A Family for Christmas (14 page)

As if she knew what awaited her, Joy started fussing. But he couldn't let that distract him as he studied how the diaper went on before he released the tabs
that secured it. He was prepared to master this task—and impress Allison—if it killed him.

“Are you doing okay out there?” she called from the kitchen just as he had the wet diaper open.

“Sure we are—” he paused as he stared down at Joy's sore-looking backside “—except, is her bottom supposed to be this red?”

As if he'd just pointed out that the child was missing a limb, Allison rushed back into the living room carrying the bottle. She appeared as uncertain as he did as she studied the problem. “I think it's diaper rash.” She set the bottle aside and started digging through the diaper bag. “I thought I saw a tube of cream in here.”

“Yeah, I saw one, too.” He reached over to dig with her, stilling his hand as it brushed hers. Their gazes caught and held in what felt like a timeless pause before she pulled her hand from the bag and looked away.

“It has to be in there somewhere,” Brock said to cover the awkwardness. He grabbed the bag and dumped it on the floor, with everything, even the plastic-covered cardboard piece that stabilized the bag's bottom, falling out.

And he saw it.

Taped to the bottom of the cardboard piece was a white index card and the clue he should have found earlier. Written in block letters, the message was brief.

His thoughts whirled and escaped to that forbidden place in his past. His fingers tingled with the memory of long wavy hair that a boy could touch. He fisted his hands to exorcise it. “Yeah, she loved her, all right. Enough to desert her.”

Brock whispered the words, but he knew Allison had heard it because she glared at him as she dug in the bag's zippered pocket and produced the missing tube of cream. She elbowed him out of the way, applied a thin layer of the sticky white ointment and diapered the baby.

“This child's mother left her where she was certain to be found.” She snapped the sleeper back into place. “She'd cared for her well. Even the doctor said so. And she wanted her child to know she was loved. Who are you to judge her? How can you possibly know her heart?”

“Oh, I know, all right, how easy it is for women like her to walk away. To cut those apron strings with a machete and never look back.”

Allison jerked with shock the way he'd expected her to, but she said nothing as she washed and dried her hands at the sink. Then she turned back to him, leaning against the living room doorway. “Brock, are we talking about Joy's mother…or yours?”

B
rock's stark expression as he looked up from the note answered more succinctly than any words he could have spoken. But he put on a mask of disinterest in the same way he probably donned his brown uniform and assumed the air of authority that went with it. Allison didn't buy his act this time.

Those broad shoulders that had filled out his leather jacket the night before and earlier had straightened the seams in his uniform shirt now curled forward. As if one opponent in his life could still best him.

Avoiding the temptation to study him further, Allison reached for the bottle and offered it to Joy, who drank greedily. She smiled at the hearty appetite of a child blissfully unaware of the drastic turn her life had taken. That she'd become a statistic.

When Allison glanced up again, she caught Brock studying them. Her pulse fluttered even though she reasoned that he was only looking at her because she nestled a critical part of his investigation. The victim.

“The only mother we need to worry about right now is hers.” He poked a finger through the air toward Joy.

Allison flinched and was glad the baby was so preoccupied with her dinner and the bright color of her caregiver's sweater that she hadn't startled at Brock's sudden movement. At least he hadn't bothered to deny her guess about his own deserting mom because she wouldn't have believed him if he had. His anger was too palpable for him not to have scars of his own.

As he wasn't sharing any details and didn't appear likely to anytime soon, she switched tacks. “Are you going to have the note dusted for fingerprints?”

He shrugged. “I could, but I doubt it will produce any leads. The only way her prints would be in the NCIC—the National Crime Institute Computer—would be if she'd been booked for a crime.”

“But you doubt that's the case, right?”

“She's probably not in there.” Brock raised an eyebrow at her as if expecting her to gloat.

She only nodded. Why it was so critical that he not believe Joy's mother to be a criminal—at least prior to this—she wasn't sure. It could have been that she wanted affirmation of her willingness to give the mother the benefit of a doubt, but she wondered if she just wanted some proof that Brock Chandler wasn't entirely jaded. His belief in humanity was tarnished at best.

For a few seconds, she focused on Joy alone, who was nodding off after having inhaled half of her eight-ounce bottle. She sensed the deputy's gaze, warm upon them, and allowed herself a few minutes to en
joy the fantasy that she'd caught such a handsome man's attention.

His nearness was disconcerting, but she couldn't escape it because his presence filled the room. She wanted to believe it was the uniform, the badge, the gun at his hip that took up so much space, though she guessed it was much more likely the man himself.

If only she could have stayed as she was—secretly tickled by his attention—instead of becoming self-conscious. Had he noticed how large her thighs appeared in those jeans or how her long sweater masked a pesky ten pounds she never could seem to lose?

“Here, let me feed her.” He took a step closer and stretched out his arms.

“Wait, I need to burp her first.”

She glanced down at the child relying so completely on her. It surprised her to realize she didn't want to share Joy at all, even after the exhausting day she'd had. That was crazy. She had no business becoming attached, not when keeping a professional distance was essential to case management. They'd never been just cases to her, though. They were children. This particular child had come into her house, slept in her spare room in a portable crib and climbed into her heart.

Feeling Brock's gaze on her again, she lifted the baby to her shoulder and used the burping technique the nurse had demonstrated for her. Unfortunately, none of her patting or rubbing on the child's back did the trick.

The floor creaked and the room shrank again as Brock stepped in front of her. “Here, let me try that.”

“Have you ever burped a baby before?”

“No, but that's not stopping
you.
”

He settled the cloth diaper across his shoulder and lifted Joy from her arms, settling her against his shoulder and patting the child's back with his much larger hand.

Allison chuckled, the tension of moments before dissipating. “Hey, I've done this lots of times. Well, most of them in the past day or so, but I'm still pretty experienced at burping infants.”

“That makes one of us.”

But Joy chose that moment to release a particularly loud gas bubble. Brock looked over the top of the baby's head and smiled.

She couldn't help grinning back. “Two now.”

As if he'd done it a million times, Brock deftly switched the baby back to a reclining position and held out a hand for Allison to pass him the bottle.

“She'll get less gas if you hold her head up higher.”

Instead of questioning her limited child care expertise, he shifted Joy higher and popped the nipple between her lips. The baby happily accepted her dinner as Brock settled on the sofa to feed her.

Allison couldn't help watching him. A gentle giant, Brock seemed to envelop Joy in khaki as he held her with such care. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off the baby or stop from running his fingers through her fuzzy hair. Did he have any idea what a contradiction he presented? Such a tender heart buried beneath that steel exterior. He would probably think of that as weakness when she only saw strength. His heart had
survived much, and still, no matter what he wanted everyone to believe, dared to hope.

Brock traced his fingertips along the baby's jaw, and Joy turned her face toward the sensation. Allison could almost feel his touch on her own cheek. If only she too, could be the recipient of Brock's tender ministrations.

Now you're jealous of a baby. That's just pitiful.
Maybe she'd bought into the local matchmakers' schemes more than she'd realized. She'd even convinced herself that Brock had been watching her when it couldn't have been more clear that his whole focus was on Joy…where it should have been. Where her own priority should have been if she'd had her head on straight today.

“She doesn't eat like a poor, mistreated foundling, does she?”

“Is that what you were?”

He looked away long enough that she guessed he wouldn't answer, and then he did. “I guess I was, but my story isn't as glamorous as Joy's.”

“Most of them aren't.”

“Let's just say that, like Joy, I had a mother who couldn't be bothered to raise me. But unlike her, I was older—five—when Madeline hit the road. I remember.”

He stopped then and glanced at her sharply, as if he resented revealing so much about himself, when he hadn't said enough as far as she was concerned. She suddenly needed to hear it all—about the injured little boy he'd once been, how he had overcome his pain, what led him to a career in law enforcement.
Her heart ached over what little she knew and so much she didn't know. From his expression, though, she guessed he wouldn't be telling her any more about himself, at least not today.

“I'm sorry, Brock.”

He made a noncommittal sound in his throat and looked away. When he glanced back at her again, that stark expression had vanished from his eyes. “It doesn't matter. I really lucked out anyway, having Roy and Clara as my adoptive parents.” He paused for a few seconds and then changed the subject. “So what's the next step for the Division of Family and Children?”

Allison stiffened. Obviously, Brock was right. Their focus couldn't be on him or anything else when Joy needed them so much. Time was running out for her to avoid becoming part of the system.

“I've already completed the 310, and I'm working on the 311,” she said. “That's the investigative report we use to substantiate or unsubstantiate abuse or neglect.”

“That sounds a lot like an arrest report.”

“It is, only the type of detention is different.”

Allison responded to his surprised look by raising her shoulder and letting it drop.

“I've waited as long as I can for the detention hearing, but it's going to have to be tomorrow to make the forty-eight-hour deadline.”

“Why did you wait?” But the sides of his mouth pulled up, and he didn't wait for her answer. “You thought she'd come back, didn't you?”

“Hoped.” She waited for him to berate her for her
belief in people who maybe were undeserving, but he didn't. It was just as well because even she had to admit that her hope was running out.

Instead, he stood, his sudden movement startling Joy enough that she released the nipple and whimpered.

“This little girl needs us to do something besides sit around and hope.” His voice was strange, hard, as he handed the baby into Allison's arms.

As she slipped the bottle back in the baby's mouth, she swayed in a rhythm that had soothed Joy several times before, but this time she wouldn't accept the bottle and refused to be comforted. How could Allison expect to calm the infant when she was so rattled herself?

Obviously, Brock was as frustrated as she was that they'd been unable to locate the baby's mother, but that didn't give him any right to take it out on her.

“I'm not sitting. I'm doing everything I can right now.” But the way Joy continued to fuss made her wonder if it would ever be enough. This poor, sweet child deserved more than she could give. “And I'll get her placed with one of our foster families just as soon as I can.”

“You're not the only one with a job to do.”

His arms crossed over his chest, Brock glanced down at the coffee table where that index card and his only new clue lay looking so impersonal with its block letters.

“Nothing's ever going to be okay for her until her deserting mother is behind bars.” He whispered, but
the vehemence behind the words made up for the volume.

He didn't even have to say he planned to be the one to lock that jail cell door. As if he could right the world's wrongs—past and present—by wielding a set of handcuff keys. Who did he think he was, Dirty Harry? She was pretty sure that kind of vigilante justice wouldn't go over well in Destiny, and he needed to know it, too.

“How is locking up her mother going to make things right for Joy?” The minute she said it, she was sorry, but it was too late to take it back and to behave like the Christian woman she should have been. The woman she had so much difficulty being when the deputy was around.

Brock's posture tightened for a few seconds, and then he let his shoulders fall with defeat. “Maybe it won't make things right. Maybe it's too late and nothing can.”

“You don't believe that, do you?”

Even as she asked it, she knew that he did. Again she wondered if he was talking about Joy or himself. “No matter how bad our troubles are, God can make it right. Or at least He'll help us to bear the load.”

Allison braced herself, expecting him to ridicule her again about her faith, but he only nodded as if he wanted to believe, too. For Joy's sake, if nothing else.

She understood the helplessness he must have felt when trying to do right by Joy. She'd experienced similar feelings so many times at work—when the courts still returned children to birthparents who'd worn out too many second chances, when a child fell
through the cracks. Would Joy slip through, as well, leaving Allison, her hand reaching and clasping only the thin air of futility?

Brock shrugged. “The only thing we can do is do our jobs. It's been a long day—” He paused long enough to glance first at the baby, who was finally drifting off to sleep, and then at Allison's face “—for all of us.”

“Tomorrow might be even longer.” She yawned, exhaustion descending on her. Her evening with night owl Joy would likely be a long one. “Well, Christmas is in a few hours, so Merry Christmas.”

One side of his mouth pulled up in a sad half smile. “Happy holidays to you, too.”

Allison smiled at the irony as Brock let himself out the front door. She carried Joy to the portable crib. There was nothing merry about this Christmas Eve, nothing happy about an infant who had to begin her life as someone's castoff, or a man who still couldn't get over having been deserted the same way.

Yet, imperfect as it was, Allison could still recognize the gift in this last night before Christmas. The sleeping child in the crib made her believe in God's promises. She had a child to cherish tonight, even if that joy was only temporary. But there was more to it, she decided, as she crossed back into the living room, suddenly so empty despite her mother's furnishings.

All throughout Destiny, families were probably together, enjoying each other's company and loving or hating carefully chosen Christmas gifts. So why did
she get the strange feeling that the best gift she could ever hope to receive had just walked out her door?

 

Christmas Day dawned gray and frigid, the ground a dreary brown without the blanket of snow many of Destiny's children had probably mentioned in their bedtime prayers. Brock didn't even want to ask himself what he was doing back at Allison's house that morning because he wasn't in the mood for self-incrimination.

Standing on her front steps, his hand poised to knock, he hesitated. The wrapped gifts in the shopping bag that dangled from his other arm suddenly seemed like bad ideas. Coming here again was the worst idea of all. Last night his excuse of checking on Baby Doe's status was almost believable. Less than ten hours later, it didn't have that same credible ring to it.

Brock backed down a step and lowered his hand. It wasn't like him to waffle after he'd made a decision, but this situation didn't fall under the realm of “ordinary,” either. His best—and safest—choice would be to get back to the sheriff's department and focus on the investigation the way he should have been. He couldn't afford to let his guard down. He'd done that one time with Robin, and look where that had gotten him.