Little Girl Lost. Marisa Carroll
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can get them. And I’ll nurse her,” Beth said defiantly.
“You don’t even know if you can. What if she gets too hungry? Or something like Mrs. Carson just said happens? We wouldn’t know what to do.”
“We’ll learn.”
“I’ve never even held a baby. She’s so tiny.” There was real panic in his voice. “We only have about sixty dollars left.”
“It will have to do,” Beth said, her eyes glued to the baby.
“That’s barely enough for gas. No way can we stretch it to buy food and formula and diapers. I don’t even know what else we need. I can’t use the credit card—” He broke off realizing that he’d probably said too much. He glanced at Faith and his eyes were desperate, the reality of responsibility overwhelming any joy he felt at his child’s birth. “Maybe it would be better if we—”
“No!” Beth’s refusal cut off what he meant to say.
Faith interrupted. “We can work everything out when Beth and the baby are safe at the medical center.” The ice storm had hit in earnest while Faith had been preoccupied with the baby’s birth. Already a silvery sheet of ice covered everything in sight. It was going to be tricky walking home for her car, but there was no way she and Addy could fit into the sports car for the ride to the hospital.
Beth looked up from the baby to the car in the parking lot. “I don’t know if I can carry her that far,” she said. “I feel all wobbly.”
“Give the baby to Mrs. Carson. I’ll carry you.”
“Please be careful with her, Jamie. If you should slip on the ice…” Faith let her voice trail off.
“I’ll be careful,” he promised. His face was chalk white. Once more he refused to meet her eyes.
She ought to press him for some answers now that the immediate danger to mother and child was past. Where had they come from? Where were they going? The infant cried out again, and it sounded weaker than before. She had waited this long to ask those questions, surely a few minutes more wouldn’t make any difference. When Beth and the baby were safely in the small, but up-to-date maternity ward of the hospital there would be time for answers.
Beth had eyes only for the baby held tightly against her breast. Faith brushed her hand softly against the infant’s cheek. Her baby’s skin would have been this soft and rosy if she’d lived. There was dried blood under her fingernails just as there had been that awful day six months before. She dropped her hand quickly.
“It’s time to go.”
Beth’s blue eyes darkened to the color of a twilight sky. “Couldn’t we stay with you? You must live nearby. Just for a few hours…”
Faith shook her head. She couldn’t have a baby in her house. Not today. “We might get trapped there by the storm. There’s a bad one coming.” She gestured to the icy scene beyond them. “It’s already here. I promise you I’ll come to the hospital as soon as I can get back to my home and get my car. There’s no room in yours.”
“We’d better get going,” Jamie said. “I’m going to carry you, and Faith will bring the baby.”
Beth’s mouth tightened but she didn’t protest again. “Okay.” She lifted the small bundle toward Faith as though offering her the most precious gift in the world.
Faith swallowed hard again, but this time against the tears she could not let fall. How wonderful the fragile little body felt cradled against her breast. A tiny hand worked its way out of the folds of the sweatshirt and clamped onto Faith’s cold finger. The baby was a fighter, stronger than she looked. She could feel the baby nuzzling, searching for nourishment. Warmth pooled in her womb and her heart, melting a bit of the ice that sealed her emotions away.
Jamie scooped Beth into his arms, sleeping bags and all, and started down the slope at a quick pace. Faith looked down at the baby she held. “I wish you were my baby,” she whispered very, very softly. “I would love you and care for you as best I could if you were.”
But she was not. Faith’s baby was dead. Her husband was dead and she was alone.
That was the reality of her life.
Addy began bouncing up and down, straining at her leash, barking in short, frantic yips. Shelties were herd dogs, bred for centuries to protect their flocks. And when they didn’t have sheep to watch over they transferred those instincts to their human companions. She did not want to be left behind by her mistress, and she wasn’t shy about letting Faith know. “Sh, Addy. It’s okay. I’m not leaving you. I’m just taking the baby to the car. Then we’ll take the shortcut home through the woods.”
Faith turned her back on the indignant dog and stepped out from under the shelter into the stinging sleet just in time to watch Jamie open the driver’s door and look back at her over the roof of the car. “We can’t take her with us, Mrs. Carson. Not all the way to Texas. I know you’ll take good care of her. Keep her for us. We’ll be back. I—” His voice broke. “I promise.”
What happened next would stay in Faith’s memory until the day she died. The sleek blue car sprayed ice and gravel from its back wheels as Jamie roared out of the parking lot and fishtailed down the steep, narrow drive toward the county road that led to the state highway. For a split second Faith saw Beth’s face, her hands pressed against the window as if she were trying to escape, her mouth open in a soundless scream of anguish and protest.
“Don’t go! Don’t leave the baby.”
But they were already gone.
Faith was alone in the storm.
But not really alone.
For she held in her arms the one thing she wanted most.
CHAPTER TWO
Two and a half years later.
HUGH DAMON RESTED his forearms on the steering wheel of his much traveled Blazer and looked out on the tapestry of farm fields that stretched toward the low hills on the horizon. In the shallow valley below him a century-old brick house sat squarely in the middle of a grove of massive oaks and maples.
Painted Lady Butterfly Farm and Guest Lodging, stated a tasteful white-and-gold-lettered sign on the grass verge of the sleepy county highway he’d been driving since he’d left Cincinnati an hour ago. He hadn’t expected his search to bring him this far east, but it had.
The house itself was a monstrosity of Victorian overindulgence that made the engineer in him cringe. Elaborate gingerbread gables and bay windows abounded. There was even a widow’s walk on the roof. But the native red brick had mellowed with the years, allowing the building to blend into its surroundings, and the ornate trim was painted a pale cream instead of white, softening the effect still more.
On the other hand the red, clapboard barn behind the house was a masterpiece of function and design. Set on a native stone base, it was large and imposing, with a high-pitched slate roof and the same cream paint on the doors and windows. A working barn from the looks of it. Through the open double doors Hugh could see a big green tractor and what looked like an even bigger combine, dwarfing a minivan. Farmers didn’t build barns like that anymore. They couldn’t afford to, and it was to the owner’s credit that she spent the necessary money for its upkeep.
Beyond the barn were fields of soybeans and corn, the beans barely higher than the lush green carpet of lawn that abutted them, and the corn knee-high only to a small child at this stage of growth. There was also a pond complete with a small dock and an angled telephone pole with a long rope attached, just perfect for swinging out over the water on a hot summer’s day.
A large fenced-in area several acres in size directly behind the big house wasn’t planted in any cash crop, as far as Hugh could tell, but seemed to be left as meadow. Spindly, dried pods of milkweed provided sentinel posts for red-winged blackbirds. Red, pink and yellow flowers bloomed among the waving