Sierra swiped a hand across her forehead as she looked at the woman sitting in the armchair. Nancy Williams was a large, older lady with weary blue eyes and graying brown hair. She looked exhausted and Sierra figured she’d been in and out of several homes today. Places that weren’t really homes but had to be inspected as such.
“Mrs. Williams, when you read the Rollins file, you’ll see that placing the baby in that home is impossible. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’d be neglected.”
“I’ll read the file Monday,” the woman promised. “As for now, the sheriff needs to be contacted and the baby placed in a foster home until we can locate Ginger Rollins.”
Sierra darted a look at Alex, who was sitting close beside her on the couch. Thank God, he’d never left her side since the woman had arrived. Right now she needed his strength.
“Why?” Sierra asked. “I’m perfectly capable of caring for the child. I can be his foster mother.”
The child care worker’s smile was too patronizing to hold any sort of warmth. “I’m certain you’ve never been a foster mother before, Miss Mendoza. And we have several homes with openings now. It won’t be a problem to place the baby in one of them.”
Sierra wanted to throw herself against Alex’s chest and cling to him for dear life. He couldn’t allow this woman to take the baby away. He just couldn’t.
Reaching for his hand, she gripped it tightly and said, “I may not have been a foster mother before, but I have taken care of children. I can give him a good home.”
“Miss Mendoza—”
“Look, Mrs. Williams,” Alex suddenly interrupted the woman. “Sierra has worked for several years as a social worker. She understands what it takes to make a home for a child. Along with that, she’s an upstanding member of the community. She’s lived here in Red Rock all of her life and her parents own a popular eating establishment here in town. I can assure you she can produce excellent references to her character.”
The woman studied the two of them for a moment, then let out a long breath as though she’d carefully considered the situation and hated to deliver her decision.
“Well,” she began, “I’m sure Miss Mendoza is a reputable person, but we do like for there to be a man in the house and—”
“What luck,” Alex interrupted again. He slid a possessive arm around Sierra’s shoulders. “Sierra and I have decided to get married soon and since we’d like to have children right off, having the baby here would be wonderful practice for both of us.”
The woman’s face brightened considerably. “You two are getting married?”
Nodding, Alex answered without hesitation. “Yes. And if you need my references, I practice law in San Antonio. You can either call my office or stop by.”
Sierra suspected she must look like a dying carp, so she snapped her mouth shut and tried not to hide the shock rushing from her head to her feet. What was Alex doing telling this woman an out-and-out lie? she wondered wildly. He hated liars! And he hated the idea of marriage even more!
Chapter Three
“Oh, well, that changes the whole situation,” Nancy Williams said. “I’m sure there will be no problem for you to keep the baby here with the two of you. I’ll notify the authorities of the child’s whereabouts. And later, on Monday, I’ll need for you to come down to our offices and sign some papers. Say, around ten o’clock in the morning?”
“I have to be in court Monday morning. Can we make it in the afternoon?” Alex asked.
Smiling wanly, the woman rose to her feet. “I’m sure that will be fine, Mr. Calloway. I’ll call Miss Mendoza with a time.” She turned a serious look on Sierra. “If you start having reservations about this, don’t hesitate to call. Here’s my card.”
She placed it on the coffee table and Sierra left the couch to see the woman to the door. After another round of thank-yous and goodbyes, Sierra closed the door behind Nancy Williams and rushed out of the small foyer and into the living room where Alex still sat beside the baby.
“Alex! What has come over you? Are you taking some sort of mood-altering drug? Or have you and Pauline been having afternoon tequilas?”
Alex chuckled as he watched Sierra come to a screeching halt in the middle of the room and plant her fists on both sides of her hips.
“I’ll have you know that I’m completely sober.”
Her hands flew helplessly up in the air as she shook her head with disbelief, then tossed a hank of tangled black curls away from her face. “You’re sober,” she repeated with a sardonic roll of her eyes. “And you sat there and lied like a sneaky dog—implying to that woman that we are engaged and want children! What came over you anyway?”
Alex couldn’t possibly tell Sierra what had come over him. Frankly, he didn’t know. He was almost as stunned as Sierra was by his behavior. Yet now that it was done, he felt happy about the sudden impulse, as though something inside him was saying his intervention with a little white lie had been the right thing to do.
“What are you yapping about?” he countered. “It worked, didn’t it? You got to keep the little guy. He’s not going to an orphanage or a foster home. At least for now.”
A pent-up breath rushed out of her and as it did she suddenly felt exhausted. The day had been a rollercoaster ride and now Alex was acting so out of character she was actually worried about him.
Going to the couch, she eased down next to him and laid a palm on his forehead. “You can’t be well. Even on the most sane day of your life, you’d never tell anyone you were getting married.”
“Bull,” he said with a shrug, then turned his gaze on the baby. “What difference is it going to make what I told that woman? She’s not going to bug this place with a camera.”
Sierra noticed, not for the first time this evening, that Alex’s features softened whenever he looked at the baby. There was a tenderness in his eyes that she’d never seen before and she had to admit she was very drawn to this new side of her friend.
“No,” Sierra reluctantly agreed. “But eventually she, or someone else like her, will be back here to check up on us. They’ll know that we aren’t married. That we’re not even living together!”
Turning his attention back to Sierra, Alex leaned over and grasped her by the upper arms. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Besides, by that time you’ll probably be ready to place the child in a good foster home.”
Sierra didn’t think so. But she wasn’t going to argue with Alex tonight. He was right. For now everything was okay and she needed to leave it at that.
Closing her eyes, she nodded. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to get so carried away.” She looked at him as a weak smile slanted her rosy-pink lips. “And I do thank you so very much for stepping in and convincing Mrs. Williams to let me keep the baby.”
Releasing his hold on her arms, he reached up and patted her cheek. “No need to thank me, kiddo. We’re friends. We’re supposed to help each other.”
In Sierra’s opinion what he’d done was above and beyond the call of friendship, but she wasn’t going to point that out to him. The whole idea of them being engaged, even in a fake way, had left her feeling awkward and acutely aware of Alex’s hand touching her cheek, his thigh pressing into hers.
Her throat suddenly tightened and she swallowed as her gaze dropped to her lap. “I couldn’t think of anyone else to call but you. It means a lot to me that you came running.”
He didn’t reply immediately and she lifted her gaze to see he was thoughtfully studying her.
“Don’t get soppy on me, Sierra. You know I’m not worth it,” he said, then rose to his feet and walked over to a small table where he’d left his coffee cup. Picking it up, he asked, “What are you going to call him?”
“The baby?”
He cocked an eyebrow in an arrogant, upward slant. “That is what this is all about, isn’t it?”
Knowing her cheeks were turning pink and hating him for it, she pushed herself up from the couch and walked over to whe
re he stood.
“You can be a real ass, Alex.”
“If I was any other way, no one would recognize me,” he said, then smiled to buffer his words.
She groaned, but stopped herself from saying anything. From the first time she’d met Alex, nearly nine years ago, she could see he was wearing a callous, who-gives-a-damn cloak around him. But there were times that the cloak cracked just enough for her to see inside the man and she’d learned he had a big heart that was very capable of being broken. No one else but Sierra seemed to see this about Alex Calloway, the successful trial lawyer. And she supposed that was a major reason she did her best to overlook his sarcastic veneer. She knew there was far more to the man than the slick words that came out of his mouth.
“I don’t know what to call him. Whatever he was named before—well, that life for him is over. He needs to start new with a whole new name. Got any ideas?” she asked.
Alex started to remind her that whatever she decided to call the baby would only be temporary. Just like her custody of him would only be temporary. But she seemed so happy about her new little charge, he couldn’t bring himself to burst her bubble.
What the hell has come over you, Calloway? You take one look at a woman with a baby in her arms and you get soft as cornmeal mush.
Shaking away that disgusting thought, Alex said, “What about Bowie? After real Texas hero, Jim Bowie.”
Sierra’s brown eyes widened as she rolled the names over her tongue. “Jim Bowie. Bowie. Yes, that’s nice and strong. Bowie—” She paused abruptly and shrugged. “Well, I guess we can’t pin a last name on him. But Bowie will be enough for now.”
As if he seemed to know he was being discussed, the baby began to stir. By the time Sierra reached him, he was squalling at the top of his lungs and punching the air with two tight little fists.
“What’s the matter with him?” Alex asked.
Sierra felt the baby’s diaper. It was wet so she immediately sat down on the couch to change it. “This is the last diaper I have,” Sierra said. “And I gave him the last bottle right before you came. I’m going to have to go to the store tonight and buy some baby supplies. Do you think you could help me?”
“Tonight! I’ve got to be in court by eight o’clock in the morning,” Alex exclaimed loud enough to be heard above the baby’s crying. “I’ve got notes to make and—”
“All right,” Sierra abruptly interrupted. “Sorry I asked.”
With a shake of his head, Alex headed toward the kitchen with his empty coffee cup. After a couple minutes, he returned and stood in the middle of the living room, his arms folded against his chest.
“You’re really pushing our friendship, Sierra, you know that, don’t you?” She didn’t answer immediately and he groaned with surrender. “Okay, so I did offer to help you out.”
She tried not to smile as she carefully placed the baby against her shoulder. He squirmed and then instantly quieted as she patted his back. “It’s just one evening out of your busy life, Alex. And little Bowie will thank you for it later.”
“Damn it,” he said with a scowl. “Get whatever you need and let’s go before I change my mind.”
A few minutes later, as they neared the end of Austin Street and were about to turn onto Main, Sierra said, “Alex, would you please drive out to that new grocery store on the west side of town? I don’t want to go to Bailey’s. Everybody in there knows me.”
Behind the wheel, Alex glanced at her as he braked to a stop at the intersection. “So? What’s wrong with that?”
Tilting her head back and forth, she tried to explain without sounding insulting. “Well, you’re with me.”
“So?” he repeated. “Do I look like I’m diseased or something? The last I heard Bailey’s hadn’t barred lawyers from shopping there.”
Frustration pushed a moan past her lips. “Oh, Alex, you know what I’m talking about. They’ll think something is fishy. Me and you and a baby. Talk will be all over Red Rock.”
“Sierra,” he said with exaggerated patience. “We just told a child care worker that we planned to get married. The sooner that gossip gets around, the better.”
She looked at him, her expression horrified. “No! Alex, my parents. I could never deceive them like that. There’s already been too much miscommunication in my family.”
“All right. All right. Explain to them what’s going on, but make them promise to keep it quiet until little Bowie finds another home. Otherwise you might as well kiss him goodbye right now.”
Sierra glanced over her shoulder at the baby strapped safely in his car seat. Funny how Bowie was already starting to feel like hers, she thought with a sting of emotional tears. And wasn’t it even more odd to think of Alex as his father? Bowie Calloway. The name had a very nice ring to it even if she didn’t have one on her finger.
The next afternoon, Sierra surprised her parents by showing up on their front porch with little Bowie in her arms. She’d dressed him in a pair of blue shorts and matching striped T-shirt, just one of the sets of clothing that she and Alex had purchased last night on their shopping spree for the baby. She’d combed Bowie’s hair with just enough oil to make it lay to one side and tied a pair of tiny tennis shoes on his feet. He looked adorable and Sierra could see from the light in her mother’s eyes that she was instantly taken with the baby.
“Sierra, where in the world did you get such a precious baby?”
Maria Mendoza leaned over Bowie for a closer look at the baby. Meanwhile Jose had come to the door to see who’d been ringing the bell. When he spotted Sierra and the baby, he joined them on the porch.
“A cute little boy,” he remarked. “Who are you babysitting for, Sierra?”
Sierra looked from her father to her mother. The couple had been deeply in love for more than thirty years and that love had kept them both young and vibrant, even through the trying times. At sixty-two, Maria had the svelte, curvy body of a woman twenty years younger. Her rosy-tan skin glowed with scarcely a wrinkle and her black hair was streaked with only a small amount of gray. She was still quite a beautiful woman and made a perfect partner for Jose, who in Sierra’s opinion had to be the most handsome, distinguished man in all of Red Rock.
Her father was a tall, strongly built man with black hair that had yet refused to gray, even though he had reached the age of sixty-five. He adored his wife and children and Sierra had often wished she could find a man in her life who was even half as wonderful as her father.
“Actually I’m not babysitting,” Sierra told the both of them. “I’ve become Bowie’s foster mother.”
“You what?” This was from Jose.
At the same time, her mother exclaimed by practically shouting her name, “Sierra!”
“Let’s go into the house,” Sierra suggested. “The mosquitoes are out today and I don’t want Bowie to get bit.”
Her parents hurried their daughter into the house and hovered over her as she went into the kitchen and placed Bowie, strapped in his carrier, on the dining table.
“Now what is this about being a foster mother?” Jose demanded.
Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Maria sank weakly onto one of the wooden chairs surrounding the table. “Sierra! A baby isn’t like a stray cat or sick puppy!”
Sierra tried to hide her disappointment as her gaze took in both parents. She’d been hoping the two of them would be happy about the baby. But in all honesty, she hadn’t really expected a joyous reaction from them. For some reason, maybe because she was the youngest of their three daughters, they’d always considered her their little girl instead of a grown woman. Even when she’d been dating Chad and talking of marriage, they had always dismissed her plans, certain that she would break up with him. Well, that part of their opinion about her had been right. She had broken up with Chad. But if they thought, for one minute, that baby Bowie was just a whim with her, then they were going to be in for a surprise.
“Mother, I do know the difference between a child and an a
nimal!”
Maria waved a scoffing hand at Sierra. “Oh, you know what I mean. You’ve always taken in stray animals. And even needy friends at times. But a baby is a huge responsibility.”
Stepping forward, Jose thoughtfully rubbed his jaw as he inspected Bowie’s sleeping face.
“Your mother is right, honey. You have a job that takes up nearly all your time and—”
“I’m going to take a leave of absence for a month or two. I have enough money saved. And my position at work will be there when I’m ready to go back. I’ve already discussed it with my superiors.”
Jose’s black brows lifted as he shared a look of surprise with his wife.
“You’ve already made these decisions?”
Sierra nodded. “I know this all sounds sudden. But, frankly, everything happened at once. The baby was left with me at my house. Abandoned. And the mother wants me to have him.”
Shocked, Maria’s hand crept to her open mouth. Jose clucked his tongue with dismay.
“Sierra, your job—you see such horrible things. A woman giving up her own baby! What kind of person is this?” her father asked.
“A desperate teenager, Daddy. She has no husband and her father beats her and her mother.”
Closing his eyes, Jose placed a hand against his forehead and shook his head. “Dear God, such evilness!”
Maria said, “There has to be more to it than just this girl wanting you to have the baby. There are laws and regulations about these things. What—”
“I’ve already spoken to child care services. Alex and I have to go to their offices in San Antonio in about an hour and sign some papers.”
A curious frown wrinkled Jose’s dark features. “Alex? Alex Calloway? Is he acting as your lawyer or something?”
Sierra cleared her throat. “Uh, no. Not exactly. We—uh, we told the child care worker that we were getting married so that little Bowie would have two parents.”
Aghast, Maria shot up from her chair. “Married! Sierra, what were you thinking?”
“Are you two getting married?” Jose asked in a far more normal tone than his wife had spoken.
In a Texas Minute Page 4