Her Fifth Husband? (7 page)

“You know what?” he asked suddenly, still without looking at her. “I'm not buying it. Tim said they spent last Labor Day weekend together at Virginia Beach, but he claims he hasn't seen her since then. I've never known him to lie, not even when a lie would have gotten him out of trouble.”

“They've obviously been in touch,” Sasha ventured. “She knew where to find him.” She still wasn't quite certain what the problem was, but she was beginning to think it had nothing to do with the military. Evidently, Timmy and an old girlfriend had a problem. And now Jake was involved.

They passed a shoebox with weathered siding and tarpaper patches on the roof, and then Jake backed up, pulled off the pavement and opened the driver's-side
door. Near the wooden steps an enormous gardenia bush in full bloom layered the air with its fragrance.

“You want to wait out here?”

It was the first time he'd actually acknowledged her presence. “Can you give me a quick rundown on what's going on? If this is a hostage situation, I'd just as soon wait outside, but I'll keep the car running in case you need to make a quick getaway.”

Still holding the door open, Jake leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Sorry. Communication's obviously not one of my skills. In a nutshell, my son impregnated a girl last Labor Day weekend. They've talked a few times since, but Tim says he hasn't seen her since then. Five and a half weeks ago she had a baby and she swears it's his.”

“Do you think she's telling the truth?”

Jake's shoulders drooped. Suddenly he looked his age. It should have diminished his sex appeal, yet oddly enough, it didn't. She wanted nothing more than to gather him into her arms and offer comfort. In whatever form he preferred.

Girl, you just never learn, do you?

“Short answer—yes, I think she's probably telling the truth.”

“Why is that?”

“Like I said, she didn't ask for anything—no money, no wedding ring. She was just reporting in, letting him know what she planned to do. According to Tim, she's been talking with a woman in Norfolk who takes unwanted babies and places them in good homes.”

“You mean an adoption agency?”

He shrugged. “I guess. Probably a private one. Tim
made her hold off until he could get in touch with me. He's in no position to take care of a baby. Hell, neither am I, for that matter, but I'll tell you this much—nobody is going to sell my granddaughter.”

“How long do we have?”

He turned to her then. “There's no ‘we' about it. There's me and this woman and my granddaughter. Look, Sasha, I'm sorry about all this—the delay. I promise you, once I get things settled here, I'll see that you get to your car.”

“Oh, bull pucky!”

For the first time since he'd received the call from his son, Jake looked almost amused. “
Pucky?
I haven't heard that one, is it original?”

“I doubt it. My daddy started out as a farmer. Once he switched to preaching, we all had to clean up our language.”

“Yeah, well…while I go inside, how about making a list of everything I need to buy to take care of a baby. Diapers, bottles—a car seat.”

He swung open his door, then turned and said, “Dammit, didn't those kids ever hear of birth control? Tim says she was seventeen when he knew her. That's barely legal.”

As if knowing she wasn't going to stay put, he came around just as she opened the door and started to slide to the ground. Catching her, he steadied her against his chest, holding her closely for a moment as if he needed the brief contact as much as she did.

“Four-wheel-drive SUVs aren't designed with the vertically challenged in mind,” she said breathlessly as she backed away. The man generated enough voltage to jump-start a battleship.

Leading the way across the unkempt yard to the shoebox house, he said gruffly, “Come on, let's get this show on the road.”

They stepped up onto the porch where two pairs of sandy flip-flops straddled a potted tomato plant. Sasha caught his arm and said, “Look, this might be out of line, but just so you know, I have lots of money.”

The look he gave her might have withered her on the spot if she didn't know how concerned he was. Turning away, he jabbed the buzzer and then rattled the screen door. From inside the house came the sound of a radio playing loud rap music. Jake's look darkened.

Sasha said, “You were expecting what, lullabies? Mother or not, she's still a teenager.”

The girl who materialized on the other side of the mended screen looked as if she could do with a few pounds, a few hours in the sun and a few hours of sleep.

“I'm Tim's dad. He told you I'd be here. Where is she?”

The young woman looked them over thoroughly before she opened the screen door. “I guess you might as well come in. Is this Tim's mother?”

“I'm a friend,” Sasha answered before Jake could explain that she was practically a stranger who just happened to come along for the ride. “Could we see her?”

“She spit up and I've not had time to change her shirt.”

She led the way to a room that was even more depressing than the one they were in, and there in the middle of an unmade bed was a banana box stuffed with a pillow. Tiny pink feet kicked at a confining yellow spread. A small pink fist waved in the air as a red-faced infant vented her displeasure.

“That's her. I named her Tuesday on account of that's when she was born. Tuesday Smith,” she added defiantly.

“And your name is?” said Jake, who looked tense enough to shatter at a touch.

“Cheryl,” was the reluctant response. “Cheryl Moser.”

Torn between reaching out to Jake and scooping up the fretful infant, Sasha chose the safest option. She leaned over and cupped a small foot in her hand. “Hello, sweetheart. You just fuss all you want to, I don't much blame you.” She turned to the tired-looking blonde. “How old did you say she was?”

“Five weeks. And a half.”

Jake said tightly, “You could have called sooner.”

“I didn't think you'd be interested.”

“What about your parents?”

She shrugged. “Mama's dead and Daddy said don't come crying to him if I got myself in trouble.”

Sasha opened her mouth and then shut it again. Nothing she could say would help out in this situation. This was between Jake and the thin, pale teenager and a baby whose name was the same as a movie star this poor girl had probably never heard of. So much for originality.

Frowning, Jake said, “About this place in Norfolk—”

Sasha broke in. “Whatever that woman offered, we'll double it.” She hadn't planned to say anything, the words just popped out.

Jake shot her a look that clearly questioned her sanity. To Cheryl, he said, “Why don't we go in the next room and talk this over?”

Not to be left out, Sasha scooped the infant from her makeshift bassinet, making crooning sounds she hadn't
uttered in more than twenty years, and followed them into the living room, carrying the wet, fussing infant against her shoulder. Oh, how good it felt to cradle a baby again.

Jake turned to glare at her. Cheryl sighed and shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other. “Look, I mean, I just need to get back to work full-time, okay? Starting when I got too big to work tables, they put me in the kitchen. The pay stinks. I been taking her with me, but my boss don't like it. How much did you say you were willing to give for her?”

On the verge of saying something she probably shouldn't, Sasha felt a warm damp patch on the shoulder of her eighty-nine-dollar-on-sale, dry-cleanable blouse. It smelled like sour milk and probably was. “Judge not lest ye be judged” had been one of the favorite quotations of Addler Parrish, who had set himself up as judge and then proceeded to mete out whatever punishment he saw fit.

She'd been nine and a half when the twins were born, eleven when her brother came along. Her mother had been sickly after Buck, whose real name had been Robert, so Sasha had done more than her share of baby-tending. The warmth of the slight bundle and the familiar smell brought back a mixture of bitterness and nostalgia.

Speaking in a quietly controlled voice, Jake named a figure. While Cheryl gnawed on a hangnail, evidently considering his offer, Sasha cleared her throat loudly. When Jake glanced at her she waggled her eyebrows to remind him that she had money if his offer wasn't enough.

She knew very well she had no business meddling in his affairs, but the only thing that mattered here was this baby. If there was anything she could do to help smooth the way, she intended to do it, no matter whose toes she stepped on.

The baby whimpered, and she held her up and sniffed at her diaper. “Where do you keep her things? I can change her for you—her shirt, too.”

“She spits up all the time. Over there.” The girl pointed to a scarred table that held a folded towel, two packages of disposable diapers, a tin of baby powder and a half-empty nursing bottle.

“Come on, sugar pie, let Sasha make you feel better, hmm?”

Humming under her breath, she located the pitifully small stack of undershirts and took care of business while trying to overhear the negotiations going on in the next room. Cheryl was insisting loudly that the baby was definitely Tim's, and to prove it she'd put his name on the birth certificate.

Jake, in a voice even more controlled than before, said, “I'm not questioning your word. If you'd asked him for money or a wedding ring, I might've have had my doubts, but since you didn't ask for anything, I'll give you credit for playing it straight.”

Reentering the living room, Sasha thought of the twins and how lucky they'd been to marry decent men the first time around. They could easily have ended up in the same situation as this poor girl.

The baby was trying to cram Sasha's finger in her mouth. “Oh, honey, sapphires don't taste all that good—this one's not even real. Let's find you a pacifier, hmm?”

Just then Jake spelled out his terms, naming a generous figure. “I'll write you a check for half today—I've got a checkbook out in the truck. You'll get the other half once we get things wrapped up legally.”

“Look, I already told you, I'll sign whatever you want me to sign.” She sounded close to tears.

Sasha thought that of all the painful things a woman could do, giving up her baby had to be among the worst. Cradling the infant, she said, “I know you want what's best for her.”

Cheryl turned to Jake. “You're her granddaddy. You'll take care of her and nobody would try to take her away from you, would they?”

Sasha waited to hear his reply. He might be an expert in his field, but outnumbered by emotional females in a room that smelled of baby powder, soiled diapers and sour milk, he was obviously out of his element.

He fished out his wallet, extracted a card and wrote his cell-phone number on the back. “Here—you can see her anytime you want to once we get things settled, as long as you call first. You'll get the rest of your money as soon as we meet with the lawyer, but I'm taking her with me now.”

“Today? Can't I get the rest of my money today?”

“I doubt if I can get an appointment that soon, but—”

“I can,” Sasha said.

They both turned to her. “Let me make a call. This lawyer I know owes me a big favor for getting him—well, never mind that. He specializes in real estate, but considering nobody's contesting the adoption, it should be enough to get by on, don't you think?”

Later she would wonder how in the world she'd got
ten involved in the matter, but at no time could she have stepped away. Blame it on missing her own family, remembering the time when Buck and the twins had depended on her. Blame it on the hopes she'd once had of having children of her own.

“Sasha's got you now, sweetheart. You're going to be just fine, you wait and see,” she whispered.

“W
ell, that went pretty well, don't you think?” Sasha leaned forward from the back of the car, one hand on the infant car seat that was secured with a seatbelt.

Neither Jake nor Cheryl said a word. After explaining the situation to the lawyer, they'd spent less than an hour in his office. Jake and Cheryl had signed an agreement, with Sasha serving as a witness. The small act of signing her name on little Miss Tuesday no-middle-name Smith's adoption papers had set her eyes to watering. Jake had written two checks, one for the lawyer and one for a tearful Cheryl.

The drive back to the house on Low Ridge Road where the young woman lived was largely silent. As they pulled up in front of the house, Jake said quietly, “Starting today I'll be putting money into her college fund.”

Sasha thought that was probably as reassuring as
anything he could possibly have said. She hadn't missed Cheryl's occasional sniffle. And while her heart ached for the girl now, she had an idea that Cheryl Moser was a survivor.

While Jake got out and came around to the passenger side, Sasha whispered, “Call me if you ever need someone to talk to. I have two younger sisters.” Granted, the twins were a lot older than Cheryl, but the sentiment still held. “That's up to you, but Jake's a wonderful man—he'll take good care of her, you'll never have to worry about that.”

Just before Jake returned from seeing the young woman to her door, she carefully blotted her eyes with a tissue. It came away smudged with black and taupe.

Oh, well, she thought, resigned. It's not as if he hadn't seen her in even worse shape. “We'll probably need to make a stop at the nearest outfitters,” she said. Except for the basics, Cheryl had improvised. Even the diaper bag was a battered canvas beach tote.

Heading for the closest big-box store, Jake picked up the conversation that had been left dangling earlier. “If the father hadn't been my son, I doubt if things would've gone that smoothly.”

“If the father hadn't been your son,” Sasha reminded him dryly, “you wouldn't have been there in the first place.” She wondered if he had any idea of how many changes were in store for him over the next few days, not to mention the next few years. Granted, he'd once had a baby, but he'd been younger then. Besides, he'd had someone to share the responsibility. Whether or not he realized it, his whole life had just undergone a dramatic change.

She admitted to herself that she envied him with all her heart.

Jake switched on the radio. When static crackled noisily, he switched it off again and said something about lightning.

Lightning my hind foot, Sasha thought. His touch was enough to short out any radio. She knew from experience that there was enough voltage in that tall, muscular frame to light up a small town. Idly, she wondered what it would be like to plug into all that current.

To plug into it?
Oh, for Pete's sake, quit with the visuals!

“Timmy will be so proud of you,” she said as they pulled into the vast parking lot. “Why don't you try to call him while I shop?”

“You need some money.” He shifted his hips and reached for his wallet, and she shook her head.

“We'll settle up later. I don't know if I can get anything but the basics here.”

He looked startled. “The basics?”

She left him staring after her. Oh, honey, you have so much to learn, she thought, and I'm just the one who can teach you. That is, if I can stay ahead of the learning curve.

Maybe she'd better look for an instruction book for new parents while she was at it.

 

Some forty-five minutes later Sasha pushed a loaded cart to the car. She was followed by another cart pushed by a clerk. On the way to the SUV where Jake and the baby waited, she smiled, thinking about how much fun it was going to be, unloading the booty and setting up
a nursery. “Thank you so much,” she said to the middle-aged employee who had been an enormous help. She plucked a bill from her purse and shoved it into the woman's red apron pocket.

“Oh, now, you don't have to do that—I'm just glad I could help out.”

Sasha, never reticent, had told the woman the whole story when she'd asked for her assistance, leaving out only the names. When Jake, who'd been standing beside the open back door, turned to meet them, the clerk flashed Sasha a broad smile and whispered, “Lawsa-mercy, he don't look like a grandfather to me!”

Ignoring the departing clerk, Jake stared at the two overloaded shopping carts. Before he could say a word, Sasha rushed into speech. “We'll need to get a few more things later on. I got us the same kind of formula Cheryl was using, and a complete layette with lots and lots of diapers—oh, and this funky little chest to keep everything in. And a bathtub. Later on we'll need a table for bathing and changing unless you already have something, but the only one they had was too rickety. The bassinet came in two colors and white. I got white so it would go with whatever color you paint the nursery. They had a larger one, but since she'll be graduating to a crib pretty soon anyway, I thought…”

Jake blinked as if he suspected the two overloaded shopping carts were a mirage that had magically appeared in the middle of the parking lot. “Really,” Sasha hurried to reassure him, “it's not as much as it looks—you know how they over-package everything. And I kept the receipts so we can return anything that doesn't work out.”

For so long she'd dreamed of having a baby of her own, but that was before fate and her own bad taste in husbands had laid the dream to rest. Now, even with the perfect mate, her chances of conceiving were less than the odds of the Cubs winning the World Series again.

But even a patched-up dream with some of the parts missing was better than no dream at all, she told herself.

There was still the question of her car. Driftwinds cottage was just a few miles away, but when Jake mentioned it she told him to forget it. “You need me to help you get settled,” Sasha said flatly, climbing into the back seat. “Did she wake up? Did you get too hot in here, sugar? Oh—that's probably why you left the back door open, isn't it?”

Jake growled something she couldn't quite catch, and she thought, Ah-ha! Caught you! You left it open just to look at her, to admire her—to gloat, because she's yours now, didn't you?

Aloud, she said, “She might be hungry—she's probably wet, too. I don't remember if I got any diaper-rash ointment or not, but we can stop by the nearest drugstore.”

“Sasha, you don't have to come with me—with us. You've already done more than enough.”

“Oh, hush up, whether or not you want to admit it, I'm already part of this whole baby deal. My name's on her adoption papers, remember?”

Jake raked his hand through his hair, looking distracted, worried, and incredibly sexy. Without giving him time to marshal his thoughts, she said, “Look, I'll just help you get everything set up and then I'll call a cab to bring me back to Kitty Hawk to pick up my car.”

She knew it wouldn't be that simple. Jake probably did, too, but to her relief, he didn't argue. Poor man, he was so far out of his element he was putty in her hands.

Don't I wish, she thought longingly.

While she was shopping she'd bought herself an inexpensive tank top that was really rather nice, and changed into it in the ladies' room. Maybe she should shop the discount stores more often. Her friends had been telling her that for years, which made her do exactly the opposite.

She was supposed to have style, for Pete's sake—she was an interior designer. Who wanted a designer who bought her clothes from the same store her housekeeper did?

Jake said gruffly, “Sit up front, we need to talk.”

Uh-oh, here's where I get dumped, Sasha told herself.

But they headed south toward Manteo, which meant he wasn't going to drop her off at Driftwinds. Not yet, anyway. She waited for him to speak, and when he didn't, she said, “What are we going to call her?” Neither of them particularly cared for the name on her birth certificate. “What was your mother's name?”

He pulled up at a traffic light. “Rebecca,” he replied, tapping the steering wheel.

“That's nice. If she doesn't like it she can change it when she grows up. I did.”

He cut her a quick glance. “Changed your name? What'd you start out with?”

“Sally June.” She shrugged. “Once I grew up, it just wasn't me.”

He smiled at that. It was the first smile she'd seen in hours. Evidently he was coming out of his state of
shock. “Yeah, you're probably right. How'd you come by the name Sasha?”

Twisting around, she glanced at the back seat. “All's peaceful. She's just looking around and blinking. I think she's sleepy again. My name? I read it in a book. I've always been a reader, even when I had to hide my books in the barn or under my mattress.”

“You read
that
kind of books?” He looked amused, which made him look younger than she'd first thought. She'd placed his age at a year or two more than her own—possibly even less, considering that he'd obviously spent most of it outdoors, probably without the benefit of sunscreen or moisturizers.

But they'd been talking about books, not the texture of his face, with those squint lines and laugh lines, and the afternoon shadow of beard that cried out to be stroked. So she said, “I read every kind of book I could get my hands on, usually at ten cents a copy from yard sales. The only trouble was, there weren't that many yard sales in our neighborhood. People tended to hang on to whatever they owned until it wore out.” She made it sound like a joke. It wasn't. She'd grown up dirt-poor, which probably explained her present lifestyle.

“There's always the backs of cereal boxes.” They cruised along at the speed of traffic, which was erratic at best. Jake was an excellent driver, anticipating trouble before she was even aware of it. “Or don't kids still read those?”

“Once you've read a few oatmeal boxes, you know how the story ends.”

He smiled again. That was twice in the past few minutes. Sasha glanced at him, seeing the furrows between
his eyebrows disappear while the ones bracketing his mouth grew deeper. This is why I knew I had to come with him, she thought. He
needs
me. He might not be ready to admit it, but he really does need me.

He could've dropped her off at her car when they'd left the restaurant. It would have taken only a few more minutes. Instead, he'd taken her with him to find Cheryl.

He could have driven her to Driftwinds and left her there after they'd seen the lawyer, or after she'd done his shopping for him. Instead, he was taking her home with him. That had to mean something.

Dream on, she mocked silently. The trouble with being a Libra was that she was heavily under the influence of Venus. Venus people weren't exactly known for their common sense.

Somewhere between the seventh and the ninth milepost, Jake's frown reappeared. Shooting her a helpless look—or at least, as helpless as a big, sexy guy in the prime of life could manage—he said, “Back to names—I thought maybe I'd let Timmy suggest one if he doesn't care for Tuesday. I talked to him while you were in the store, but we didn't get around to discussing names.”

“That's fine, but what do we call her now?”

“Does it matter? I doubt if she understands the language yet.”

“You'd be surprised what babies pick up on. For instance, if she gets the least idea you feel uncomfortable with her, she has ways of expressing herself that you're probably not going to like, especially in the middle of the night.”

“Hey, I'm not exactly a novice. I had a baby once. I don't remember Tim being all that much trouble.”

“That's because you had a wife to deal with colic and night feedings. Peaches is going to demand a lot of attention. You sure you're up to it?”

“Peaches? Is food the only thing you can think about? You should have eaten your lunch.” The look he gave her was partly amusement, partly irritation.

“She has a dimple in her chin, did you notice? She probably got that from you.” His was a shallow cleft, not a dimple, but connections were important. “And I guess you know her eyes might not stay the same color.” Jake's were hazel. “Most babies, at least the ones in my family, are born with blue eyes. It's hard to tell about her hair, considering how little she has now, but I'll bet anything it will be curly. People with dimples in their chins often have curly hair. I read that somewhere.”

Jake cut her off. In a dawn of understanding, he said slowly, “My God. You
want
her. Admit it, you want my baby!”

In the silence that followed his astonishing conclusion, Sasha couldn't come up with a single credible denial. If ever there had been a point at which she could have walked away from Jake Smith, regardless of the baggage he carried, that point had passed. Now that she was involved up to her zircon-studded ears, it was too late. Her reaction when he'd accused her of wanting his baby was a pretty good indication of just how “too-late,” it was.

Darn right she wanted his baby. But logical or not, she wanted to have it the old-fashioned way, with both of them hot, naked and trembling with urgency. If they both tried long enough and hard enough, maybe a miracle would happen.

She stole a glance at his profile. Not once in their brief relationship had he given her any real indication that he was interested in her as a woman.

Oh, well…maybe once or twice. There was the way he'd looked at her while he was carrying her down several flights of stairs, and when he'd lifted her out of his SUV to take her inside the hospital. He'd caught his breath, his eyes had darkened, and then he'd caught it again. Probably her perfume. It was an old classic that was extremely hard to find, but well worth the effort.