“Ah...” He took the Rock Bluff exit. “Makes sense.”
Jessie alternately dreaded and anticipated claiming the infant for even a short while. Though she’d long since come to terms with her own childless situation, that didn’t make it easier to bear when parents of her second graders brought baby brothers or sisters to Open House or parent/teacher conference nights.
In under ten minutes, Grady parked the vehicle in the chaotic police station lot. A makeshift volunteer camp had been set up in the adjoining empty field, and a tent city flattened the formerly tall grass.
Jessie didn’t wait for Grady to open her door as she once would have. Even if urgency hadn’t propelled her forward at a frenetic pace, they were no longer on terms where she’d have expected—or even wanted—him to pour on any level of courtesy or charm.
The station’s lobby was even more of a mob scene than the parking area, but she spotted their mutual friend Allen, who had married her good friend Cornelia—aka Corny, Corn Dog or Corn Nut—and headed his way.
Jessie sensed Grady behind her, and walked faster through the crowd in a failed attempt to make the humming awareness stop.
“Holy shit,” Allen said upon catching sight of his old football buddy. They gave each other slapping bro hugs. “Wish you were here under better circumstances, but it’s good seeing you, man.”
“Likewise.”
“I didn’t figure we’d see the whites of your eyes till Thanksgiving.”
“I hadn’t planned on being here,” Grady said. “But once Mom and Dad told me about the ranch, I had to come.”
“I understand.”
While the men caught up, it was clear to Jessie that they regularly stayed in touch. That hurt. How could Cornelia have kept that information from her? Had Grady been to their house? Sat on the same sofa as her? Jessie’s mind should be focused on the task at hand, but that was hard, considering her current level of betrayal. Who else in town had hung out with Grady and wasn’t talking?
“I imagine you’re here about the baby,” Allen said, leading them out of the lobby’s bustle to the break room. “Crazy to think that out of all this wreckage, this little sweetheart survived without a scratch.”
The guys had made a corner nest for her out of faded, neatly folded quilts that the local churches had donated to the jail.
“Oh, my gosh...” Jessie’s heart nearly broke. “She’s so tiny.”
The blond-haired, blue-eyed cherub couldn’t have been over two months old, and mud crusted her fuzzy pink PJs. Someone had been thoughtful enough to wash her face and hands, but her curls still held dirt and grass.
Jessie scooped the sleeping infant into her arms, cradling her against her chest. “The girl’s parents must be frantic.”
“I know, right?” Allen shook his head. “The thing is, out of all the missing persons’ files we’re working, none of them involve an infant. The chief’s guessing her folks must have been among those injured on the highway, and that they were taken to an outlying area hospital. We’ll run her DNA to have matched against the deceased in the morning. If you and your mom don’t mind caring for her until we find them, it’d sure ease our minds, knowing this little lady’s in good care.”
“Of course,” Jessie said, smoothing the infant’s matted curls. “We’ll be happy to keep her for as long as it takes you to find her true home.”
* * *
AFTER BUCKLING THE baby into the safety seat, Grady climbed behind the SUV’s wheel. Jessie rode in back, alongside their tiny new passenger.
Watching Jessie dote on the infant did crazy things to his insides. All at once, he was furious and sad and filled with resentment. How dare she deny him his own long-held dreams of becoming a dad? Of course, the moment that thought hit his head, he knew it was crazy, but sometimes that was exactly how he felt. Had he and Jessie married out of high school, like Allen and Cornelia, they’d already have school-aged kids. The notion incensed him—just how fast his life was passing by. On the surface, he was happy enough. But peel back his carefully shrouded emotional layers and he was a freaking disaster. Which was why, aside from holidays, he avoided Rock Bluff and all of its inhabitants, who reminded him of what he’d lost.
Back at the house, the women fussed and cooed, bathing the infant and dressing her in fresh-smelling, soft pink clothes. A pediatrician friend of Billy Sue’s stopped by, and pronounced the baby to be in remarkably good condition. Through it all, the exhausted tiny creature slept, blissfully unaware of how frightened she might be upon waking to find herself surrounded by strangers.
Grady wanted to join in the spectacle of adoring this miracle, but he’d been shut out. Not deliberately, but the fact that they assumed he knew nothing about babies, coupled with the sad truth that Jessie hadn’t even made eye contact with him since they’d returned to her parents’, told him loud and clear where he stood—on the outside, forever looking in.
Tired of lurking in the hall, hovering in the shadows just outside the nursery, Grady made his way downstairs to join his father and Roger in watching an old John Wayne war movie.
“How’s it going up there?” his dad asked during a commercial.
“Good,” Grady said. “They’ve got things under control.” Which was a damn sight more than he could say for himself. The sight of Jessie holding a stranger’s baby had triggered something in him that his knotted stomach refused to let go of.
His dad noted, “Your mom and I sure were hoping to get a grandkid or two out of you by now.”
“Before this whole mess with the twister,” Roger piped in, “Billy Sue and I were just talking about that same thing. We’re not getting any younger.”
“I could use a beer,” Grady said. “You guys want one, too?”
“You bet.” Roger shifted on his recliner. “And if you don’t mind, bring my pretzels from the pantry—and that horseradish cheese dip Billy Sue hides on the lower shelf of the fridge. Look way in the back.”
“Will do.” Grady was relieved his stab at changing the subject had been a success.
Rummaging in someone else’s pantry and refrigerator struck him as just about as uncomfortable as the whole grandkid speech. Come to think of it, since he’d stepped foot back in town, not a lot had been comfortable—except for those fleeting moments of shared laughter between him and Jessie in her mother’s car.
From upstairs he could hear the faint sound of infant whimpers, and then a full-on wail.
Cotton added excited yipping to the mix.
Arms full, Grady returned to the family room.
“On second thought—” Roger aimed his remote at the TV to notch up the volume to cover the baby’s cries “—Ben, maybe the last things we need are grandkids.”
“Maybe so,” his dad said, while, on the TV, John Wayne drew his gun.
With both older men engrossed in the movie, Grady took his beer and meandered out to the shadowy pool deck.
More power had been restored to the outlying areas affected by the storm, but the swath of greatest destruction was still dark.
The screen door creaked open and then banged shut.
Grady looked over to witness Jessie dart from the house.
In the low light, she couldn’t see him watching her as she retreated to a bench-seat covered swing. When she then started crying, Grady found himself in the unfamiliar territory of being unsure what to do. Since the day he’d earned his SEAL