No one had seen him with a female friend in the four months he had been renting a cabin outside of Summit. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t romantically involved.
She had just assumed, by the quick way he had accepted her invitation to accompany her to Taiwan, that he was single and as unencumbered emotionally as she was.
Although she did not know why this should suddenly matter to her. The two of them were not hooking up. He was moving on shortly after they returned to Texas.
And yet the way he had stopped dead in his tracks when he had read the message, not to mention the byplay of emotion across his face, made her sure he was dealing with something very personal.
As she drifted off to sleep, Hannah was still wondering what could have caused him to react like that.
The next thing she knew, she was waking to the hysterical shriek of the baby in the crib beside her bed. She bolted upright, as Isabella screamed in terror. Hannah flung back the covers. In the opposite bed, Joe did the same. Hannah picked up Isabella, soothing her with words and touch. To no avail. Isabella looked at Hannah as if she had never seen her before in her life. Tears streaming from her dark eyes, she screamed and kicked and flailed. Joe turned on a light.
He came toward them, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Hannah walked Isabella back and forth. She gently rubbed her daughter’s back, soothing her all the while. “I think it might be a night terror.” She had read about the sleep disturbance in infants. “She looks like she’s awake…”
“But she’s really still in the midst of a nightmare.” Joe spoke to be heard above the crying.
Hannah nodded.
He began speaking Mandarin Chinese. Hannah had no idea what he was saying, but the sound of his low, masculine voice soothed Isabella—and Hannah—in a way her English words could not.
As Hannah continued to sway the baby back and forth, Joe kept murmuring to her child. Slowly, the wailing diminished, and the tears stopped flowing. Before long, Isabella’s eyes slowly shut again.
Her own body relaxing in relief, Hannah held her baby close, rocking her gently back and forth, letting the rise and fall of her own chest synch with Isabella’s. Until finally, her little girl was limp in her arms once again. Hannah carefully eased Isabella back into the port-a-crib and covered her with a blanket.
Trembling with delayed reaction to the tumultuous event, Hannah sat down on the side of the bed.
Her heart still racing, she watched over her baby for signs of further distress. There were none.
Concerned, Joe brought her a bottle of water.
Hannah drank deeply. He touched her shoulder briefly, his palm as warm and comforting against her bare skin as his verbal reassurances had been to her infant daughter.
“Try and get some sleep,” he whispered.
Feeling like she could drown in the empathy in his eyes, knowing it would be all too easy to depend on his inherent kindness, she nodded. Seconds later, they turned off the light.
As Hannah lay back against the pillows, her breath shallow in her chest, she wondered what had frightened the baby so. Was Isabella remembering the night she had been abandoned in a city park by the family who could not care for her? Nights and days spent in an orphanage where again it seemed like she was all alone? Or was she afraid of the changes and unfamiliar faces?
All Hannah knew for sure was that she would do anything to protect her baby. Isabella needed to know she had family now. A family who would always love her and care for her, a family she could count on.
Isabella would never be forsaken again, Hannah vowed fiercely. She would see to that.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S going to be a delay?” Hannah asked the international adoption agency representative who had come to their suite.
Joe turned to the bearer of bad news.
The Hong Kong–born woman in charge of all legal matters was deeply apologetic. “We have just received word that our English interpreter has fallen ill. Our appointment with the local court is in one hour. We cannot get a suitable replacement that quickly. So all the English-speaking families in the group will have to reschedule for next week. The French and Italian families will proceed as scheduled.”
Joe watched the color drain from Hannah’s cheeks. He could imagine what she was thinking. International adoptions were orchestrated very carefully. A single glitch could cause the process to be set back for weeks or months. A lengthy delay would not only cost her thousands of additional dollars she might not have to spend, it could also prompt the Taiwanese authorities to send Isabella Zhu Ming back to the orphanage, until all was in order again.
Any obstacle to Isabella legally becoming Hannah’s child was unbearable. “Can’t you act as interpreter?” she asked the woman emotionally.
The representative shook her head. “While my English is fine, my Mandarin is rudimentary. The magistrate will be asking questions, and your answers to him must be correctly translated.”
Once again, Joe found himself getting involved despite his better judgment. “I speak the language fluently.” Before he knew it, he was on his way to the local court with the rest of the group. And Hannah Callahan was looking at him with more gratitude than ever before….
Once the adoptive families arrived, they were ushered into a waiting room and then called in to the judge’s chambers, one by one.
Joe served as interpreter for two other families before it was Hannah’s turn to appear with Isabella. As in other cases before the magistrate, vital statistics for both were verified. Then came the questions that were even more important.
“Are you adopting this baby girl as a single parent?”
“I am,” Hannah answered.
Her reply was translated. Then the next question came and was similarly transposed so she could understand. “Do you plan to someday marry?” Joe inquired for the court.
Hannah hesitated, her eyes locking with his momentarily, before she turned back to the bench. And in the silence that fell Joe found he was—surprisingly—almost as interested to hear her reply as the judge.
“I will only marry if the man loves Isabella as much as I do and will promise to be there for her always,” Hannah stated plainly.
Her answer was relayed. The judge nodded, his gaze approving—but stern. Another question in Mandarin.
Again, Joe translated. “Who will care for this child?”
Hannah’s voice rang with the certainty of a promise made and kept. “I will.”
“Will you be with the child during the day or will you be at work?” was the judge’s next inquiry.
“I will take the baby with me to the store where I work. I can do this,” she explained, “because my family owns the store.”
Gus might have something to say about that, Joe thought. Then again, given the look of determination on Hannah’s face, maybe Gus would not have a say, at all….
“Do you promise to love this child always?”
As soon as she understood the question, Hannah’s heart was in her voice, and her eyes shone with tears. “Yes. I will always love her.”
“Do you promise to never abandon her?” Joe asked for the judge, looking deep into Hannah’s eyes. Yet already knowing the answer as surely as he was beginning to know her.
“I promise that with all my heart,” she said thickly. And this time a single tear—of pure and unadulterated happiness—did fall.
TO HANNAH’S DELIGHT, ISABELLA Zhu Ming Callahan’s adoption was approved and her HHR—household