style="font-size:15px;"> “I’ll be right behind you. I’m parked just over there.” She hooked a thumb toward a little blue hatchback, then raised her hand in a farewell and started off in that direction. He watched her for a moment, then heaved a sigh. He’d figure this out.
When Mike got into his cruiser, he glanced into the backseat. He couldn’t see into the car seat from that position, so he turned front again and sucked in a deep breath. He hadn’t slept since that phone call telling him about his nephew, and he hadn’t had a chance to process it all, either.
He started the car. Feeling any of this was just going to have to wait.
On the drive, Mike kept an eye on his rearview mirror, and Paige’s little blue car stayed steadily in the center of it. Eagle’s Rest was a small town in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, and it didn’t take him long to get to his place and park out front. Paige parked beside him. Having her here to help him out did make him feel a bit better.
It was midmorning and the sun was shining despite the chilly wind. Mike got the car seat out of his car on his own. Benjie was covered up in that blanket that Paige had tucked around him, but even so, Mike hurried to unlock the front door, balancing the car seat in one hand as he fiddled with his key ring in the other.
The door swung open, and Mike gestured Paige in ahead of him.
“Here we are,” he said, casting a quick glance around the place. It looked like the bachelor pad it was. He had a couch—relatively new—a TV, a kitchen table that sat between the tiny kitchen and the living room. The master bedroom was down the hall, along with a second bedroom that was full of packed boxes. Where was the baby supposed to sleep? The thought only occurred to him now. He looked over at Paige in mild panic.
“What?” she asked.
“I only have one bedroom that isn’t full of boxes right now,” he said.
“I’m not staying the night,” she said wryly. “You’re doing night duty on your own.”
“No, I meant—” He smiled at her dry humor. “The baby. Where is he going to sleep?”
“He’s a newborn. He’ll be in your bedroom,” she replied.
“Yeah?” It wasn’t very big in there, either.
“I’ll suss up a bassinet for you and a couple other necessities. But he’ll sleep in your room so that when he cries, you can feed him more easily. It’s good for bonding, too.”
“Bonding.”
“He needs to know that there’s someone who will respond when he’s lonely, or when he’s hungry, or when he’s scared.”
“A mother,” he murmured.
“A parental figure,” she corrected him. “That’s you.”
“Yeah, right.” He was still getting used to that concept. He was going to be like a dad to this kid. For a while at least. It felt wrong, though. He was Benjie’s uncle. This was Jana’s child. Not his.
“Your sister...” Paige began, then winced. “Can I ask about her?”
Jana was out there somewhere—alone, for all he knew. She’d be recovering from childbirth, and he had no way to find her. At least not immediately.
“Why not?” Mike sighed. “The administrator at the hospital told me that she gave my name and said I was a local cop. She didn’t know I’d moved out to Eagle’s Rest—I had no contact information to even let her know. Anyway, the Denver department passed along the message.”
“But what’s her situation?” Paige asked.
“Jana’s an addict.” He swallowed hard. “I haven’t seen her in a long time. She ran away as a teenager a couple of times. The second time, she didn’t come back. This was the first contact I’ve had with her in about three years. And I’m not sure it really counts as contact, if I never saw or spoke to her, does it?”
“I guess not,” Paige said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well...” He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t talk about his sister—she wasn’t an easy topic. There weren’t any answers.
“What caused her to run away?” Paige asked.
“We were raised by our grandmother when our mom took off. Grandma wasn’t really equipped to raise two kids. Her health was failing, and frankly, she was just tired. But it was better than nothing. Anyway, Jana and I handled our upbringing a little differently, I guess. I toughened up, and she...didn’t. She was sensitive, and we went to a rough school. I didn’t notice that she was struggling until it was too late.”
“Was there abuse in your home? Addiction?” Paige asked. Yeah, that was the social services shining through. She would probably have seen a lot of this sort of thing in her career.
“Mostly it was neglect,” he replied. “We raised ourselves, and I was pretty busy with my own friends, drowning my own sorrows. I thought she was doing the same thing—just riding it out. Grandma hated Jana’s boyfriend. He got arrested a couple of times, and Grandma had enough, told Jana to stop seeing him. So she ran away with him. She came back when they broke up after a couple of months. I thought it was over, but she never did settle back in, and the next time she took off, she never came back. And we didn’t find her.”
“How old was the boyfriend?” Paige asked.
“Three years older than her. She was fourteen. He was seventeen. Looking back on it now, they were both pretty young.”
“You didn’t find her until now?” Paige asked.
“No, I tracked her down a couple of times. Once she found me and asked for money. Another time I found her when her name came through the system—arrested for petty theft. I don’t know where she is right now, though. They can’t tell me anything under the Safe Haven law that gives a mother the right to relinquish her infant within three days of birth, no questions asked. I guess she did the same thing Mom did with us—dropped her kid off with someone she knew would care, and left.”
“The police are still looking for her, though, right?” Paige asked.
“I’m personally looking for her,” Mike retorted. “I’m not going to let her down again.”
The baby started to whimper from the car seat, and he looked over at Paige expectantly.
“I told you that you’d be the one doing the baby care,” Paige said with a small smile. “No time like the present to get started.”
He stared down at the little guy, trepidation rising up inside of him. He reached down and undid the buckle.
“I’m not sure how...” he admitted.
“One hand under the bum, one hand under the neck and head,” she said, standing back, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Right.” He did as she instructed and lifted the infant out of the car seat. The little arms and legs flailed as Benjie opened his mouth in a plaintive wail. Mike pulled the baby into his chest,
