“Dolphin Bay’s a small town,” Marissa continued. “Eventually someone’s going to turn you in. Vienna Pitts has already tried.”
In the back seat, Bo emitted a low growl at the mention of his neighbor’s name.
“I’ll have to turn you in myself,” Marissa continued, “if you don’t. Not reporting an abandoned child is a criminal offense.”
He glanced at her sharply before returning his gaze to the road. “You’re sure of that?”
“I can’t name the exact statute, but I’ll bet my law degree that’s the case.”
Blake tightened his grip on the steering wheel and didn’t attempt to hide his disgust. “All I want is to keep a sweet little kid safe, and that makes me jail bait? What a country.”
Marissa placed her hand on his arm, and his flesh tingled beneath the smooth warmth of her skin. “Look at it this way. What if Annie had been left on old man Sellars’s front porch?”
“The guy who abused his dog?” Blake shuddered at the memory of the sad, emaciated little pooch.
“Imagine how he’d treat an infant.”
“I don’t even want to go there,” Blake admitted.
“That’s why the laws are on the books, to protect children from falling into the wrong hands.”
“But I’m not like Sellars. I just want to help her.”
“I know that.” Her immediate agreement stroked his ego. “But the law doesn’t, the courts don’t. Not without a proper investigation. And if you’re serious about helping Annie find the right parents, the last thing you need is to get on the wrong side of the system. They’re the ones you’ll have to work with to make sure Annie’s placed in a good home.”
Blake kept his eyes on the traffic while his mind went into overdrive. Motivated by memories of his own unhappiness as a child, he’d hoped he could spare the little bundle deposited on his doorstep the same fate. Too confident that he could simply follow his heart and do what was right, he’d counted on a smart lawyer to manipulate the system in her favor. Behind him, Annie stirred and cooed in her carrier, obviously awake but also content. How could he place her in the same circumstances that had caused him so much grief?
“Any suggestions?” he asked Marissa. “Not that I’m agreeing to turn her in,” he added quickly.
“I know what caring for Annie means to you,” she said softly.
Her empathy wasn’t empty words. More than anyone else in the entire world, Marissa knew what he’d been through, knew how often, just as soon as he’d begun to put down roots, develop attachments to his foster family and feel as if he belonged, something had occurred that necessitated his removal to another foster home.
In his first placement, it had been his foster mother’s discovery that she was pregnant with twins. Suddenly there was no room for a rambunctious five-year-old who wasn’t their own. In his second home with an older couple, Mr. Flint had had a heart attack, and his wife, burdened with his care, couldn’t keep up with eight-year-old Blake. And then there were the Barbers, the place in his memory where he refused to go. Marissa, however, had seen his welts and bruises. Covering up the evidence of abuse in summer shorts and T-shirts had been all but impossible.
Beside him, Marissa sat silently for a long time, seemingly lost in thought as they exited the Skyway and headed through St. Petersburg on the interstate.
“Do you trust me?” Her unexpected question broke the stillness.
Blake flashed her an appreciative look. “That’s why I came to you in the first place.”
“Then let me think about this and make a few calls when we get back to your house.”
“You won’t turn me in?” Blake wondered for an instant if his trust had been misplaced.
“Not until we’ve exhausted every option,” she said. “But I’d be lying if I promised not to. I have a responsibility to the law. And to Annie.”
Her last statement hurt. “I feel a responsibility to the kid, too.”
MARISSA SAT in the authentic Stickley arts-and-craft-style chair, with its deep, comfy cushions, and cradled Annie in her arms. Bo curled at her feet. The friendly animal had taken a liking to the child and dogged the steps of whoever held her. Opaque sage-green draperies, drawn across the windows at Marissa’s back, shielded the room from the prying eyes of Vienna Pitts, ever vigilant across the street.
The child’s weight felt comforting against Marissa’s heart and filled her with a soothing contentment. Annie sucked the last of the formula from the bottle provided by Agnes, and her tiny eyelids fluttered. Even though the baby was dropping into sleep, Marissa was reluctant to place her in the crib Blake had moved from Agnes’s house into his living room. She liked too much the feeling of completeness that holding Annie provided.
Blake came in from the kitchen with an earthenware mug of steaming coffee and set it on a table by her elbow. With his own mug he settled into the chair opposite hers in front of the hearth. Instead of flaming logs, inappropriate in the Florida heat, the fireplace held a massive terra-cotta pot of verdant, healthy ferns, a testament to Blake’s skill with plants. His simple but impeccable taste was evident in every corner of the room, from its pale camel-colored walls to the rich-honey finish of the heart-of-pine floors, and the Hal Stowers beachscapes on the walls. Blake’s business must be booming for him to afford such art. She smiled inwardly, glad that the homeless friend of her childhood finally had such a special place of his own.
“Did you finish your calls?” he asked.
She nodded. While he’d moved baby equipment from Agnes’s and fixed a supper of Spanish bean soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, she’d called her mother to say she wouldn’t be home until later. Then she’d tracked down Debbie Arnold at home. Debbie, whom she’d known in law school, had opened a family law practice in Dolphin Bay after graduation.
Marissa stiffened at the thought of what she had to tell Blake, felt Annie jerk in response and forced herself to take a deep breath to relax. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”
Bo raised his chin from his paws, cocked his ears and turned his head, homing in on the distress in her voice.
His gray eyes bleak, Blake peered at her over the rim of his coffee mug.
To delay delivering bad news, she rose, carried Annie to the crib and tucked her in. Bo followed, turned around three times, then lay beneath the crib. Marissa would have liked to hold the child longer, to appreciate her baby scent and relish the weight of the infant in her arms, but she recognized the folly of growing attached to a baby she might never see again.
Resisting the urge to comfort Blake with a hug, she returned to her chair. No other man she knew would have placed himself in Blake’s position, creating so much trouble for himself for an unknown baby. How had such deep kindness developed in someone who’d received so little of it as a child?
And Blake had always been kind, she reminded herself. She remembered the time in middle school when he’d wiped away her tears after the class bully had teased her for being a skinny runt. Blake had insisted that good things came in small packages, then made her laugh by telling silly jokes. She wished now she could tell him what he wanted to hear.
Instead, squaring her shoulders, she came out with the harsh truth. “There’s no getting around it. You have to give Annie to the authorities. If you don’t, you could face charges.”
“What kind of charges?”
“Serious ones. Interference with custody is a felony offense.”
Obviously undeterred by the dire possibilities, he set his handsome mouth in an unyielding line. “I can’t accept turning her in. There has to be another way.”
She hesitated, not wanting to fan false hopes, but he had to know the facts. “There is a slight possibility you could get her back.”
Hope suffused his face with an appealing light, like a kid who’d just been granted a special wish. How could a man look so mature and yet so boyish at the same time? Women all over Dolphin Bay had to be throwing themselves at his feet, even though he�
�d insisted earlier in her office that he had no love life.
“How soon could I get her back?” he asked. “Immediately?”
“No.”
“How soon?”
“Maybe a few days…but most likely not at all.”
He slumped in his chair as if resigned to the inevitable. “What do I have to do?”
Sensing his distress and hurting for him, Marissa switched into her objective legal mode, both for his sake and her own. She had to suppress her feelings to prevent them from coloring the facts. “First thing in the morning, you call the Child Protection Investigation Department of the county sheriff’s office. They’ll pick up Annie.”
“What’ll they do with her?”
“Debbie Arnold, my friend who practices family law, promises they’ll put her in a good temporary foster home. She’s agreed to act as the child’s legal representative, pro bono. She’ll make certain that Annie’s well taken care of.”
Blake nodded, so obviously dejected Marissa had to squelch again the urge to hug him and struggled to regain her objectivity. “Debbie thinks she can get you a hearing with Judge Standiford within a couple days.”
Blake’s expression brightened slightly. “And the judge will return Annie to me until she’s adopted?”
“Whoa, not so fast. There’s another aspect we haven’t considered.”
Blake cocked his head. “What?”
“Annie’s mother.”
“The judge can’t give her back to a woman who abandoned her.” Blake looked horrified. “What if the mother does it again?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sounds cut-and-dried to me,” he said grimly. “Obviously, her mother didn’t want her.”
“It appears so,” Marissa agreed, “but child protection investigators will have to locate the mother. First, because abandoning her child is a criminal offense—”
“Locked up, she couldn’t have Annie back,” Blake said with clear satisfaction.
“Although abandonment is a third-degree felony, women who abandon their children aren’t always sent to jail,” Marissa said. “The court considers all the circumstances. Annie’s mother may have had a very good, even if misguided, reason for leaving her baby on your porch.”
“But if Annie’s placed in foster care, I have a shot at getting temporary custody?”
Marissa had to give him credit. He was like a dog with a bone. “Not if she has other relatives, grandparents, for instance, who step forward to claim her.”
“You can’t assume they’ll have the child’s best interest at heart, can you?” he asked.
“Depends on who the next of kin might be,” Marissa said. She’d seen plenty of relatives in her law practice whose influence had placed her client’s feet firmly on the path toward a life of crime, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Blake. He was worried enough about Annie already. “You can’t put Annie up for adoption until the rights of her parents have been terminated. Finding the parents, determining their mindset, then cutting through the legal red tape could take months, even years.”
Blake shook his head in disgust. “The mother didn’t want her, and for whatever reason, didn’t choose to leave her with grandparents or other relatives. Why should any of them even be consulted at this point?”
“Remember all those heart-wrenching scenes on the evening news where children have been yanked from adoptive homes, from parents they’ve known and loved for as long as they can remember, in order to be returned to birth parents—total strangers—who’ve suddenly come forward and demanded their children back. Do you want that happening to Annie?”
“Not in a million years! Those poor kids are certainly scarred for life.”
“Then you have to let the system do its work. All parental rights have to be terminated before Annie can be adopted permanently.”
“How can I make certain of that?”
“Having an attorney to represent you when you go before Judge Standiford would help,” Marissa said.
Blake sat quietly for a moment, but Marissa could tell he was thinking hard. “If I turn Annie in tomorrow, will there be charges against me?”
She shook her head. “Debbie doesn’t think so, not if you cooperate with the investigators. The reason for having your own lawyer is to represent your interests, to argue your desire for temporary custody.”
“You trust this Debbie?” Blake’s skepticism was written all over his rugged features.
“She’s good. Second in her class in law school.” No need to tell him that Marissa had come in first. “And her reputation in the community is spotless.”
Blake riveted her with a gray-eyed gaze so intense she had to resist the urge to look away. “I want you as my lawyer.”
Marissa shook her head firmly. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a defense attorney. You don’t want Judge Standiford thinking you’re a criminal.”
He lifted his chin in defiance, and she couldn’t help thinking of him as a young boy, covered with the signs of a recent beating but refusing to cry. He’d been forced to endure what others couldn’t begin to imagine. Now he’d agreed to take on an expensive, time-consuming and practically hopeless task. In spite of her attempts to keep her emotions under lock and key, her admiration flared. If she was ever in a jam, she hoped she’d have someone like Blake in her corner.
Once again she fought the urge to put her arms around him. Blake’s aloofness, however, was sufficient deterrent against her desire to comfort. Others might interpret his demeanor as conceit or arrogance, but Marissa knew better. Blake apparently still operated with the innate stoicism that had enabled him to survive a horrendous childhood. He projected a sense of independence, of not needing anyone but himself. Marissa, suspected, however, that deep inside he felt a loneliness he wouldn’t admit, even to himself.
“You’re more than an attorney,” Blake said quietly, “you’re my friend. Please say you’ll help me with this.”
“But—”
“Being my friend doesn’t mean you won’t be duly compensated for your time,” he added hastily.
“You big softie,” she said with a mixture of sadness and respect. “Getting paid is the least of my worries.”
“Then you’ll represent me?”
Family law was about as far from her specialty as she could get. But representing Blake would give her a chance to spend some time with her old friend. Feeling as if she were stepping off a cliff into thin air, she nodded.
“Good,” Blake said with a decisive nod. “Now that we’ve got that settled, there’s only one thing left to do.”
“Take me home?”
“Are you kidding? And leave me alone with a baby?”
“If you plan to have temporary custody of Annie, you’ll have to get used to that.”
“But I haven’t had even a short crash course in baby care.”
His obvious panic did nothing to mar his attractiveness, and she realized with a jolt that, just as with Annie, she’d have to be careful about growing too accustomed to having Blake in her life. If he hadn’t abandoned his loner life-style after all these years, he obviously wasn’t looking for a relationship now. And it would be too easy to fall in love with him all over again—the difference being that this time her feelings would be no teenage crush but the real McCoy.
She purposely made her tone breezy. “Taking care of a baby isn’t rocket science.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re the oldest in your family. You’ve helped your mom care for Suze and Wally and Jake. And your nieces and nephews. I’m a total rookie.”
She hesitated.
“Please, Rissa.”
The warmth of his expression, the pleading in his tone melted her resistance. “I guess I could stay. But only until after Annie’s bathed, dressed and fed in the morning. Deal?”
His answering grin threatened to turn her heart to mush. “Deal. Now, I think you should sleep in my bed tonight.”<
br />
His blunt proposition startled her. “Your bed?”
Chapter Four
Color flamed in Marissa’s cheeks, and apparent outrage stiffened her spine.
Blake groaned. He’d done it again. Opened his mouth and inserted both feet. “The bed in the guest room is uncomfortable.”
What was it about this woman that made his brain malfunction? Everything he said seemed to make the situation worse.
Proving his fears, Marissa eyed him with overt suspicion.
“I chose the mattress that way,” Blake confessed, continuing to muddy the waters but not knowing how to stop, “to keep visitors from staying too long. My bed’s very comfy, if you like a firm mattress. That’s why you should sleep there.”
Marissa raised an eyebrow. “And where do you plan to sleep?”
“In the guest room,” he answered, so quickly he practically stumbled over the words. “Or on the sofa. I could even sleep on the floor. I’m not particular.”
Marissa finally appeared satisfied that she wasn’t being propositioned. “I’ll need my nightgown, a toothbrush and a change of clothes for tomorrow.”
“I’ll drive you to your office, so you can pick up your car.”
She shook her head. “We’d have to take Annie, and I hate to disturb her again. The poor little kid’s had a rough day. Abandoned by her mother, tossed from hand to hand, driven to Sarasota and back.” She pushed to her feet. “I can walk home from here. It’s less than a mile.”
Panic set in again at the thought of being alone with a baby. “You’d sprain an ankle walking that far in those fancy shoes. I have a new toothbrush you can use. And a clean shirt you can sleep in. Tomorrow, after they’ve picked up Annie, I’ll take you to your office for your car.”
Marissa frowned. “On second thought, I shouldn’t stay. I won’t be able to help in the morning, anyway, because I have an eight-thirty appointment.”
Blake silently admitted defeat. He doubted he could reach Child Protection Services before eight-thirty, much less have them pick up Annie by then. He’d have to become accustomed to caring for Annie on his own sometime. It might as well be tonight.
Verdict: Daddy Page 4