The Lawman's Yuletide Baby
“That’s my hope and prayer, right there. That they grow up to have full and happy lives. Like you did.”
His face drew down slightly as he began laying the meat on the hot grill surface. She started to chat with Susie as the hamburgers, hot dogs and Italian sausage sent meat-scented smoke their way.
Corinne breathed deeply, loving the scents of a cookout on the lake. Susie turned a pale shade of gray-green and looked dreadful.
Pregnant.
Corinne had dealt with morning sickness both personally and on a professional level. She took Susie’s hand and led her toward the house. “I’m going to show Susie around inside. You guys okay?”
“Just fine.”
“Yup.” Mack lifted a cold bottle of iced tea their way. “See you in a few.”
She got Susie inside to the bathroom just in time, then gave her a cool, damp washcloth to lay across her forehead. “Sit down and breathe easy, and it will pass.”
“I’m so embarrassed.” Susie’s mouth scrunched up below the wet cloth. “Corinne, you don’t even know me.”
“No time like the present.” Corinne laughed. “But I’ve seen this particular malady often enough because I’m a nurse in the crisis pregnancy unit. How far along are you?”
“Eighteen weeks. But we’ve kept it pretty quiet because pregnancy hasn’t gone well with us.”
“Susie, I’m sorry.”
Susie shrugged beneath the cool cloth, but her chin quivered. “I’m with a new doctor and she’s determined. And I’ve never been sick like this before.”
“A well-set pregnancy makes its presence known.”
“Is that true?” Susie sat up and whisked the damp cloth from her forehead. “Because the doctor said that, too.”
“It is in my experience. And I’m putting you on my prayer list right now because this would be so exciting.” She reached over and pressed Susie’s hand lightly. “A new baby coming to visit the lake next spring.” A baby...so sweet, so special, such an amazing blessing. And so very difficult for some. She saw that on her hospital unit. She’d dealt with the mercurial highs and lows of crisis pregnancy.
She’d wanted a house full of kids. She’d wanted to chase babies and toddlers and push strollers long after Tee was running and climbing and shrugging off any offers of help. Her dream had been thwarted by a felon’s bullet, but she had two beautiful children, and that was something to be grateful for.
She spotted movement on the deck. “Susie, pretend you’re looking at something.”
“Which I am, of course.” Susie picked up a book from the table as Mack came to the sliding screen door separating them from the broad wooden deck.
“How we doing in there?”
“We’ve finished the grand tour and Susie’s checking out a book I recommended.”
“Great.” He smiled through the screen at his wife. “Gabe says we’ve got about five minutes until everything’s done.”
“I’ll bring out the rest of the stuff. Susie, feel free to borrow that and tell me what you think.”
“Thank you, Corinne.”
“Tee?” Corinne called upstairs from the first floor. “Can you help me with food?” Long seconds of silence ensued before she heard Tee’s footsteps on the floor above.
Shouts from up the beach indicated the boys’ return. Corinne carried a hot potato salad out to the deck. Tee followed with a cold pasta salad, and dragged her feet every inch of the way, right up until the boys made it to the deck.
Then everything changed.
Tee raised her chin.
Her eyes sparkled.
Shoulders back, she was the epitome of charm once the deck was filled with five young baseball players.
Corinne wanted to smack a hand to her head, because if Tee was crushing on one of Callan’s friends, the result could be gut-wrenching for brother and sister.
Callan loved Tee. He’d given her that name as a toddler. She was his “Tee-Tee,” and the name stuck.
But they were stepping into uncharted waters now.
And while Corinne didn’t have to do too many weekend shifts anymore, the idea of teens with too much time on their hands was worrisome. Time alone and internet access, texting, unlimited phone use...
She wanted normal for these two, but how could she strike that balance, keep them safe and allow them to grow in current times?
“She’s got a thing for Brandon.”
Gabe’s soft voice made her turn. “You think?” Brandon was the team’s center fielder.
“Oh, yeah. She’s being subtle around him and a little too loud with the other boys, as if trying to gain his attention. And he’s oblivious.”
Corinne glanced behind her and agreed. “Can I lock her away? At least until sophomore year of college?”
He laughed softly as he removed meat from the grill. “I think that’s an excellent idea. And this road is out of the way enough that the boys won’t be visiting down here, unless they’re coming to see Callan.”
“Which they do on a regular basis.”
He exaggerated a wince. “That means team dynamics are about to change. We’ll go from total dedication to the game to split attention because of G-I-R-L-S. There goes our guaranteed spot in the state playoffs.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “We’re not that bad, are we?”
“At that age?” He raised the tongs and indicated the boys and one lovestruck tween. “No contest.”
He was right. There was nothing like the bittersweet moments of young romance to mess with a kid’s head.
She dreaded it, not because she didn’t want the kids to grow up. That was normal. But the older they got, the less she could fix for them, and affairs of the heart were not easily mended.
She sighed because she knew the truth in that. Broken romances were mended only by time, faith and experience. “No one asked my opinion on this particular timeline, but if asked, I’d have put it off another year. Or two.”
“And yet, no one offers options,” Mack said as he came up alongside them. “We deal with what comes our way, the good and the bad.”
Gabe’s jaw tightened. He stared down as he flipped the meat, then piled it all onto her large platter. “I’ll put the meat on the ledge.”
He didn’t look at Mack. He didn’t look at her. He crossed the open patio overlooking the water, set the tray down and walked to the water’s edge.
Mack scrubbed a hand to his jaw, watching Gabe. Then he sighed, turned and called out to the guys. “Food’s ready!”
“Great!”
“Awesome!”
“Thanks for doing this, Mrs. G.!”
The grown-ups waited while the boys filled their plates, and when they all gravitated toward the water—and their beloved coach—the adults had a quiet patio to themselves.
Gabe stayed by the water, talking with the boys. Should she go get him? Remind him that the food was getting cold? He’d been fine, working, cooking, talking, and then...not fine.
He started their way a few minutes later.
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t look at anyone, not really. If alone in a crowd had a face, it was Gabe Cutler’s expression, right now.
“The burgers came out perfect, Gabe. Thank you for cooking them.”
“Happy to help.”
But he didn’t look happy at all. He kept his gaze averted and his shoulders square as if a wall had sprung up between him and the rest of the world.
Just as well.
Once the busyness of his move settled down, she’d keep a comfortable distance because she wasn’t a moonstruck adolescent.
She was a grown woman who’d already buried one lawman. Nothing in this world would make her take a chance on facing that a second time.
Chapter Four
Gabe faced a new normal through his spacious lakefront picture window later that afternoon. His shaded yard tapered down to a strip of sandy beach. The dock stood to the right of the property line. Corinne’s was on the left of her line, offering a wide expanse of sweet, shallow water.
Tucker would love living here.
He’d given his trusty friend a tour of the yard on a leash, reminding him of boundaries. Tucker learned quickly, but Gabe wanted to make sure he understood the commands of a new place. Chasing a rabbit up the hill to the much-busier four-lane road could be deadly, so a little time spent now was well worth it until the dog felt acclimated.
Him or you?
The mental question had Gabe scratching the back of his head.
Corinne was right. The lake was quiet in the fall. Maybe too quiet. He liked quiet in theory, but there was a soothing monotony in the noise and traffic and activity of a busy country road.
There was no busy on Lakeshore Drive in November. That meant he better do something to create his own distractions. A dozen stuffed packing boxes on the second floor should do it.
He went upstairs. He and Mack and one of the team dads had set up the furniture. Susie had put sheets and blankets on the bed, and she’d freshened the pillowcases. She’d probably cringed while doing it, because Gabe didn’t swap them out as often as he should, but she faced his grimy cases like a true friend.
That made him smile as he pulled another box open and began putting things in drawers.
A noise made him pause.
He looked outside, then down the hall and saw nothing.
Heard nothing.
He moved back to the room and resumed his task, one thing after another.
It came again. A noise. A small noise, like a tiny animal’s cry.
He had the front windows open to the fresh fall air. He peered out. A bird, maybe?
But then Tucker barked down below. He barked again as Gabe came across the open hallway above, then the big dog paced back and forth by the door. “Have you got to go out again, fella?”
Tucker panted by the street-side door, paced, then panted again.
The noise came again, closer now.
Tucker bounded up, laying two big front paws against the hardwood door, and he barked, twice.
“Down.”
The dog came down.
Gabe gave him a hand command to sit and be quiet. Tucker obeyed quickly but kept his canine attention locked on the door.
Gabe peeked outside from the side window, one hand on the weapon he carried in his back waistband.
Was someone casing the place? Skulking around?
Woven vines along the lattice blocked his view of the small covered porch. He kept his hand on the gun and quietly opened the door.
His heart stopped. And then he dropped his hands, leaving the weapon right where it was.
A baby.
Sound asleep. In a car seat. On his front step.
He stared for too many seconds, then dropped down as if someone had drawn a bead on him.
The baby sighed, thought to stick a hand into a tiny mouth, then thought better of it and dozed back off, utterly content.
His heart stopped.
A diaper bag lay next to the baby. And the baby’s wrappings appeared clean and fresh, although the car seat carrier looked worn.
Snugged in pink...
A girl, then? Most likely.
He reached out a tentative hand, then realized he was being foolish. She wasn’t going to explode if he touched her and she couldn’t stay outside on the stoop. He lifted the carrier and brought her inside.
She frowned, wriggled, then dozed right back off.
A baby.
He scratched his head and never thought twice about what he did next. He crossed the room, swung open his door and hollered for Corinne. She popped out of her sliding glass door with reading glasses perched on her head and waved. “What’s up? Do you need something?”
“Can you come over here? Now?”
“Of course.” She slipped into a pair of canvas shoes sitting on the deck and crossed the yards. “What’s wrong?”
He pointed.
She followed the direction of his hand. Her mouth dropped open in a perfect circle. “It’s a baby.”
“Yup.”
“Whose?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“What?” Disbelief formed a W between her eyes. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s quite possible, actually. I came down from upstairs and there she was, on the front porch stoop, sound asleep.”
“No note?”
He crossed to the bag and rummaged around. “I didn’t look. I was too surprised by the baby.”
“A little girl.” Corinne whispered the words and sounded absolutely joyful as she did. “Oh, Gabe, she is beautiful.”
“Except no one in their right mind abandons a beautiful baby.”
“A mother needing sanctuary for her child, maybe? You are a cop and you work in a sanctuary building.”
“Except this is my home. Not the troop house.” He pulled a zippered pocket of the bag open and found a thick envelope inside. It wasn’t sealed and he yanked out a sheaf of papers quickly. The first sheet was a letter, to him, and it was signed by his late cousin, Adrianna.
Gabe,
If you’re reading this, it’s because I’m gone. My friend Nita and I had this all worked out, and I was going to bring Jess to you, but I’m not sure what will happen now. These guys, the guys I’m working with, well...they don’t care. Not about themselves, not about their women, and they sure don’t care about innocent babies.
I stayed sober a long time, Gabe, but I’m not straight now and I can’t live with myself if something happens to her because I’m stupid and selfish. I tried to give her up to strangers, but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.
You’re the best person I know. My parents disowned me and they want nothing to do with Jessie. They called her a child of sin. My sister has her hands full. Her husband left when he lost his job, and that’s a mess.
I have no one else, Gabe. I have you, and you always tried to see the good in me.
That good is gone, and I’m sorry about that. So sorry. But I was sober until after Jessie was born, so she won’t have any problems from her foolish mother.
I wish I listened when I was younger, Gabe. You tried to help. So did your mom, but I couldn’t be bothered.
We’re going on a run tonight. I don’t know how it will end, but Nita promised to bring Jessie to you.
I got these forms online. They give you custody and permission to adopt Jessie, and the free lawyer at the center told me I’d done all the right things. You would be good for her. And I think she would be good for you.
Sister Martha at the mission helped me get some things together that Jessie might need, enough to tide you over for a couple of days.
Please pray for me. This isn’t how life was supposed to be, but I’ve got only myself to blame. And if you can’t find it within yourself to raise her, will you find someone who is really nice to do it? I want her surrounded by goodness, and that’s not going to happen if she stays with me or my family.
I love you.
Adrianna.
Attached to the two-page letter were official-looking legal documents signed by his cousin Adrianna and witnessed by two people. The stamp of a notary public from Schoharie County indicated that Adrianna had followed the directions of the legal website and the attorney.
“Oh, Gabe.” Sympathy deepened Corinne’s features. “She sounds like she’s in a bad way.”
“She’s gone, Corinne.” He scrubbed a hand to his face, then his neck as the baby slept. “I went to her memorial service two weeks ago, and there were only a handful of us there. Adrianna died while she and her crooked friends were robbing a Thruway exit convenience store. And my mother never said anything about a baby. I can’t believe she wouldn’t have told me during one of our phone calls.”
“Did your mother live near her?” she asked.
“My family is in Saratoga County, on the upper side of Albany. Adrianna got herself mixed up with a bunch of gang members after she dropped out of high school. A wild crowd, according to Mom. She’s done time, twice. And now this.”
The baby squirmed, stretched and blinked.
“Is there a bottle in there?”
Gabe searched the bag. “No. But there is a can of formula.”
“Try the insulated pocket on the side.”
He did and withdrew a cool bottle. “How’d you know that was there?”
“Between my two sisters-in-law, I am surrounded by babies. I think all diaper bags have insulated pockets now, but not when I was dragging things around for Tee and Callan.”
“Right.” He didn’t remember that with Gracie’s diaper bag, either.
“You might want to heat that quickly, because when she decides she’s hungry, she’s going to let us know in no uncertain terms.”
He remembered that, too, but there was no way Corinne would know he had actual experience because he didn’t talk about it. To anyone. Ever.
He hurried to the kitchen, set the bottle in a large coffee mug and filled it with really warm water as he hit Mack’s number in his cell phone. He and Susie not only knew Gabe’s background, they were familiar with the rough family dynamics. They’d give honest advice. Then he hit 9-1-1, reported what happened and brought the warmed bottle into the living room just as the darkened sky painted an end to their Indian summer day. The wind picked up.
He handed Corinne the bottle because the last thing he was about to do was sit and feed a baby. “I’ve got to shut the door against that wind.”
“I’ve got this.” She lifted Jessie from the carrier as if she did it every day, then snugged her into the crook of her left arm once she settled into his big, broad recliner. She leaned back and stroked the baby’s cheek with one slim finger.
The baby turned eagerly. When she found the soft tip of the bottle, she latched on as if it might be her last meal.
“Isn’t it amazing, Gabe?”
“Finding an abandoned baby on your doorstep?” Talk about an understatement. “Yes.”
“Well, that.” She looked at the baby with a smile so sweet and warm that her cool and careful image dissolved before his eyes. “How instinctive we are for survival. God’s plan, to nourish us and nurture us. She knows she needs food, she demands it unequivocally, and when she gets full, I bet she smiles up at me to say thank you.”
He recalled that oft-played scenario. Gracie’s smile. Her first tear. The way she gripped his finger in the hospital nursery...
He remembered every single moment, which was exactly why there was no way he could ever do it again.
Three cars pulled into his driveway minutes later. Mack and Susie climbed out of the unmarked car and hurried to the door.
Chief of Police Drew Slade and a uniformed officer followed from their respective vehicles.
“Gabe Cutler, what’s going on?” Susie kicked off her shoes and crossed to Corinne’s side as if magnetized by the sight of such a small baby. “Oh, have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” she whispered softly. “Mack, come see.”
Mack raised a questioning brow toward Gabe, then followed Susie. “It’s a baby, all right.”
Susie jabbed him with her elbow. “It’s an amazingly beautiful and wondrous gift from God,” she scolded, only half teasing. “And someone left her here, Gabe?”
He waited until Drew was inside, then shared the details.
“I’m not sure of any other particulars,” he said, “but it seems we have a situation on our hands.”
“Not a situation.” The baby fussed and didn’t burp, so Corinne stood and circled the room. She rubbed the tiny girl’s back and murmured soft and sweet encouragement. “She’s a baby, not a situation. There is a big difference.”
“A baby whose presence has caused a situation, then,” he acknowledged. Now what on earth was he going to do about it?
“Then Jessie is your cousin, Gabe?” Susie eyed the baby from her spot in the middle of the room, and he’d have to be blind to miss the look of longing in her gaze. She and Mack had been trying for years to have a baby, with no success.
“Well, kind of. Her mother is, so I guess she is, too.”
“She’s your first cousin once removed,” Corinne said softly. “If you have kids someday, she’d be their second cousin. Oh, there,” she crooned when the baby let forth a burp far too big for such a tiny child. “Good girl, doesn’t that feel so much better?”
The baby pulled her little head back and smiled a big, wide, toothless grin of agreement.
The entire room stood still.
“Oh, Gabe.” Susie looked over at him, then Mack. “She is so perfect.”
“And I expect she wants the rest of that bottle now,” Corinne supposed. “Susie, do you want to feed her?”
“May I?” She exchanged one of those feminine looks with Corinne, the kind men recognize but can never quite comprehend.
“It would be rude of me not to offer,” Corinne told her as she laid Adrianna’s daughter into Susie’s arms. “This way we both get our baby fix.”
Susie sank onto the couch and began feeding the baby.
“Well, it is a tough situation.” Drew didn’t mess around with semantics. “Gabe, she may have left the baby with you but not with your consent, so we’re still talking a possible case of child abandonment here. Except with Adrianna gone, the baby becomes a ward of the state, I believe.”
“Leaving her with her cousin isn’t the same as on a stranger’s doorstep.” Corinne didn’t hesitate to jump in, but then Drew was her brother-in-law. “She had the presence of mind to draw up legal papers countersigned by witnesses and a notary. I think she did way more than most desperate mothers might do under the circumstances. She had a contingency plan when things went bad and had her friend implement the plan, but the mother’s intent is clearly defined in these papers.” She held up the legal forms Gabe had retrieved from the diaper bag.
“There’s protocol, Corinne.”
“Drew. Darling.” She crossed the room and looped her arm through her brother-in-law’s and Gabe knew the chief of police didn’t stand a chance. “There is always protocol. And sometimes there are moments when protocol gets bested by common sense. Gabe’s cousin did one of the smartest things she could have done for her baby girl. She left her with a man who’ll see to her future as long as it takes.”
“He’ll what?” Gabe stared at her, dismayed. “You mean watch over whoever takes her, right?”
“Takes her?”
The disbelief in his neighbor’s eyes should have shamed him, but this wasn’t his fault. Adrianna should have known better. She knew his past. Corinne didn’t. “She can’t stay here, Corinne.”
“She can’t?”
Mack frowned when Susie tucked the baby closer to her chest. “What are you going to do with her, Gabe?”
Silence reigned.
Corinne stood less than ten feet away. Was she disappointed in him?
Well, join the club because he’d been disappointed in himself for years.
The uniformed officer cleared his throat and Drew withdrew his phone. “I can call Child Protective Services, Gabe. They’ll find a foster home for her. They’ve always got emergency placement homes lined up.”
Foster care.
It was a viable alternative. He could drop by and visit the baby, make sure everything was all right. It would give him time to think. Time to rationalize the irrationality of finding babies on doorsteps.
She cooed just then. She leaned back, away from the bottle, and when Gabe looked down, the soft coo of her voice tunneled him back twelve years.
Elise, nursing their baby girl, then Gracie pausing her meal to smile up at him. At her dad. At the man who pledged to keep her safe and sound, all of her days.
He couldn’t do this.
He crossed to the door, needing space, needing air, needing—
He barged through to the outside and hauled in a deep breath.
It wasn’t enough air, not nearly enough.
A wind gust brought a flutter of last leaves down around him, gold and red and orange and yellow, spiraling to the ground.
People around town spouted how they loved fall; the parade of colors; the crisp, cold nights; the sun-swept hills of tree-changing splendor.
They were stupid.
The change of colors signified one thing: loss of life. The leaf got one shot at being glorious before being trampled.
Dark thoughts ran through his head. He’d failed before, miserably. How could Adrianna think him good enough to look after such a prize? Such a perfectly wonderful tiny soul?