Accidental Parents

by Jane Toombs

  “You mean Alice didn’t kill him?” Jade asked in surprise.

  Steve held up a hand. “Wait. Martin was found dead in the kitchen, not the hall. He’d been garroted but not before he put up a struggle.”

  Jade glanced at Nathan, who raised his eyebrows at her. If not Alice, who?

  “A neighbor down the block, who’d been walking his dog, claims he saw two people run out of Martin’s house and get into a large dark-colored van. The neighbor insisted he’d seen Tim and Alice often enough to know it wasn’t them.”

  “The Vietnamese couple!” Jade exclaimed. “The ones who tried to take Tim away from me.”

  Steve nodded. “The woman was released from the Reno hospital, but the man’s still recuperating there. He wasn’t cooperative with the cops, but through an interpreter, they questioned his wife and she talked. The man turns out to be Tim’s uncle, his dead mother’s brother. According to the woman’s story, she was deliberately left behind in Vietnam when her husband, Tim’s uncle, came to this country—the reason being that Tim’s mother was dying and she was supposed to bring Tim with her to the U.S. when the death actually occurred.”

  “Then Tim must have seen her there and that’s why he thought he might know her,” Jade said.

  “The woman still resents being left behind, which may be why she spilled the beans to the cops. In any case, Martin showed up and whisked Tim off before she could do her part. When she arrived alone, her husband was furious and beat her. From then on he nourished a deadly hatred for Monty Martin, who’d made him violate his promise to his dying sister.”

  Steve took a swallow of his drink, set it down and continued, “It took him a couple of years to locate Martin. Whether he’d had the house staked out or not, I didn’t learn, but apparently he arrived that night after Tim and Alice ran off. Martin had revived enough to get to the kitchen. When Tim’s uncle burst in demanding he turn over Tim, Martin went for him. According to the wife, Martin was not the first man her husband had killed.”

  “Tim’s uncle will stand trial for murder, I take it,” Nathan said.

  “At least. The FBI is interested in him, too, so there may be other charges.”

  “Then there’s no chance he’ll be able to claim Tim?”

  “None. As far as we could determine, the boy has no other living relatives.” He glanced from Nathan to Jade. “The ball’s in your court as far as Tim is concerned.”

  “Alice is no relation at all?” Jade asked, wanting to be sure.

  “No. Once they knew her last name, they located a sister who came to take Alice home with her. She told them Alice had been living with Martin less than a year. Since there was no reason to press charges against Alice except for the van stolen in California, the police allowed her to go back there with her sister.”

  “Jade and I need to confer,” Nathan said, rising. He held out a hand to help her up, and seeing no reason not to, she took it, allowing him to lead her outside and into the gazebo.

  A giant cottonwood spread thick branches over the gazebo roof, keeping the sun away, and as usual, the wind blew, so it wasn’t unbearably hot there. Jade tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and said, “Well?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” he said. “I’ve looked at it from all angles and made my decision. Since you’re friendly with local judges, you might possibly be allowed to adopt Tim as a single parent. That’s not fair to him, though—he needs a father. I’m not cut out to be a part-time parent. I love the kid and I want to help raise him—full—time.”

  Jade wasn’t any too sure where this was leading. Did he mean to insist they live together? No way. She was opening her mouth to say so when he spoke again.

  “There’s no other alternative. We’ll have to get married.”

  Jade stared at him in utter disbelief, finally managing to blurt out, “But you don’t want to get married.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? We’re talking about Tim here and what’s best for him.”

  “No!” She all but shouted the word. “I refuse to marry you.”

  His initially astonished expression gave way to anger. “Why? Am I that repulsive?”

  “Marriage is out. If you insist on being Tim’s father, fine. I agree he needs one and he prefers you. I’m almost sure I can adopt him the way you said—as a single parent. I want you to consider this—many divorced parents raise children, sharing their upbringing. Why can’t we share Tim?”

  Nathan’s voice rose. “Are you serious? Of all the crackpot suggestions, yours wins the prize. I want Tim to be my son, to live with us both—and all you suggest is divorce.”

  “We can’t get divorced—we’re not married.”

  “Only because you won’t listen to reason.”

  They glared at each other.

  Impasse, Jade thought. She didn’t intend to give so much as a millimeter, either. How could she be expected to agree to marry a man who didn’t want her for a wife but just as a mother for the boy they both loved? She could and would be that mother without his great sacrifice, thank you.

  Deadlock, thanks to her mind-set against compromise, Nathan told himself. Why was she so upset about getting married? Hell, she was the one who’d mentioned permanence.

  Both heard the sliding door to the family room open and close. They turned to look at Steve, coming toward the gazebo.

  “There’s a call for you, Nathan,” Steve said. “A Dr. Severin.”

  Although he wasn’t taking calls this Sunday, Nathan had left Zed’s number with his answering service. Gert wouldn’t be bothering him unless she had an emergency, and he did owe her. Concentrating on what Gert might want, he strode from the gazebo without a word and entered the house.

  “You both got pretty loud,” Steve told Jade. “We couldn’t help overhearing some of your argument.”

  “He’s totally unreasonable,” she muttered. “How could he possibly imagine I’d want a martyr for a husband?”

  Steve shrugged. “I did what I could for you guys concerning Tim. The rest is up to you.”

  Belatedly recalling Steve’s reluctance to deal with emotion, Jade curbed her impulse to tell him everything she was feeling.

  “Thanks,” she managed to say. “I appreciate the trouble you went to.”

  By the time she and Steve reentered the family room, there was no sign of Nathan.

  “He said it was an emergency,” Zed told her.

  Jade knew that whatever had called him away, he wouldn’t be back. Aware everyone in the room had heard at least part of her disagreement with Nathan, she expected to be fending off questions she didn’t want to answer. Instead, Zed urged Talal to tell Steve the problems he was having with the contractor building his house. Talal complied with what seemed suspicious eagerness.

  I embarrassed them, Jade told herself, then shook her head. Her family wasn’t easily embarrassed. Were they upset with her? No, any and all of them would be quick to tell her if they were. What, then? Why were they deliberately steering clear of what they’d overheard?

  Heaven only knows, every last one of them, even Steve, was the curious type. Yet nobody asked her one single question.

  In counterpart to the men dissing the contractor, Karen and Linnea got into a totally boring discussion of the best way to cook lamb, with garlic or rosemary or with both, which was unlike either of them. They’d never been the sort to exchange recipes.

  When Jade heard the first faint whimpers coming down the hall from Erin’s room, she sprang to her feet, saying, “I’ll get her.” She fled with relief from what was beginning to seem like a bunch of strangers.

  She changed Erin’s diapers, then stopped her fussing by playing finger games with her, all the while controlling the hurt inside, not allowing it to take control.

  “Tee,” Erin crowed, and she hugged the little girl to her until Erin squeaked in protest.

  Taking a deep breath, she left the room, bringing Erin to her mother. Her happily married mother. But when she go
t there, Erin held out her arms to Zed, instead, saying “Daddy.” Her happily married father reached for her, smiling.

  Yasmin had come in while Jade was busy in Erin’s room and now sat on the couch between Talal and Linnea, bent over whispering to the baby inside her mother. “I’ll love you right away,” she was saying. “As soon as you come out, even if I can’t play with you till you get bigger.”

  Here was a loving, married father and mother with the baby-to-come also blessed with a loving little sister.

  Jade closed her eyes momentarily, aware no one was doing any of this on purpose. Still, she could hardly bear it.

  Was her attitude fair to Tim? she wondered. She loved Nathan, misguided though he was, loved him past reason. Did he love her? Wouldn’t he have told her so if he did? She sighed. How could either of them be happy in a marriage he didn’t, in his heart of hearts, want?

  Feeling miserable, she decided she’d had enough of her all-too-happy family and wanted to go home. “It’s time I left,” she said abruptly. “I’ll go collect Tim and—”

  “Oh, you can’t do that,” Karen cut in. “Yasmin just told us he and Danny are off on the ponies with Moe. You wouldn’t want to cut his ride short.”

  Moe, Jade knew, was one of her brother’s hired hands. And no, she didn’t want to spoil Tim’s fun.

  “Besides,” Linnea put in, “we planned a special supper for you and Tim.”

  It wouldn’t be fair to disappoint her sisters-in-law, either, after they’d gone to the trouble of fixing the meal with Tim and her in mind.

  “I think I’ll take a walk around the place, then,” she said, feeling a desperate need to be by herself.

  Yasmin sprang up. “We got baby pigs,” she said. “Come and see.” She held out her hand.

  Apparently she was doomed not to be left alone, Jade thought as she allowed Yasmin to lead her past the barn toward the pigpen. She tried not to hear the child’s chatter about what the coming baby’s name might be, but some of it got through to her.

  “...Ellen for a girl, Shas for a boy. Mama says it’s a good thing she has time to get used to that Shas name.”

  “Shas was my father’s name,” Jade said slowly, shaken from her preoccupation with her own misery. “He was Zed and Talal’s father, too. And Ellen was our mother.”

  Yasmin blinked, obviously trying to puzzle out how three grown people could all have the same father and mother.

  “You’re luckier than we were,” Jade went on. “You know your father and mother. Zed and Talal and I were raised by our grandparents because our father, Shas, and our mother, Ellen, died.”

  “I’m lucky,” Yasmin repeated with her sweet, charming smile.

  Jade knelt and hugged her. Yasmin was luckier than she knew to have been adopted by Talal and Linnea and loved as much as if she’d been born to them.

  “And hey, they’re pretty lucky to be raising a smart little daughter like you,” she told the girl.

  “Tim said you were gonna be his mama,” Yasmin said. “And Doc was gonna be his daddy.”

  Jade nodded, glad to see the pigpen in front of them so she could change the subject to piglets. She’d had it up to here with happy families and mamas and daddies.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Though for Jade, the time seemed endless, eventually the supper hour rolled around. To keep busy and avoid conversation, she fed Erin beforehand, then helped Yasmin entertain her while Karen and Linnea took care of the final meal preparations.

  Danny and Tim had come in earlier to join the men watching a game on TV.

  Jade was just handing Yasmin the little silver bell that was always rung to summon everyone to a meal when a knock sounded at the back door.

  “Get that, would you, Jade?” Karen asked.

  Jade crossed to the door, opened it and stood there gaping at Nathan. What was he doing back here?

  “I was invited, honest,” he told her.

  “But you had an emergency.”

  “Most don’t take forever. Karen and Zed insisted I return when I could, so I did.”

  Belatedly realizing she was blocking his entry, Jade moved aside.

  The silver bell tinkled.

  “Arriving just in time to eat, apparently,” Nathan added, easing past her.

  In the dining room, Jade noticed what she hadn’t paid attention to before—a place had already been set for Nathan. She’d had no idea he might come back.

  “Look at all the rice!” Tim said excitedly after taking his place.

  Linnea hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said the meal had been planned for Jade and Tim. There were three kinds of rice dishes—all favorites of Tim’s. And Karen had made her special chicken pot pie, which she knew Jade loved.

  Unfortunately Jade’s appetite had gone on vacation. How could she be expected to enjoy the meal with Nathan sitting directly across from her? She couldn’t even look up without encountering that blue gaze of his. A vagrant thought breezed past—Italian blue? Damn. She didn’t care anymore, so why keep trying to place the exact color?

  “How good it is to have the family together,” Talal said. “I hope to persuade Grandmother Noorah to come from Kholi for a visit when our house is finished. I know she’s eager to meet Jaida, the granddaughter she’s never seen. And become reacquainted with Zeid, as well.”

  “And meet me, too,” Danny said. “’N Erin.”

  Talal nodded. “Perhaps others, as well.” He exchanged a glance with Zed.

  Jade looked from one to the other of them suspiciously. Were they up to something? “Who else?” she demanded.

  “Must be me,” Steve said, grinning. “I’m a bona fide in-law, after all.”

  So he was.

  Linnea laid a hand on her swollen abdomen. “And there’s this one, too.”

  Jade managed a smile for her.

  The meal dragged on, Jade pushing food around her plate as she tried to pretend she was eating. In her entire life, never before had any man made her lose her appetite. At any moment she expected one of her relatives to notice and want to know what was wrong.

  She didn’t contribute to the general conversation, either, and noticed Nathan was quiet, too. Perhaps because Tim, sitting next to him, was regaling him with a blow-by-blow account of the pony ride.

  The death of Tim’s grandfather hadn’t seemed to upset the boy. Then again, why should he be sorry the man who’d been so brutal to him had died? As for her, she could feel no emotion other than relief that Tim was safe now.

  And would continue to be. With her. To be fair to the boy, she’d work out some kind of arrangement where Tim could spend time with Nathan.

  “Who, me?” Steve’s question made her realize she’d lost track of what was being said or who was saying it.

  “No way,” he continued. “One time at bat was enough for me. I’ve given up the marriage game for good. It’s not the only game in town, after all.”

  “I hope some day to see you eat those words, dear brother,” Karen told him.

  Steve shook his head, smiling.

  Jade couldn’t help but glance at Nathan and found he was gazing directly at her. Or perhaps “glaring” was a more accurate choice of word. She looked away.

  “Never say never,” Talal put in. “Look at me.”

  “And me,” Linnea added. “Here you see two marriage-shy doubters who had to eat their words.”

  Talal touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “Very tasty they were.”

  Jade frowned. Was all this talk of marriage deliberate, or was she being paranoid?

  “When I grow up I’m gonna marry Yasmin,” Tim said.

  His announcement made everyone smile except Danny and Yasmin.

  “You got to ask me first,” Yasmin said, “‘N’ I might say no.”

  Danny looked from Yasmin to Tim and back. “I’m gonna marry Yasmin,” he stated in no uncertain terms.

  Yasmin raised her chin. “Maybe I don’t wanna get married,” she announced. “Maybe you got to
go ask another girl.”

  Erin, her high chair pulled up to the table, banged her cup on the tray, obviously tired of being ignored. “Me!” she cried. “Me!”

  Kids and all laughed.

  The dessert turned out to be peach ice cream with hot-fudge topping. Since she knew it was for her and wouldn’t offend Karen for the world, Jade forced herself to choke down most of her serving somehow.

  The kids excused themselves, making Erin set up a clamor to get down.

  “Children in the family room for a brand-new Disney video, adults in the living room,” Karen announced. “We’ll leave the cleanup till later. Zed, please bring the playpen from the patio and put it in the family room where Erin can watch the video with the others.”

  Jade didn’t care to join her family in the living room, so she said to Karen, “I can start the cleanup now while you guys are—”

  “Absolutely not.” Although Karen used her teacher’s voice seldom, when she did no one disobeyed her. Jade was no exception, so she sighed and wandered into the living room.

  Talal waved her toward a seat on the two-person settee where Nathan was already. When she tried to veer aside, Talal took her arm and saying, “Indulge me, please, sister of mine,” led her to the settee.

  She was no stranger to scenes, but she didn’t feel like creating one this evening. So she sat next to Nathan, careful not to touch him. But she was far from cowed.

  “Since when do we have assigned seats?” she demanded.

  “Zeid and I have arranged a presentation for everyone,” Talal said, “and the seating is crucial.”

  When everyone was in place, Talal said, “Some of you here were present a few years back, at a time when Erin was not so much as an idea. To be exact, my brother, Zeid, my sister, Jaida, and my not-yet sister-in-law, Karen. Danny, no more than a baby, was with us, but since he would have no memory of the occasion, he’s been excluded.”

  Jade watched her brother through narrowed eyes. What was he getting at?

  “Steve, you, Nathan and Linnea are guests, living this for the first time while the rest of us relive what happened.” Talal paused and glanced around the room. “Nathan, however, will also be a participant.”