Do You Take This Child? Read online

  When he drew his mouth away, she clung to him, not wanting the kiss to end. But it had to. At very best, her body was a few weeks away from being able to let her do anything about the fire that thundered through her veins.

  Sheila blinked, trying to focus. “Wow.”

  He laughed, but it was a kind, comforting sound. “I take that as a compliment. Now, go to sleep before I start calling around for a doctor who’ll swear in writing that you’re fit to render your wifely duties.”

  She could always forge the report herself, she mused. “What about my consent?”

  “I just tasted it.” He touched her lips with his thumb, not trusting himself to kiss her again, even lightly. “Right there. Good night, Doc.” Kicking back the covers, he slid under them.

  Sheila shook her head, not knowing what to make of him. “Good night, Garrett.”

  His back to her, Slade tried to make himself comfortable. “Pleasant dreams.”

  Frustrated ones, at any rate, she thought, looking at his back. With a sigh, she turned on her side, away from him.

  She sincerely doubted she’d get any sleep tonight.

  Chapter Seven

  The night had gone surprisingly well. Sheila had been convinced that she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep, not lying beside Slade. But self-preservation instincts had taken over. Sheila was asleep within minutes. Rebecca’s plaintive demands for food had woken her up three times.

  After the seven o’clock feeding, Sheila decided to remain up. Taking the baby with her, she went into her bedroom to change. The bed was empty.

  “Wonder if he made a break for it,” she murmured to Rebecca. Propping her daughter up in an infant seat she’d placed on the floor, Sheila quickly got dressed.

  It still felt so odd to think of herself as married. Having a baby was an adjustment in itself, but she’d had nine months to become accustomed to that concept.

  This was like finding herself in the middle of a hurricane moments after she’d looked up to see a clear. blue sky darkening.

  Sheila quickly brushed her hair and glanced in the mirror. It would have to do for now. She’d put her makeup on when she could focus.

  Squatting before the seat, she opened the belts strapping Rebecca in. She wanted to hold her daughter against her, not have her encased in plastic.

  “Well, let’s see about getting some tea into your mother to get her going this morning.”

  Rebecca greeted her statement with wide eyes.

  “Good, I like a receptive audience.”

  It was incredible how naturally Rebecca seemed to fit into the space formed by the crook of her arm, Sheila thought as she went down the stairs. She lightly pressed a kiss to the baby’s neck, inhaling the sweet baby scent. Whatever else happened, she was going to be eternally grateful to Slade for the way she felt right at this moment.

  Turning toward the kitchen, Sheila barely missed colliding with Slade. He was dressed in beige chinos that appeared to have been molded to his body and a dark brown shirt that accentuated his eyes even more. As if, with his dark, long lashes, he actually needed that.

  Slade caught her by the shoulders, steadying her. His eyes touched hers. Sheila felt a shiver travel through her, more intimate than if he had actually made physical contact.

  “Hi.” Slade looked at Rebecca. The baby’s expression was a disgruntled one, as if she’d missed her favorite program on TV. “And good morning to you, Short Stuff.”

  He’d shaved, Sheila noticed. The faint five o’clock shade was gone, and a light scent of cologne clung to his skin. She tried to place it and couldn’t. “You’re leaving?”

  He nodded, checking his back pocket for his wallet. “Just for an hour or so. I’ve got some things to do down at the paper.”

  Without thinking, she brushed away a stray crumb from his shirt. Toast. Was that all he had for breakfast? God, there were so many things she didn’t know about him, or about this situation in general. How did one go about being a wife, anyway?

  When he raised a brow at her action, she dropped her hand, trying not to appear self-conscious. “I thought you were on vacation.”

  “I am. If I wasn’t, I’d be catching a plane to somewhere.”

  That was something he was planning on discussing with Andy today. Getting off the foreign assignment chart. Jake Seavers had accompanied him overseas on several different occasions. He was still a little raw, but there was a lot of potential in him. He was probably ready and eager to go out on his own. Young, unattached and willing to take risks, he could be the new foreign correspondent. Slade was ready to surrender the mantle.

  The baby began fussing. He laughed and kissed the light halo of dark hair.

  “Hey, Short Stuff. Some fuss you put up last night. Great lungs.” He looked up at Sheila. “Takes after my mother,” Slade told her. “She was going to be an operatic singer until she met my father.”

  All she knew about his mother was her name. And that she apparently had raised Slade by herself. “The man who ran out on you.”

  The sympathy in Sheila’s voice warmed him. It also made him uncomfortable. He shoved his hands into his back pockets. “Yeah.”

  Sheila looked around Slade’s shoulder and saw the empty plate on the kitchen table. “I guess you’ve already had breakfast.”

  He grinned, glancing down at his shirt. She’d already deduced that much, he thought. “Just a quick bite. I don’t usually care for breakfast.”

  Baby in one arm, she moved the plate from the table to the top of the dishwasher. “You see, that’s another thing I don’t know about you.” Slade opened the door to the machine for her. Thinking better of it, he took the plate and placed it on the rack. “I don’t know if you like big breakfasts or little breakfasts, or how you take your coffee—”

  She was funny, he thought. And she cared. Boy, talk about falling into something good. It looked as if the luck that had faithfully dogged him all of his days was still intact for him. It had to be for him to have become entangled with a woman like Sheila.

  “I like my breakfast small and my coffee thick and black.” He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. An ear he wanted to nibble on. “And things like that are just minor matters—”

  She freed the lock. “No, they’re not,” she contradicted him. “They’re what make a marriage work. The tiny nuts and bolts.”

  “Nuts and bolts,” he repeated with an amused frown. “We’re not talking about a machine. Love is what makes a marriage work,” he insisted. She’d yet to tell him that, he thought. That she loved him. But she would. “Love and understanding.”

  He bracketed her shoulders between his hands, peering at her face. She really did look unsettled, he thought, though he supposed he couldn’t blame her. She hadn’t slept much. The baby had summoned her three times by his count. Because of the intervals, he knew that each time was for a feeding. Once the baby was on a bottle at night, he could take some of the stress off Sheila and let her get some sleep.

  “Is this a postpartum, normal thing you’re having, or should I be worried?”

  She paused, then let out a long, weary breath. That was exactly what she was having. A postpartum mood swing. She should have seen it coming.

  “Yes, it’s normal. And I’m not generally this emotional.” She should apologize for being so contradictory, but she hoped that this would suffice.

  Slade hugged her to him before releasing her. “I don’t mind. See you in a little while. You too, sport.” He touched a fingertip to the baby’s nose. “Go easy on your mother. She’s new at this. ’Morning, Ingrid.” He nodded at the young woman as he passed her on his way out.

  Ingrid, her long blond hair caught back in a ribbon, looked ready to take on the world. “Good morning, Mr. Pollack.”

  “Garrett,” he corrected her, tossing the surname over his shoulder with the ease of a man who had no identity crisis to reckon with. He was secure in who he was.

  More secure, he thought as he walked out of the house, than he had e
ver been before. This marriage business was agreeing with him, he mused. If he’d known that it could be like this, he wouldn’t have avoided the situation for so long.

  But then, it was only being married to Sheila that was making it right, he thought as he got into his car. Even rumpled and sleepy-eyed, she was more exciting than a centerfold in one of those men’s magazines.

  Looks like he was going to have to find a home for his own collection. He pressed the garage door opener and waited as the door slowly rose. The collection, one he’d inherited, unbeknownst to his mother, was just gathering dust in the storage unit, anyway. He’d kept it more out of nostalgia than anything else. His older cousin had passed it on to him, initiating him into the rites of manhood by conducting some very vivid anatomy lessons via visual aids for him when he was just thirteen.

  Maybe Seavers could do the magazines justice. It was either that, Slade thought, starting up the car, or bringing the whole lot of them to a recycling area.

  Seemed a shame, though. The magazines had been old when his cousin had given them to him. That made some of the issues more than twenty years old at the very least. Seavers it was. Though the magazines were tame by today’s standards, Seavers would appreciate the collection. He was a nostalgia buff.

  Whistling, Slade pulled out of the driveway.

  Ingrid had immediately begun cleaning up the kitchen. Slade had left the loaf of bread and stick of butter out by the toaster. She returned each to its proper place.

  She smiled at Sheila as she worked. “He is nice, your Mr. Garrett.”

  Sheila was about to correct Ingrid, saying that Slade wasn’t “her” Mr. Garrett, but she stopped abruptly because he was. He was her Mr. Garrett, she realized. For better or for worse. She’d signed the license yesterday, surprised that he had managed to obtain one so fast. That made it official.

  That same, uneasy, tightening feeling that she’d felt before when she took stock of what she’d done threatened to take hold of her again. Sheila banked it down.

  “Yes, he is,” she agreed. “Very nice. When he wants to be.” She turned her attention to the baby. “So, princess, what’ll Mom have for breakfast to help her face up to this new position of hers, hmm?” She opened the refrigerator.

  “Oh, please, you have your hands full. Let me make you breakfast,” Ingrid insisted, gently moving Sheila out of the way.

  “I’m paying you to be a nanny, not a housekeeper,” Sheila reminded her.

  Ingrid remained undaunted. For such a sweet-looking little thing, she seemed very determined, Sheila noticed. “I can be both, Dr. Pollack. Now, what will you—?”

  She stopped as the doorbell rang.

  Slade, Sheila thought. He must have forgotten something. But why wasn’t he using his key? She’d given him one last night just after dinner.

  “Wait, I will get it,” Ingrid offered, hurrying to the front of the house.

  Sheila opened the refrigerator again. “There’re too many people running around this house, Rebecca,” she confided in a low tone. “I’m not used to this.”

  “Dr. Pollack?”

  Sheila looked over her shoulder to find that Ingrid had returned. There was a huge, enigmatic smile on her face.

  Now what? Sheila wondered. “Yes?”

  In response, Ingrid took a step to the side. Needlessly, she announced, “Your parents.”

  Behind her stood Susan and Theodore Pollack. Together. Sheila’s mouth dropped open. They were only together at functions. Did she now come under that heading?

  She also couldn’t ever remember seeing either of them dressed so casually. There were no family picnics to look back on, or trips to the beach or the mountains to remember. In a land noted for its resorts and vacation hot spots, her parents had only worked, not played.

  But even in casual clothes, there was the air of refined class about them. Class, and something else. Something had changed, Sheila realized as she came forward. She could see it in her mother’s eyes.

  They almost looked like any other parents. Almost, but not quite.

  Susan Pollack covered her mouth with her long, delicate fingers, and Sheila thought she saw what appeared to be tears shimmering in her mother’s sapphire eyes.

  “Oh, my God, Ted, it’s true.” Susan glanced at her husband to see if he was affected, as well. “She’s had the baby.”

  Not waiting for a comment from the man she’d been married to for almost thirty-five years, Susan surrounded her only child, hugging both Sheila and the baby at the same time.

  Those were tears, Sheila realized. Her mother was actually crying. She didn’t remember her mother ever crying.

  Susan pressed her lips together to suppress a sob. “Fine thing, having to find out that I’m a grandmother from an answering machine.”

  Sheila had called her parents as soon as she’d been brought in from recovery. A machine had picked up on the other end. She had expected nothing less.

  “Hello, Mother.”

  Sheila lifted her face for her father’s quick kiss and was surprised when he squeezed her shoulder, too. Were his eyes glistening, as well? Was it allergy season already? It had to be. Her parents didn’t react emotionally to situations. They dealt logically with everything.

  “You were away on a cruise,” Sheila reminded her mother.

  That in itself was unusual. Her parents never took time off from their practices, unless it was to attend a medical convention where, like as not, one of them was keynote speaker.

  What was going on?

  “You could have patched through a call to the ship,” Susan admonished. “Celeste knew what cruise line we were on,” she said, referring to the housekeeper. And then any reprimands faded away as she looked again at her granddaughter. “Oh, she’s beautiful.” Susan raised her eyes to her husband. “Isn’t she beautiful, Ted?”

  Settling comfortably into middle age the way he’d never managed to do with his youth, Dr. Theodore Pollack II smiled expansively. “Yes, she’s beautiful. Not the way Sheila was, of course.” He looked at his wife as if he was just now seeing her after all these years. “But then, Sheila had your eyes and mouth. Though this one has your name.”

  Susan smiled, and Sheila could have sworn she was blushing. “Rebecca Susan is a wonderful choice, dear,” Susan said to her.

  Sheila couldn’t stop staring at her parents. It was like being zapped into the twilight zone. Or having one of her own fantasies suddenly take on a life of its own. The one she’d had as a child, where her parents behaved like a normal, loving couple instead of a reserved, professional one.

  “Mother, Dad, is something wrong? You’re behaving so...strangely.” She couldn’t put it any better than that.

  Ted laughed, but it was Susan who spoke. “You mean we’re not being stuffy?”

  Sheila wouldn’t have insulted either of them for the world, although that was the first word that came to mind. Stuffy. Reserved. Undemonstrative. “I mean, you’re different. I expected a card with a savings bond, not a visit.”

  “The savings bond.” The phrase suddenly triggered Susan’s memory. She looked at her husband. “Did you remember to buy it?”

  Sheila held up her hand before her father could answer. “That wasn’t a hint, that was an observation.” She stepped back to get a better look at both of them. “What’s happened to you two?”

  They exchanged looks, and then, to Sheila’s everlasting surprise and pleasure, her father slipped his arm around her mother’s shoulders. “I think that after thirty-five years of married life, we’ve finally found each other.”

  “The house was big, but not that big,” Sheila pointed out. It had to be something more.

  Susan settled comfortably against the crook of her husband’s arm. “No, but our careers were. I don’t think either one of us has to tell you that.”

  No, their careers always took precedence over everything. Her father’s semiannual flights to Third World countries to perform operations on children who would otherwise have spe
nt their lives impaired and crippled, her mother’s weekly visits to the free clinic in the inner city, the long hours they spent at their individual practices, all this bit such a hole into the fabric of their lives together. But Sheila had adjusted to that, made her peace with it. This was just the way things were. Tigers had stripes, the sun rose in the east, and her parents were dedicated.

  What had changed?

  “So? What happened?”

  Susan looked at her husband, deferring the explanation to him. It was too painful for her to repeat.

  Ted paused before answering. It had been the very worst time in his life. Luckily, it had had a happy ending. But it might not have had. And no one knew that better than he.

  “We thought your mother had breast cancer.”

  It was the first hint of it that she had heard. Sheila’s eyes grew huge. “Mother!”

  Susan held up her hand to stop the rush of words and questions she knew was coming.

  “We didn’t tell you, Sheila, because we didn’t want you to be alarmed. It turned out to be benign. As, we realized, was our marriage.” She looked at her husband, and there was no missing the love in her eyes.

  “Both of us were suddenly faced with a very different picture of life than we were accustomed to,” her father continued. “It was time for taking stock, time to look at what was really important.”

  “Each other—” Susan picked up the thread of the narrative “—and you.” Her mother kissed her temple with more feeling than Sheila could ever remember. “Poor you. You were always shortchanged while I was rushing off to heal the sick and your father was flying off to Third World countries to perform his operations.”

  Sheila had always attempted to hold on to just the positive aspects of her childhood. “I was very proud of you,” she told them honestly.

  Susan combed her fingers through Sheila’s hair. “And very lonely. I see that now. Charity begins at home, and you hardly got any.” Her eyes seemed to caress her granddaughter. “Things are going to be different now that she’s here.” Susan grinned as she took the baby into her arms.

  “Very different.” Sheila couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother grin, only smile absently. “We’re going to spoil her rotten.”