by Melanie Rawn
“You’ll tell me what you find out,” he persisted.
“I can see we’ll have to.”
BILL CUTTER, who had stayed behind to keep an eye on the children, greeted them in the kitchen with a pot of hot coffee and a dilemma.
“I can fake the death certificate, no problem. ‘Massive stroke’ will look odd on a girl her age, but she’d just given birth so eclampsia is a possibility. High blood pressure and so on. We can leave it at that. But what do you want me to do about the birth certificate? I phoned for pizza, by the way. Should be here in half an hour or so.”
“You’re a scholar and a gentleman.” Holly spooned sugar into her cup. “Use the name from her passport.”
“And the father? ‘Unknown’ and ‘decline to state’ are the usual options.”
“Use my name,” Cam said.
Jamey gave him a long, slow, searching look.
“It’ll settle any hassles about adopting her,” Cam added.
“Sidebar, Counselor,” Jamey said, grabbing Cam’s arm. “Excuse us, please.”
Holly watched them leave the kitchen, then traded a bemused glance with her husband. “Well, well, well.”
Evan went to the cupboards for dinner plates. “It’ll play merry hell with their sex life,” he commented.
“What sex life?” Holly shot back. “They don’t have a sex life. They haven’t even seen each other naked.”
“Yet.”
“How the hell are they going to raise a baby?” demanded Lulah, stirring her coffee with unwarranted force.
Cutter shrugged. “The same way other single fathers manage it. The same way you managed it, Lulah.”
Nicky gave a small nod. “The same way anybody manages it. One diaper at a time.” The expression he turned on his partner was wistful, subdued. Holly realized that however many college graduation photos lined the wall of their Connecticut farmhouse, they had no children that were truly their own. She knew again how lucky she and Evan were. And how lucky Cam and Jamey would be if—
“From what I’ve seen of her,” Evan said, with an entirely spurious expression of guilelessness, “she kinda looks like him.”
“The hair color’s about right,” Holly mused. “And the hairline. Evan, you know that picture of Grandmother Flynn? Her widow’s peak makes that baby’s—and yours!—look like amateur hour.”
“Nobody ever questions it when a single woman wants to be a parent,” Cutter said. “Why is it different for men?”
“It shouldn’t be, but it is.” Holly slid off her stool and started collecting silverware. “Look at them. One district attorney, one unemployed Witch—”
“—and one baby who needs a home where she’s wanted,” Evan finished. “It’ll be a lot to handle, when they’re so new.”
“New?” She snorted. “They’ve been dancing around this for twelve years. And from a purely practical viewpoint, as far as Jamey’s concerned, there’s the Family Values thing. What could be more valuable to a politician than a family?”
Alec had been listening to all this with a look of stricken incredulity. “Hello!” he almost yelled. “They’re gay!”
“So?” Cutter asked.
“What do you mean, ‘So?’ They’re gay!”
Nick paused in his gathering of glassware. Turning, he met his partner’s dark eyes. Something secret and fierce passed between them. “Alyosha,” he said quietly, “shut up.”
There was an awkward silence. Then Dr. Cutter said, “Holly, I don’t suppose you and Evan—”
“We already discussed it. It’s not very warm and maternal of me, but—”
“But Cam wants to.” Evan rescued the green beans from boiling over. “That’s the difference. We could take her, sure—but he wants that kid.”
Setting plates on the counter with a thunk, Holly turned and scowled. “Jamey has to want this, too. He can’t agree to take the baby just because he thinks he’d lose Cam if he didn’t.”
Lulah glanced up from folding napkins. “They’d have to get an actual car. Can’t strap a baby onto that crotch-rocket of Jamey’s. They’ll also need household help, especially after Cam finds work. He can keep all the cloth in the house clean—he can even fix it so her diapers don’t stink—but I don’t think he does windows.”
“I don’t, as a matter of fact.”
Everybody swung around to face the kitchen door—absolutely choreographed, Holly thought, amused. What interested her more was the geometry of Cam, Jamey, and the child. The angle of Jamey’s shoulders and elbows as he held the baby. The curve of Cam’s smile, and of his arm around Jamey’s shoulders. Parental architecture, she decided. A family.
“Well, Peaches,” Holly said. “Bit of a glitch with the birth control, was it?”
“I promised not to be jealous,” Jamey offered earnestly, his eyes dancing.
She went on aiding and abetting. “Camellius Ruaidhrí Griffen, where exactly were you last December?”
“Well . . .”
Jamey’s gray eyes went as big and round as glass doorknobs. “ ‘Camellius’?”
Evan arched a brow at Holly. “That was foolish. What’re you gonna threaten him with now?”
She waved it blithely away. “The simple power of suggestion is half a Witch’s arsenal at times.” She considered, then went over to pluck aside the pink blanket Bella had come home in over two years ago. Dark red hair. Long widow’s peak. With next summer’s sunshine, skin that fair would without doubt acquire freckles. Very deliberately, Holly said, “She looks just like you, Cam.”
Lulah joined them, digging into a pocket. A slight length of delicate silver links with a single plain disk was pressed into Cam’s palm. “Her mother’s. Keep it for her.”
Cutter harrumphed. “As a physician duly licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia, I haven’t heard a word of this.”
“And as officers of the court,” Evan added, “neither have we, Jamey.”
“I’m still back at ‘Camellius,’ ” the younger man admitted.
“Speaking of names,” Cam interrupted firmly, “what are we going to call her?”
“Elizabeth,” Jamey told Cam. “For your mother. And mine, by the way.”
“Really?”
“And for Holly, of course,” Jamey added.
She caught her breath; Evan caught her eye. “Your reward for—well, I’m not sure exactly what it was that you did, besides embarrass them both, but you get rewarded anyway.”
“Elizabeth Griffen,” Cam said thoughtfully. “Okay, I like it. But she needs a botanical name, too.”
“Peach Blossom,” Evan murmured irrepressibly.
“Plumbago,” said Holly.
“Tiger Lily,” Evan countered.
“Mugwort.”
“Ragweed?”
“Enough!” Cam ordered. “I need a drink.”
“Bring the bottle,” said Evan.
“Bring two bottles,” said Alec.
Holly followed Cam into the parlor and watched for a moment as he poked through the selection of single-malts. Before she could say anything, he slanted a glance at her and smiled.
“Freckles, darlin’, if you ask me if I’m sure about this, I’ll do something really vile to your pillowcases.”
“Save your energy, Peaches. You’re gonna need it.” She hesitated, then asked, “This is both of you, right? Having a gun to your neck while you’re holding a baby can be quite a shock to the system. Oh, stop glaring at me in that tone of voice,” she chided. “You know what I mean. Have both of you really thought this out? When you live with somebody, and you want to go on living with him—hell, if you want to go on living!—you don’t make unilateral decisions about something as huge as this and then try to survive the fallout.”
“It’s both of us. Yes, I’d do pretty much anything for him. But he’d also do the same for me.” Sloshing the bottle of The Macallan to judge how much was left, he added, “And the only thing that ever really made him unhappy about being gay was that he’d never g
et the chance to be a father.”
“And then you went upstairs to look at her. Cam, that’s how babies do it, how they get you to put up with the noise and the stink and the sleep deprivation. They’re just so damned adorable that you can’t help but forgive them for all the nasty stuff.”
“Granted,” he replied calmly. “But you know what Jamey said? He stood there watching her sleep and told me he didn’t think he’d be able to stand watching somebody take her away from us. So don’t worry about it, Holly. We don’t know what we’re doing, but we know what we’re doing.”
“The motto of parents everywhere.” Then, relenting in the face of his certainty, she smiled and murmured, “ ‘Through love, through hope / and faith’s transcendent dower / We feel that we are greater than we know.’ Wordsworth.” She poured two shots and handed one to Cam. “Mazel Tov.”
“Nashti zhas vorta po drom o bango.”
“Good grief!” Holly nearly choked on the whiskey. “What the hell was that?”
“Rom. ‘You cannot walk straight when the road is bent.’ ” He grinned, with full triumphant dimples.
“I swear by everything holy, if any of you people teach my children any word in any language other than English . . .” She sighed. “Oh, what the hell. Bring every damned bottle you can carry.”
Epilogue
THE FIRST WEEK IN DECEMBER an invoice arrived at Woodhush, detailing the annual fee for storage of cord blood cells. Appended was a letter apologizing for overcharging by one unit the year before, and a check for the refunded amount.
After several irate phone calls, subsequent investigation revealed that CryoCache Inc. had mistaken one unit for another—the difference being two reversed digits—and after inventory in July 2004 had pulled the item for disposal. Further tracking was impossible, and the company could only assume that the unit had indeed been destroyed. Deepest regrets, massive corporate abasement, and the guarantee of free storage for the remaining unit for life all added up to Please don’t take us to court.
Evan and Holly considered it, then traded angry shrugs and hoped to high heaven that Bella would never need the medical advantages of her own cord-blood cells. Or, if she did, that Kirby’s would do just as well.
Everybody said that Poppy Elizabeth Griffen looked more like Cam every day.
Author’s Note
My thanks to all the usual suspects. You know who you are.
According to the U.S. State Department’s 2008 annual report, 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. Every year. It is estimated that 80 percent of trafficking cases involve women; 50 percent involve children. In 2004, human trafficking was a $9.5 billion industry worldwide. Many of the details in this novel were taken from real-life accounts found in Victor Malarek’s 2003 book, The Natashas.
Sometimes, y’know, you’re writing merrily along, having a good time, everything pleasant about you—and a character simply shows up. It’s part of the fun (?) of the writing biz. It’s happened to me before, most notably with Kazander in the Dragon Prince novels. It happened again with Jamey Stirling. Holly’s cousin Cam was always due to be a part of the book, but when I was sketching out the party sequence (the first section to be written), Jamey arrived. I told him to go away. He wouldn’t. As it turned out, he had something of an agenda—and as many times as I rewrote the last chapter, he wouldn’t cooperate until it turned out the way he wanted it to. (I realize how utterly insane this sounds. But admitting it is half the battle, right?) I am told there are writers who know exactly what’s going to happen in their novels, exactly how it’s going to happen, and to whom. I’m not one of them.
My apologies to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia (to many of whom I am related) for sneaking into their beautiful landscape a county that does not, in fact, exist. It’s very small; you won’t even notice it, really.
For the record: Yes, I’m Irish. Also English, German, Polish, Welsh, Scots, French, Swiss, and Dutch, plus a smattering of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Lithuanian. And my great-great-grandmother’s great-great-grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Author’s Note