For Noah, time stood still.
Once, a guy he knew down in Ohio told him about a phenomenon he described as feeling thunderstruck. He said one minute he’d been in a crowded airport and the next there was only him and some woman looking back at him from across the terminal. Voices muted and sound ceased and everyone else disappeared. It had happened to Noah yesterday near the Johnny Appleseed sculpture. He felt the same way all over again.
Lacey wore blue jeans, sandals and a gray knit top that fit her perfectly. Her hair was mussed, her eyes as blue as the morning, her nose pert. He wanted to walk across the room and take her hand, just her hand, and maybe sit with her and talk.
“She’s suspicious of my car parked around the corner. I’m pretty sure she was trying to get a make on me while I was getting one on her.”
Oh. The P.I. was still talking. Noah came out of his trance with a start.
“She’s acting nervous. People who act nervous usually have a reason,” Sam said. “If I get any closer she’s liable to call the cops. She’s camera-shy and she’s flighty.”
“Is everything okay?” Lacey whispered from the doorway.
Reed motioned her in, quietly saying, “Our private investigator has a lead on Julia.”
“Who’s there?” Sam asked.
Lacey’s eyes widened. She looked at the phone on the desk and said, “I’m the nanny.”
“Maybe you want to take me off speakerphone.”
Lacey took the hint and started to leave the room.
“Lacey, wait,” Noah said. “She’s a friend of the family, Sam.”
“And completely trustworthy,” Reed added.
“Completely.” This, from Marsh.
“You aren’t going to believe this,” Sam said. “A moving van just pulled into the driveway.”
“What does that mean?” Marsh blurted.
“It would appear that she isn’t planning to stick around.”
Suddenly all eyes were on Marsh. He’d paled beneath his tan. His jaw was set, his lips drawn into a thin line. He looked more haggard suddenly, and a little desperate.
Sam persisted. “I can continue my surveillance then follow the moving van. If she drives her own car and takes a different route I’ll have a decision to make. Or—” Sam thought for a moment. “Noah, is your plane flight-ready?”
It was Noah’s turn to pale. He had a clear-cut plan in mind for today. And it didn’t include flying to Charleston. Half a dozen expletives ran through his head. He glanced at Reed, at Marsh, at Joey and finally at Lacey. He only hoped she would understand.
“Mine’s still missing a propeller, Sam, but I’ll borrow a plane.” He looked at his watch. “I can have Marsh in Charleston in three-and-a-half hours. Four hours, tops.”
Marsh was already moving toward the door. He stopped suddenly and looked at the baby, obviously torn.
Lacey took charge with quiet authority. Laying a gentling hand on his arm, she said, “Aren’t you glad you hired a nanny? I’ll take good care of Joey. Go, both of you, before those movers get Julia’s things boxed up and she disappears.”
Noah opened his phone and touched the screen. Tom Bender answered on the fourth ring. Still on speakerphone, Sam rattled off a house number and street address, and told them how to avoid the construction on High way 79. Placing the baby to his shoulder as if he’d been doing it all his life, Reed wrote the information on a notepad in his meticulous handwriting.
Lacey stepped out of Marsh’s way. After Sam told them which airport was closest to his stakeout and the make and model of a rental car that would be waiting, Marsh turned around again and said, “Just don’t lose her, Sam.”
The gravity of the situation stopped everyone at once. Four hours from now they might very well have the answers they were seeking. In four hours they should know if this Julia was the right Julia, and if she’d left Joey on their doorstep three days ago. They might even know why.
As quickly as it had ceased, activity resumed. Sam promised to be in contact, then promptly broke the connection. Marsh went upstairs to get his wallet and change his shoes. Reed offered Joey the rest of his formula. And Noah followed Lacey into the living room. He didn’t have much more than a minute and he planned to make the most of it.
“This,” he said firmly, “has nothing to do with our new beginning.”
She looked up at him and whispered, “Did you see the expression on Marsh’s face?”
He nodded. Marsh was hurting. The man was pining for this Julia. Until Joey had arrived, Noah hadn’t even known Marsh had spent a week on the coast with anyone special.
He glanced into Reed’s office again. His fair-haired brother was quietly watching Joey drink his bottle. Had it not been for Joey’s arrival, Noah might never have known that he wasn’t the only Sullivan with a little bit of rascal running through his veins. That baby was teaching them all so much. And Joey hadn’t said a word.
“You take care of Marsh,” Lacey told Noah softly. “And I’ll take care of Reed and Joey.”
Noah’s chest expanded, but before he could do more than nod at Lacey, Marsh’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. He wished he had time to tell her what he’d been rehearsing since he’d left her in the alley last night. There was just no time for that now.
“It’s at least a three-and-a-half-hour flight there and another three-and-a-half hours back,” he said. “Allowing for driving time and surveillance time, it’ll be at least six o’clock before I return. I’m afraid the next step of our new beginning will have to wait to begin until then.”
“The next step?” she asked.
He nodded. The first step had begun before he’d realized what was happening. It had been a culmination of everything that had happened from the moment he’d heard that Lacey was back in Orchard Hill to the moment he’d held her face between his hands and kissed her gently last night. The only part of step one he’d planned had been that kiss. Steps two and three would be different. After all, it wasn’t every day that a man got a second chance with a woman like Lacey Bell. “It’s a three-step plan. I would tell you but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.” He smiled and watched the effect it had on her.
Her eyebrows went up in perfect arches and that attitude of hers showed in the tilt of her head. “The sooner you get going, the sooner you can put your money where your mouth is, flyboy.”
There was only one place he wanted to put his mouth. Or maybe two. Or three. Hell, he could think of a dozen, all of them soft and lush and—he didn’t even try to hide his groan of frustration.
Marsh joined them in the living room and Reed came out of his office with Joey, an empty bottle and the notepad containing the information Sam had given them in his hand. The next few minutes were filled with instructions and reminders and calculations and plans. And then Marsh and Noah were pulling out of the driveway and Reed, Joey and Lacey watched from the back porch.
Lacey smiled and waved.
As Noah sped away, he wondered if she had any idea what that smile had done to him. He faced the fact that she wasn’t simply in his blood.
He’d known her well for ten years. He’d liked her from the beginning. He’d wanted her, and he supposed in his own way he’d loved her for most of that time.
This morning something had changed. He didn’t know how it had happened, or why, but he’d seen her standing in the doorway of Reed’s office, and he fell headfirst, headlong, head over heels for her. Now he had a burning need to move to step two in his plan.
He rolled down his window. With the warm air rushing over him, he glanced at Marsh. His older brother was staring straight ahead. His arms were folded, his jaw set. Noah wasn’t the only one with a burning need.
He checked for traffic and stepped on the gas. His truck shot forward. In a matter of minutes they arrived at the county airfield. Digger was already fueling Tom’s twin-engine plane. It was time to get this show on the road or, in this case, in the air.
In the kitchen, Lacey poured two cups of cof
fee and carried them to the table. Since Reed didn’t appear to be ready to relinquish Joey, she moved the child-care book aside and gestured for him to have a seat at a right angle to her. With her pen poised over a yellow legal pad, she said, “I thought we could go over my duties.”
Silence.
She looked up from her blank sheet of paper and saw that Reed was staring down at Joey, seemingly lost in thought. This wasn’t easy for him. She put her pen down and reached for her camera. Reed seemed oblivious as she removed the lens cap and adjusted the focus. The flash got his attention. As he looked up, she said, “What you’re doing for Joey—what all three of you are doing—is a kind of good we don’t see very often, Reed. I’m not sure there are three brothers alive who would have handled the situation half as well. That little boy has wrapped his hand around your hearts.”
She caught him looking at his wristwatch. He was probably wondering if Noah and Marsh had taken off yet, as she was. She hoped they discovered Joey’s mother’s identity soon. She remembered an old Bible story about a baby claimed by two mothers. The king’s solution was to cut the baby in half. She forgot how it ended, but shuddered at the thought.
She only hoped this situation didn’t slice Marsh and Reed apart. “What time is your meeting?” she asked.
At his look of surprise, she motioned to his clothes. The man was dressed to the nines in tan slacks, shoes by a maker she couldn’t pronounce, a sky-blue shirt and a striped tie. “Not even you wear a tie around home,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.
There was something about the look he gave her that reminded her of Noah. It endeared him to her and reminded her that there was more to him than confidence and a keen mind.
“My lawyer and I and two other orchard owners are going to crash a little party this morning,” he said. “There’s a shady developer from downstate who’s proposing the construction of a housing development on Orchard Highway. He’s packaging it nice and pretty, but in reality it would be a glorified trailer park. There’s a county ordinance a mile high and just as wide against such ventures. But you know how visions of tax revenue can dance in the heads of township and county officials. We’re going to make sure no loopholes are created. Luckily, my new brother-in-law got wind of it, and told me before it was too late.”
“Your brother-in-law’s name is Riley Merrick, isn’t it? I heard Madeline got married,” Lacey said.
Madeline Sullivan had been a grade behind Lacey in school. Blonde and blue-eyed like Reed, she’d had more than her share of sadness in her life. Recently, she and her new husband had moved to Traverse City and were happily expecting their first child.
“What did Madeline say when you told her about Joey?” she asked.
Reed Sullivan had been the valedictorian of his graduating class and the president of the debate team at Purdue. If he put his mind to it, the man could have won an argument with the devil, yet this innocent question seemed to have struck him dumb. Obviously, he and his brothers hadn’t thought to call their sister.
Lacey held her hands out for Joey. While she settled the baby into the crook of her arm, Reed glanced at his watch again.
“Madeline is going to have our hides,” he said. “There’s no sense calling her now until after we hear from Marsh and Noah.”
With that decision made, he began to tell her about Joey’s quirks, his likes and his dislikes, how often he ate and how much, and how he liked the new mobile on his crib and didn’t like to sleep on his stomach. She jotted everything down with her free hand.
“According to this book written by a group of renowned pediatricians, babies need something called tummy time. I’ll work on that. What about baths?” she asked.
Reed did a double take all over again. Evidently, giving the baby a bath hadn’t occurred to them yet. She wrote BATH at the top of the page. She and Reed discussed other responsibilities, such as washing baby bottles and folding Joey’s laundry. When they were both satisfied that they’d covered everything, she pushed the wrapped package toward him.
“This is for all of you,” she said. “Go ahead and open it. While you do that, I think this little guy needs his diaper changed.”
“Lacey?” he said when she’d reached the doorway. “A word of caution. The kid’s got an aim on him you wouldn’t believe.”
Reed tore into the wrapping paper. Rather than ask him to explain, she carried Joey into the room they’d converted into a nursery.
Wow, she thought, turning in a circle. The boys had been busy. A baby crib was in the corner where Marsh’s leather sofa had been, a matching changing table and dresser opposite it where a television had been perpetually tuned to the weather. Bright-colored artwork of zoo animals hung on the walls.
She placed Joey on the new changing table and delighted in the way he stared up at her and grinned. Although something drastic must have happened to cause his mother to leave him the way she did, he seemed healthy and content and incredibly adaptable.
She unsnapped his little sleeper and removed his wet diaper. Keeping one hand on his tummy, she reached onto a low shelf for a dry disposable diaper. A fountain sprang forth, dousing everything in its path. She scrambled for the first thing she could find and threw a receiving blanket over the stream.
So that was what Reed had been talking about.
A movement at the doorway caught her eye. Reed was there. He held the photograph of Joey she’d developed, framed and wrapped in tissue paper late last night. There was a smile on his face.
The shortest-running temp job she’d ever held in Chicago had lasted three days. During those three days she’d adjusted lighting and backdrops for a photographer taking pictures of men flexing and posing for a fundraising calendar. Reed Sullivan would have been a shoo-in for Mr. July, and yet there was no pounding of her heart or fluttering of butterfly wings. There was only sweet affection.
“It looks like you have everything covered,” he said.
She shot him a look she often shot Noah.
Unscathed, he said, “I’m leaving now.” He entered the room and strode directly to Joey. “You be good for your Aunt Lacey, all right, buddy?”
Tears sprang to Lacey’s eyes. Aunt Lacey. How could something so simple fill her with so much wonder?
“I wrote my cell number on that legal pad on the kitchen table,” Reed said, apparently oblivious to the fact that he’d just paid her the highest compliment in the world. “Call me if you have any questions or need anything. Anything at all.”
“What time do you expect we’ll hear from Marsh and Noah?” she asked, still a little awestruck.
“They’ll call as soon as they know something,” he said.
They both dreaded the wait.
Reed left for his meeting. And Lacey gave Joey his first bath since arriving on the Sullivans’ porch. It took an unbelievably long time. Wet babies were slippery and she had only watched April bathe her twins. Joey wasn’t the only one soaking wet when it was over. He wasn’t the only one enjoying himself, either.
She powdered him and dressed him in a little pair of pants with paw prints on the seat and a T-shirt with a puppy’s face on the chest. She read him a story from one of the early-childhood-development library books she’d brought along. When the baby fell asleep for his morning nap, she laid him in his crib, turned the wireless monitor on and left the nursery.
She tackled the sink full of baby bottles, lids and nipples and folded the baby clothes somebody had piled on the table. The phone rang every half hour. It was Reed every time.
Marsh and Noah hadn’t called. She could only imagine what was happening on that tree-lined street in Charleston.
The twin-engine Gulfstream Commander shimmied slightly on a patch of rough air. Marsh put his hand over the pit of his stomach and Noah put both hands on the controls. He pushed the throttle forward and pulled back on the yoke, leveling the airplane out. Shaking his hand slightly once the ride was smooth again, Marsh carefully laid it back on the ice pack in his lap.
Noa
h kept his expression carefully schooled as he flipped switches and checked dials on the dash. He responded to Air Traffic Control and climbed to three thousand feet as soon as he was cleared by the tower. Now that they were safely above the thunderstorm rolling across Fort Wayne, he pointed the nose due north. From there it was smooth sailing.
They were going home.
The cockpit was drafty and noisy. That wasn’t the reason he and Marsh had barely spoken since takeoff. Everything that had happened during the hour they’d been on the ground in Charleston spoke for itself.
The moving van had been in the driveway when they’d pulled up in the rented car. Marsh had parked a few spaces behind Sam’s nondescript sedan just as the movers closed the doors. Julia hadn’t shown her face, but the movers were getting ready to drive away. While there was still time, it was decided that Noah and Marsh would knock on the bungalow’s front door.
The air smelled like honeysuckle and was so heavy with humidity that sweat trickled down both their faces as they approached the house. Marsh rang the doorbell. He was going to do the talking. Noah was along for moral support.
The door opened, but instead of the brown-haired woman they were expecting, a man as big as an ox told them to get the hell off his stoop. His head was shaved, his chest broad, his arms meaty and heavily tattooed.
Marsh, being an all-around decent guy, said, “Hello. I’m an old friend of Julia’s. Is she here by any chance?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Tell her it’s Marsh Sullivan.”
The other man started to turn around, as if he intended to speak to someone over his shoulder. Marsh made the mistake of taking his eyes off him. Noah saw the swing coming and ducked, but Marsh wasn’t so lucky. The big man’s fist made a resounding whack when it connected with Marsh’s jaw.
“Okay, okay,” Noah had said, holding up both hands. “We obviously have the wrong house. We’re leaving now.”
Oxman glanced menacingly at Noah. Marsh used the momentary distraction to slam his fist into the other man’s gut. Noah hadn’t been trying to create a diversion at all. Not that he blamed Marsh for retaliating. That sucker punch his poor brother had taken had been low-down and dirty. Noah only hoped the grinding he’d heard when Marsh had given the jerk a taste of his own medicine wasn’t the bones in Marsh’s hand crumbling.
A Bride Before Dawn Page 9