glowered at Nanny and Kevin, who was clasping Heidi like a football under one arm, crosswise against his chest. They were standing on the back veranda, screened from view by some wildly fragrant vine that was perfuming the air from its vantage point on the lattice-work. “She’s more forgiving than I would be under the circumstances.”
“Not’ing in that tea they arrest me for.” Nanny was glowering, too, glowering and sucking on a pipe that one of her sons had carved for her. Damon and Arthur had forbidden her to smoke it inside, but she spent hours each day with it clamped unlit between her lips. He had no idea what she burned in it each evening when she went outside to sit on the beach and stare in the general direction of George Town, but she had assured him that whatever it was, it was nothing they could arrest her for, either.
“You knocked her out with that tea,” Damon said. “And you knew you would. No more of that, Nanny. And, Kevin, there’s no point in trying to chase Matty away. You might as well write yourself a ticket back to Miami if you do, because I’ll be moving back there with Heidi to deliver pizza if this custody issue can’t be resolved in my favor here on Inspiration.”
“I can leave anytime.” Kevin’s posture was defiant, one hip thrust forward, his chest puffed out, the hand not holding Heidi thrust deep in the pocket of his jeans. He looked like a young Blackbeard, angry and violent and aching for trouble.
“No, you can’t,” Damon said shortly.
“You can’t stop me.”
Damon wasn’t in the mood to argue. Kevin was partially right. If it ever came to it, Damon couldn’t stop the boy from leaving. But Kevin owed Damon money for his medical care, for room and board, for clothing and incidentals, and Kevin, despite appearances and despite the way they had met, always paid his debts. For his part, Damon made sure that Kevin never came out even in any exchange. That way he knew Kevin would stay on Inspiration, and he could continue to keep an eye on him. He didn’t know how much of this Kevin understood, and he didn’t even care. So far it was working, and that was all that mattered.
“I’m putting Matty’s suitcases on your bill,” Damon said.
“Why? She’s still got ‘em, doesn’t she?”
“We’re going to have to have them cleaned professionally. And it won’t be cheap.”
“You ever heard of child labor laws?”
“You ever heard of juvenile detention centers?”
Kevin sank into a sullen silence.
Damon ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, Kevin, you’re very good at making your point. You don’t want her here. We all know that. But give her a chance. Please? She’d like to be friends.”
Kevin made a noise that was every bit as descriptive as the profanity that Damon insisted he eliminate from his vocabulary.
“All right. You don’t have to be friends,” Damon said. “Just don’t make her life miserable. Got it?”
“I’ve got work to do.” Kevin swung Heidi forward, and Damon was left with no choice but to take her. Kevin ambled off, both hands deep in his pockets and his back hunched defiantly.
“He don’t stay, I don’t stay,” Nanny said.
“He’ll stay. And this is not a contest. It’s not you and Kevin versus Matty. For Pete’s sake, Nanny. Give her a chance.”
“Don’t know no Pete. Don’t want to.” She went back into the house and slammed the door behind her.
Heidi wiggled in Damon’s arms, and he noticed for the first time that she was wearing a diaper and nothing else. “You cold, sweetheart?” He lifted her so that she was hanging in front of him. “Is Daddy’s little sweetheart cold?”
She gave a toothless grin, and his heart kicked into overdrive. The day she had learned to smile had been the best day of his life. He clasped her close and wrapped his arms around her, noisily kissing the soft top of her head. She was going to have dark hair like his, despite the fact that Gretchen’s hair was nearly—and naturally—white. Her eyes looked as if they were going to stay blue, but he didn’t know enough about babies to tell anything about the final decision on her coloring. Whatever the details, he knew for certain that she was going to be the most beautiful little girl, teenager and, finally, woman in the entire world. He could tell that much, and the rest didn’t matter one bit.
“Let’s put some more clothes on you,” he said with that peculiar timbre in his voice that he’d developed since their first meeting. He couldn’t seem to talk to Heidi as if she were an adult. She wasn’t, after all. She was so tiny, so fragile, so unbelievably…cuddly. He was certain there was a biological reason why babies evoked baby talk. Something about pitch and decibels and the fragile auditory system of infants. He was certain that he was just playing along with Mother Nature, who couldn’t always be understood, but who always seemed to know exactly what she was doing.
Inside the house he started upstairs to find Heidi more clothes. It wasn’t really cold outside. She was probably perfectly comfortable just as she was, but he had an ulterior motive. She was charming in diapers, charming any way, for that matter. But dressed in one of those ridiculous outfits that grandmothers the world over seemed to favor she was absolutely…perfect. And he wanted Matty to see just how perfect she was.
In Heidi’s room he settled her on the change table and set her mobile of fuzzy yellow ducks spinning so that she could bat her fists in their direction as he chose something else for her to wear. The room was tiny, just large enough for a crib, the table and a rocking chair. The house had eight bedrooms, and he was welcome to make a nursery in any of them that weren’t in use, but he had chosen the old dressing room because he could enter it directly from his bedroom.
He had never allowed Heidi to cry at night and never intended to. Until she was old enough to need more space, he wanted her nearby, where he could hear her when she wriggled or sighed or laughed. He had never realized just how short childhood was, but he was all too aware at the end of each day how swiftly it had passed and how much his daughter had changed.
He was a hopeless sap.
In the bottom drawer of the change table he sorted through sunsuits and dresses, T-shirts and overalls. Gretchen hadn’t wanted custody, but she sent their daughter clothes as if that would somehow make up for her lack of maternal instinct. Arthur Sable, the man who owned Inspiration Cay, seemed to have bought stock in a baby boutique and was taking his dividends in merchandise, and even Nanny and Kevin had pooled their funds to buy Heidi whatever caught their eye among George Town’s meager baby supplies. Damon wondered what Matty would think when she saw how packed these drawers were.
He wondered what Matty would think, period.
The subject of Matty stilled his hands, and for a moment he stared at the heap of baby clothes and tried to imagine what she must be feeling. He couldn’t imagine a worse beginning for them all. He had dragged Matty through hell yesterday. Even he had felt queasy after the boat trip in from George Town, and he was an experienced sailor. He could so easily have made the day easier for her, but he hadn’t thought it through well enough. He wasn’t good at putting himself in anyone else’s shoes. He had always found it easier to concentrate on ideas, on theories, on statistics, rather than on people and what they were feeling. Feelings confounded him, his own included. He suspected that was why he’d never had any serious thoughts about marriage or parenthood.
Until
