Marge nodded. “I guess I ought to be glad, huh? But I’m not. The minute Mary’s folks are found, we have to start working with them. I don’t know about you, but a mommy and daddy who leave a baby like Mary in an empty house just to save their own skins aren’t my top candidates for reform. Sometimes people change. Sometimes there are circumstances. But my gut tells me this is not one of those times.”
Farrell leaned forward. “Are you saying you don’t want me to find them? Mary needs a permanent home.”
Marge gave a wan smile. “Mr. Riley, this is the best home that little girl’s probably ever going to have. Even if we get her parents to give up their rights, our Mary’s not going to be tops on anybody’s adoption list. She’s a special-needs child. We don’t know if she’ll ever be normal. And by the time she’s available for adoption, she’ll be older and even harder to place. Having contact with her biological parents will confuse her more. By then she’ll be thinking of Gemma as her mother….” Marge shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. You’re a cop. But I see stuff every day that would make even your hair curl.”
“I’ll tell you what makes my hair curl—a system that keeps children like Mary in limbo.”
“I’m just saying there are worse things than an excellent foster home.”
“Let me tell you what it’s like to grow up in foster homes, Miss Tremaine.” Farrell leaned even farther forward, and his eyes were the gray of thunderclouds. “I have some personal experience with it.”
Gemma had been trying to think of a way to intervene tactfully, but now she couldn’t have spoken if her status as a foster parent had depended on it.
Farrell didn’t look at her. His eyes were on Marge. “Most of the time if you’re a foster kid nobody ever takes the time to show you what a real home looks like. Still, you have dreams. You walk through each strange new door with those dreams intact, until you find out that the new place you’ve landed isn’t a real home, either. You know because you have to keep your suitcase packed all the time, in case the people who gave birth to you decide they want you back, or until the judge and the social workers decide you’re getting too comfortable where you are, maybe too attached to your foster parents.”
He paused a moment, and Gemma held her breath. She had never suspected that Farrell had been a foster child, or that his interest in Mary’s case was anything more than his personal attachment to her. She heard him struggle to sound objective, and she heard him fail.
He shook his head, as if he were remembering something that even now had the power to hurt him. “One day you come home from school and somebody’s waiting to move you to another home. Your third or your tenth, by then you’ve lost count. And this new home isn’t real, either. These people are strangers, too, so you keep your bag packed again. You never enjoy the most basic feeling of security. You learn early that you can’t even leave your toothbrush in the bathroom with everybody else’s, because one time you were moved so suddenly you forgot to pack it. And the people at the new house punished you for not bringing a toothbrush with you.”
Gemma felt tears stinging her eyes.
“I don’t want Mary to grow up that way.” He sat back, as if he were forcing his emotions to settle somewhere deep inside him again. “This may be the best home Mary will ever have, but unless we get her out of the foster care system, it may be the first of many. She deserves better.”
Marge was silent for a few moments, and Gemma didn’t know what to say. Finally Marge spoke. “It’s different now than it was when you were a child, Mr. Riley. Mary can stay here until she’s out of the system. We don’t move children unless we absolutely have to.”
“But the minute she’s old enough to realize what’s going on, Mary will figure out that her life could change in a heartbeat. Even if it never changes, some part of her will always wonder and worry.”
He turned to Gemma, and the expression in his eyes was still fierce. “Gemma deserves this child. If she wants to adopt Mary, she should be able to. That can’t happen if Mary’s birth parents are still somewhere on the scene. And if they want her bad enough and prove they can take care of her, then they should have her back as soon as possible. Before Mary’s torn apart.”
“Foster care is an imperfect solution, but it’s the best we can offer in a lot of cases.”
“It’s not the best solution in this case. Because at least two adults love this child and are willing to fight for her.”
Gemma was still so stunned by Farrell’s revelations and the intensity of his response that she couldn’t find the words she needed. But Marge didn’t give her a chance to speak, anyway.
“Then she’s already luckier than half the kids I see.” Marge stood. “I’ll leave you two alone. Will you let me know when you find out anything, Mr. Riley?”
“I’ll be sure you know.”
Gemma rose and walked Marge to the door. In the hallway Marge turned to her. “You know, he’s his own worst argument.”
Gemma didn’t understand.
Marge smiled sadly. “The foster care system may not be perfect, but it produced one fine man when it chewed up and spit out Officer Farrell Riley.”
Farrell’s eyes were closed, but he heard Gemma come back into the room after saying goodbye to Marge Tremaine. He felt sick inside, as if he had laid himself open for examination and now he couldn’t put himself back together.
He felt the sofa sag beside him. Gemma wasn’t sitting at her own end of it anymore. She was close enough that he could feel the heat from her body and smell the faint fragrance of lilac.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry about my childhood,” he said at last.
“I’m not sorry.”
Her voice was low and musical. He could feel her leg pressed against the length of his. He had tried not to think about her this week. He had nearly worked himself into oblivion just so he wouldn’t have to think about her. Now he knew that underneath that frantic activity he had longed for her with single-minded intensity.
He could feel her leaning closer as she spoke. “How can I be sorry when your past made you the man you are? I wish it had been accomplished some easier way, but I wouldn’t want the results changed even one little bit.”
He opened his eyes and turned his head, which was still resting against the back of the sofa. “The man I am is more flawed than you can imagine.”
“Farrell…”
“I learned a long time ago that I’m better off alone. As a kid, I wanted a family so desperately, and every day that went by and I didn’t get one, I discovered that taking care of myself was the only sure thing. But that knowledge came with a price, Gemma. I’ve been alone so long, I don’t know how to be anything else. I have nothing to give, because I never learned how.”
“Oh, Farrell, none of that is true.” She touched his cheek with her fingertips, then laid her palm against it.
“You just don’t want to believe it. But I’m not the man for you. You need someone who wants the things you do. You need a man who knows how to love you the way you deserve.”
“I had a man like that, at least on the surface. I don’t want another one.”
He wanted to push her away. He knew he should leave and never come back. But the same longing that had compelled him to seek her out tonight kept him in his seat.
She kissed him this time. With measured calculation. The soft, womanly Gemma whom he had come to know changed subtly. Her lips were as ripe and sweet, but there was an insistence in her kiss he couldn’t ignore. Before, she had been hesitant; now she was the aggressor.
He was lost from the moment her lips touched his. His good intentions vanished. In that moment it seemed to him that he had spent his whole life being good in hopes that someday someone would reward him. Now he knew that he wanted no reward other than this night. If this was all he was ever given, it would be enough.
He wound his arms around her and pulled her closer. She made a sound of pure pleasure and pressed her breasts against his chest.
He was aware of everything between them, of his wool sweater and her denim jumper. He was aware that she had no curtains in this room so that the daylight would shine more brightly. He was aware that now, because it was dark outside, a lamp glowed in the corner and anyone who cared enough could see them in its reflection.
He was aware that all the bedrooms in the house were upstairs. And he was aware that she had not yet invited him to share one with her tonight.
“If this is only a kiss,” he said, holding her just far enough away to see her face, “then we have to stop now.”
“Is this my first warning, Officer Riley?”
“It’s your only warning, Gemma.”
“My bedroom’s at the end of the hallway upstairs. If I stop kissing you, are you going to find your way upstairs or out the front door?”
She sounded faintly out of breath, and although she was trying to sound sure of herself, he heard the very real question behind her words.
“I’m going to find my way upstairs while you kiss me.”
“It might take some time that way….”
“We have time, don’t we?”
“We have all night.”
They took a good portion of the night making their way upstairs. He could not imagine turning and moving away from her, not even with the prize that was waiting for him at the end of the journey. He couldn’t seem to stop kissing her, or to stop holding her. He was hungry for the feel of her skin against his palms, for the swell of her breast in his hand, for the warmth of her breath mingled with his.
Her bedroom was large and comfortable, with heavy walnut furniture and filmy curtains billowing gently in the breeze. She took a moment to light three pastel candles sitting on a dressing table before she turned back to him. She rested her palms against his chest and lifted her head to kiss him again.
They took turns removing clothing. She tugged his sweater over his head and unbuttoned the shirt beneath it. He unzipped her jumper. She unbuckled his belt. He smoothed her panties over her hips.
Gemma was as beautiful as he had imagined. She did not have an athlete’s body. She had a narrow waist, and full breasts and hips. It was a body meant to bear and suckle children, and he thought he had never seen anything quite so beautiful.
She turned back the covers as if they had always gone to bed together in this room, and he joined her under them. He felt no awkwardness; she didn’t hesitate. She came into his arms as if she had done so every night for years. Her leg slid between his, her hand trailing over his chest and lower, until he was afraid he would explode with desire.
Her lips tormented his flesh. He explored her with the same relentless precision, with his hands and lips and the caress of his body. When he entered her, she moved against him as if she had been made for that alone.
He had not allowed himself to imagine the pleasure he might find. Only once did he break the silence that had fallen between them.
“If I had known that making love to you would feel like this, I would never have been able to stay away.” He whispered the words against her neck, just before she arched against him in final fulfillment.
Later, as Gemma fell asleep in his arms, Farrell realized with a sinking heart what he had said. Worse, he knew that he had meant every word. He had never dared to imagine what loving and being loved by Gemma Hancock might mean. But now that he knew, he was sure he would never be able to walk away from her.
The lessons of his childhood had been hard won. But by falling in love with Gemma, he had failed his final test. He had not succeeded in locking himself away from dreams and hopes. Tonight he had given this woman the key to his heart.
Chapter 7
“This guy, he comes in with two, three others.” The old man who owned a grocery store on Orchard Avenue gestured excitedly with his hands, as if he could sculpt images in the air. “I watch him, always. He looks at things, this way.” The man narrowed his eyes, then glanced back and forth between Farrell and the counter, as if he was watching to see if his activities were detected. “He’d steal anything not…” His voice trailed off.
“Nailed down,” Farrell supplied. The old man’s English was excellent, but his command of the vernacular was less so, since he had left his native Kuwait only a few years before. Farrell put the photograph back in his folder. Nearly a month after his first conversation with Sheila’s friend Max, Farrell’s persistence had paid off. Max had finally been persuaded to come down to the station to pore over mug books. The photograph he had chosen was the one Farrell had just shown the store proprietor. Now, not only did the police have a name, the proprietor had seen the man in the photograph last night.
“And he came in about this time last night?” Farrell said.
“Little later. Maybe ten. Every night almost. Right before I close.”
In the past two evenings Farrell had shown this photograph at every small grocery store and service station within a two-mile radius of the Laundromat where Max thought he had seen the man. “Does he ever come in with a woman?”
“All the time.” The old man made a face. “Dirty woman. Dirty clothes. I watch her, too.”
“Anything else you remember about her?”
“Dark hair. Tooth missing here.” He opened his mouth to show a full white set of his own and pointed to a bicuspid.
“I’m glad you’re so observant.”
“You going to stay and see if they come back?”
“First I’m going to call the station and tell them what’s going on. Can I use your phone?”
The old man took him into a back storeroom and left him to make the call by himself. Archie was still at the station, and he listened as Farrell told him what he’d learned.
“Don’t do anything until we get you some backup,” Archie instructed. “I’ll call Jeffries, then I’m on my way.”
“Don’t send anybody in uniform.”
“You think I don’t know how to do my job?”
Farrell hung up. He wondered if he was about to encounter Mary’s mother at last. For a moment he tried to imagine what Gemma would think when she found out.
His thoughts these days were almost always of Gemma. Since the night they had become lovers, she had inhabited his thoughts, his dreams, his plans for the future. When he wasn’t with her, he was planning what they would do when he was. They maintained the illusion of separate lives, but the time they spent apart was only preparation for the time they could spend together.
Farrell and Gemma had talked at length about his quest to find Mary’s mother, as well as a million other details of their lives. He thought she understood his obsession with finding a permanent home for Mary, but he didn’t know if she would ever forgive him if this turned out badly. If he had done this work only to have Mary taken from Gemma’s loving care and returned to abusive parents, then he wasn’t sure he would be able to forgive himself, either.
He returned to the front and spoke briefly to the proprietor, instructing him on how to act. Then he went to one of the outside aisles and began to methodically examine canned goods.
The door opened, and a large man in casual clothes strolled in. Archie directed one quick gaze in Farrell’s direction before he continued his stroll to the other side of the store and began to examine cereal boxes. Ten minutes later Jeffries, a thin man with less hair than savvy, entered the store and devoted himself to an intent study of the freezer case.
Farrell knew that impromptu stakeouts like this one rarely bore fruit, but he prayed that this one would prove the exception.
Half an hour passed, and ten o’clock drew nearer. Farrell had progressed to fresh vegetables and was weighing mushrooms in a hanging scale when the door opened again. He didn’t investigate immediately, and when he did, only his head turned, as if in idle curiosity.
Two men and a woman sidled into the wide center aisle. The face of one man was familiar, although without a mug-shot scowl he was slightly better looking. The woman was overweight, with long unkempt hair and lifeless eyes, but eve
n though she was a complete stranger to Farrell, he recognized her immediately. The woman had a daughter who strongly resembled her. And when she spoke to the man in the photograph, and Farrell saw that she was missing a tooth, he knew for certain he was looking at Mary’s mother.
He caught Archie’s eye, then Jeffries’s, too. As a unit, the three men moved toward the door. In moments, and with only a short scuffle, the three shoppers were escorted to Jeffries’s car.
“Sally?” Farrell closed the file folder he’d been examining. Jeffries stood against the door, his arms folded. He had agreed to let Farrell talk to Mary’s mother, but he was going to observe the process. “May I call you Sally?” Farrell asked politely.
“Like I care what you call me.”
He didn’t let her ruffle him. “Then Sally it is.”
“You don’t got nothing on me. You got no reason to arrest me.”
“You’re just here to answer some questions.” Farrell smiled politely.
“I got nothing to say to you. I don’t have to talk to you unless I got a lawyer.”
“You’re right about that. But I thought you might want to find out about your little girl.”
Sally didn’t blink. “What little girl?”
“Sally, let me remind you that your daughter has a birth certificate. And now that we know your name, we can track it down and tie you to her like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Sally, who according to identification in her purse was Sally Margaret Matthews, twenty years old and born and bred in their fair city, shrugged. “So?”
“Aren’t you interested in what happened to Mary?”
Sally gave up pretending. “I read the papers.”
“So you know she’s okay.”
She shrugged. “I figured.”
“Can you handle this without me?” Jeffries asked Farrell.
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 7