Garrett.

  Loving Garrett.

  She’d tumbled over the edge, she suddenly realized. Now where did she go from here?

  It was over.

  Garrett thought about the hearing he’d just attended…the happiness in everybody’s faces as the judge had warned Tiffany he’d be keeping a watchful eye on her and so would family services. For six months there would be sporadic home visits, and Tiffany had to report to a court-appointed counselor once a month. At the end of the six months, he’d evaluate her case again and make a final ruling.

  The glow on Tiffany’s face as well as Gwen’s made Garrett feel as if he’d been a part of something huge today…like when he’d rescued a child. In this case, the feelings were much more personal, and that’s what bothered him most. He hadn’t spoken to Gwen. She and Tiffany had arrived at the meeting later than he had, right before the judge came in. Afterward, they’d been concerned with Amy and only Amy…as it should be.

  But now…

  He and Gwen had solved the case, and he felt like celebrating. He really should get to know Tiffany a little better before she started working under his roof.

  So—

  He drove to the discount store and asked the way to the infant section. When he stopped in front of something called a play saucer, he crouched down to examine it more closely. A cart rounded the corner of the aisle, and he was surprised to see Gwen and Tiffany.

  Tiffany had Amy settled against her chest in one of those cloth baby carriers, while Gwen pushed the cart with a huge box almost toppling off of it. She was trying to push with one hand and hold the box with the other.

  He heard her say, “The clerk said it’s the last one. We’re lucky. Now all we have to do is figure out how to put it together.”

  When he rose to his feet, Gwen stopped suddenly.

  “Imagine seeing you here,” he said as casually as he could.

  “I think seeing you here is the bigger surprise,” she blurted out.

  “I thought I’d celebrate the good results of this case by getting Amy something.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that, Mr. Maxwell,” Tiffany assured him. “You’ve done enough. Without you, without your job, I don’t know if the judge would have given me Amy,” she finished shyly with all sincerity.

  “I think you and Gwen would have come up with another job. I thought the saucer might come in handy as Amy gets bigger. It might keep her occupied while you’re working. I hear babies grow fast.”

  As Tiffany giggled, she looked down at her daughter. “I don’t know what to expect. I guess I’d better read up on it. Mrs. Malloy gave me a few books she used with Timmy.”

  Gwen had been watching their interchange, and now he motioned to the huge box positioned on her cart. “Are you going to need some help with that?”

  “You mean carrying it or putting it together?” she asked with a straight face.

  “Either…both. I worked long into the night last night getting a project finished, so today I’m clearing my head.”

  “It’s up to you, Garrett. If you want to help, that’s fine with us.”

  She was acting as if she didn’t care if he helped or not. He wanted her to care. “I’ll follow you home. It might take more than one pair of hands to put together the crib and the saucer.”

  Tiffany had walked down the aisle a bit but was talking animatedly to her little daughter, pointing out the things she’d need as she grew older.

  “You don’t have better things to do this afternoon?” Gwen asked him, all kinds of questions in her eyes he didn’t have the answers to.

  “I probably do, but Tiffany seemed a little awkward around me. I thought it might be a good idea to try to establish a rapport with her before we start working together.”

  As if that answered many of Gwen’s questions, her eyes lost their sparkle as she nodded, “That makes sense.”

  It made lots of sense….

  Until Garrett was in Gwen’s house again, inhaling her scent, letting her assist him and separating the crib’s parts. Amy was crying and Gwen kept glancing over her shoulder into the living room with a worried expression on her face.

  “It’s hard to know when to help out and when not to help, isn’t it?” Garrett asked as he attached the side of the crib to the end.

  “Yes, it is. She told me she wants to take care of Amy herself. In theory that sounds good, but in reality, even mature mothers need help.”

  “Come here and hold this for me,” he directed, more to distract her than to aid his progress.

  As Gwen stood by him, he screwed in the support plates for the mattress. Having her so close tested every good intention he had.

  “Garrett, are you sure you want Tiffany and the baby in your house?”

  He didn’t look up. “I told the judge that would be fine.”

  “I know what you told the judge. That doesn’t mean it’s going to work…for you.”

  Straightening, his eyes locked to hers. “Am I going to feel as if I’m getting a kick in the gut when the baby cries? Probably. Am I going to see Tiffany caring for that child and imagine what it would have been like if my marriage had worked out? Certainly. But I’m also a practical man.”

  “When you search for children, what do you think about?” she asked softly.

  Uh-oh. She was gearing up for one of those soul-deep conversations. “I don’t think. I search.”

  Deciding this was a good time, he turned on the electric screwdriver and the buzz interrupted them.

  When he’d finished, Gwen took the tool from his hand. “What do you think about when you search for a child?” she repeated.

  “All right,” he growled angrily—frustrated with Gwen because she was disturbing his peace again. “I try to imagine what’s in the kid’s mind. Then I visualize bringing him or her home. Satisfied now?”

  “Why do my questions make you angry?”

  He really didn’t have a temper. He couldn’t and do the work he did. Usually when he felt anger rising up, he let it slip into a deep freeze. There he could contain it, control it and pack it away.

  Before it could get to that place, Gwen clasped his wrist. “Don’t disappear on me, Garrett. Tell me about this.”

  The anger couldn’t find a place, couldn’t find a sub-zero temperature and pressed like a lump in his chest with no place to land. It turned into pain.

  “Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  Closing his eyes against her compassion and caring face, he took a deep breath. “I already told you I feel guilty as hell. I lost that baby for us as surely as if I’d pushed Cheryl down the stairs.”

  Gwen didn’t protest or tell him he was wrong. Because if she had, he would have cut this off. Instead, she just stood there holding the crib, looking as if she wanted to hold him. That got to him more than anything.

  “I wanted that baby. I liked the idea of being a father. Yet I also knew if we had a child, I should quit FBI work. Deep down I didn’t want to do that. When Cheryl first found out she was pregnant, she told me she wanted me to be totally involved. She wanted me to help her read the baby bedtime stories, put his tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy. She wanted me to be by her side the first day we took him to preschool. I couldn’t promise her I’d be there. My job became even more of a wedge between us.”

  Now Gwen asked, “It meant more to you than your family?”

  She wasn’t accusing him of anything, he realized. She just wanted to know.

  “I don’t kno
w how to explain it. You’re a nurse practitioner. You’re involved in your work, and I see that you enjoy it. You go out of your way to help your patients. You want to help girls like Tiffany. But…” He stopped for effect. “You’re separate from what you do. Being a nurse practitioner doesn’t define who you are. My job defined who I was.”

  Her face took on a puzzled look. “I don’t understand.”

  They were at the bottom now and he might as well give her the rest. “When I was nine, I had a friend who was kidnapped and never found.”

  “Oh, Garrett.” She seemed to be searching her memory for anything like that happening in Wild Horse Junction. Then she remembered. “His name was Cliff Barstow.”

  “That’s right. Law enforcement and search parties went looking for weeks…months…and never found him.”

  “That had to be awful for his family…and for you.”

  “I so desperately wanted to be older, able to drive, able to search on my own. I figured if I had been older, if I’d been on the team looking for him, maybe it would have made a difference. I don’t know why. You know how kids think. But from that moment on, I knew what kind of work I wanted to do. My parents’ marriage wasn’t a happy one. They fought a lot. My dad would go flying to escape. After he and I moved to California, I started taking lessons. There was such a freedom being up there that I understood my dad better. I understood myself better and my future seemed to fall into place. I went to college, worked a few years as a cop then went into training with the FBI.”

  He shook his head as he remembered exactly how all of it had progressed. “I became the investigator, the protector, the rescuer. That’s who I was.”

  “So why did you get married?”

  Running his hand up and down the back of his neck, he felt the tension that this conversation was causing. “I loved Cheryl as much as I knew how to love. She needed me in that big a-woman-needs-a-man sense. I spent Christmas with her family. We took a vacation together. She met my mom when my mother came to visit me. Marriage just seemed to be the way to go, although I had no idea how my marriage commitment would clash with my work, and Cheryl had every expectation in the world that I would change.”

  After a moment of letting everything he told her settle in, she asked, “If I tell you it wasn’t all your fault, you’re not going to believe me, are you?”

  “No.”

  Now she clasped his arm, as if the gesture might make a difference. “I’m going to say it anyway. It wasn’t all your fault. If you had been older, if your ex-wife had been different—”

  “If the sky had been purple and the grass red.”

  “You’re a different man now.”

  “No, I’m not. I changed what I do, but I’m not a different man.”

  “Do you really want to be alone for the rest of your life?”

  Oddly enough, he could see Gwen wasn’t asking the question about the two of them. It was about him. He was more uncomfortable with that than if she’d asked for a list of the women he’d slept with.

  Drawing away from her, he laid down the section of the crib he’d been working on and picked up the third side. “I’m not going to be alone. Tiffany and Amy will probably be taking over my office. Hand me that screwdriver, will you? I just realized once I get this thing put together, I should buy one for my place.”

  “You’re shutting down the conversation.”

  “Nope, I’m just moving it along.”

  He wasn’t in the habit of reexamining his life. He didn’t like the fact that when he was around Gwen, the reexamination happened all too easily.

  Amy began crying again and Gwen glanced over her shoulder as if torn between going and staying.

  “Go help Tiffany,” he encouraged her. “She might want to do things on her own, but she has to learn from someone.”

  As Gwen stood in the doorway, looking pretty and sexy and all too caring, his heart pounded, but he ignored the primitive signals coursing through his body.

  She said, “I’m glad you told me what you did.”

  A cynical reply came to his lips, but he kept it to himself. Often silence was the best response of all.

  However, Gwen’s eyes were too knowing as she finally turned and left the room.

  Garrett felt as if their conversation had been more intimate than having sex.

  Sex was definitely easier and a lot more fun.

  Chapter Nine

  “I wish my mother was like you,” Tiffany murmured.

  They’d just finished supper and Gwen took a good look at the teenager now. Her eyes were swimming with tears.

  At the coffeepot to refill his mug Garrett shrugged, letting Gwen know he had no idea what this was about.

  Throughout the afternoon and meal, Tiffany had seemed to be growing more comfortable with Garrett. He had engaged her in conversation whenever he could and Gwen knew he might claim to be a recluse, but he had more than adequate people skills. She had the feeling he could cajole rain from a cloud in the midst of a severe drought.

  Now he crossed to Tiffany’s side and capped her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  Beside her, Gwen encouraged her, too. “What’s upsetting you?”

  Tiffany turned to Gwen. “You made supper as if this was no big deal…as if you’d planned it all week. Even if my mom had let me in the house, she would have been complaining because the baby was crying, put out because there was an extra guest…” Tiffany nodded to the bundt cake on the counter. “And she never would have made dessert, too.”

  Gwen wrapped an arm around her. “I grew up having to expect the unexpected because my dad drank. I tried to be ready for anything. That’s just carried over into the way I live now. Maybe after your mom gets used to the idea of being a grandmother, she’ll come around.”

  Tears swam in Tiffany’s eyes again as she shook her head. “She’s just not like that. She doesn’t want me around if it means more work.”

  When Gwen lifted Tiffany’s chin, she gazed steadily into her eyes. “I don’t look on you and Amy as more work. You’re enlarging my family and I like that.”

  As Tiffany gave Garrett a sideways glance, she admitted, “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to do what you want me to do. What if I mess things up for you?”

  “My office is already in a mess. That’s why I need you. We’ll sort it out together. I won’t leave you stranded on your own, until you know what you’re doing.”

  Tiffany’s face filled with emotion again, and she mumbled, “I’m going to check on Amy before I have dessert.” Then she slipped away from the two of them, down the hall to the bedroom.

  “I could shake her mother’s bones,” Gwen muttered.

  Garrett closed what little distance there was between them.

  “But instead, you’re going to take care of her daughter and her granddaughter as if they were yours.”

  When Gwen gave a little shrug, she looked toward the bedroom. “She needs to have her self-esteem built up. She’s a natural with Amy, but after things calm down a bit, I’ll suggest she take the parenting course at the high school.”

  “You’re going to have trouble letting go.”

  Although Tiffany and Amy would be happy with Gwen for a little while, she as well as Garrett knew the purpose of this was to instill independence in Tiffany and the capability of making a life for her and her daughter.

  “I’ve been practicing letting go all of my life,” Gwen quipped. “I’m good at it.”

  “That’s what you’d like people to believe,” Garrett said, his voice low. “But every time someone left, part of you got a little more broken. Did you ever think about why you chose a fiancé who didn’t have staying power?”

  Initially her temper wanted to retort that Garrett didn’t know what he was talking about. However, over and over again she had thought about what had happened between her and Mark.

  “I chose Mark because he was a good man. He was a physical therapist and we had to consult on one of my patients. He cared about t
he people he treated. We were in the same kind of profession and I kept telling myself we were a good match.”

  “Why did you have to tell yourself that? Why didn’t you know it?”

  “There was little excitement, very little surprise, lots of predictability,” she admitted, standing and clearing the plates instead of meeting Garrett’s eyes.

  “What about sizzle?”

  She stopped moving and faced the man who had made her feel the real meaning of sizzle. “That’s the thing. We became friends and had to work at the sizzle. I liked Mark as a person and I knew in life there were trade-offs. I thought we could make a good life together.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “The truth is, after we broke up, I wondered if he was still in love with the woman he dated before me. Maybe he decided what we had was less than what they had. They’re married now.”

  “He just didn’t show up at the wedding?”

  “He called me on my cell phone when I was in my wedding gown on Dad’s arm, ready to walk down the aisle. Shaye heard the tones from the little dressing room we had used. She and Kylie were both going to stand up for me.”

  “Were you shocked when he called?”

  “I was shocked that he waited till that moment to call. As far as cutting off our engagement—well, as I said, I’m used to people walking away. I figure there must be something wrong with me.” The words had tumbled out of her lips, because she’d thought them so many times.

  In a moment Garrett was before her, slipping his hand into her hair. “No, Gwen. There’s nothing wrong with you. Sometimes we can see patterns and think the results are our fault. Sometimes fate is just downright mean.”

  Could he be right? Her real parents hadn’t known her when they’d abandoned her. Had that abandonment set the course for everything that had happened after? Why had her adopted mother wanted to stop being her mother? Why couldn’t her dad see that he had a child who needed him?

  “Your dad hasn’t walked away,” Garrett reminded her.

  “He might as well have. When he was out cold on the sofa when I came home from school, I didn’t feel as if I had any parents.”