A Daughter's Trust

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Thank goodness Stan Wilson’s not here yet,” Sue whispered back when Sam stopped to say something to his wife, who was sitting on a chair in the opposite corner, reading a magazine. “At least Mom and Dad won’t be blamed for making your dad wait.”

  Stan Wilson had been handling Grandma’s affairs for only a couple of years. Their longtime attorney, Mitch Taylor, had retired shortly after Grandpa’s death.

  Sue wondered if Mr. Wilson had met Sam Carson yet.

  “Dad makes me sick,” Belle said. “It’s not like he needs any of Grandma’s money.”

  “Maybe he’ll relax a bit when he’s officially God Carson,” Sue said, then bit her tongue. After a long talk with her parents Friday night at their hotel—where she’d opted to sleep over rather than have them drive all the way out to her place—she was supposed to try her best to love her uncle. Her mother had always insisted that Sam loved all of them. He just had…issues.

  Well, so did the rest of them.

  Of course, it was a little easier for Jenny to be understanding these days. She had Luke as a buffer. And they lived in Florida. Out of Sam’s reach.

  Sam didn’t mess with Sue, either, but she sure hated to see how much grief he gave Belle.

  And Emily.

  Sue’s phone vibrated against her hip. Juggling the coffee in one hand and the stuffed diaper bag on the opposite shoulder, she checked to see who was calling.

  In her business, she never knew. The state might have someone who wanted to see one of her charges. More importantly, they could have an emergency and need someone to take a baby immediately.

  Which was why she had her home phone calls forwarded to her cell anytime she was away.

  She didn’t recognize the number.

  But because she didn’t want to get stuck making small talk with her uncle, who was heading toward Belle, Sue listened to the message.

  She didn’t know any Rick Kraynick, assistant superintendent of Livingston schools.

  Had never heard of him.

  He wasn’t from child services….

  The revolving door from the outside spun around. From behind the pillar practically blocking her from the cold air, Sue could make out two people, not her parents. Both were tall. And broad. And…

  “Joe?” she called out, sliding her phone back into its case. She walked over, taking in the man at her boss’s side. He was older, in his fifties, Sue would guess. Gray hair. With eyes that, while not the same dark blue as Joe’s, seemed equally impenetrable. Another strong, silent type?

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. Weird that he’d show up on the very morning she was waiting to hear Grandma Sarah’s last requests.

  “Business,” Joe said, guiding her away from the other man without any acknowledgment whatsoever. As though he wanted to make sure they didn’t meet. “A nine o’clock appointment. How about you?”

  “Me, too,” she said, feeling awkward standing talking to him with a baby on her back. Joe didn’t seem to notice. “Nine o’clock.”

  Even after several years of working for him, of being peripheral acquaintances, she still had trouble with the new Joe. She missed her friend. More this week than usual. “Grandma’s will is going to be read.”

  He frowned. “I’m here for a will, too.”

  “Oh!” Sue’s hand found its way to his arm before she could worry if she’d offend her employer. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “Who died?”

  “It’s not for me.” Joe glanced back to the man who’d come in with him. Dressed in a beige trench coat, with shoulders hunched up to his ears, the older gentleman had spoken to the receptionist and was standing alone in the foyer, apparently in a world of his own. “I’m just here with him.”

  “Who is he?” she asked. But she thought she knew. The eyes might be different colors, but there was something so…alike….

  “My father.”

  The infamous Adam Fraser. “He’s a lot more muscular looking than I pictured him,” she said, trying not to stare. There’d been a time when she’d wanted five minutes alone in a room with that man.

  A time when she’d thought about writing to him, begging him to come home to his son.

  A time when she’d hated him for all the pain and rejection he’d put Joe through.

  “Comes from years on a fishing boat,” Joe said drily. He had his back to the man. “Who’s that?” he asked, nodding to her right.

  Sue turned. Smiled at her cousin’s curious stare. Sam had moved on. “Belle.”

  “Your cousin. She’s a couple of years younger than you.”

  He’d remembered. “Right.”

  “Is the baby hers?” Camden was sleeping, snuggled against Belle’s chest as though he belonged there.

  Infants had an uncanny ability to adapt.

  Especially ones who’d been passed from one pair of arms to another since taking their first breath.

  “No.” Sue shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Belle’s not married. That’s Camden. He’s mine, too.”

  With one last pointed look, Belle moved over to join her mother. Uncle Sam had disappeared. Probably to go check on Stan Wilson himself since the receptionist hadn’t yet produced him. Had he really been waiting for his mother to die so he could take over the Carson dynasty?

  A dynasty of six.

  “She’s cute.”

  Joe’s words brought Sue back to the slight chill of the high-ceilinged foyer. She glanced over at Belle again, and then realized Joe was staring at the baby on her back.

  “That she is,” she said, remembering the changing table that morning. She’d rubbed her face against the baby’s belly and Carrie had chortled out loud. The sound, one she’d heard countless times from more than fifteen babies over the past four years, had calmed her. Reminding her that everything would be okay. It always was. If you held on long enough.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Carrie.” Chosen by her mother.

  “How long have you had her?”

  “Since she was twelve hours old. Almost five months, now.”

  “What happened to her parents?”

  “There was no father named. Her mother’s young, has no means to care for her.”

  The room was cold. The day was cold. Not even the memory of Joe’s friendship could warm her.

  Grandma was gone. For good.

  “I thought there was always a waiting list for newborns.”

  “Her mother won’t give her up. She has six months to complete a state-ordered program as part of the process of getting her back.”

  “How long until she regains custody?”

  “Depends on the mother. Could be months. A year or two. Never. In the meantime, because she can’t be adopted, I keep the baby.”

  “You could have her for years?”

  “I could.” Sue couldn’t allow herself to consider the possibility or she’d get too attached. “It’s not likely, though. I’m sure her mother will come through. She wants this baby more than anything. In all my years of fostering, I’ve never had a baby for more than nine months.”

  And in all the years she’d worked for Joe, he’d never asked her a single question about the kids in her care.

  “And you had no problem giving it up after all that time?”

  Now he was trespassing. “Having problems is relative,” she said. Her last long-term baby had been with her seven months. Dante’s mother had loved her son enough to straighten out her life. She’d visited every single day those last couple of months. Handing him over to her had been as much a celebration as it had been a loss.

  “There’s always another one,” she said now, hoping that Dante’s mom was still as dedicated to her boy when he was three and four and into everything as she’d been when he was a cuddly little baby.

  The revolving door at the front of the foyer turned again, admitting a middle-aged man with a briefcase and a cell phone pressed to his ear who disappeared through one of many identical doors.

  Where were
her parents?

  And then something else dawned on Sue.

  “I thought you and your dad’s half brother, your uncle Daniel, were your dad’s only family.” Joe had said so when his grandma Jo had passed away several years before.

  “We are.”

  “Your uncle didn’t die, did he?”

  “No. He’s still here in San Francisco. Still in construction.” Though she’d never met Daniel Kane, Sue felt as though she knew him. Joe had idolized him. Only nine years older, Daniel had been there when Joe was young, and hadn’t seemed to mind him tagging along. Adam’s and Daniel’s mother was Joe’s Grandma Jo—the woman who’d raised all three.

  Daniel had given Joe his start in the construction business.

  “So who passed away?” Sue asked again, staring at the man who’d fathered—and then abandoned—her onetime best friend. “Someone from his dad’s side?”

  Adam Fraser’s father had been a soldier in World War II. He’d made it back from the war only to be killed in a car accident before Adam was even born. But apparently no one from his dad’s family had ever tried to see Adam. Or be a part of his life.

  “He says he doesn’t know what’s going on.” Joe sounded more bored than anything. “He claims he got a call from some attorney and was told he needed to be here this morning for the reading of a will.”

  “Surely the guy gave him the name of the deceased.”

  “Yeah, but he says he doesn’t have any idea who the woman is.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “You don’t believe him. You think he knows?”

  “How many people get calls out of the blue telling them they’re supposedly named in a will of someone they’ve never met?”

  “It happens.”

  “On TV.”

  “So what reason could he possibly have for lying?”

  “Because he has something to hide?”

  “Then why bring you along?”

  “How do I know? I barely know the man.”

  Hard to believe she’d once been privy to Joe’s every thought.

  “You’re here.”

  “He’s my father.”

  That sounded like the Joe she’d known.

  Uncle Sam strode back down the hall toward the foyer just as the revolving door turned again. Sue’s parents had arrived. Belle, still cuddling a sleeping Camden, stood with her mother to greet them.

  And Sue’s cell phone vibrated against her hip. She recognized the number. Please God, she prayed silently as she turned from Joe to take the call. Let my third crib be filled. Not another one emptied…

  Sue barely had time to finish the call—and certainly no time to digest the information—as her parents moved toward her. She forced a smile, keeping her news to herself, trying not to look at the little guy in Belle’s arms—a baby she’d cared for, almost exclusively, for five months. She had only six more hours to keep him close to her heart before she had to hand him over. And never see him again.

  “I’M SORRY, MR. KRAYNICK. I appreciate your candor and your intentions here. I understand your situation, but unfortunately, I can’t give you access to the baby. It does appear, by these documents, that you and the mother’s baby could be half brother and sister, but…”

  Frustrated beyond belief, Rick already knew what the woman—State Worker Number Four—was going to say. He’d been hearing the same news, in various versions and from various people, for the past three days, which was why that morning he’d finally used the information he’d been given at the cemetery.

  Ever since he’d heard from that young girl that his sixteen-year-old sister had had a baby, he’d been unable to think of anything else.

  The city’s social services network had verified that the infant existed. But they couldn’t possibly expose a baby girl to a complete stranger on his word that he was family. It didn’t help matters that he’d admitted he’d never even met his sister.

  He’d hoped producing his birth certificate, to compare with the one they could get for Christy, would verify their relationship. Would change things.

  Turns out birth certificates were pretty easy to duplicate. And alter.

  “What about DNA testing?” he asked now, as he faced the middle-aged black woman who at least smiled with compassion, as opposed to state worker numbers two and three. “If I prove I’m her biological uncle, then I can start adoption proceedings, right?”

  State Worker Number One, on Saturday morning, had been too new at his job to do anything other than worry about getting things right.

  Monday’s worker had given Rick nothing but repeated explanations about the way San Francisco’s system worked. Yes, the city was the official guardian of the child. The city had custody. But the child’s welfare and care were given over to a private organization.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Tuesday’s worker replied with a slow shake of the head. “We don’t have the money to provide DNA testing and—

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  “Do you have any idea how far backed up the state’s labs are?” she asked. “They’ve got criminal evidence waiting to be tested. It could take months before you get any results. Certainly weeks.”

  “And how long will the baby be in foster care?”

  The woman scanned the file for a moment. And looked up at him, eyes filled with sympathy. “Probably not long.” She didn’t elaborate. But Rick had a feeling she knew more than she was saying.

  “So how do I get them to hold off doing anything with her? At least until I can prove we’re blood related?”

  “You could go to court. Petition for a hearing. That might put a stay on an adoption. If you’re interested in adopting her, I’m fairly certain they’d give you some time. Would you like to fill out an adoption application?”

  “Yes. Please.” He didn’t ask himself what he was doing. There was no question here. If the orphaned child was a member of his family, she belonged with him. He’d take care of her. Period.

  The kind woman handed him a sheaf of papers. “You can start here,” she said. “But there’s no guarantee of anything. While it’s true the state of California always tries to place children with family if at all possible, even if it’s proved that you’re the child’s uncle, it’s possible that someone else equally qualified could step forward.”

  Equally qualified? As in, also blood related?

  Was that what the woman had read in the file? Was there someone from the baby’s father’s side?

  “It would help so much if you’d known the baby’s mother. If you’d spent time with the child….” If you’d been around to help your sister when she’d been pregnant and struggling, Rick figured the lady was thinking. “But walking in cold like this, after the fact, it’s hard to believe you’ve suddenly developed the kind of love it takes to raise a child.”

  His mother was the reason Rick had never known about Christy. Okay, so he hadn’t been in touch in years. He had been in touch since Christy’s birth. A couple of times.

  His mother. She’d seen the baby. Was that what this woman had just read? That Nancy Kraynick was petitioning for custody of Christy’s little girl?

  Surely not.

  Pray God, not.

  “Or if you were her father…”

  He’d been a father. A damn good one.

  “Our emphasis has to be on the children. On their long-term well-being. And really, the decision at this point isn’t even ours. You’d have to contact WeCare Services. They’re the organization in charge of Carrie’s case.”

  His fight wasn’t with this woman. She’d done more to help him than anyone else in the past four days. She’d just given him the name of the organization that employed Sue Bookman.

  Another official contact.

  Taking his paperwork, he thanked her and left.

  He had to find a way to see the child. Not to convince a court to let him adopt her because he’d seen her, but because he had to see his little sister’s b
aby. Especially if she could be adopted out before he had a chance to petition for her himself. He had to know she was okay.

  And to promise her that, somehow, whether she was adopted or not, he would not abandon her. He was not going to take any chances that another life would be lost.

  According to Chenille Langston, his sister’s fifteen-year-old friend who’d talked to him at the grave site, Christy had loved and wanted this baby enough to “stay off the junk” during her entire pregnancy.

  Out in his car, Rick checked his cell phone again, waiting to see if the Bookman woman had called him back. Seeing the empty message box, he dialed his lawyer.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHILE HER FIRST INSTINCT was to grab Camden and run, Sue left the baby in her cousin’s arms, falling in beside her parents, behind Belle and Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily, as they all made their way down the hall to the lawyer’s office suite. Joe had been in conversation with his father as she’d left.

  Probably just as well. Sue and Joe just didn’t seem to have that much to say to each other these days.

  The room was furnished with expensively upholstered couches for two, four of them, gathered around a central, cherry table laid with eight packets. A ninth chair, a high-backed desk chair, filled one of the corners of the meeting area.

  Luke and Jenny were the first to sit. Sam and Emily took the couch next to theirs. That left two couches. One for Belle and Camden? The other for Sue and Carrie?

  Belle sat, settling the sleeping baby boy more comfortably against her.

  Sue preferred to stand.

  Uncle Sam had opened the packet in front of him. Was shifting through papers as though he owned them all.

  The papers. And the people in the room, too.

  As Belle said, it wasn’t as if Grandma’s money was a big deal compared to his own bank account. Okay, so the house, built for a pittance back in the ’40s, was probably worth a million or more, but then Uncle Sam’s house would probably sell for that in California’s current market. And other than the house, the most valuable thing Grandma had was the diamond necklace Grandpa had given her when they’d married. It had been his mother’s, a gift from his father. And his grandmother’s before that.