THE BABY PLAN

by Susan Gable

  Dusty winced and loosened his grip. Jake seized the advantage, tossing his brother back onto the hard floor, then staggered to his feet.

  Dusty lurched to his knees. He dragged his sleeve across the corner of his mouth, wiping away a trickle of blood. "Come on, is that all you got?" He curled his fingers into his palms repeatedly, egging him on. "Take another shot. Maybe it'll make you feel better."

  Jake cocked back his fist, glaring down into his brother's face. No anger or malice shone in Dusty's blue eyes; he made no move to defend himself.

  Jake let his hand fall to his side. "No. Punching you again isn't going to make me feel better." He stumbled to the couch and collapsed into the cushions. "Nothing will."

  Dusty scrambled to his feet. He lowered himself to the opposite end of the sofa. "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning and tell me the whole story."

  "Maybe." Jake raked his hand through his hair and sighed. "I guess." He launched into the complete story of his relationship with Harley.

  When he'd finished, Dusty stared at him for several minutes, shaking his head. "Did she take anything when she left?"

  "Yeah."

  "What?"

  "My heart." Indeed, he felt as though a huge hole had been torn in his chest. Funny how he'd thought he felt pain when Stacy took off. But this was much worse. Now it seemed as though all the light had gone out of the world.

  "So now what? You have a plan?"

  "Hell, no. It was a damn plan that got me into this in the first place."

  Dusty nodded. "What exactly does she mean to you?"

  "I love her! I didn't set out to love her, but I do."

  "You know what your problem is, Jake?"

  Jake shook his head. "Enlighten me."

  "You give up way too easily. Did it ever occur to you that if Dad had gone after Mom, he might have brought her back?"

  Why he'd have even wanted to was beyond Jake. He'd heard the fighting that night, heard his stepfather beg her to stay. Heard their mother tell him that her new lover didn't like kids, so she was leaving them all with Bud. "We were better off without her, Dusty. You don't remember because you were so little, but she ignored you and the rest of us when she was here."

  "So, are you better off without Harley?"

  "That's what she thinks."

  "But what do you think?" Dusty prodded.

  "No," he whispered.

  "Then go after her."

  Jake sucked in his breath sharply. Simple as that. Go after her.

  Of course he should go after her. And drag her back home if necessary. He wasn't about to let this one get away; this one was for keeps. "Right. I'll go after her." He smacked his fist into his palm. "I even have a damned good idea of where she's gone." He jumped to his feet and raced to the kitchen, to the caller ID box on the counter next to the phone. He began scrolling backward through the latest calls.

  Dusty skidded to a stop right behind him. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm going to call Harley's only friend in the world."

  "Who's that?"

  "Her old parole officer." Jake scribbled the number on a pad beside the phone.

  "Her old parole officer is her only friend in the world?" Dusty's eyes widened.

  Jake picked up the receiver and dialed. "So she thinks. Why?"

  "If a parole officer believed in her enough to befriend her, then I owe your wife another apology. Those guys see and hear it all. She must be innocent of those charges."

  "No kidding. God, you're quick on the uptake." Jake mock-slugged Dusty on the chin while he waited for Charlie to answer.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  «^»

  Jake paced a third circuit around the white living room, silently counting the steps it took to make one complete trip.

  "Boy, you're wearing a hole in my floor. Why don't you just sit down?" Charlie said.

  Jake stopped to stare at the man sprawled in the recliner. Gray hair fringed a mostly bald crown. Charlie's weathered, wrinkled face matched his unpressed shirt and spoke of a harsh life, a man with many miles beneath his belt. Amazing to think he'd once been jealous of the mysterious Charlie. "I can't. If I sit down, I'll jump out of my skin. Where is she? It's been four days." He resumed his pacing. "Four days. I flew in so I could beat her here, but four days? She should've made it in two. Three at most."

  He grabbed the newspaper off the back of the rattan sofa on his journey past and shook it in the air. "January 2. She should've been here New Year's Eve. We should've started the New Year off right, with this whole mess cleared up and put behind us." He tossed the Herald onto the glass-topped coffee table. "God, Charlie, what if she had a wreck? What if some drunk ran her off the road on New Year's Eve and she's lying in a ditch somewhere?" Or a hospital. Or, oh God, a morgue.

  Charlie yanked the handle on the leather recliner and put down the footrest. "I know you're worried. So am I. But Harley's used to looking out for herself."

  "I know, but I like looking out for her. She's my wife, I love her, and besides, she's—"

  The phone jangled. Jake swung his gaze toward it, hoping the caller would bring news of his runaway wife.

  Charlie reached over the end table, shoving the television remote out of the way to grab the receiver. "Hello? Harley! Where the hell are you, kid?"

  Jake sank down onto the sofa, relief flooding his entire body. If she could talk on the phone, she was okay.

  "What? Of course I'll come for you."

  Jake's muscles tensed again, his relief short-lived. Why did she need someone to come for her? Had her truck broken down beyond her repair abilities or what? That scenario was a little hard to believe, but he preferred it to some of the others his imagination had created.

  "Let me talk to him. Yes, this is Charlie Rafferty. No, I'm just a good friend. Yes, I can come and get her. Where exactly are you? That's a few hours from here. Be there as soon as possible. She's okay, right? What happened?" He cocked his head and listened intently for several minutes. "What? Damn. All right. Thank you, Sheriff."

  Jake shot back to his feet. "Sheriff? My God, is she okay? What's going on?"

  The older man slowly hung up the phone. Fire blazed in his eyes as he glared at Jake. "You didn't tell me she was pregnant. Neither did she. What exactly is going on between the two of you?"

  "It's a very long story, Charlie."

  "Well, we'll have plenty of time because we've got a very long ride ahead of us. I want all the details."

  "Is she okay?"

  "No, she's not okay. If she was okay, she wouldn't need us to come and get her."

  The blood rushed from Jake's head and his heart thumped against his ribs. "She's hurt?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "Where is she?"

  "Across the state line in Georgia. In jail."

  Jake's knees buckled and he sank down into the overstuffed cushions of the rattan sofa. "Would you mind repeating that?"

  The old man rose from his chair and pulled his keys from the pocket of his faded jeans. "What's the matter, boy, you got a hearing problem? I said she's in jail. Now, let's go and claim her." He arched a bushy white eyebrow. "Unless you got a problem with that?"

  Jake shook his head. "No. I don't care where she is. I just want her back."

  "You wanna know what the charges are?"

  "No."

  "You wanna know if she actually did it?"

  "No."

  Harley's ex-parole officer rubbed his whiskery chin and nodded. "You'll do, boy, you'll do. Let's go get her."

  * * *

  The story about his desire for a child, the failed adoption attempts, his arrangement with Harley and their marriage at her insistence had nearly gotten him tossed out of Charlie's old Lincoln somewhere in northern Florida. Only Jake's revelation about how he'd fallen in love with Harley and wanted her by his side for the rest of his life had saved his ass from one hell of a long hike.

  "There's Harley's truck." Jake pointed to the silver Toyota
parked beside the small backwater sheriff's office. Two patrol cars flanked the front entrance.

  How was she holding up? How would she react to seeing him? Jake yanked on the door handle as Charlie pulled to a stop in the gravel parking lot.

  "Easy now, boy. Don't go rushing in half cocked. You'll get yourself and Harley into worse trouble that way." Charlie laid a restraining had on Jake's arm. "She needs you to be calm."

  Jake took a deep breath, feeling anything but calm. "You're right." With that, he jumped from the car and slammed the door.

  The cement on the corner of the building had crumbled; the weathered paint was peeling. Charlie was one step behind him as they entered the sheriff's office.

  A large wooden desk loaded with papers and a computer sat in the middle of the room; two other similarly laden desks lined the far right wall. A private office was off to the left, Sheriff embossed in gold lettering on the frosted glass. Jake guessed that the metal door just behind the main desk led to the cells—and to Harley.

  If not for the computers, he'd have sworn they were in Andy Griffith's station.

  A young deputy pushed back from behind the far desk and rose to his feet. "Can I help you folks?" A nasty black-and-blue bruise covered the young man's cheekbone.

  "I'm Jake Manning. You're holding my wife, Harley Emerson."

  The deputy's tanned face lost its color. "I'll get the sheriff for you."

  Short with an ample stomach that spilled over the belt of his khaki uniform, the sheriff ambled from his office a moment later. Jake wanted to grab the man and hurry him up.

  "Sheriff, this here's Mr. Manning. It's his wife we're holding." The deputy gave Jake a strange look, then glanced away.

  "And I'm Charlie Rafferty. I'm the one Harley called." Charlie extended his hand to the sheriff.

  "Mr. Manning? Well, now, that explains why we didn't find a phone listing for Emerson in Erie. Shoulda been looking for Manning. Pleased to meet you both." The sheriff shook their hands. "I'm Sheriff Cyrus McKenna."

  The slow pace of Southern hospitality grated on Jake's nerves. Next, the man would be offering them lemonade on the veranda. "Can I see my wife now?"

  "Well, I'd like to explain things afore you go back and see her." McKenna scowled at the deputy. "Jimmy Ray, you need to go on patrol."

  "Uh, yes, sir … Sheriff." The young man edged past Charlie, but stopped, turning his hat in his hands just as he got to Jake. "Sir, I'm right sorry for what hap—"

  "Now, Jimmy Ray!"

  Jimmy Ray jumped, crammed his brown felt hat on his head, then darted out of the building with one final glance over his shoulder.

  The sheriff sighed as the door clattered shut. "He's a good kid, but he's got a lot to learn."

  Charlie snorted. "I know what you mean."

  "Gentlemen, let's have a seat in my office." McKenna gestured toward the frosted window.

  "I don't suppose I could convince you to let me see my wife first?" Jake asked plaintively. A strange sense of despondency had fallen over him once they'd walked into the jail. He could only imagine how Harley was feeling.

  "Nope."

  "Didn't think so." Jake settled onto the edge of a chair in front of the sheriff's oversize oak desk. "All right, what are the charges, Sheriff?"

  The sheriffs wooden chair creaked as the portly man lowered himself into it, reminding Jake of Ned and the day he'd met Harley. How far they'd come since then.

  "I'm willing to drop the charges, son, provided your wife will sign a paper indicating she won't press any charges of her own, or file any lawsuits."

  "What?" Jake leaned forward. "I'm sure she'd be happy to do that. So, why didn't you just have her sign the damn paper and let her go?"

  Charlie again placed a calming hand against Jake's forearm. "Remember what I told you in the car." He shifted in his chair. "Sheriff, why don't you tell us exactly what happened."

  "I've been out of town for the holidays—else you woulda got a call afore today. I only just got back this morning. That's when I found out what happened."

  Jake's fingers beat a quick cadence on the arm of his chair.

  "You got to remember Jimmy Ray's just an eager young buck. Seems he pulled your lady over for doing sixty-nine in a sixty-five."

  "Sheriff, most of the time that wouldn't even be good for a ticket, let alone a trip to the slammer."

  McKenna nodded. "I know, but this was New Year's Eve. Gotta be watchful, you know."

  "The fact that she had northern plates didn't help, either, did it?" Jake murmured.

  Charlie glared at him.

  The sheriff ignored his comment. "Jimmy Ray, being the overeager pup he is, checked her out using that damn new-fangled computer he carts around in his car, and he found out she had a record."

  Jake stopped tapping his fingers. The court's mistake seemed destined to plague her forever. He didn't give a damn about it, but this was going to be yet another setback.

  "He ordered her out of the vehicle and conducted a search—with her permission, of course. Now, while your wife weren't real pleased with that, it weren't until Jimmy Ray decided to frisk her that things got ugly."

  Jake's blood ran cold, then fired with indignation as he imagined the young deputy's hands on Harley's body. Her pregnant body. "What happened?"

  "Your wife took affront to something Jimmy Ray said or did, and she hauled off and popped him one. He surely weren't expecting a pregnant woman to do something like that. Anyway, he was damn mad at that point, and he arrested her for assaulting an officer of the law."

  "Harley isn't prone to fits of violence, Sheriff," Charlie insisted. "I've known her for years, and I worked with a lot of cons before and after her. She's the only one I still have contact with, the only one I consider a friend. That ought to tell you something. In the scenario you've described, I can think of only one thing that might have set her off. We both know there can be a fine line between frisking and groping. Does your deputy generally have a problem when he's got his hands on detained females?"

  McKenna's bulbous nose and cheeks flushed.

  Jake's hands curled into fists and he jumped from his chair. The SOB had molested her on the pretense of doing his job. "I want to see my wife now!"

  "Listen, son, I do not have to drop these charges. They're valid. Jimmy Ray's wearing the bruise to prove 'em. So, if you want to get hot under the collar with me, you just go ahead."

  Shaking his head, Charlie grabbed Jake's arm. "Sit down."

  Teeth gritted tightly, Jake sank back into the chair, glaring at McKenna. He struggled to regain enough control to talk without getting himself—and Harley—into a deeper hole. "All right," he muttered. "So your deputy got too familiar with my wife's body, she clocked him, he arrested her. I still don't understand why you didn't just ask Harley to sign whatever you wanted this morning and send her on her way. Why did we have to come up here and get her?"

  McKenna leaned back and folded his hands over his belly. "Well, now, that's where things get a little sticky. The second Jimmy Ray fastened the handcuffs on her, your wife just kinda shut down on us. Took her right to remain silent a little too seriously. She didn't say nary a word until this morning, and I think that's only 'cause I told her we were fixin' to send her over to the hospital in the next county for a psychological test if she didn't perk up a bit.

  "Truly, son, and I'm sorry to say it, but your wife ain't in no condition to drive herself any distance. Now, I did have Doc Freidly come round and examine her, just to be sure everything was fine. He said physically she's all right, it's just emotional."

  Jake eased forward in his chair again, his heart in a whirlwind. "She's pregnant, we're having problems, your deputy assaulted her and she's locked up in jail! I'd say that entitles her to being emotional, wouldn't you?"

  "You got to admit, shutting down ain't a usual response. She called her friend here, and then she wouldn't say another word. All she's done since Jimmy Ray brought her in is hum."

  "Hum?" Charli
e asked. "I don't think I've ever heard Harley hum. What's she hum?"

  "'I'll Be Home for Christmas.' Over and over again. Real soft-like, but that's the only thing she did. Didn't even cry."

  Jake's heart seized. I'll Be Home for Christmas. The very song he'd hummed repeatedly during their holiday. Hang on, sweetheart, you'll be home before you know it. He stood. "Please, Sheriff, let me see her now. We'll sign whatever papers you want, just let me take her out of here."

  Charlie nodded. "I'll go over the papers, Jake. You tend to Harley."

  The sheriff shoved his chair back. "Come on." He unlocked the outer solid-metal door, then handed Jake a key. "This will open the cell. The main door's still gonna be locked. Bang when you're ready to come out."

  Jake accepted the key and entered the holding area. A faint locker-room scent permeated the air. The steel door clanged shut behind him. Four cells lined the wall. Harley lay on a cot in the first one. The rest were empty.

  She hadn't stirred at the sound of the door. Jake moved quickly, fumbling with the key. "Harley?"

  Still no response. She lay on her side with her knees drawn up as far as she could manage. Her hair hung loose, some of it cascading over her face as though sheltering her from the bleak reality of the cell. She wore her own clothes, including the green plaid flannel shirt she'd worn the night they'd made love near the tree. Only socks covered her feet, her sneakers neatly placed on the floor beside the cot. The shoelaces were missing.

  Missing shoelaces. Loose hair.

  They'd been afraid she'd harm herself.

  Obviously they didn't know Harley Emerson very well. She was a survivor.

  But she looked so forlorn, so alone. He wanted her never to feel alone again.

  Jake jiggled the key in the lock. Still no results. "Harley? Wake up, sweetheart, it's time to get the hell out of here and go home."

  Somewhere in the foggy realm between sleep and waking, Harley heard Jake's voice calling her name. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself and tried to drift back into the dream. Dreams were the only thing she had left of him…

  "Harley! Wake up!"

  The scrape of a key in the lock reached her ears, followed by a string of muttered curses the likes of which she'd never heard from his mouth.