by Tina Leonard
He glanced at her face, instantly finding her eyes wide open and watching him.
“There for a minute I thought you were going to frisk me,” she said, her voice husky with sleep.
“Well, if you want me to—”
“Mr. Troubleshooter, I think you missed your chance last night.”
Her smile robbed him of the ability to decide if she was lodging a complaint or not. “I apologize for falling asleep. I’m usually better company than that.”
She sat up against the pillows, keeping the blanket tight to her. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Oh, come on. You do know. You like me, in some way.”
“Maybe. Not when you’re yelling in your sleep, though. That gave me the heebie-jeebies.” Auburn eyebrows rose over concerned eyes. “Do you do that often? Because if you do, I’m going to send some dolls home with you to chase away the monsters in your mind.”
He sent a glance around her room. “Does it work?”
“In lieu of pets, they’re less bother, cost, and my work schedule suits them. Sure. They’re great company. Take a few with you. Or ten. If you have those doozy nightmares often.”
Swallowing, he tried to forget about the dainty body beneath the sheets. He’d noticed she wore only a short, pink T-shirt and some pajama shorts. Not enough to tame his libido, and in fact, keeping his brain busy with electrified hormones. “Believe it or not, I slept better than I have in a long time.”
“Really? On a sofa, in your jeans and boots.” Her eyes twinkled at him.
“Well, no doubt I could have slept better in here—”
“And that’s my cue to say grab a glass of orange juice from the fridge and show yourself out,” April said with a smile. “I’m sure you need to get back on the case.”
“Do you have to work today?”
“No. But I will go in to see the babies.” At that thought, her shy smile disappeared.
“Don’t think about it,” he said quickly. “Either Jenny will be found, or…or—”
“Or not. And as I mentioned last night, I need a plan B.”
“Are you losing faith in me?”
She shook her head at him, her gaze solemn. “Just the system.”
He grunted. “You only have your marital status and age mainly working against you, right? Not insurmountable odds. Unless it’s Social Services you’re pitted against. But they do have a job to do, under thankless circumstances.”
“I know. But there isn’t a doubt in my mind that, unless Jenny returns, I can provide those babies with much of what they need for a balanced and happy life.”
Glancing around the dolls keeping silent watch, he nodded. “You don’t have to convince me that you, better than anyone, maybe understand the odds those children are up against.”
“And I love them.”
“And you love them.” There wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that. He’d seen how she lingered over each baby’s bassinet, tenderly touching them. It’s all wrong. Too many children get left behind in a system that means well. They should have a mother. It’s not that April is the only woman who would love these babies, but she already does.
April is already their mother.
The phone rang, startling both of them in the cold morning light illuminating her room. April picked up the phone by her bed. “Hello?”
She listened for a few moments, and as he watched panic stretch its shadow over April’s face, Caleb felt his gut tighten with apprehension.
Chapter Four
“Baby Matthew’s missing,” April told Caleb, jumping out of bed and trying to keep the view of white, freckle-spattered skin to a minimum as she snatched on a green terry-cloth robe. Caleb may have appointed himself her one-night guardian, but she didn’t know him well enough to forgo modesty. “I’m going to have to get down to the hospital. I hate to toss you out, but—”
“Wait. Who is Baby Matthew?” Caleb demanded.
Frantically, she pulled her hair up into a knot as she hurried into her closet. “Baby Barrows number four, the littlest of the babies,” she called. “I named him Matthew.”
“How can he be missing?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t stop to ask the particulars. If Cherilyn calls me at five in the a.m. to tell me he’s missing, I can assure you it’s not bad hospital humor.”
“How can that happen? The baby had tubes in him.”
“I don’t know.” Her heart was beating almost too hard for her to think clearly. “I can’t think about that right now. I just want to get there.”
“I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
“I’m okay.” She didn’t know if she wanted to continue allowing this man to look out for her. He was definitely trying to be caring, but independence was a hard habit to break. “No, thanks. I’ll probably stay at the hospital all day with the babies, anyway.”
Having fully dressed in the walk-in closet, April grabbed a coat, stuffing her arms into it as she looked at Caleb. His stance was stiff, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. “I don’t want to start leaning on you. You’re a nice man, but I’ve gotten used to taking care of myself.”
“I know.” He nodded his understanding. “We’ll skip over the fact that you’re upset and it would be better if you weren’t driving. I’ll follow you, and if you do anything vehicularly heinous—like drive eighty in a fifty-five—I’ll honk the horn. Just in case you miss the speed limit signs or something.”
“How can one tiny baby be lost?” she fretted, pulling on walking boots, not even registering his effort to keep the situation light. “He was too fragile to go anywhere. And surely no one would remove his tubes to slip him out.”
“Let’s just get down there and find out what’s happening. It doesn’t do any good to envision scenarios. The police will have been called, and probably soon the media will be, too.”
They left the house, April locking the door and hurrying to her car. Caleb followed in his—and the sight of his car behind her gave her some measure of reassurance.
CALEB COULD HARDLY believe that someone would take a tiny baby, especially under the watchful eyes of so much hospital personnel, but the grim expression on the head nurse’s face told the story.
“The quads are never alone,” she told him. “There is always supposed to be at least one nurse inside the neonatal care room. They are special needs babies, requiring constant care, especially as not all problems show up immediately after birth. Early this morning, we were short on personnel, and the nurse stepped out to retrieve something—which took only moments—and when she returned, the isolette with Baby Barrows number four was gone.”
“Matthew,” he murmured. “Someone rolling an isolette couldn’t have gotten far without being seen.”
Annabelle Reardon, a delivery nurse, spoke up. “We immediately had security posted at every exit we could cover. Unfortunately, at the hour that this occurred there are not many patients awake, and the hospital crews are a bit more understaffed. Particularly in this new wing, there are many empty rooms where someone could have hidden until they saw the hall was clear.”
“Someone knows something.” Caleb thought about April, down in the nursery with the remaining three babies. She’d told him she’d watch over the infants, and he could investigate this latest turn of events. He admired that she came in focused and ready to do her part, and leave the searching to him and the officers on duty. She could have been frantic—which he knew she was, but trying to keep her panic at bay—and his attention would have been divided between Matthew’s disappearance and her fear. “My first thought is that a patient took the baby,” he told Annabelle and Cherilyn.
“We have no one we’re caring for at this time.
Just those four Barrows babies,” Cherilyn told him.
“In the main hospital, where the regular deliveries take place, there are many patients, though,” Annabelle said.
“How do we find out if anyone recently had a pregnancy that might have ended unsatisfact
orily?” Caleb asked.
“As in a stillbirth?” Annabelle asked.
“Possibly.”
“Well, the records of births are in the computer. To my knowledge, only one stillbirth occurred, and that was a week ago. A Mrs. Cannady, first child.”
“Okay,” Caleb said. “Let’s start by having every single room of the main hospital searched. I’ll check these rooms, although I don’t think the kidnapper is here.”
“You don’t think someone would harm baby Matthew?” Cherilyn asked.
“No. I believe that someone heard about these quads on the news, and knows that the mother is missing. My guess is that someone desperately wants a child, and is figuring that here are four no one wants. She may even feel like she is doing Matthew a favor by keeping him from a life of foster care.” He knew how apprehensive April was about foster care.
“I heard one of the officers say they needed to question April about this,” Cherilyn said worriedly.
“Not a chance,” Caleb said. “I might have thought the same thing, knowing April’s fear of the system. However, I went home with her last night, and know for a fact she slept all night.”
“Oh-h-h,” Annabelle and Cherilyn said together.
He shook his head. “Not the way it sounds.”
“I suppose we should have known that,” Annabelle said with a sigh. “Knowing April the way we do. Oh, well.”
They looked upon him so pityingly that Caleb realized they felt sorry for him, as if April had chewed him up and spat him out as date material.
“It’s not quite that way, either. I was concerned about her and told her I was going to follow her home. She invited me in for a glass of orange juice, and I fell asleep on her sofa, where she tossed a couple of blankets over me and—” He suddenly remembered the sensation of warmth covering him. For all the nights he couldn’t sleep through the night, that gentle warmth had lulled him right back. April had covered him, not once, but twice.
“You were saying, Caleb?” Cherilyn prodded. “You fell asleep?”
He realized they were having some fun at his expense, but that was all right. “The details aren’t important. Let’s just leave it at the fact that Matthew isn’t hidden in April’s house, as much as she might like to have him. All of them.”
Cherilyn shook her head. “I’d like to see that happen as well. But Social Services let her know fairly plainly that a one-parent family wouldn’t be considered.”
“I know.” He nodded to both women. “I’m going to go check on her.”
“Good idea,” Annabelle said. “She doesn’t know it, but she needs someone to think of her, at least until this is all over.”
April hadn’t let him do anything for her. In fact, she’d cared for him. There wasn’t any way he could think of to get her to lean on him. Yet, everyone needed someone they could shift some emotional weight to from time to time.
He shifted his emotional weight to…no. No one, anymore. Once upon a time, Terry Jakes had been his partner. But now…he kept his emotions solely under wraps.
Walking to the nursery, he’d found April exactly where he knew she’d be. “April,” he said softly, tapping against the glass to get her attention.
She looked up, put down the towel she was folding and came into the hall. “Hi.”
“I shouldn’t have said that you might have projected your dreams onto Jenny so that she began to see you as someone she could gift with her children. I’m sorry. When I’m thinking through angles, I let my mind go pretty much.”
“Your mind was definitely gone at that point,” April said wryly. “I didn’t pay any attention to that nonsense you were spouting. Any man who falls asleep on my sofa after exercising his brain to that extent deserves a stiff back and a sore neck.” Her eyes suddenly darkened. “Do you think Jenny came back?”
“And what? Stole her own son? For what purpose?”
“Well, I don’t know. If I ascribe any reality to your nonsense, maybe she would take one and leave me three.”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “She wouldn’t take the littlest one. Jenny had strong survival instincts in her for her children, or she wouldn’t have left them to you. She’s not back, much as I wish she was.”
“Then where is Matthew?” April demanded, her voice high and shrill, almost a wail as she started weeping. “He needs to be in there with his brother and sisters, where I can make certain he’s getting everything he needs!”
“Shh,” he said, pulling her close to him so that she was enveloped against his chest. “I have the main hospital being searched. That’s where he’ll be found.”
“How do you know?” she asked, her voice watery.
“Because for every harebrained angle I come up with, I come up with one that’s dead-on. Every time.”
She stared up at him, her shamrock-green eyes hopeful. “You really think he’s that close? I’ll go search every room myself.”
He had to smile at her earnestness. There was nothing this lady wouldn’t do for the children in her care. “You stay here with the babies, and I’ll do the searching. Okay?” he asked, gently stroking her hair back from her face. “Isn’t that the way it’s always been between the sexes? Woman nurtures, man hunts and protects.”
Her shoulders went stiff as she jerked out of his arms, just as he’d known she would. A devilish smile leaped onto his face. “That’s the lady I know, the one with the iron spine and the spirit of the Tartars.”
“The what?” she demanded.
“Never mind. I’ve got a baby to locate. Although I’m expecting Matthew to return in his runaway isolette any moment now. Remember that in cases of newborns kidnapped from hospitals, they are almost always found quickly. Someone will notice when a new baby turns up unexpectedly somewhere.” And then, because she looked so put out with him, he reached out and touched the side of her lips, gently turning one corner of her mouth up. “Later on, I want you to smile for me, April.”
“Why?”
He laughed at her pugnacious question. “Because you make me feel warm when you smile that big smile of yours.”
The wheels were turning in her head; he could nearly hear them whirring at full speed. She was trying to figure out exactly what he wanted from her, besides the smile.
But there was nothing he wanted.
Except, maybe, quite possibly, her.
He shut the voice out of his mind, told himself it would never work, and left to do a little detective work, something that never failed to put his mind on a single track.
This time it didn’t work.
When this child is found, he vowed, I’m going to offer April the only thing I have to give her: my protection. All these children can be under one roof, safe. In April’s arms, safe. And together, safe.
IT WASN’T THAT HARD to locate the baby. Caleb merely had to put himself in the shoes of a desperate person, likely female, likely recently disappointed in a birth process, and he headed to the main birth wing at Maitland Maternity.
A quick count at the nursery window showed ten newborns engaged in healthy squalling or being fed by attentive nurses. “I’m Caleb McCallum from the McCallum wing. Are these all the viable deliveries within the last twenty-four hours?” he asked a nurse.
“These are all of them. We only had one unsuccessful delivery—the placenta separated and caused problems.”
“Where is the mother?”
“In her room, resting.”
“Are you certain?”
The nurse’s eyebrow shot up. “Come with me, Mr. McCallum.”
Indeed, the mother was resting. Sitting up, she slept, at peace with the world, no doubt dreaming of happy moments she had waited for nine months to experience. One of her hands was in the plastic bassinet pulled up next to her bed, resting gently upon a sleeping baby’s back.
Matthew.
“That baby shouldn’t be in here,” the nurse gasped.
Caleb put his hand on the nurse’s arm. “It’s all right,” he said softly. �
��She hasn’t done any real harm. If I were you, I’d talk to the head nurse about getting a grief counselor to this woman immediately.”
“But the baby—”
“I’ll take him back. He belongs in the McCallum wing.”
“If you’re certain—”
She clearly was not, as the whole situation was terribly out of order. But Caleb was more concerned about the grieving birth mother. “Let’s put our focus on the mother. This baby has a lot of people cheering for him, but she…” His voice faltered as he looked back at the mother. All she’d wanted was to feel the precious skin of a child. Sometimes a simple touch could mean everything in a moment of despondency. “I’ll get the baby.”
As soon as he touched Matthew’s bassinet, the mother’s eyes snapped open. “It’s okay,” he said, putting his hand over hers. “I’m just going to take Matthew back to the nursery now. He needs special care.” He massaged her fingers gently in his before moving her hand from the baby’s back. “Thank you for watching over him.”
“I just wanted to—”
“Shh. I know. Go back to sleep,” he told her, his tone soothing. “You need special care and rest now, too.”
“I didn’t mean any harm, I just—”
“It’s okay,” he repeated reassuringly. “You’re not in any trouble, but we do have to take Matthew back where he belongs. Right now, you need to rest.” He smiled at her, focusing calm on her so that she would relax.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she closed her eyes, exhausted.
“Go to sleep,” he softly commanded, stealthily wheeling Matthew from the room.
The nurse followed in astonishment. “You handled that like a police officer talking a jumper off a bridge.”
“Thanks,” Caleb said grimly. “I’m taking Matthew back to McCallum.” He rolled the isolette in front of him, his heart thundering as he stared at the tiny bundle of life, innocently unaware that his disappearance had caused an uproar. “Little man, back you go in your flying isolette. I know several people who are going to be delighted to see you, and one spicy little nurse in particular.”