Marissa rubbed the back of her neck and avoided looking at the king-size bed that filled most of the room. Anger over Fred Smith’s attitude had insulated her other emotions during the trip to Orlando, and the tedium of repeated phone calls had continued to keep her feelings for Blake at bay. She couldn’t, however, deny their existence. What woman wouldn’t fall in love with a man like Blake? Their years of friendship and shared history made resisting even harder.
She returned to the list of phone numbers. The sooner they found Melanie and arranged Annie’s custody, the sooner she could place some much-needed distance between her and Blake. She’d hoped they could remain friends, but every minute near him left her wanting more. Total avoidance might be the only way to keep her heart from longing for more with a man content with his life as it was.
“You think Melanie’s using an assumed name?” Blake asked.
“I doubt it. She doesn’t know that anyone’s looking for her. Plus she has to have identification and a Social Security number to get work. The kid’s probably not sophisticated enough to fake those.”
“So we keep going until we’ve exhausted the possibilities.” Blake leaned back in his chair and stretched. His expression suddenly darkened. “I’d love to see Fred Smith hauled in front of Judge Standiford. Old straight-and-narrow would throw that self-righteous jerk in jail for abandoning one daughter and beating the other.”
“Ironic, isn’t it. A good guy like you can’t get custody of a baby, while Smith, being the natural father, gets away with child abuse.”
“You really think I’m a good guy?” Blake’s grin was teasing.
“I’ve already told you I wouldn’t be helping you if I didn’t.”
“And I thought you were in this for the money.”
“Money?”
“Billable hours. Isn’t that how you attorneys put it?”
“No billable hours on a pro bono case.”
“I said I’d pay.”
“Maybe I want to be a good guy, too.”
The intensity of his expression threatened to destroy the defenses she’d set around her heart. “You already are, Rissa. Always have been.”
She fought the overwhelming urge to throw herself into his arms. No point in making a fool of herself twice in twenty-four hours. Instead she returned to the phone. After a few more calls, she hit pay dirt at the Olive Garden just two blocks away on International Drive.
“Melanie Smith is working the afternoon shift,” she told Blake.
“Did you get her home address?”
“They wouldn’t give it out. Or her phone number. Can’t say that I blame them.”
He glanced at his watch. “We’ll have to catch her at work. If we hurry, we can be waiting when she gets off.”
Within fifteen minutes they were sitting on a bench outside the restaurant. When Melanie exited and passed them, she wasn’t hard to spot. She looked exactly like her sister Rebekah, except for a little more maturity and pitiful thinness.
“Melanie Smith?” Marissa called. She and Blake had agreed earlier that having Marissa make the initial contact would seem less intimidating.
The girl stopped, but her posture was tense, as if ready to run. “Yes?”
“I’m Marissa Mason from Dolphin Bay. Can I talk with you for a minute?”
“Dolphin Bay?” Fear mixed with wariness in the girl’s expression.
“Don’t worry,” Marissa assured her. “Tiffany Ann’s all right.”
Panic joined the emotions running rampant across the girl’s freckled features.
“It’s okay,” Marissa assured her gently. “We’re not the police. This is Blake Adams. You left the baby on his front porch.”
“Did you bring her back?” the girl asked with obvious alarm.
“She’s in foster care,” Blake said.
“Then what do you want with me?” Melanie demanded with a tremor in her voice.
“Just to talk,” Marissa said. “We can talk in the restaurant if you’ll feel more comfortable there.”
“You won’t get me fired?”
“We’re here to help you and your babies,” Marissa insisted.
Melanie appeared torn between the impulse to run and a desire to stay. She turned to Blake. “Why didn’t you keep Tiffany?”
“I’m a single guy. She needs a family.”
Melanie’s jaw quivered and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I tried to keep them together. I really tried. But I have to work such long hours, just to pay baby-sitters. I never had time with the babies myself.”
“And your family wouldn’t help?” Considering the dislike Blake had already expressed for the Smiths, his tone was amazingly kind.
“My parents disowned me.” Now the trickle of tears became a full-fledged river. “They refused even to speak to me after they found out I was pregnant.”
Marissa placed her arm around the girl’s thin shoulders. Any former anger toward the mother who’d abandoned her child disappeared. “You’ve had a rough time.”
Blake dug a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his slacks and handed it to Melanie. She accepted it with a watery nod of thanks and wiped her eyes.
“That’s why I gave Tiffany away,” she explained. “I couldn’t take care of her.”
“Where’s Andrew?” Blake asked.
“He’s in Clermont with my girlfriend.”
“Look,” Blake said, “we were going to have an early dinner. Come eat with us and you can tell us all about it.”
Marissa flashed him a grateful glance. Apparently he, too, had noticed how emaciated the girl was.
Melanie looked embarrassed. “I don’t have any money.”
“You’ll be our guest,” Blake said.
Still she hesitated.
“Don’t tell me the food’s not good,” Marissa joked, hoping to put the girl at ease.
“Oh, but it is,” Melanie said. “At least, it smells good. I can’t afford to eat here.”
“Then it’s about time you gave it the taste test.” Blake’s smile was megawatt. He took Melanie’s elbow and steered her toward the door. “How else can you recommend it to your customers?”
Marissa couldn’t blame the girl for succumbing to Blake’s charm. She was having too much trouble resisting it herself. She followed them inside where a hostess seated them in the relative privacy of a corner booth.
They’d found Melanie Smith. The girl was about to tell them where Andrew was, and then she and Blake would be on their way home. Soon the twins’ custody would be settled, and she wouldn’t have to set eyes on Blake again once she found her condo. Everything was working out.
Then why didn’t she feel happy?
Chapter Eleven
Blake and Marissa chatted over their meal to give Melanie time to eat. The girl was obviously starving, and Blake gained a great deal of satisfaction watching her polish off a huge plate of pasta with meat sauce, garlic bread and salad.
When Melanie took the last bite of tiramisu, Marissa turned to her. “Are you planning to keep Andrew?”
With a white milk mustache and guilty eyes, Melanie looked like a little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She shook her head. “I’m waiting to earn enough money for bus fare to Sarasota and back.”
“What’s in Sarasota?” Blake asked.
Melanie smiled. “Lots of neighborhoods with really nice houses.”
“You’re planning to abandon Andrew, too?” Marissa either hadn’t tried or couldn’t keep the distress from her voice.
With a jut of her chin that reminded Blake of Fred Smith, Melanie answered, “I don’t think of it as abandoning him. I’m giving him a chance.” Then her bravado disappeared, and tears welled in her eyes. “I told you. I can’t take care of them. I can’t afford to keep them, and having to work constantly, I don’t have time to love them like they deserve.”
“Why the elaborate schemes?” Marissa said. “Why not just put them up for adoption?”
“I was scared nobody wou
ld take them, or that they’d end up in the wrong kind of home. I want my babies to have all the things I can’t give them.”
Blake shook his head in confusion. “And leaving them on strangers’ doorsteps is a guarantee?”
Melanie’s face brightened. “You can tell a lot about people from their houses. When I saw your place with the yellow roses, the dog’s water dish, the pretty yard and well-cared-for house, I knew nice people lived there.” She blushed. “And I was right.”
Although she had a certain generalized logic to her thinking, Blake wondered how anyone could be so naive. As an architect, he knew that houses often reflected the personalities of their owners, but he also knew that appearances could be merely facades, casting the impression people wished to present instead of the reality that existed within the walls.
“What if we find you financial help, a good job, affordable housing?” Marissa said. “Would you want to keep your babies?”
Melanie’s tears brimmed over, her obvious distress heart wrenching. “I don’t want to sound like some monster. I know mothers are supposed to love their children, but I’ve been so busy working, I don’t know these babies. They’re strangers to me.”
“And if you could get to know them?” Blake prodded. “Would that make a difference?”
“I didn’t mean to get pregnant,” Melanie said. “I wanted to finish high school and go to college. To get away from Cedar Key and…everybody. To make something of myself. If I keep the babies, even with financial help, I’ll never be able to make anything of my life, never be able to give them all that they need and deserve. I’ll always be stuck in some minimum-wage job, scraping to make ends meet. Is it wrong for me to want more out of life? For me and for them?”
Marissa reached over and squeezed the girl’s hand. “I appreciate your honesty. But you can’t just leave the twins on doorsteps. It’s against the law.”
Melanie’s eyes grew round, making her look even more like a child. “Will they send me to jail?”
Marissa’s green eyes flashed fire. “Not if I can help it. You’ve been through enough.” She turned to Blake. “I’m going to step outside and make a few calls. I’ll be right back.”
Blake rose from the banquette so Marissa could scoot out. After she left, he sat again and confronted Melanie. “Would you be willing to grant me temporary custody of Tiffany and Andrew?”
Melanie frowned. “But you sent Tiffany to foster care.”
“I didn’t want to. We have to do things according to the law. If you’d grant me custody, I’d see that they’re well cared for until the right adoptive parents are found—in a family that will keep them together.”
“Sure,” she said with pathetic eagerness, then frowned again. “Can I do that?”
“I have a feeling we’re about to find out. Marissa’s a lawyer. She’s probably calling her friend, a family attorney, right now. I’m going to have more coffee. Why don’t you have another glass of milk while we wait?”
With a shy smile Melanie agreed, and Blake was struck once more by how childlike she was. Anger at her parents simmered inside him. No wonder the poor kid had resorted to such desperate measures. She wasn’t old enough or equipped to take care of herself, much less two infants. If anybody deserved to go to jail over this fiasco, it was Fred Smith.
Within minutes Marissa returned, beaming from ear to ear. “Good news! Debbie Arnold knows a family attorney here in Orlando, Jon Langston, who went to law school with us. He’s still at his office and will wait for us.”
Melanie’s panicked look returned. “Do I really need a lawyer? I can’t afford to pay him.”
“He’s taking your case for free,” Marissa said, “so let’s not keep him waiting.”
As they left the restaurant, Blake couldn’t help placing his arm around Marissa’s shoulders and drawing her against him. The warmth of her body reminded him of their lovemaking the previous night. Marissa must have thought of that, too, because, to his intense disappointment, she immediately pulled away. He wished for some way to restore the closeness between them, but every tack he took seemed to push her further away.
“You’re a miracle worker,” he said, “finding Melanie an attorney so quickly.”
“Whether that’s good or not remains to be seen,” she said in a tone low enough to keep Melanie from hearing. “This poor girl is in a mess of trouble.”
“That’s the truth,” Blake agreed with a scowl, “not even including the legal ramifications. It’s a good thing Fred Smith’s in Cedar Key, or you might be defending me for assault and battery.”
Melanie, who’d walked ahead of them, stopped and waited. “I can never thank you enough for what you’re doing for me.”
Blake, afraid they might be setting her up for an impending arrest, forced a smile.
THE MEETING with Jon Langston had gone well, Marissa thought early the next morning. She and Blake were driving west out of Orlando, headed for Clermont. In Langston’s office, Jon had compiled documents for Melanie to sign that granted temporary custody of the twins to Blake until their permanent adoption could be arranged. The attorney had also contacted the Dolphin Bay county authorities. After a long conversation with Child Protection Investigators, he announced to everyone’s relief that, under the circumstances, charges wouldn’t be filed against Melanie.
They’d driven her back to her rented apartment after the meeting, and Blake had given the girl all the money in his wallet. She’d tried to refuse, but Blake had insisted, saying she could pay it back after she graduated from college, if that made her feel better about accepting it.
Marissa sighed. She was trying to resist loving the guy, but he kept doing and saying things that made him irresistible.
“Good thing you’re living with me.” Blake took his eyes off the highway for an instant to glance at her. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, with Agnes gone and us taking Drew home.”
“Drew?”
“Andrew. I think we should call him Drew. Annie and Andy remind me of those children’s books about rag dolls.”
“Drew has a nice sound.”
Marissa’s mind whirled furiously. She’d planned on moving out when they returned to Dolphin Bay, even if she had to share her parents’ guest room with Suze. First thing on her agenda, however, would be finding a nanny for Andrew. And Annie. With Melanie’s consent forms in hand, Blake should have no problem gaining custody of the little girl, too.
As Marissa had warned Blake, however, it could take months, even years, for Annie and Drew to be placed in a permanent home. For the children’s protection, the Smiths and Mrs. Ryarson would have to sign iron-clad documents, relinquishing all rights to custody. Just the legal red tape could drag on forever.
As attractive as living forever with Blake sounded, remaining in the house as just friends would be sweet torture. Another danger would be her becoming attached to the children, who would eventually find new parents. In her profession, objectivity was essential. Marissa struggled now to bring that same neutrality into her personal life. But with Blake beside her, his distinctive male scent teasing her senses and reminding her of that night of stormy passion in Cedar Key, objectivity was as obtainable as the moon.
Luckily they reached Clermont then, and Marissa had the directions to Melanie’s friend Regina’s house to occupy her attention and take her thoughts from her dilemma. “Turn right at the next light.”
Blake followed her instructions. They circled a large lake, turned up a narrow drive at a mailbox marked Porter, and parked in front of a rusting double-wide. A large mongrel dog chained to a tree barked angrily until a young woman stepped from the mobile home and calmed the animal with a pat on the head and soothing sounds.
The woman, in her late teens or early twenties with shaggy blond hair, walked halfway to the truck, then stopped, obviously wary.
Marissa rolled down her window. “Regina Porter?”
The woman nodded but came no closer.
“Melanie Smith sent
us,” Marissa said.
Unmistakable relief washed over Regina’s sharp features. “You’ve come for little Andy?”
Marissa nodded and climbed from the truck. Blake followed.
“Thank God,” Regina said. “Between him and my little one, I’m going nuts.”
As if to underscore her words, a baby’s fretful cry issued from the door of the mobile home.
“We have papers giving us custody,” Blake explained.
Regina, however, didn’t seem interested in the legalities. “I don’t need papers. I’ll get his things.”
When she’d disappeared into the double-wide, Blake said with a hint of anger, “She’s certainly anxious to be rid of the poor little guy.”
Marissa nodded. “Apparently anyone could have claimed him.”
Regina reappeared almost instantly. Drew’s belongings hadn’t taken long to assemble. They consisted solely of a diaper bag and the infant carrier that held the baby. Regina thrust the carrier into Marissa’s arms, swung the bag from her shoulder and passed it to Blake.
Marissa took one glance at the baby and fell instantly in love. A fraternal twin, Drew looked nothing like Annie. His sister had fiery red curls, but Drew’s hair was blond, fine and straight. He gazed up at Marissa with big brown eyes and broke into a dimpled smile that melted her heart. With a gurgle of pleasure, he reached for her with chubby hands.
She looked up to find Blake equally mesmerized by the little guy.
“He’s beautiful,” she said.
“Yeah, right,” Regina said with clear cynicism. “Tell me how beautiful he is after you’ve changed a hundred poopy diapers.”
“Has he been fed?” Marissa asked.
“He just finished a bottle,” Regina said. “There’s another one in the bag.”
A high-pitched howl emanating from the trailer drew her attention. “I have to go.”
Without a backward look at the little boy, she returned to the house.
“I’m glad to get him out of there,” Blake said. “Regina shows more affection for her dog than she gave to Drew.”
Verdict: Daddy Page 13