Babies And Badges (American Baby)

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Really a big fan of mine, are you, Zane?”

  “Number Eight. Ring a bell?”

  Noah shook his head.

  “Paula Hinkle. She’s my girlfriend’s sister, and you did her wrong.”

  Hardening his jaw, Noah said, “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

  “She said you played house with her. Acted all like you were going to marry her, then turned cold fish so she’d send you packing. Real class act there, Sheriff.”

  “Stow it, Zane.”

  “Or what? You gonna arrest me again for telling the truth? Like how everyone in town is talking about this latest chick of yours you ran off?”

  “Enough.” Fists clenched, on his feet, Noah said, “I’ll run by your place on my way home. See if I can round up your dad.”

  “Don’t do me any favors. Oh, and by the way, seeing how you don’t seem capable of solving any crimes yourself, I’ll give you a clue—I’m not your man who keeps messing with old Floyd, and I didn’t rob that liquor store. But I know who did.”

  “And…”

  Zane laughed. “You just expect me to give them up? I’ve seen all the cop shows. I don’t spill a damned thing without signed immunity from all of your bogus charges.”

  Noah closed his eyes and sighed. Raked his fingers through his hair. It was going to be another long night.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Just before dawn, Noah fell into his bed, hugging the one pillow that still smelled of Cass’s exotic shampoo. Just breathing in her fragrance eased the tightness in his chest.

  How could he have been so wrong about Zane?

  Wrong about Zane?

  Ha! Try wrong about everything!

  His job was a mess. Turned out he had a whole town full of teenaged trouble. Those so-called sweet girls he’d been seeing at the diner and volunteering at the hospital—he’d wished Hope and Noelle would be just like them one day—were the ones messing with Floyd. They’d also stolen Delores’s chocolate Santas from the Dollar General sale bin. Zane’s older brother, Todd, robbed the liquor store.

  Noah hadn’t even known Todd was back in town. And it was little wonder Zane had been crying that night Noah had taken him in. When Zane had threatened to turn Todd in for the robbery, Todd and his pal, both high on Lord only knew what, had kept him tied up for days, feeding him nothing but doughnuts and Mountain Dew. The night Noah picked up Zane, he’d finally made a break for it when Todd had passed out close enough to him that he’d managed to swipe his pocket knife and keys.

  What kind of a sheriff was he? To have let a kidnapping go on right under his nose? To have been fooled by those girls’ innocent appearances.

  Turns out the shoplifting, vandalizing trio had moved into that swanky new subdivision south of town. Their daddies were executives for one of the state’s largest companies. With dads always at work, and moms either working themselves or keeping busy with charities, the girls had pretty much been running wild.

  All along, Zane had been the one staying home nights doing homework. The green on his fingers? Dye from a school science experiment.

  So what kind of sheriff did that make Noah? Lousy.

  Lousy also seemed to sum up how he was doing with his personal life.

  All he wanted was about a week’s sleep, but he couldn’t even get that because every time he closed his eyes he saw her. Piercing him with that haunting jade-green stare. What did she want from him? What did he want from himself?

  I want to be with her and the girls. Not just for a week or two, but forever. I want to trust that she wants this, too, but how can I be sure she won’t just end up dumping me like Darla?

  Tossing in the bed, he punched the pillow that didn’t smell like Cass.

  Maybe Helen had been right, and he was the problem. Maybe all these years he’d been stringing women along, just playing at the fringes of relationships instead of actually being a part of them.

  Trouble was, just like in his job where half the time there were no sure bets, no black and white, right or wrong, relationships were the same damned way. Where Cass and Hope and Noelle were concerned, did he love them enough to open himself up to the risk of once again falling?

  Or maybe the even bigger question was, if Cass really did love him as much as she claimed, did he open himself up to the risk of flying? If he was going to live happily ever after, he’d have to admit he’d been wrong about Cass.

  Tossing again, this time breathing her scent, he dragged her in—at least his memory of her.

  Those luminous eyes. That fiery red hair glinting in the sun. Those lips, melting against his with an urgency that even now, weeks later, awakened a hunger in him.

  But then there were the girls.

  Shoot, Noah thought he’d been ready to be a father, but if any of what Zane had said was true, he obviously didn’t know the first thing about being a good dad.

  And those delinquent girls. They were a product of what society generally considered well above average families, yet even with two loving parents and no shortage of material extras, somewhere along the line, those girls had taken a wrong turn.

  How could he have missed that? How could he ever learn to be an effective dad when he wasn’t even an effective sheriff?

  One day at a time.

  Yesterday afternoon, he’d finally found the courage to enter Cass and the babies’ room only to be hit across his forehead with a two-by-four of guilt.

  Dust.

  Brown-leafed plants.

  Achingly familiar scents of Oriental perfume and baby lotion.

  Those damned quotes on his mother’s pillows that never had made any sense. Shoot, if she’d spent half as much time on her marriage as she had stitching those pillows, she and Noah’s dad might’ve had a chance.

  Disgusted with himself, and his life, Noah had just turned to leave when one quote had caught his eye.

  One day at a time.

  “You trying to tell me something, Momma?” he asked.

  Strangely enough, just the asking made his heart lighter. Could life truly be that simple? Little more than a matter of tackling problems one day at a time? One minute at a time?

  If that truly were the case, why hadn’t his mom seen it? Or maybe she had, but by then it’d been too late to reverse a lifetime’s sorrow.

  But for him and Cass…

  Maybe he wasn’t too late, but just in the nick of time.

  Maybe once they worked through their own issues, they could learn to be parents together. And maybe one day, next year, or the year after that, they could have kids of their own—not that the girls wouldn’t be his once he adopted them, but—

  Aw, hell, what was he doing still lying here in bed when he could be on his way to Little Rock?

  “AH, CASS…” Ginnie fiddled with her pearl necklace.

  “You might wanna come see someone.”

  Cassie looked up from the pile of marble, fabric and paint samples she’d been playing with on her floor. “No, sweetie,” she said when Hope put a strip of ruby-colored suede to her lips. “What’s up? Did the Andersons finally get back from Greece?”

  “No such luck.”

  “That Indian silk finally get here?”

  Ginnie worried her lower lip. “No luck on that, either.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense. Geesh, from the look on your face, I’d guess the FBI was out in the reception area.” Dressed in a loose, bright cotton animal print jumper, Cassie grappled to her feet, taking Hope along with her.

  Noelle was still in her portable crib indulging in a midmorning nap.

  “Well, it’s sort of something like the FBI.”

  Cassie’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean, sort of?” Could this have something to do with Tom? Was her nightmare where he was concerned still not over? Wasn’t she already going through enough in losing Noah? Did she really have to go through another bout of ancient angst history?

  “Well…First, all these strange deliveries started showing up. I knew you
were busy with the Bingham presentation, so I didn’t want to bother you, but there was this carton of diapers, and then boxes and boxes of baby toys and clothes and hats.”

  “Get back to the FBI part,” Cassie said, heart pounding. “Is this person a man or woman? What do they look like?”

  “Me,” Noah said, strolling through her office door, dressed in his rumpled uniform with two mammoth, stuffed pink hippos tucked under each arm. “I thought the girls could use a little fattening up.”

  Instead of laughing, as the insensitive lout no doubt must’ve thought she’d do at his lame joke, she tucked Hope beside her sister in the portable crib.

  “That was funny,” Noah said. “Get it? Fatten up? Hippos?” He wagged one of the adorable pink toys.

  “Ginnie, would you mind leaving us alone?”

  Her receptionist cast Noah a stare every bit as nosy as ones from her labor and delivery ward nurse or Mrs. Kleghorn, then looked back to Cassie and behind her hand mouthed, “He the one?”

  Cass barely nodded.

  Ginnie beamed, then hustled back to her desk, shutting the door behind her.

  “My reputation precedes me, huh?” Noah asked, helping himself to one of the Oreos Cassie had on her desk.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, not in the mood for anything less than a full-on, bended knee proposal—the kind she knew full well he had no intention of ever giving any woman, let alone her!

  “We have some unfinished business.”

  “Says who?”

  “Me, me!” Noah said, dumping one hippo on her guest chair, then holding the other in front of his mouth to “speak.”

  “That’s real mature,” she said. Almost as mature as your inability, or unwillingness, to commit to a marriage we both know could be terrific, only you’re too damned stubborn, too sure you know everything there ever was to know about love, to give yourself—us—a second chance.

  “I’m sorry,” the bouncing hippo still covering Noah’s incredibly handsome face said. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  “Yeah, well you did.” Cassie didn’t even try stopping her tears. “You hurt me way worse than Tom, because looking back on it, I never loved Tom the way I loved you. So there, I’ve let you in on my big secret, now you can go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Noah said, this time his voice his own while pulling her into an awkward hug with the hippo lodged between them.

  “Can’t you put that thing down?” she asked, pushing him and his insincere embrace away. “So I can tell you to get lost and stay lost with proper enthusiasm.”

  “I’ve been out of my mind without you,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”

  Thank you. So are you. “Sweet talk and gifts will get you nowhere, Noah. I’m not interested in spending the rest of my life dating. I want a forever kind of commitment or nothing at all.”

  “Whew,” he said, hippo back in front of his face. “Tough crowd.”

  “Dammit,” she said, tears back, angrily swiping them away. “Would you stop kidding around? I’m serious. I want you gone, Noah.”

  “Even if I’ve come bearing this?” He wagged the hippo once more, and she swatted the stupid thing away. “How many times do I have to—”

  The pig landed with a metallic twang against the square foot marble samples she’d spread across the carpet. Along with that twang, a shiny sparkle of gold had shot off of the bow around the animal’s neck, rolling under the sofa.

  “Great,” Noah said, heading that way. “Just my dumb luck, here I am, finally ready to propose to the woman I love, and I can’t even get that right. Maybe I went about this all wrong?”

  He winced while going down on his knees in front of the sofa.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting beside him on the floor. “Are you hurt?”

  “Shoot, yeah. Wasn’t your pride banged up when I turned down your proposal?”

  “I’m not talking about your pride, but your leg. You’re obviously in pain.”

  He shrugged, looked away.

  “Don’t do that,” she said, hand on his shoulder. “Not now. Not with so much at stake.”

  “I’ve got a bum knee, okay?”

  “Did you hurt it at work?”

  He was again looking away, and there went that muscle in his jaw. “I thought Tiffany and Kelsey filled you in?”

  “On what?”

  “Darla. My ex-wife.”

  “They did. They said you both got bored with commitment. What does any of that have to do with us?”

  He sharply laughed. “Sounds like something they’d do. Leaving out the juicy parts.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s hear ̵em.”

  “Why? You won’t believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  He stared at her long and hard, took a deep breath before saying, “Until you, Darla was the last woman I ever really trusted.”

  “Does that mean you trust me now?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure. I guess I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding my feelings over the years.” Taking her hands in hers, he gave them a squeeze. “Just like I’ve hidden the way I feel about you—really, good—I hide the way I feel about a lot of other things, too. Not so good things. Like my parents and a lot of the crap that goes down at work and my bum knee.”

  “How did you hurt it?”

  He started to shrug, then stopped himself with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Guess old habits die hard.”

  “That’s all right,” she said, hand to his cheek. “Carry on.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t hurt it doing anything glamorous like movie stunts or anything. Just flew up to catch a Hail Mary pass and came down wrong. Busted it five ways to Sunday.”

  “When? Just out playing ball with the guys?”

  “You might say that,” he said with another grin. “The guys and about sixty-thousand screaming Hog fans.”

  Hands over her mouth, Cassie’s eyes widened.

  “You’re that Noah Wheeler?”

  He beamed. “In the flesh.”

  “Oh, my gosh. You were like a legend. I always wondered what happened to you.”

  “Yeah, well, now you know. Once Darla found out the scouts were no longer interested in me, she pretty much moved on to greener pastures while I…”

  “Came home,” Cassie said when he seemed to have trouble finding his own words. “Where instead of sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, you’ve worked yourself silly trying to help everyone under the sun.”

  “Don’t make me out to be some kind of hero, Cass. I’m just an ordinary guy, doing my best, and most days failing.”

  Up on her knees, cupping both of his cheeks now to draw him into the sweetest of kisses, she said, “Don’t you ever call yourself an ordinary guy again, Noah Wheeler.”

  “Why? It’s the truth.”

  Swallowing back tears, she shook her head. “You will forever be my hero. Hero to my girls. Hero to my very soul. I love you. I love you so much it hurts. And I sometimes just want to—”

  “Shh…” he said, on his knees, too, silencing her with a long, lingering kiss. “Marry me, Cass. Make me whole. Make me—”

  Cassie tackled him mid-sentence, pressing him to the floor, landing herself atop him where she kissed his forehead, eyebrows and nose. Cheeks, chin and ultimately his lips. Those, wonderful, fabulous delicious lips.

  “Whoa…Wait a minute,” he said, sliding his fingers into her hair. “We can’t do this yet. I still have to formally propose. And I can’t very well do that without a ring.”

  “Forget the ring,” she said, “Tell me why you had this turn-around from being so dead set against marriage to now being so gung ho for it?”

  “Do I have to? I mean, all that stuff’s kind of touchy-feely for a guy like me. It was bad enough thinking it. I don’t wanna say it.”

  “Tell me,” she said, silencing his protests with another kiss.

  Sitting beside her on the sofa, he did tell her everything not only in his mind, b
ut his heart. He told her about the mistake he’d made with Zane, and how that had led him to question many of his other long-time beliefs, like why his parents’ marriage hadn’t worked out. “Their not getting along had nothing to do with me,” he said. “But with Mom being incapable of letting go of her first love. When I think of how much my dad adored her, and how much she gave up by not giving him a chance…I don’t know, maybe as a kid, being helpless to fix their marriage flipped a switch in me that made me that much more determined to fix everything else. But this whole mess with Zane, and you—they made me see that there are some things I just can’t fix. No matter how hard I try. Those are the things I have to surrender to a higher power. As for my busted heart…That, I’m entrusting to you.”

  “Oh, Noah,” she said, cupping his cheek, brushing a stray tear with the pad of her thumb. “Stop. You’ve told me enough.” I can’t bear seeing you in any more pain.

  “No. I still haven’t told you how much I love you.”

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  “Yeah, well, you still need a formal proposal, too—with a proper ring.”

  “Okay, then, looks like there’s only one thing we can do…”

  In unison, the shoved and tugged the massive antique sofa back from the wall.

  OUT IN THE reception area, Ginnie’s eyes widened.

  What was going on in there?

  If only Evelyn and Kelsey were here. They’d know what to do. Ever since their shopping trip to Little Rock—the trip Ginnie and Chloe suspected had been more about checking up on Cassie than buying clothes, they’d all become fast friends. Ginnie now gave them regular updates on Cassie’s usually despondent mood.

  “Now what’re they doing?” Chloe asked, balanced on the arm of one of the reception area chairs.

  “Beats me.” Ginnie pressed her ear tighter to Cassie’s closed office door. “All I hear is a lot of grunting and banging on—oh, wait. I think that was a giggle.”

  “Hmm…Giggles and grunting. Always an excellent sign,” Chloe said with a satisfied smile. “Sounds to me as if our favorite couple finally figured out how to make up.”

  Ginnie’s eyes widened as her cheeks reddened.