“Anytime.” Mark patted her shoulder, but one hand lingered, his thumb tenderly moving lazily back and forth. She wondered if he was as unwilling to sever the connection as she was.
She needed to focus on something other than the feather-light touch of his fingers on her skin. “I think this is my favorite place in the world. The way the water goes on forever, the ragged coastline, the soft white sand.”
“I won’t argue with you.”
A glassy look came over him an instant before he jerked his hand away. It was almost as if he hadn’t realized he was still caressing her shoulder and the realization horrified him.
Pushing to his feet, Mark brushed his hands together. “I’m going to take a quick dip. Wash this stuff off my hands.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll keep an eye on you in case she wakes up.”
“I wouldn’t worry if I were you.” Anna cast her eyes on the little girl. “She doesn’t look like she’ll be waking up any time soon.”
“You know, you’re doing really well with her.”
Shading her eyes from the sun with her hand, she tilted her head back to better see him. “Why? Cause I haven’t dropped her on her head again?”
“You need to get over that. Every new parent has a few bumps and bruises. I mean earlier, the sunscreen and stuff. You were thinking like a mom.” He glanced at Marcia asleep on the nearby blanket then settled his gaze on Anna. “Last night you told me you couldn’t do this. I think you’re wrong. You can do whatever you set your mind to.”
Not giving her a chance to argue, he turned and took off at a brisk jog. Her eyes stayed on him until he disappeared in the calm waters. Shifting her gaze to the sleeping baby, she choked back tears. “Oh, Babs. What if you’re both wrong?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mark took in the sight of Anna on the floor in front of the coffee table. Crouched over her laptop, her fingers clacked away at the keyboard, a pencil perched behind her ear, a red pen clamped between her teeth like a Spanish rose. Her brows creased with intense concentration a monsoon wasn’t likely to break. She was in her element. The woman looked both wired and frazzled, energized and exhausted, and God help him, absolutely gorgeous.
Kat came down the stairs behind him. “Boy, she must have really been pooped, no bottle. Mark didn’t even have to read her a bedtime story. Just put her in her jammies, and poof.” She snapped her fingers. “Out like a light.”
“That’s good.” Anna didn’t bother to look up from her computer.
“You should have come with us.”
“I needed to get these out.” Anna flipped through a yellow notepad beside her. “Just have to send off one more memo.”
Erin collapsed onto the sofa. “Maybe if we take her to the beach every day she won’t care if we’re the ones to put her to bed instead of Mark.”
“Oh.” Kat clapped her hands together. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ve always wanted to live in Santa Cruz.”
“Done!” Anna slammed the laptop shut and lifted herself off the floor onto the sofa behind her.
“What? No takers?” Kat waggled her brows in a wasted attempt to encourage someone to jump on the ‘let’s move to the beach’ bandwagon. When no one took the bait, she sat back in a huff. “Party poopers.”
The tiny smile that graced one corner of Anna’s mouth at Kat’s antics slipped as she cleared her throat, twice. “We have to face the facts. We can’t all move to the beach to make Marcia happy. The only person she’s comfortable with is Mark.” She leveled her gaze on his. “You should be Marcia’s permanent guardian.”
"Me?”
“Yeah, you. I couldn’t keep her safe for five lousy minutes in a damn high chair. You should have custody. You know how to take care of her.”
Did he dare? No, there was one thing he couldn’t do. One thing he wouldn’t deprive Marcia of. “How many times do I have to tell you, things like that happen to children all the time. Even to Barb. She freaked when Marcia was around four months old and rolled off the bed. Besides, Marcia needs a mother. I can’t give her that. You should have custody the way Barb intended.”
“Of course you can give her a mother.” Anna planted her feet firmly on the floor and scooted forward on the sofa, her hands once again gesturing back and forth. “As Kat has not so subtly pointed out, there are a lot of women out there who would gladly sign up for the job.”
“Do you really want any woman out there to be Marcia’s mother?”
“Of course not.” Anna’s voice slipped through clenched teeth. “But you are her godfather, and... well, the three of us talked about it last night.” With a broad stroke, Anna waved her arm between them. “It makes sense for Marcia to stay here with you and the three of us come to help as we can.”
“As you can?” His already deep voice dropped an octave.
“What she means,” Kat clarified, “is we’ll arrange to be here as often as possible.”
“Often as possible,” he repeated, his voice raspier than usual.
“Like divorced parents. We’ll have a custody schedule. It’s not the same thing as a turkey pan.” The satisfied look on Erin’s face indicated she had no idea how ludicrous she sounded.
“Turkey pan?” His momentary confusion took some of the edge off his burgeoning anger.
“That didn’t come out right.” Anna shifted in her seat.
Unsteadiness built inside him. They wanted to leave Marcia here, with no mother, alone, with him. Could Barb have been so wrong about her friend? No, Barb was too damn good a mother to have messed up something as important as this. “Turkey pan aside, am I to understand that Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are abandoning d’Artagnan?”
Tears welled instantly in Erin’s eyes. “I have to leave. If I lose my job, I won’t be any good to anyone.”
Anna shot to her feet, quickly resettling on the edge of Erin’s chair. She draped an arm on her tearful friend’s shoulder and flashed Mark a glare that could have pulverized stone. “Honey, you offered to take her with you. That’s more than Babs would have expected. Especially since she didn’t ask you to take care of her. She asked me.”
“What if I stay here with Mark, and you go back to New York,” Kat suggested, rocking on the edge of her seat. “You can take care of this mess with Junior and Italy, and secure your promotion. When that’s out of the way, come back and take your turn.”
“So we’re back to the ‘as you can’ and ‘as often as possible’ plan, is that it?” Mark ground out. Maybe Babs was wrong. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he could take care of Marcia. Be mother and father.
“No,” Anna snapped, one arm still wrapped around Erin’s shoulder. “We’re trying to work this out, and I don’t appreciate your attitude.”
“My attitude? You’re treating our goddaughter like a...a...” He couldn’t find the words.
“Turkey pan,” Erin offered, swiping at wet tears with the back of her hands.
“What is it with you people and turkey?”
“Not turkey,” Erin corrected, in gulping breaths. “A turkey pan. And we’re not passing Marcia around like Anna’s grandmother’s favorite turkey pan on Thanksgiving.”
Oh, that certainly cleared that up- he could rest easy knowing Marcia wasn’t a turkey pan! He was ready to spit nails. Could he be the only sane one of the bunch? What had happened to all for one and one for all? “You were all Barb’s best friends in the world. To hear her talk you’d think the three of you wore halos on a daily basis. She must have gone through hell at the hospital struggling to make sure you’d promise her to take care of Marcia, and you’re very calmly dumping her on me. A bachelor. The state of California is more likely to give that child to a homosexual couple than a single man, and you all know it, but you still want me to file for custody. You should carry pitch forks.” He turned his back on the three women staring at him with their mouths hanging open and made it into the hall before any of them found their voice.
“Damn it! Don’t you walk out on us.
” Anna ran toward him, grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. “You think this is easy on any of us? That baby hates me. Hates me. If I so much as look in her direction, she breaks down into a frenzy. Do you have any idea what that does to me? The fact that I work eighteen to twenty hour days, six and seven days a week, and the man I live with doesn’t want her, is only a fraction of the problem. She’s Babs’ baby! If she were the spawn of the devil I’d still love her, but Babs’ baby doesn’t want me. What part of a sobbing, gasping child, making herself sick rather than be in my arms did you not comprehend?”
“She’ll get used to you,” Mark answered quietly. God he hoped he was right, Barb was right.
“When? When she’s thirty and in need of psychotherapy. For God’s sake Mark, she’s a baby. She needs love and comfort and to feel safe. She can’t talk, but she wants her mother, and that’s not me.”
“It sure as hell isn’t me!” Yanking his arm out from under Anna’s grip, he stormed up the stairs two at a time.
“Marcia needs a mother,” he mumbled to himself, galloping up the stairs. “How can she think the courts would give a single man sole custody?”
Inch by quiet inch he turned the knob on Marcia’s door. Lightly patting the sleeping baby’s back, he took a deep breath. “Barb,” he whispered, “I don’t want to break my word to you and Tom, but if your friends don’t want custody, I might have to.”
“Thank you so much for seeing us on such short notice.” Howard Prescott extended his hand to Charles Emerson, then he and his wife took a seat in front of the oversized mahogany desk.
“How can I be of help?” Charles was well known for his pro-active stance on grandparents’ rights. It was the only reason he’d agreed to meet with the Prescotts on such short notice.
“We want custody of our granddaughter.”
“I gathered as much from our brief telephone conversation. I understand the parents are both deceased?”
Howard and Amanda nodded. He remained steady, his emotions in control. But his wife had to blink back the moisture building in her eyes.
“My condolences.”
“We know from Philippians that our true citizenship is in heaven,” Howard spoke clearly. His wife lifted her chin then nodded at her husband’s words. Her emotions now in control as well.
“Yes, well.” Charles cleared his throat. “From what you’ve explained to me, your situation is fairly straight forward. As the sole living relatives of the surviving little girl, it’s unlikely the courts wouldn’t readily assign you legal guardianship.” He leaned back in his chair. “To be quite frank, any first year law student could handle this for you.”
Straightening his posture, Howard leaned forward. “My son and I didn’t always see things eye to eye. Sometimes sons don’t understand a father’s discipline. We’d been estranged for some time. My wife and I have led a simple life. I have savings. Price is not an issue. We want the best.”
“I see.” Charles Emerson threaded his fingers together and studied his potential clients. “Very well. If it’s custody of your granddaughter you want. Custody you shall have.”
Two days later, after buckets of tears and passels of hugs, Erin boarded a flight for Dallas. By late afternoon, Anna had worn a steady path in the already fading carpet. Popping a handful of Tums in her mouth, she sat at the desk in the den and began reading the first paper on the stack. She had to get her mind off work. She’d left messages all morning for Harrison. Staring at the phone wasn’t going to make him or Liz call any sooner. Liz had told her she had connections in legal and would see what she could find out about the original contracts, but it was almost quitting time in New York and Anna hadn’t heard from her either.
“Are you supposed to be eating so many of those?” Kat asked, her legs draped over the side of the sofa, the television on mute.
“I’ve got agida.”
“That didn’t answer the question.”
“Whatever.” Anna tossed a sheet of paper into the trash and read another.
“You can’t do anything more about Junior for now. You might as well put all that away and try to relax before you wind up with a perforated ulcer.”
“This isn’t my stuff. I’m going through the papers in the desk drawer. We have to start going through Babs and Tom’s things eventually. With Mark and Marcia at the office, I thought now would be as good a time as any to start. And it’s not an ulcer, it’s indigestion.”
“Right.” Kat slid off the sofa and peered over Anna’s shoulder. “I don’t suppose there’s a handwritten note telling us why her daughter doesn’t like us?”
Anna slanted an exasperated glance in Kat’s direction. “So far only correspondence and Things To Do lists. Most of this seems to belong to Babs. I found a few bills on the desk. It shouldn’t upset anything if we go ahead and pay them. All we need is to have the utilities turned off.”
“My budget is a little tight right now. How are you set?”
“I’ll ask Sid how to handle it.”
Kat studied her a minute longer than Anna would have liked. The intensity made her want to get up and go back to pacing.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Kat finally asked.
“I haven’t heard from Harrison since the funeral. He’s not returning my calls. I don’t want to have to choose between him and Marcia.”
“It won’t come to that. I’ll admit Harrison has never been one of my favorite people, but he’s not that much of a jerk.”
“No, he’s not a jerk at all, but he’s... ambitious. At the moment children don’t fit into his plans.” Anna fingered a framed photo of Babs in the hospital with newborn Marcia in her arms.
“What about you? Are children part of your plan?”
Sliding down the length of the frame, her finger settled on the glass in front of Marcia’s tiny face. She so desperately wanted to hold and comfort the little baby. “I didn’t think so.”
“Didn’t or don’t?”
Straightening her shoulders, Anna resumed perusing the papers she’d pulled from the desk drawer. What she did or didn’t want now wasn’t the point. Marcia’s dislike for her only confirmed what she already knew. “I’m not mother material.”
Kat reached over and stilled Anna’s hands. “Do the words broken record mean anything to you? I’m beginning to wonder who it is you’re trying to convince. Just because you haven’t spent a lot of time around kids--”
“A lot?”
“Okay, no time at all around babies and children. But that doesn’t mean you’re not mother material. I was at the beach the other day, remember? You sounded like any other mom out with her family for the day. If you want to be queen of Fifth Avenue and sell Dolce and Gabbana to rich women with nothing better to do than shop till they drop, that’s fine with me. But don’t give up on kids of your own because of Harrison.” Kat released her grip.
“It’s not his fault. Neither of us had time for children...” Anna trailed off, her brow creased as she read aloud from the colorful stationary. “Set up fund. Change will. Talk to Anna when she’s not busy.” She set the page down. “When I’m not busy? Babs had to know I’d always make time for her.”
“What is that?” Kat grabbed the page and leaned her hip against the desk, repeating what Anna had read. “Talk to Anna when she’s not busy. Tell her the truth.”
“Wait, let me see that again.” Anna snatched the paper back, scanning the page for some missing tidbit of info. “Tell me what truth?”
“It’s her things to do for Marcia list. Must be something about that. Or maybe about you as the guardian. Since Erin and I aren’t on there anywhere, it looks like there’s no doubt that’s what she was thinking. Unless this was written before she asked you to be godmother.”
“I don’t think so. Some of these things are crossed off, the college fund, the new curtains, bigger car seat. Change will, talk to me, and tell the truth are the only things still on the list. Godmother isn’t anywhere on here. I think
she started this list after the christening.” Anna tossed the paper onto the desktop. “How could she have not found at least a little time to tell me what was on her mind since the christening? We’ve talked lots of times. I always make time for her. She should have known that.”
“If I were you, I’d worry less about your hurt feelings and more about what truth?”
Balancing Marcia on one arm and a bucket of fried chicken in the other, Mark fumbled to ring the doorbell with his elbow.
“Welcome home!” Grinning broadly, Kat swung the door open wide. When she extended her hands toward the baby, Marcia frowned, pursed her lips and turned into Mark’s shoulder. Heaving a deep sigh, Kat grabbed the chicken. “Well, at least she didn’t scream at me.”
“We’ll get there. Where’s Anna?”
“Kitchen. Harrison finally returned one of her calls.”
“Finally?” Mark followed Kat down the hall.
Waving her hand and signaling him to lower his voice, Kat whispered. “She’s been calling him for two days, wanting him to give her some advice about Junior forging her signature. He called just before you rang the bell.”
Two days. What the hell was the matter with that man? With everything Anna was going through, how could Harrison ignore her for two whole days? Mark poured juice and water into a bottle and set Marcia in her high chair, pretending not to listen to Anna’s conversation.
Juggling the phone on one shoulder, Anna walked around the table placing silverware. “Mm. I know it’s what you’ve been wanting for a long time, but it’s not like I planned this.” She grabbed a few napkins. Folding the first one, she ran her finger over each bend until it was properly creased. “No, I haven’t given it any thought. I’ve been distracted.” She reached for another napkin.
The Champagne Sisterhood Page 14