Marriage for Her Baby

by Raye Morgan

She glared at him. He glared right back. She could almost see sparks flying between them. This was no good and she knew it. But she couldn’t stop. She had to let him know how much this meant to her. He couldn’t be allowed to treat this as a lark of some kind. He had to know the consequences were serious.

  He shrugged. “I may not have signed as many official forms as you have, but I’ve been tested. The DNA results will trump all your seals and certificates and...” He paused for a moment as though he regretted having to say it. “And all your emotional appeal, Sara. I’m sorry, but that’s reality.”

  She knew he was right and it made her want to sob, but she couldn’t let him see weakness. “We’ll see about that,” she said.

  Funny, but she’d been so scared when she was running from him. Now that he’d caught her, the fear was gone. There was a dark, burning anger deep inside her, and a determination that was growing stronger every minute. She knew only one thing for sure—she would not give up her baby. She would find a way.

  He gestured in her direction and she flinched. It was an obvious move. His gaze met hers.

  “Why would I hurt you?” he asked her, seemingly irritated by her reaction.

  “I didn’t think you were going to hurt me,” she said coolly. “I just don’t want you to touch her.”

  A series of emotions crossed his face but she wasn’t sure what it all meant. The only thought that came to her was, So this is what it’s like to have an enemy. Scary.

  He looked out toward Seattle and seemed to settle his anger down. When he turned back toward her, his eyes were cold but his face was smooth. No emotions showing at all.

  “Could I hold her?” he asked quietly.

  She pressed Savannah closer, holding her tightly. This was painful. She just couldn’t do it. “She’s sleeping,” she said.

  “No, she’s not. I can see her eyes. They’re wide-open. Just let me hold her for a minute.”

  “No,” she said, feeling fierce. “Not here. Not yet.”

  He stared down at her, not saying a word, but warning her that he could do whatever he wanted to do if he felt like it. At least, that was the message she took from the look in his eyes.

  “There’s a security guard on this ferry,” she said quickly. “I could yell for help.”

  His wide mouth twisted in half a grin. “You could. But you won’t.”

  She looked away and rocked Savannah softly. “What makes you think you know so much about how I tick?”

  “I’m a student of everyday psychology. I knew from the way you ran at the café that you would try to get away with your...” He stopped, realizing that was the wrong thing for him to admit. “With the baby. You knew from the first that I have an unshakable claim.”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort.” She shifted Savannah to her other shoulder. “We have a long way to go before we can tell for sure just who you are.”

  He turned away and looked out over the rushing water as though working hard on controlling his temper. It took him some time to get to the point where he could turn back and she wondered if he was counting to a lot more than ten. When he finally turned back, his face was calm but his eyes were flashing.

  “When the DNA results arrive in my favor—which they will—you’ll have to give way. How long did you say you’ve had her?”

  “Six months.”

  “Six months.” He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s a good long time. But facts are facts. She’s my baby and it’s my responsibility to take care of her.”

  Sara pressed her lips together. She had plenty she could say but she wasn’t going to muddy the waters right now. There would be time to make her case. Right now he had her in a corner. It looked like everything was going his way. But she was beginning to realize that she had many cards of her own that she could play. This thing wasn’t a done deal yet.

  “Look, Sara,” he said impatiently. “I know you’ve checked this out with the agency. You know who I am. Let me hold her.”

  She shook her head.

  He raked fingers through his thick, auburn hair. His frustration was clear, but she held her ground, realizing that she’d better put it into words so he could deal with it.

  “Jake, you’re a stranger right now. I don’t know if you’re who you say you are. We’re standing on a boat, right over the ocean. Anything could happen. I can’t risk it.”

  He frowned and actually looked hurt. “I wouldn’t do anything that could possibly harm her.”

  Sara held her ground. “I’m not letting you hold her.”

  For just a moment, anger flared in his eyes. She saw it and the sense of its intensity stopped her heart for a beat. He was scary in a way she’d never known with a man before.

  “All right,” he said at last, his voice raw. “I guess I can understand that.” A muscle worked at his jawline, but he smiled. “I can even commend you for taking good care of my baby.” He took a deep breath. “But we need to talk somewhere. Somewhere safe.”

  She didn’t want to talk to him. What was the point? She knew what he wanted. He knew what she demanded. Neither one of them was going to budge an inch.

  Mentally she shook herself. She was going to have to talk to him. That was the only way she could get him to see how crazy this was. There were so many angles to fight this from. Right now, she thought she had the strongest—he wasn’t father material.

  It was true. He didn’t know the first thing about babies. She remembered how he’d been with a kitchen and she almost smiled. He wasn’t domesticated in any way at all. He was hopeless. He had to learn that somehow. And who else was going to make him face it if she didn’t?

  “All right.” She sighed, letting him hear her exasperation. “Come back to my sister’s house with me. My brother-in-law should be home by now. I’d be more comfortable if he and my sister were there, too.”

  “Okay. You’ve got a deal.” He seemed relieved, glancing at the rapidly approaching coastline and noting that they were almost at the end of this part of their ferry journey.

  She hated that he went to the car with them for the ride back, but she knew it would be petty to insist he stay out on the deck. They got into the car and he looked around, his mouth twisted.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” he asked her.

  She lifted her chin and shrugged. “I’m taking my baby for a drive. I don’t think there are any laws against that.”

  “That’s not your baby,” he growled. “That’s my baby.”

  She blinked quickly and kept her composure. “We don’t know that yet, do we?”

  “I know it.”

  They didn’t speak again for a long time. She drove the car off the ferry and then back on again. Savannah played with her fingers, made some noises that sounded like she was trying to sing, then dozed off. Jake sat twisted in his seat, watching her every minute.

  Sara turned on the radio and soft music played, hiding the awkwardness of the silence. When they were about halfway back across the bay, she couldn’t resist asking him a few questions.

  “So how did you get on the ferry without me seeing you?”

  He shrugged. “I was already on board. I’ve been waiting since you left the café.”

  “I see.”

  “Right after you left, I asked around the place to see if anyone knew who you were. The girl working behind the counter said she thought your name was Sara.” He shrugged. “So then I knew.”

  She nodded. “Of course,” she said softly, staring intently at the car in front of them.

  “But I knew you weren’t living in the house next to me, as you were supposed to be. I didn’t know where to find you. So I hung around the ferry and waited for you to make a run for it.” He turned and narrowed his eyes, looking at her. “Did you know who I was from the start? Why didn’t you tell me you had a little girl?”

  She shook her head. “No, I didn’t know. And until I realized who you were, I was just waiting for a chance to tell you about her. You were pretty much monopoli
zing the conversation, you know. I could hardly get a word in.”

  He looked surprised. “Funny. I usually think of myself as the strong, silent type.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Right.”

  He looked back at the baby, now asleep in the car seat. “She’s gorgeous,” he said, his mouth turning up at the corners. “You kind of fall in love with her at first sight, don’t you?”

  Sara felt tears stinging her eyes but she would die before she let him know his words had affected her. She stared at him for a long moment, wishing she could see into his heart.

  “I have to be very careful around you,” she said softly at last. “You’re a seducer.”

  “What?” He was outraged. “I haven’t touched you!”

  She shook her head. “I don’t mean that way. I mean that you’re a seducer of the mind. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up letting you convince me to do something I shouldn’t.”

  “Oh.” He relaxed, and then his mouth twisted in something resembling humor. “Well, I can’t help that.”

  “Yes, you can. You’re the exact reason it’s going to happen.”

  He frowned at her, not sure what she was getting at. “Look, mind games are not my thing.”

  “Really?” This was good. He was unsure. Without that massive swagger and confidence, he seemed almost manageable. “What is your thing, Jake? What is important to you?”

  “Right now? That baby.” He jerked his head in her direction.

  Sara’s lips tightened. “Her name is Savannah.”

  “Really?” He frowned thoughtfully. “I was thinking about naming her Jolene. My mother’s name was Jolene. Or so they tell me.”

  “Jolene,” Sara said with scorn, glancing at him. “She isn’t a Jolene at all. Just look at her.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s a Jolene look like?”

  She threw up a hand. “Different from this.”

  He frowned, studying Savannah’s face as though he was going to find the right name for her if he stared hard enough. But instead, he went off in another direction.

  “So why are you staying at your sister’s house?” he asked.

  “My house is being renovated.”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen the workmen come and go. It looks like you’re adding on a whole wing.”

  “I am.” She glanced at him sideways. “It’s for Savannah. A bedroom, a bathroom and a playroom. All for her.” She bit her lip and then continued, her voice shaking. “You see, we have a life planned out. How can you just swoop in and smash it to bits?”

  He shook his head, looking almost regretful. “I didn’t set this all up on purpose, Sara. There’s nothing personal in it. It’s just the way the cards fell. No one’s fault.”

  No one’s fault. Then whom did she go to in order to make her case?

  They landed and the cars drove off, one after another. She turned hers toward Jill’s street. Her house was high up on the hill, visible from everywhere on this side of the island. She got to the corner of the turn up to her sister’s house and suddenly Jake held his hand out.

  “Hold it,” he said. “Pull over.”

  “What is it?” She did as he ordered, but looked around suspiciously. There was a large, tough-looking man standing on the corner. His nose appeared as if it had been broken a couple of times. His hair was clipped close to his head and he was dressed in worn black leather and torn jeans. He could have been a stand-in for a member of The Dirty Dozen. Just looking at him made her shiver.

  She glanced at Jake. He and the man had made eye contact. Neither one of them gave any indication of greeting or of even knowing each other, but there was something about their body language that made it clear they were acquaintances. The stare was enough.

  “Okay, I’m going to have to take a rain check on that meeting,” Jake said.

  She gaped at him. “What?”

  How could he dismiss it like this? To her, getting some sort of resolution and doing it as soon as possible was as necessary as breathing. Her whole life hung in the balance, and he was ready to walk off and do it later? And all because of some guy standing on a corner?

  “Who is that man?” she demanded.

  “Someone I have to talk to,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt. “I can’t explain. Not now. I’ll have to catch you later.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Give me your phone number. I’ll call you.”

  She recited it automatically, frowning and wondering what to make of this strange man. He punched in the numbers, leaned over the back of the seat and looked at Savannah, sighing.

  “I need to get to know this little one,” he muttered as he straightened and turned away. “That house there at the top? That’s where you’re staying?”

  “Yes.”

  He hesitated, looking at her probingly. “You’re not going to run again, are you?”

  “I wasn’t running before.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  She looked toward where the sea made a silver line on the horizon.

  He grunted and looked there, too. “I’m going to have to trust you,” he said. “But I think you know better than to go off again. I’ll go to the end of the earth to find you, if you do. And the reunion won’t be pretty.”

  She snapped her head back around to face him. “Oh, stop with the threats. Please! We’re both grown-ups. We can talk things over without the TV show theatrics. This is real life, not some silly drama.”

  A reluctant smile broke out on his hard face. “You see, that’s just the thing about you, Sara. I liked you from the beginning.” His eyebrows rose. “I hope I’m not going to have to change my mind about that.”

  Her eyes flashed. “You know what? It doesn’t matter if you do. We have an issue between us, something that has to be resolved. But whether we like each other is irrelevant. Who cares?”

  “Right.” He nodded firmly. “Who cares.” He glanced at the man on the corner and looked back at her. “Okay. See you in the morning.”

  She watched him walk away. The man who had been waiting turned and walked with him. The two of them looked like something out of a 1930s gangster movie.

  “What in the world?” she said aloud, shaking her head as she watched them go. This whole situation was getting stranger and stranger. Maybe it was going to be a silly drama after all. Who knew?

  But the one thing she was sure of—she wasn’t letting her baby go off with a man like this. Impossible to imagine. It would never happen. She would find a way.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SARA FELT AS though every nerve in her system was quivering with energy. There was so much to think about, so many plans to make—so many traps to set. First of all she had to find out more about this man, this Jake Martin—and how he’d met her half sister Kelly, Savannah’s mother.

  Was he a good guy? Mixed evidence so far. Were things going to pop up that would be relevant and interesting to the agency as to his fitness to be a father?

  Oh, come on. There had to be something.

  In the morning, he would arrive and they would sit down in Jill’s breakfast room, sipping coffee and eating one of her sister’s wonderful Bundt cakes. And they would talk.

  She turned the car up the driveway to Jill’s, planning the assault on Jake’s character as though it was the D-day invasion. This was a fight she had to win. The thought of giving her baby over to this stranger made her sick with revulsion. It couldn’t happen. If she had only a few hours before she was going to see him again, she was going to spend that time preparing for battle.

  * * *

  Sara looked up from feeding her baby from a bottle and forced a smile as Jill came into the kitchen, clutching her long white robe around her.

  “Morning,” she said with brittle cheer.

  Jill seemed incredulous. “What on earth are you doing up so early?” She paused to kiss the top of Savannah’s head, then went on to the coffeemaker. “I’ve got twelve cakes to bake for the Alliance Ladies or I would still be happily sleeping away myself.”

>   “Sleep?” Sara said groggily. “What is this thing you call sleep?”

  Jill groaned. “You haven’t slept a wink, have you?”

  Sara shrugged. “I think I did get a few minutes worth around 3:00 a.m. My mind was whirring like a windup toy and I couldn’t stop. I had to think, to go over all the possibilities. So I came down here where I could begin making lists.” She nodded toward the three or four pages of wild note taking that were scattered across the table.

  Jill poured herself a cup of coffee and came back to sink into the seat opposite her sister.

  “Listen. We’ll do it all. No stone left unturned. We’ll research and brainstorm and write letters. We’ll start calling people today and...”

  Sara smiled lovingly at Jill and shook her head. “I’ve already been doing all those things. It’s three hours earlier on the East Coast. I’ve called three different sources back there already.”

  Jill gaped at her sister, impressed. Sara had always been the careful one, her hair stylishly sleek, her makeup perfect, her goals clear and well-supported by her actions. Meanwhile, Jill seemed to be all over the place, just like her unruly mop of curly blond hair. And yet, Jill was the older sister and they both knew she would be there for Sara no matter what.

  “Who did you talk to? What did you find out?”

  “First I called the agency again to see if I couldn’t get more information. I wanted to know about forms I could fill out and channels I could go through to file an appeal, just in case. They were adamant. There is supposedly nothing I can do.”

  “Nothing?”

  “So I was told. If the DNA comes in his favor and he is deemed to be her father, that’s it. Game over.”

  She stared at Jill with tears shimmering in her eyes. “I mean—that’s it. He takes her. We wave goodbye and it’s over. He walks off with her.” Her face was tragic. “How can this be? It’s just not right.”

  Jill nodded slowly. “I know, darling. It doesn’t feel right at all. It feels unfair and dangerous. Maybe if we talk to the people at the agency...”

  “That’s exactly who I’ve been talking to. And I did leave a message for Mrs. Truesdale to call me back. She’s the one who’s always been the most helpful.”