Heart Full of Love (2 page)

The bell on the door tinkled as he pushed into the waiting room of Grover Law Offices. The sound brought back memories of the old corner grocery with the jars of licorice and the old freezer full of Popsicles and fudge bars. And the Victorian storefronts along the street had set the mood well. Most hometowns didn’t retain the flavor of Wabash, Indiana. Too bad he wouldn’t be staying long. It would have been a nice place for Katie to grow up.

An hour later he stalked those same streets back to his car. The attorney had not held out much hope that he could overturn the adoption. Preference was given to foster parents! After only six months? And Katie had been with Eden Walters almost two years now, since she was three months old.

His only hope was to get the woman to agree to give her up. He had to convince her it was best for Katie. After all, he could provide the best education and a stable home life where she was the adored only child—unlike growing up in a run-down foster home. He appreciated what Eden was trying to do, but let her take in some abandoned urchin without an uncle who wanted her.

He drove to his room at the Wabash Inn and planned his strategy. The first thing would be to run some paperwork to show her his assets. Maybe if she knew Katie would be his sole heir, she would relent. She didn’t seem an unreasonable young woman.

He spent the evening jotting down reasons Katie would be better off with him and printing out financial information to show Eden. Eden. What kind of a name was that for a woman, anyway? But she looked the type to have an old-fashioned name. Maybe that was what drove her to take in all those kids.

The next morning he dressed in khaki chinos and a carefully pressed navy shirt. His shoes were buffed to a high shine and matched his belt. He wanted to make sure he looked the part of a conscientious father.

As he walked up the path to the front porch, he took note of the house this time. An old Victorian Queen Anne, it was large enough to house an army, but sorely in need of a man’s hand. The paint was peeling, and the porch railing had some missing spindles. He would point that out to Eden—in a reasonable way, of course.

He rapped on the door. Inside the house, he could hear screams and the clatter of something falling to the floor. When no one came right away, he debated about letting himself in and seeing if there was a problem. But before he could overcome his reluctance to barge in, the door opened, and a little boy of about five regarded him with sad green eyes.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Katie’s ‘Uncle Josh.’ ”

The little boy’s eyes widened in alarm, and he started to shut the door.

Josh put a foot in it. “Is Miss Walters around?”

The little boy nodded. “She’s in the kitchen.” With an obvious show of reluctance, he opened the door wider and stepped aside. “You’d better come in. She can’t come out here right now. Katie choked on a spider.”

Choked? Alarm raced up Josh’s spine, and he followed the little boy through the labyrinth of rooms to the kitchen. Eden crouched over his niece with her finger down Katie’s throat. She paid no attention to him but probed and peered inside Katie’s mouth. Katie wailed and thrashed, trying to escape the unwanted attention. Beside her were the soggy remains of a very large spider.

Josh shuddered. He hated spiders. His respect for Eden went up a notch that she could handle such an event with that competent air.

Katie saw him, and her wails increased in volume. She held out her arms to him, and he felt a stab of delight.

“What’s going on here?” Josh scooped his niece away from Eden’s attentions.

Dressed in a denim skirt and pink cotton sweater that had seen better days, Eden’s fine blond hair was wadded on top of her head in a haphazard way that was very becoming. Wisps of hair trailed against her flushed cheeks, and she compressed her lips when she saw him.

“Mr. Leland, I expressly asked you to call before you came by. Right now is not a convenient time for callers.”

His good intentions for peace blew away like a stray feather. “I can see that. My niece is being raised in a house overrun with giant spiders. If I hadn’t stopped by unexpectedly, I never would have known how dangerous this place is.” His arms tightened around Katie. “And there are spindles missing on the front porch where she could easily fall through. I don’t think this is a safe house for children, Miss Walters.”

Eden’s green eyes flashed, and the color rose in her cheeks. “It was just a spider, Mr. Leland, not a monster. Katie is never on the front porch without me. I have the spindles, but I haven’t had time to install them yet.”

“You mean to install them yourself?”

“I am a woman, but I’m quite competent, I assure you.”

He regretted his hasty criticisms. All he’d succeeded in doing was getting her back up. He wasn’t going to get anywhere by taking this tone with her. He suspected the welfare authorities would fail to find a dead spider a reason to remove Katie from Eden’s care.

He cleared his throat and softened his voice. “I’m sorry, Miss Walters. Please, can we start over? And call me Josh.”

The angry sparkle in her eyes didn’t dim. She looked all too delectable to Josh, soft and round like a woman should be. Pressing his lips together at his flight of fancy, he shifted Katie to one arm and held out his other hand. “Truce?”

Eden hesitated, then nodded. Her handshake was firm, and her small hand had calluses on it. She was an enigma to Josh—so feminine, yet not afraid of hard work, and not easily cowed by a challenge. He didn’t want to admire her. She was all that stood between him and Katie.

“Would you like a soda or a cup of tea, Mr. Leland?”

“Josh.”

“Josh,” she amended. “I have cola and iced tea as well as hot tea.”

“Cola would be fine.”

She poured the soda into a Mickey Mouse glass, then poured a glass of iced tea into a Cinderella glass. It didn’t look to Josh like any of the glasses in the cupboard matched. She handed the soda to him and led the way to the parlor.

This room was in a little better shape than the library. The wallpaper was still intact, and a newer rug covered the oak floor. A Candyland game was on a table near the fireplace, and he nearly tripped over a small fire truck.

Eden had just sat down when a wail from upstairs echoed down the hall. She stared at Josh with appraising eyes. “May I have Katie, please? I need to see to the other baby.”

Josh felt a stab of irritation. “I’m no baby thief, Eden. I want only what’s best for Katie. Go see to the other baby. Katie and I will be right here when you get back.”

She stared a moment longer. “Are you a Christian, Josh?”

At least she cared about such things. “Since I was ten.” He held up his hand. “And an Eagle Scout. I promise you can trust me.”

She nodded. “Excuse me a moment.” She hurried from the room, and he heard her tennis shoes tread lightly on the stairs.

Josh stared at his niece. This place was like Grand Central Station. There was not a moment’s peace. The sooner he got Katie to some quiet place, the better. Katie gave his nose one last pull, then slipped from his arms and went to play with the fire truck.

Josh watched her play until Eden came back down the stairs with an infant in her arms. The baby’s tuft of hair stood straight up on end, and it was sucking its thumb.

“This is Braden,” Eden said. “Could you hold him a minute while I fix lunch?” Without waiting for a reply, she plopped the baby in his arms and hurried from the room.

Josh stared into the baby’s blue eyes. He started to pucker, and Josh hurriedly stood. “There now, don’t cry. Er—your mama will be back in a minute.” He jiggled him, and Braden gave him a shy smile. The triumph Josh felt was all out of proportion to the smile, and he shook his head at his own reaction.

Slipping a hand under the baby to adjust how he carried him, he felt a suspicious wetness. “Uh, oh,” he said. He held him away from him. Dismay swept over him at the wet stain on his shirt. Now what was he supposed to do? Holding the baby away from him like a naughty puppy, he carried him to the kitchen.

“I think he needs changed,” he told Eden.

“The diapers are in the changing table in the bathroom across the hall,” she said.

“You expect
me
to change him?”

Eden stopped stirring the bowl of some kind of gluey-looking stuff, and he colored at the amusement in her green eyes. “Katie isn’t potty trained yet. If you expect to spend any time with her, you’d better learn to change diapers.”

“I’ve changed diapers before,” he said stiffly. She didn’t need to know it had been thirty years ago when Mandy was a baby and he was five.

“Good. There are wipes on the changing table as well.” She went back to stirring that tasteless-looking concoction.

Josh stared at her, then shrugged and found his way to the bathroom. He laid the baby on the changing table and rolled up his sleeves. Surely it must be like riding a bike. He could do this. Gingerly, he unsnapped Braden’s sleeper. Disposable diapers. That should be easy, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about sticking the little guy with a pin.

He loosened the tabs and pulled the diaper down. The odor that met his nose made him cringe. Great. It was a dirty one. With one hand on the baby, he flipped open the box of wipes and pulled one out. Braden cooed as Josh swiped his bottom. Still keeping one hand on Braden, Josh bent to grab a clean diaper when it happened. A pale yellow arc of urine hit him squarely in the face.

Eden stood in the doorway with Katie in her arms. Her green eyes sparkled with amusement. “I can see you’ve done this often,” she said.

Braden sucked contentedly on his bottle while Josh played on the floor with Katie. She had her dollies displayed for his admiration, and he had Katie’s favorite, Bubbles, on his lap with a plastic bottle stuck in its mouth. Eden sneaked a peek and tried to hide her mirth.

Eden didn’t know what to think about Josh. There was a gentleness about him in spite of his size. He seemed lonely to Eden, as though he searched for a place to call home. Of course, he’d been drifting all over the world for the past few years, so it was no wonder he seemed a bit lost.

Eden ventured another look. Katie looked a bit like him. It was in the shape of her mouth, that firm determination in her upper lip. Her eyes were shaped like his, though hers were blue. And Katie’s hands had his long fingers and well-shaped nails. She didn’t know what to do about him. He couldn’t take Katie, but he was not the kind of man to give up easily.

The bottle plopped out of Braden’s slack mouth, and Eden stood. “I’ll just pop this little fellow into his bed and be right back down.”

“I’d need to sleep too if you’d forced that concoction down my throat.”

Eden chuckled, then glanced at Katie. “You want a nap, Katie?”

Katie’s droopy eyes flew open. “No!” It was still her favorite word.

“Uncle Josh will read you a story.” Josh stood and held out his arms for Katie.

Uncle Josh. Eden frowned. He had not even asked if he might identify himself to Katie as her uncle. She would have to talk with him about what role he would be allowed to play in her young life. Suppressing a sigh, she led the way up the wide staircase. She pointed out Katie’s room to Josh then went farther down the hall and slipped Braden into his crib. He didn’t stir, so she backed out of the room and pulled the door partway shut behind her.

When she entered Katie’s room, she found Katie tucked into her bed with Josh sitting beside her. He was reading
Green Eggs and Ham.
Katie’s thumb was corked in her mouth, and she had one arm around her Pooh bear. Her eyes closed and didn’t open again.

“ ‘I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I Am.’ ”

Eden chuckled, and Josh looked up. His eyes, as dark as a buck’s, narrowed at her smile, but an answering one tugged at his own lips.

“She’s asleep,” Eden said.

He glanced down at his niece and nodded. Rising from the bed, he put the book on the bedside table, and they both tiptoed out of the room.

“Can we talk?” Josh asked when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

A prickle of unease ran up Eden’s spine at the somber tone. She nodded. “You want something else to drink?”

“No, I’m fine.”

His pacing made Eden’s pulse race. He was a formidable opponent, but he would soon see he couldn’t push her around. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him. “Sit down, you’re giving me a headache.”

He shot her a curious look, then dropped into the worn leather armchair by the fireplace. “How are we going to work this out?”

“There’s nothing to work out. Katie is my daughter, legally and of the heart. I know this has been a shock to you. You thought you could waltz in here and take her with you, but that’s never going to happen. I’m willing to allow you to see her, though. I think it’s important for an adopted child to have access to her—her heritage.” Her voice broke, and she looked away.

He cocked his head and stared at her curiously. “Why did you say it like that?”

Eden bit her lip. “I was a foster kid myself, Josh. Somewhere out there, I have two sisters and a brother that I’ll probably never see again. I don’t want Katie to have the pain of knowing she has blood relatives she’s been ripped away from.”

“Then surely you can see she would be better off with me,” he began. He began to rummage in his briefcase. “Here, look at these financial figures.”

She held up her hand. “I’m not interested, Josh. Katie is my daughter. I’m the one who nursed her through chicken pox and pneumonia. I’m the one she calls for in the night. She’s just a link to your sister for you. I’m not saying that’s bad—those links are important. But raising a little girl is not about remembering who her mother was; it’s more about finding out who she is and helping her to realize she’s special because God made her that way. It’s about listening to her dreams, teaching her she’s special in God’s eyes. It’s about seeing her go to school on that first day, then crying with her when her heart is broken by her first boyfriend.”

His face grew more sober as she spoke. “Was your foster mother like that?”