Julio pulled her back toward a bank of chairs. “Come, cara,” he said. “We will sit here with Darren and Justine and be the united front.”
The judge was a tall, bulky man with a receding hairline and shrewd brown eyes. He greeted them with a courteous but professional distance Libby guessed had to go with the job.
He asked questions about their employment and their new marriage. He raised an eyebrow when he calculated that the ceremony had taken place after Lady Barmont had appeared on the horizon.
“Jared hired me as the children’s nanny,” Libby explained, careful not to look at Jared. Technically, that was the truth. She hadn’t said she was a nanny. “And we fell in love.”
The judge flipped a page on his report. “After two weeks?” He looked up at Jared.
Jared met his gaze. “I was in love with her in two days,” he said. “I waited two weeks to give her time to adjust to the idea.”
The judge studied him with damnably unrevealing eyes. Then he turned to Libby.
“And how long did it take you?”
She smiled because this answer was really true. “Until the first time I saw him deal with Zachary during a sleepless night. It takes a big man—a big anybody—to remember the baby’s needs and not your own when you’ve been up twenty hours.”
The judge smiled fractionally. “We had colicky twins. I know what you mean.” He grew serious again. “So you’re telling me two single people accustomed to doing what they want when they want and with a freedom this decision could change inextricably and forever are willing to turn their lives upside down for two little children?”
Libby shrugged. “Actually, Jared and the children have turned my life right side up. So yes, I am.”
The judge allowed himself another small smile and faced Jared. “And you?”
“Yes.”
“Right side up or upside down?”
Jared laughed softly. “Depends on which day you catch me. But every day they make it all worthwhile.”
The judge made a few notes on his report, then turned his attention to Savannah. “What did you have for breakfast, Savannah?” he asked with a cheerful grin.
“Eggs Ben-a-dick,” she replied, banging together the toes of the patent-leather shoes sticking straight out ahead of her.
The judge blinked and turned to Libby. “Eggs Benedict? Really?”
Libby pointed to Jared. “Jared’s brother is a chef. Savannah loves his cooking. He came over this morning to provide…moral support.”
“He’s waiting out there with Grandma.” Savannah pointed to the door through which they’d come.
“Do you like your new house?” he asked.
Savannah nodded. “I have Rosie and Tux on the wall and stars that twinkle up high. Libby made them.”
Jared explained about Libby’s artistic abilities and the border project.
The judge raised an eyebrow. “And what if you sell your book,” he asked Libby, “then find that the care of two small children puts some of your goals out of your reach?”
“Then I’ll be like every other working mother in the world.” She smiled as Savannah came to scramble up into her lap. “Actually, I imagine it’ll be easier to write books for children with children surrounding me.”
The judge refocused his attention on Savannah. “Do you like living with Jared and Libby, Savannah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she replied gravely. “My other mom and dad went to heaven. But I can’t go there yet. So I’m gonna stay with them.” Her mood changed with a sudden bright smile. “And this time I have a grandma and a uncle.”
The judge’s expression grew warmly indulgent. “What do you like to do best?”
Savannah launched into a litany that seemed without end. “Painting, walking with Libby on the beach, wearing Daddy’s goggles in the workshop, playing with Spike and Tippy and Scarlett, cooking with Uncle…”
The judge leaned back, a smile on his face as she carried on at length. When she finally finished with the regret that she couldn’t curl his hair because her things were at home, the judge closed his folder, then stood and held a pen across the desk to Jared and turned a legal document toward him. “Sign there. The first X.”
“What is it?” Jared asked, scanning the small, tight print. “Affixed hereto this twentieth day of November…” he began reading.
“The adoption papers,” the judge replied.
Jared’s head came up in surprise. He heard Libby’s little gasp. The judge came around the desk to take the baby from her. “You, too, Mrs. Ransom. Sign the second X.”
“What about Mrs. Barmont?” Jared asked.
Zachary made conversational noises and the judge bounced him around on his hip, the professional neutrality suddenly gone. “Withdrew her petition this morning. Seems her therapist advised her against it, that she wasn’t doing it for the right reasons or something. Anyway, she changed her mind. But I wanted to learn a little about you before going with Mrs. Griffin’s overzealous report. She seems to think you should both be canonized.” He touched his first two fingertips to his forehead. “But I think just a friendly salute from one parent to another will do it. Good luck.”
There were tears and cheers in the judge’s outer office when the family heard the news.
Savannah and Zachary were hugged and passed around and kissed and promised treats.
Darren insisted on taking everyone to dinner. “This is your town, Libby,” he said. “Where’ll we go?”
“Truffles!” Libby replied without hesitation. “Sara and Charlene and I used to go there all the time.” She turned to Jared. “Do you mind if I call and ask them to join us?” She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him close. “They’ll be so excited about how everything is working out.”
He kissed her, his heart swollen with happiness and goodwill. “Of course not. I’m excited myself. We’ll all stay at the Rockland tonight and drive home in the morning.” He looked at their companions. “Okay with everyone?”
The endorsement was unanimous.
Chapter Twelve
Over dinner they planned Carlie and Julio’s wedding to take place the following week at Jared’s since they’d all be together for Thanksgiving anyway, and accepted with equanimity the news that Darren and Justy were moving in together.
Carlie offered her good wishes, then focused on Justy. “You know you were my choice for a daughterin-law years ago, and I’m afraid my feelings haven’t changed. You’ll forgive me if I root for marriage to result from this.”
“Of course,” Justy, holding Zachary, said amiably. “Just try to remember that I’m not the marrying kind.”
Carlie pointed to Jared and Libby. “But you’re getting together to have a baby. Haven’t you noticed what can happen when two people share children?”
“This is different.”
“How?”
Darren grinned at his mother and reached across the table to pat her hand. “Because Justy’s involved. Let it go, Mom.”
Carlie sighed. “Do I still get to claim the baby as my grandchild?”
“Of course.” Justy elbowed Darren affectionately. “We’ll all be family.”
That declaration did not fit the parameters she’d set, but Jared was happy when his mother let the matter drop. He knew Darren to be stubborn and determined and lionhearted when it came to working for what he believed in. Darren had a plan at work here, and Jared trusted him to see it through. He could only pray for a favorable outcome.
Jared sat back as Libby chatted animatedly with Sara and Charlene. Savannah came around the table and climbed into his lap, rubbing her eyes. She curled up against him with an ease and confidence he’d once wondered if he’d be able to inspire.
She and Zachary were his. Theirs. He’d been unable to imagine any other outcome; still, he couldn’t quite believe how easily it had been accomplished.
Three weeks ago he’d been a bachelor fishing in Scotland. Today he had a wife and two children. He smiled to himsel
f as he speculated on what tomorrow might bring.
Libby turned to him, her eyes vibrant and happy. Her hair was loose and tucked behind her ear on one side, revealing her slender neck and lending her an air of fragility he knew to be completely false. He felt joy so deep it hurt.
“Want me to take her,” she asked, “so you can finish your coffee?”
He ran a knuckle down her cheek because he just had to touch her. “I’m fine.”
Her eyes trailed over his face with a smoldering quality that made him long for the time when they would be alone tonight.
“You’re getting awfully good at being a father.”
He accepted her praise with a modest inclination of his head. “I told you I’d get the hang of it.”
She leaned closer as everyone else around the table paired off in their conversations. “You’re also a great husband,” she said softly, her lips inches from his. Her eyes grew serious. “I can’t believe you belong to me.”
He closed the gap that separated them and kissed her lightly. “I thought you belonged to me.”
She leaned her cheek against his and murmured in his ear, “I do. Wholeheartedly.” She drew back slightly to look into his eyes, her own soft with love. “I do, Jared. I love you.”
He kissed her again, Savannah asleep and clutched between them. “You own my soul,” he said softly against her lips. “I love you, too.”
Libby heard the words with wonder. She’d been right! She hadn’t failed after all. She’d been sent back to reclaim her children and had been blessed with the exquisite bonus of a loving man. She felt humbled by God’s generosity.
Darren cleared his throat noisily. “Shall we order pâté to go?” he asked, indicating their obvious intimacy.
Jared and Libby drew apart slowly, shared a long, promising look. Then Jared gave Darren a grinning glance as he reached for his wallet. “We’ll just trust that there’s some in the honor bar in the room. Everybody ready?”
They moved in a body toward the door, Libby admiring a rich red-and-gold paisley scarf Charlene threw carelessly over the shoulder of her coat.
“I love scarves,” Libby said as they made their way to the door. “But I never know what to do with them.”
Charlene hugged her happily. “As long as you know what to do with the pâté,” she whispered. “Be happy!”
Libby could not imagine being happier than she was at that moment with Jared beside her, carrying the now-sleeping Savannah. Justy and Darren followed, with Darren holding Zachary in the carrier and Carlie and Julio joining them with youthful joy in their eyes. And this was all hers!
She hugged Sara, then walked her down to where Charlene waited for her car. At the top of the steps, Carlie helped Jared work Savannah’s coat onto the child’s inert body.
Libby, Sara and Charlene shared a three-way hug, then her two friends climbed into the car. Libby didn’t notice Charlene’s scarf until the taillights of her car illuminated it. She leaned down to pick it up, turning to shout at the departing car, hoping to stop it.
At that same moment there was a strange ticking sound behind her, a desperate shout of “Laaaadyyyy!” and a single light coming at her with a speed that made escape impossible.
No, she thought, cold dread seeping into her limbs, immobilizing her. Not again.
The impact rattled her teeth and robbed her breath and she went down with the tortured sound of Jared’s shout on the cold night air.
JARED SAW Libby dart away from the side of the driveway into the very middle just as the messenger’s bike sped around an aisle of parked cars and headed for the exit—and Libby.
He shouted her name at the same moment that she turned at the sound of the bike’s brakes. But she seemed transfixed there. His heart stopped when the bike hit her with a sickening thump. The rider went over the handlebars, and Libby lay lifelessly in the middle of the driveway, the bike on top of her, its wheels spinning. Julio snatched Savannah from him and he ran toward Libby, wondering how in God’s name he’d go on if he lost her.
LIBBY FELT a subtle ache behind her eyes and knew that opening them would be painful. She remembered drinking wine the night before to celebrate the adoption, but she’d had only one glass. Why should she feel…?
An image of a speeding light flashed suddenly in her mind’s eye. She saw it coming toward her, heard Jared’s shout. She groaned, remembering the maniac messenger who’d hit her the last time, and presumed she’d been felled by him again.
The last time! Libby opened her eyes and sat up abruptly, ignoring the throbbing in her head. Her heart thudded and her breath grew shallow as she recalled what had happened the last time she’d awakened in a hospital.
She sat still, trying to assess her situation. Despite the pain in her head, all her senses seemed heightened, razor sharp, as though she’d just awakened from a dream.
As the possible ramifications of that thought came home to her, panic bubbled up. A dream. No. Oh, no.
She looked around herself, searching desperately for landmarks in time and reality. She saw acoustical tiles, pale-green walls, white curtains. She stared at the spot where the red smiley face had been the last time.
It wasn’t there. Oh, no.
Nausea rose beside the panic on a rolling wave.
She spotted the clock above the chair. It read 11:17, but was it the morning after last night, or was she back in her lonely future? Or had she never left it and merely dreamed her life with Jared and the children?
Time seemed to stop, to bend, to warp as she struggled to right her mind, to clear her thoughts, to believe that she hadn’t lost her husband and her children—that she hadn’t lost her life, her world.
No, she prayed. Please, God. Please let me be back there. Please don’t let this be where I was before you let me have Jared and the children. Please!
The door opened and a pretty young nurse walked in. She came to take Libby’s pulse. “How are we doing this morning?” she asked in a cheerful voice.
“Fine,” Libby replied, her voice thick with panic. “Where’s Farthingale?”
“Gone,” the nurse replied, without moving her eyes from her watch.
“When?”
“Ages ago.”
No!
The nurse looked up at her and frowned. “Whoa! Your pulse is galloping. Let me…”
“No!” Libby pushed her away, threw back the covers and ran for the door, feeling as though the life was being squeezed out of her body. As she passed the open bathroom door, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and stopped in her tracks, all her bodily functions suspended.
Her hair was short, skimmed over her ears and fringed at her nape. Short! No!
Everything inside her screamed. She was the twenty-five-year-old Libby again. She had lost Jared and Savannah and Zachary. And not just lost them to someone else, but lost them in time.
Or she’d simply wanted them so much that she’d dreamed them to life, then loved them so much the dream had become her reality. Oh, God.
She felt as though her heart had been ripped out. She remembered sitting on the sofa with Jared’s arm around her, Savannah climbing over them and the baby locked between them, and felt a loss so profound she couldn’t stop a wail of despair.
She leaned against the molding and sank to the carpet, sure she would die. She was vaguely aware of the nurse running from the room.
She heard her cry turn to sobs as the sense of loss buffeted her like some title-holding, bare-fisted boxer.
Then there was a sudden commotion in the room, and a pair of strong arms scooped her off the carpet and carried her back to the bed.
The familiarity of the touch, the scent, the muscle penetrated her grief, and she stopped sobbing abruptly to stare with complete shock into Jared’s face.
She was hallucinating. She had to be. Unless he’d come forward in time with her—or out of the dream.
She put her fingertips to deep worry lines on his forehead and felt warm flesh, the
wiry hair of his eyebrows, the brush of his rough chin against the inside of her wrist.
He’d shed the suit coat and tie he’d had on at dinner, and his collar was open. He had an overnight beard and his eyes looked bleary and miserable—and so real and alive that confusion was suspended for an instant while she simply stared in wonder.
“Jared?” she finally whispered.
“Yes,” he answered. He sat beside her and held her forearms. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head, trying to clear it. “What are you doing…here?”
He blinked, apparently surprised by the question. “I’m your husband, remember? I’m supposed to be where you are. Don’t you remember getting hurt?” He looked at the doctor in concern. The doctor, who must have followed Jared into the room, sat on the other side of Libby, with the nurse hovering nearby.
The doctor pushed her gently back to the pillows, but she resisted, trying to hold on to Jared. “But it’s ten years later, isn’t it?” she asked.
Jared helped the doctor push her back but held her hand as the doctor took her pulse and listened to her heart. Then he asked gently, “Later than what, my love?”
“Later than yesterday!” she replied, her voice high and urgent.
He frowned at her worriedly. “Libby, it’s Saturday. Remember yesterday at the courthouse? We signed the papers to adopt Zack and Savannah?”
“You mean…they’re here?” she asked in disbelief.
“They’re in the waiting room with Mom and Julio and everybody else.”
“They’re here, too?” She sat up, but Jared pushed her back again. “And…everybody else?”
“Yes. Darren, Justy, Sara, Charlene? Don’t you remember that we all had dinner at Truffles?”
And that was when the doubts began to creep into her muddled brain. They couldn’t all have come forward in time—or out of a dream.
The doctor withdrew his stethoscope, looped it around the back of his neck and shook his head. “Her pulse is fast, but generally I think she’s all right. Except that’s something’s obviously upset her. What happened, Libby?”
The Comeback Mom Page 20