Читать книгу His Unexpected Family - Patricia Johns - Страница 14

Chapter Five

The next evening, Emily pulled open McRuben’s front door, a blast of air-conditioning meeting her in a welcoming wave. There was no lineup, and the only other patron was an old man nursing a coffee in a disposable cup by the bathrooms.

A bored teenager took her order, and Emily watched in silent delight as he filled her fries up to overflowing. When the boxed burger was deposited onto her plastic tray, Emily’s mouth watered in anticipation. Extra pickles, extra mayo and a dab of their secret sauce... This was the kind of dinner she looked forward to more than she cared to admit.

“Need a hand with that?”

Emily started at the familiar voice and looked up to see Chief Taylor standing there in uniform.

“Chief!” She looked down at her tray piled high with burger, fries, a milk shake and a sundae and felt her cheeks heat.

“Get me the same, would you?” He pointed to her tray and put a bill on the counter.

“Do you have a secret love of fast food?” she teased.

“I’m actually here for a perfectly professional excuse.” He shot her a grin, the most relaxed Emily had seen him yet.

“I don’t believe you.” She felt a smile tickle the corners of her mouth.

“All right, truth be told, I want a burger. But since you’re here, it could save me some time.”

“That’s more like it.” She chuckled, picking up Cora’s car seat.

“Let me carry this for you.” He picked up her tray.

Leading the way to a booth by a window, Emily looked back over her shoulder. “So what is this good professional excuse of yours?”

“Just some unanswered questions, mostly, Miss Shaw.”

Greg waited until Emily had Cora settled on the bench beside her before he eased into the seat opposite her.

He nodded his thanks to the teen who put down an identical tray to Emily’s in front of him. “About Jessica—does anyone know why she was coming to Haggerston?”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t know, but I guess I’d assumed she’d been on her way here. Her dad was here, after all. I did ask people at the funeral, but no one was really sure.”

He unwrapped the burger and peeked inside, his expression unreadable. “What is this?”

Emily laughed. “You did ask for what I was having.... It’s a burger with extra pickles, mayo and secret sauce. It’s delicious. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

Greg took a cautious bite, then smiled. “Good.” He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “I normally do extra bacon and tomato.”

Emily raised her eyebrows as an idea struck her. “I should start putting some bacon on this. That would be perfect.”

Greg shot her an amused look and then sobered. “So no one knew Jessica was coming?”

Emily shook her head. “Everyone was saying the same thing—we had no idea she was pregnant, let alone already a mother. We hadn’t heard from her in a long time.”

Greg nodded slowly. “Did she have drug problems? What would isolate her from her family like that?”

“Well...” Emily opened a ketchup package and made a little mound to dip her fries into. “Her parents were good Christian people, and Jessica was the black sheep of the family. She was the one who went out partying as a teenager and defied her parents at every turn.” She shrugged. “When she moved out of her parents’ house and went off to the city, she came back a couple of times for family events, but things were pretty strained between her and her parents.”

“But no substance-abuse problems?”

Emily shook her head, opening another packet of ketchup as she talked. “I think their biggest problem was that she was sleeping around, and they didn’t like it. She drank a little at parties, but I don’t think she was ever involved in drugs.”

“Why not?”

“She put herself through a fine-arts degree,” Emily said, raising her gaze to meet his. “She painted and drew. She was quite the artist. She worked too hard to get that degree on her own. She couldn’t have done it high.”

“So more of a free spirit.”

Emily nodded. “Don’t you remember her from Steve?”

“No.” He shook his head and popped a fry into his mouth. “I didn’t know Steve terribly well, not well enough to know his sister.”

“Why does any of this matter?” she asked, turning her attention to the food in front of her. She took a bite of her burger, the mixture of meat and condiments hitting her brain right in the pleasure center. Greg looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment, as if weighing his words. Finally, he shrugged.

“Maybe it doesn’t,” he admitted. “I just don’t feel quite right about all of this. There’s something missing. It might be nothing, but...” He shrugged again.

Emily licked a dab of ketchup off her finger, regarding Greg thoughtfully. Tiny lines were starting to appear around his eyes, and she could see that he shouldered a great deal of stress. He had the rugged features of a man accustomed to hiding his thoughts, but she could see something behind his eyes that she recognized—kindness.

“I suppose I should tell you,” Emily said quietly, “that Steve is contesting my custody of the baby.”

Greg winced, then nodded. “Yeah, I could see that coming.”

Emily shot him a quizzical look, and he put his hands up. “Not because you aren’t an excellent choice to raise the baby, but because these things do tend to happen.”

Emily sighed. “Well, regardless, I have a big decision to make.”

“What decision is that?”

“Whether to fight this in court or not.”

“That is a big decision.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She smiled sadly. “I just don’t know what the best thing is for Cora. A big legal battle hardly seems in her best interest, but then, Jessica chose me, and I’d like to think that was for a reason.”

Greg sighed. “So how are you holding up?”

“I have good friends, but the family is already choosing sides. My mom will always be behind me, but I was close to my uncle Hank, too—that’s Jessica’s dad. He’ll want his son to raise Cora, no doubt...”

“It’s getting complicated,” he said softly.

“Very.”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“To raise this baby.” She looked over at Cora sleeping peacefully in the car seat. “I can’t have children of my own.”

“Oh, I see.” He nodded and took a bite of his burger.

Stupid, she thought to herself. It was a personal thing to blurt out, and she wished she could take the words back. What did Greg want to know about her fertility? Seriously, Emily, she chastised herself.

“So what are you going to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She took a long, creamy sip of her milk shake. “It’s just so complicated.”

“I can see that.” His blue eyes met hers, and she was relieved to see compassion in them.

“I wish I knew why Jessica chose me instead of her brother. If I knew that, I’d know if I should be fighting for this or not. I need to know what she wanted, really wanted.”

He nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair. The comfortable quiet stretched out between them as they each finished their burgers.

“Greg?”

He raised his eyebrows in response.

“Are you going to be investigating my cousin’s death?”

“I’ll be looking into it,” he said. “I don’t have any reason to suspect foul play, but I’d like to get a few questions answered to put my own mind at ease.”

“While you’re doing that, would you mind keeping an eye open for something that might explain why she chose me?” Emily asked.

“Like what?”

“I wish I knew. I just need a few answers, too, about now, and I don’t know how to get them.”

Greg was silent for a moment, his gaze moving slowly over her face. His blue eyes seemed to be filled with conflicting emotions, something he wasn’t hiding very well. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Sure.”

“Really?” Emily laughed nervously. “I didn’t think you’d agree.”

Greg smiled at that. “I think you could use a favor about now.”

“Thank you. This means a lot to me.”

Just then, Cora began to cry, a thin, hiccup-y wail coming from the car seat, and Emily rummaged through the baby bag for a bottle.

“I’m prepared.” She gave him a wink and gently picked up the wriggling Cora in her arms.

* * *

Emily tried to give Cora the bottle, but the baby scrunched her eyes shut and wailed all the louder, turning her face away from the milk. Emily patted her and shushed her, but to no avail. She peeked in the diaper and felt her little face for fever. At first, Greg’s thoughts were focused on the crying, wondering when it would stop, but then he saw Emily’s face and he felt a sudden surge of sympathy. She looked ready to cry, too.

“What’s the matter?” Greg asked.

Tears welled up in Emily’s eyes, and she shook her head. “I’m not her mother.”

Greg could hear the pain in Emily’s voice as she said it, and the thought of the tiny thing crying desperately to find her mother—the mother who had been absent for a couple of weeks now—was heartrending.

Cora wailed harder, her face turning red as she cried out her frustration or grief, Emily patting her little rump and shushing fruitlessly. The restaurant was empty except for them, and when he looked over at the teens working, he found them staring.

“Can I try?” he suddenly asked, and as the words came out of his mouth, he was already regretting them. He was more of an iron-pumping kind of guy than a baby-soothing kind of guy, but there was something about the sadness in Emily and the unwanted audience that made him want to fix it if he could.

Emily agreed mutely, and he took the squirming infant out of her arms. What was he thinking? Cora screamed, her eyes squished shut and her tiny tongue quivering with the effort of her wails. When he tried to hold her close, she writhed and wriggled. He wasn’t sure exactly how to hold her, but he decided to simply use logic. When apprehending a suspect, first you needed to stop the perpetrator and then subdue the limbs. Cora’s legs were squirming quite actively, so he simply pushed the little knees up and pulled her against his chest. Once she was there, she seemed a bit surprised by her position, so he took advantage of the pause in her cries to hum a low, soft note.

It wasn’t a song. It wasn’t anything, really, just a low sound in his throat that rumbled in his chest. Cora gave a few more squirms, then leaned her tired little head onto his chest, listening to the sound. Emily came around to his side of the table.

“Have some milk, sweetie,” Emily murmured, and she slid the bottle’s nipple into Cora’s mouth. The infant started to suck noisily.

“There.” Greg caught her eye and grinned. “Now don’t move...”

Emily gave him an impressed look. “Wow, you’re good with babies.”

“I’m normally not.”

“How did you know what to do?”

“Lucky guess?” He looked down at the top of Cora’s little head with the damp little swirls of golden-red hair. “I think I just surprised her.”

The sound of Cora’s soft slurps as she drank her milk filled the space between them, and he looked down at Emily with her dark hair swept away from her face and her long lashes brushing her cheeks with each blink. She sat close to him on the bench as she held the bottle for the baby to drink, and the soft scent of her shampoo mingled with the scent of baby. Just another couple of inches and she could rest her head on his shoulder, too. He pulled his thoughts away from dangerous ground.

“I’ll have to remember that trick.” She smiled sadly. “I can’t change the fact that I’m not her mom.”

“Steve’s wife wouldn’t be her biological mother, either.”

“Well, that’s true.” Some of the sadness left her eyes, and he felt gratified to see it. She was hard on herself, that much was obvious. And she was under a tremendous amount of pressure.

What would it be like to belong with Emily and Cora? This was a sweet moment with the baby in his arms, drinking her bottle, and Emily so close to him that if he just leaned over... No, this wasn’t productive. There was no point in imagining what it would be like to have a family—to have them.

“Maybe you should take her back,” Greg said gruffly.

“Oh, no,” Emily replied, nonplussed. “You seem fine, and she seems happy.”

With that, Cora finished the bottle and Emily moved around to her seat across the table from him. Greg looked from Emily to Cora and back to Emily again.

“Burp her, would you?” Emily said. “Here’s a cloth.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, as if asking someone to burp a baby was the most natural thing in the world, that he found himself wondering if it weren’t in fact the most natural thing in the world. He took the proffered cloth and put it over his shoulder the way he’d seen Emily do it. Granted, she was more graceful, but after a couple of tries he managed it, and he started to gently tap Cora’s back.

“You know, I used to see myself with a whole houseful of kids.” Emily turned her attention to her fries, swirling them slowly through the ketchup. “I don’t even know why I thought I’d have so many. I suppose it comes with always having a class full of five-year-olds.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m grateful for the chance to raise one child. It’s all in perspective.”

Cora let out a resounding burp, and Greg looked down at her with a grin. He’d never expected burping a baby to be so...satisfying. It was as if he’d just slam-dunked.

“Nicely done.” Emily grinned at him, popping another fry in her mouth. “What about you? Do you ever think about having kids?”

Greg felt the moment disintegrating around him, caving in on itself like the old mall when a wrecking ball connected with a load-bearing wall. He shook his head.

“Not at all?” Her brow furrowed as her eyes met his. “You don’t want kids?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

It was the truth, wasn’t it? He couldn’t lie to her, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes as he admitted what was inside of him. No matter how adorable Cora was, no matter how sweet it might feel to imagine having a family of his own, children were simply out of the question.