Three Boys And A Baby (American Romance)

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Questions? A-about what?” she asked, gaze darting to Rose. “I—I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  She started to bolt out to the kitchen, but the sheriff was lightning fast, grabbing hold of her elbow, then jerking her around to face him. “Ouch,” she cried. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. I’m afraid if you choose to run, the use of force to stop you can’t be helped. Now, will you come with me peaceably, or would you like to make a scene?”

  “I’ll come,” she said, “just please don’t tell my daddy.”

  “ELLA?”

  She looked up from her bingo cards only to face her worst nightmare. “Go away,” she whispered to Jackson, shielding Rose. “You and I have nothing more to say.”

  “This isn’t about us, but Rose. Hank’s found her mother.”

  “O-67. The next number is 0-67.”

  Ella’s blood ran cold.

  No. She’d already lost the man she’d loved. Now she was losing her baby, as well? Yes, she knew—she’d always known—Rose wouldn’t be hers, but lately, she’d begun to hope.

  “Ella…” Jackson held out his hand to help her up from the cramped table. His words warm in her ear, he whispered, “Come with me. Hank’s got Rose’s mom out in the lobby.”

  Refusing to take Jackson’s hand, Ella stiffly stood. Cradling Rose, she ignored Marcia Jenkins’s stare, stoically leaving the cafeteria while the bingo game went on around her. The vast majority of the room was most likely oblivious to what was going on, but Ella couldn’t help but feel that the few who did know were secretly glad to see her losing yet one more person from her life. Case in point, Julie, who’d left Dillon with a gang of his friends, and now hustled down the opposite side of the cafeteria, converging with them at the entrance.

  “Ella,” Julie said in hushed tones. “I heard, and I’m—”

  “Save it,” Ella said, in no mood for chitchat.

  Hank stood by the school office, Principal Wood on his left and a scared-looking young girl on his right.

  “Rose,” the girl said, holding out her arms. “Please, can I hold my baby?”

  The love on the girl’s face was so intense, Ella didn’t have the heart to refuse. “Here you go,” she said. “Be careful of her head. She still needs support.”

  Upon taking Rose into her arms, the girl began to cry. Sob, really. “I—I’ve missed you so bad.”

  As much as Ella’s heart was breaking for her own loss, the joy on the girl’s face was contagious. This was the whole reason she’d volunteered to keep Rose in the first place, so that they’d have a shot at finding the infant’s mom and reuniting them.

  Reuniting them.

  Ironic how that was the same reason she’d lost Jackson—so that he, Dillon and Julie could get back together.

  Wishing to give the girl her privacy, Ella pulled Hank aside. “Tell me everything you know.”

  “The girl’s name is Stacia Tabor. Her family belongs to the church out on Old Berry Road. I forget the name, but they’re the kind of congregation that frowns upon unwed mothers. Apparently, she’s been homeschooled, which is why we were unable to track her through school records.”

  “You’re not going to press charges, are you?”

  “I should,” Hank said, gazing off to the school’s main entrance.

  In the cafeteria, an excited child hollered, “Bingo!”

  The majority of the crowd moaned a resounding, “Awwww.”

  Ella asked Hank, “What does Stacia want to do in regard to Rose?”

  “She wants you to raise her, but she’s asked to be allowed to visit—which is why I don’t see any point in hurting her further by prosecuting her.”

  Ella’s heart momentarily swelled, but then she caught sight of Claire Donaldson, who’d been sitting with her second-grade class. Her expression was one of hope. She and her husband had tried so hard for a baby of their own, but so far had failed. Adopting Rose would bring them such joy. Ella had already been blessed with two healthy children. The right thing to do would be to give up Rose, but was she strong enough? Could her heart take it?

  Claire approached. “Well?” she asked, eyes bright with excited apprehension. “Does Rose’s mother know what she wants to do?”

  Swallowing hard, Ella nodded, forcing a bright smile. “Nothing’s official, but according to Hank, she doesn’t want her family to know she even had a baby. She asked if I’d like to keep Rose, but as much as I adore her, raising an infant on top of my two, plus work at the clinic, is all getting to be too much. I want you and Jeremy to have her.”

  “Oh—oh, Ella…” Tearing up, Claire held trembling hands over her mouth. “How can I—we—ever thank you?”

  “You already did,” Ella said, drawing her into a hug.

  Noting that Rose’s mother had calmed, Ella went to her.

  “Leaving your baby alone in the park was very dangerous.”

  “I—I know,” the girl said. “But I knew your boys from working at their day care. I knew when they usually went to the park, and I didn’t leave my baby there until I knew she’d be found right away. Only, I didn’t just want her found by anyone, but by a good loving family—like yours. Thank you for taking such good care of her.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ella said. “I’ve grown to love your baby very much, and Hank said you’d like me to keep on raising her?”

  “If that’s all right? Rose seems happy with you and your boys. And aren’t you and Dillon Tate’s dad getting together?”

  Pain ripped through Ella, but not the kind medical science had a clue how to fix. A glance in Jackson’s direction showed him side-by-side with Julie, a grim expression on his face. There was so much Ella wanted to share with him in regard to Rose, but what was the point? He knew the gist of how things had turned out.

  “Come on,” Ella said, putting her broken heart out of her mind while drawing Stacia and Rose over to Claire. “There’s someone I’d like you ladies to meet.”

  “THAT SURE WAS A NICE moment between Rose and her mom, wasn’t it?” Saturday morning, Julie stood on a ladder in the entry hall, painting the formerly pale-blue walls gray. Jackson hated it.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “What’s the matter? Weren’t you glad to finally solve the mystery of who is Rose’s mother?”

  “Sure.” He knelt to swipe a paint drip from the hardwood floor.

  “Then why so glum?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted, sitting hard on the stairs.

  “Let me guess…” Resting her paintbrush on the paint can’s lip, she said, “Seeing Rose and Ella together again stirred up all kinds of warm fuzzies you just can’t seem to work past.”

  Jaw clenched, Jackson stayed silent.

  “Admission by nonadmission,” she said in a sarcastic tone over the soft rock she had pulsing from the stereo. “Works every time.”

  “Knock it off, Jules. All right, so yes, seeing Ella again last night was tough, but I’m here with you now, aren’t I?”

  She snorted. “In body, maybe, but I’m afraid your heart’s halfway down the block.”

  “And what if it is? Will you finally admit that the two of us as a couple aren’t meant to be?”

  “Mom! Dad!” Dillon raced in from the kitchen, out of breath and mud-spattered. “Look what I found!” He held a half-dollar-size box turtle who’d tucked his head and feet into his shell. “Isn’t he cool? Can I keep him?”

  “I don’t know, bud,” Jackson said. The last time they’d kept critters, it’d been a death sentence for the half-dozen tadpoles.

  “Of course, you can, angel.” Julie kissed the top of the boy’s head. “Just as soon as you get cleaned up, we’ll go to the pet store for a terrarium.”

  “Thanks, Mom!” Nearly dropping the tiny creature, he squeezed her in a fierce hug. “You’re the best!”

  Jackson sighed.

  “What?” Julie asked.

  He
relayed the tadpoles’ fate, but it didn’t phase her.

  “It’s important that Dillon be responsible for caring for animals.” Great, Julie was in hyper-parent mode. “How else do you think he’ll learn to be a good father?”

  Gee, perhaps by example? But then as of late, Jackson had hardly proven effective in that capacity. Maybe Julie was right? Not only about the damned turtle, but the two of them?

  A MONTH PASSED, during which Jackson became fairly adept at going through the motions of life. He worked. Played with Dillon. Helped Julie with meals whenever she was in town. The two things he couldn’t manage were making peace with his decision to remarry or forgetting his love for Ella.

  He ran into her a lot.

  Most recently when dropping off Dillon at a birthday party the twins had also been invited to. Ella had looked amazing, the sound of her laughter as she’d chatted with Ben Matthews’s mom at the front door had torn through him. If his decision to stay with Julie was so right, why did it increasingly feel wrong?

  Another week passed.

  Bringing him seven days closer to sealing his fate.

  Two weeks to go until the quiet, courthouse ceremony Julie had planned to renew their vows. After which, she would be commuting back and forth to Kansas City until finding a new job. She’d also talked about starting her own firm, but wasn’t yet sure that was what she wanted to do.

  Oddly enough, the more determined she was to be a good mom, the more his heart opened to her, only not in the way a man should love his wife. He was remarrying her strictly for Dillon’s sake. And the boy couldn’t have been more thrilled—well, except for when Julie had given him a puppy. The chocolate lab was lovable and cute, but a royal pain in Jackson’s behind, as it seemed he was the one doing most of the puppy parenting.

  Jackson shook his head as he waited for Nosy to finish sniffing a tree so they could continue their stroll around the neighborhood.

  In the still of night, it didn’t escape him how happy sounds from happy families danced on the warm air. On the sidewalk, his ears caught snippets of children’s laughter floating through open windows, and mothers and fathers reading bedtime stories. He usually went out of his way to bypass Ella’s house, but tonight he had to see it.

  The boys’ bedroom lights were already off, but the living-room lamps were still on, spilling their golden glow onto the porch where Ella sat rocking, staring out at nothing in particular.

  She looked beautiful.

  He had never wanted her more.

  His heart told him he had no business marrying Julie when it was Ella he loved, but because of Dillon, he wasn’t sure what else to do.

  “I DIDN’T KNOW ELLA’S boys were on Dillon’s team.” To the first baseball game of the season, Julie had worn a white leather designer pantsuit with red baseball stitching up the pant’s side seams and jacket sleeves. Her red leather heels teetered on the park’s gravel parking lot.

  “Yep,” Jackson said, holding his hand out to her to help her into the stands. She was soon to become his wife again. He should’ve been ecstatic, but all he seemed capable of doing was staring at Ella where she sat twenty feet away in the stands. Wearing jean cutoffs and a red Brown Beavers team shirt and hat, she cheered her boys through their warm-ups, belting out an occasional, “Way to go!”

  The physical differences between Julie and Ella were striking. Both were attractive, but Ella’s happy-go-lucky, caring spirit shone through her every action and move, showing even in her glowing complexion and the bouncy ponytail stuck through the hole in the back of her cap. He still loved her. Trouble was, he loved his son more. And he hated that—the fact that because of his feelings for Ella, his devotion to his son had become a sort of trouble. How had Jackson allowed his life to get to this point?

  Ella glanced his way, only to sharply avert her gaze.

  Had she felt his stare?

  “Hi, Ella!” Julie called out, settling on the same row in the bleachers as their neighbor. “Gorgeous day for baseball, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Ella said, her brittle smile nowhere close to reaching her eyes.

  The day was hot and muggy, puffy clouds threatening rain by later that afternoon. Lousy baseball weather. Had that been the best Julie could do in regard to small talk?

  “Your…ah…” Jackson cleared his throat before finishing what he’d started saying to Ella “…boys looked good in batting practice the other day.”

  “Thanks.” Brrr. Despite the day’s stifling heat, ice could’ve formed from Ella’s stare. “Dillon looked good, too.”

  Jackson nodded.

  Thankfully, the game started, and Jackson and Ella both focused on their sons.

  Julie, meanwhile, alternated between watching the game and talking on her cell.

  Parents cheered.

  Some yo-yo big brother of the opposing team blared an air horn every time the Polk Possums hit a run.

  The guy seated next to Jackson wolfed a chili cheese dog with so many onions it was giving Jackson heartburn just smelling them.

  Between the second and third innings, Ella got up to go to the concession stand. A few minutes after she’d made her exit, Jackson said to Julie, “I’m…ah…going to the john. Be right back.”

  As she was once again chatting, she waved him on his way.

  Hustling through the stands, Jackson found Ella at the end of the snack line. “Oh—hey,” he said casually, trying to act as if he hadn’t been seeking her out.

  Arms crossed, she refused to make eye contact.

  “Look,” he said, “I get it if you don’t want anything to do with me, but—”

  “It’s not that,” she said, finally looking his way. “Jackson, I miss you. But now that you’re back with Julie, I can’t really call you to chat.”

  “Guess you’re right,” he said, hands in his pockets, wishing she didn’t smell so damned good. Like flowers and cupcakes and maybe even all that chocolate ice cream she so loved. “Sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about. You chose the path you felt best for your son. How can I blame you for putting Dillon first?”

  “I know, Ell, but—”

  She hugged him, killing him with her innate kindness. Leaving him wishing she’d yell, shout or hit. Anything but giving him this unconditional understanding that made him feel worse than ever about having, in a sense, led her on. From the start, she’d wanted to steer clear of him. She’d warned him nothing good could come of their relationship when so much was emotionally at stake with his son. “It’s okay,” she said, letting him go. “I mean, it’s not even a little bit okay…” Eyes big and gorgeous and shining, she added, “but I’ve come to terms with this—us. Or, I guess that would be the lack thereof. Of us.”

  Her speech left him hot and cold and aching down deep in his bones. Like he’d caught the flu. But what he had was a thousand times worse, because the pain of losing Ella wasn’t leaving in twenty-four measly hours.

  ELLA HAD BEEN THROUGH a lot of tough things in her life. Witnessing countless deaths, telling parents their toddlers had cancer. But letting Jackson return to Julie while pasting a smile on her face ranked right up there with the worst.

  With the excuse of needing to speak with another baseball mom, after purchasing her diet cola, Ella had retreated to the guest side of the stands to watch the remainder of the game in relative privacy.

  While intellectually she got the fact that Jackson was making the right decision—the only decision—he could as a parent, her heart didn’t come close to being able to understand. Plain and simple, she loved him. She’d have done anything for him. For his son. Unfortunately for her, the best gift Ella could give Jackson and Dillon was freedom from whatever feelings they’d once shared.

  ANOTHER COUPLE OF DAYS passed. Endless hours of Jackson feeling nearly suffocated by his decision to reunite with his ex.

  Night after night, he walked the dog.

  Hoping, praying for a glimpse of Ella on her porch.

  Hopi
ng, praying Ella wouldn’t be on her porch. For if she was, would he have the strength to walk by without at least saying hello? Which would be fine if he’d had the willpower to end things there.

  Thursday night, stepping deeper into the shadows made by a streetlight and a gangly oak, he made a valiant stab at watching her from afar, but then Nosy began to bay.

  Ella stopped rocking to stare out at the street. “Jackson? And is that the new puppy I’ve been hearing so much about?” Dillon and the twins had made their peace in the way kids seemed able to do, but they didn’t seem as close as they’d once been.

  Praying still more for strength to get through the next five minutes or so, Jackson forced a smile, then wound his way across the yard to Ella’s front porch. “Hey.”

  Nosy, being true to her name, wriggled and sniffed her way to Ella, who’d risen and now knelt, rubbing the puppy’s ears.

  “She’s adorable,” Ella said. “Her name is highly apropos.”

  “I guess,” Jackson said, not in the mood for small talk when just being near Ella made him feel as if his entire world were being torn apart.

  “You all right?” she asked in that gentle manner of hers, always caring more about others than herself.

  “As good as can be expected,” he said.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk at the boys’ last game.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I guess I’m still getting used to seeing you with Julie.”

  “Really,” he said, “I wouldn’t blame you for never wanting to talk to me again.”

  For the longest time, she looked at her feet. What was she thinking? Why was he suddenly consumed with needing to know?

  “The, um, few times Dillon has been over for a visit,” she said, unhooking the puppy’s leash so she could lift her for closer inspection, “he’s seemed elated. About you and Julie.”

  “He is.”

  “And you?” Jackson was shocked that after all he’d put her through, she’d even care. Nosy licked her chin, and Ella laughed. “She has puppy breath.”