not asking you to,” Rick said, enunciating clearly. “My sixteen-year-old sister is dead, Ms. Bookman. Right now, I just want to see her daughter while I still know where she’s living.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kraynick. I really am. Get permission from WeCare and I’ll happily facilitate a visitation at your convenience. Think about it. If foster parents were able to make these kinds of decisions, they’d be at risk of intimidation from every abusive parent who wanted access to his or her child.”
“That’s your final word?”
“It has to be. I’m sorry.”
Feeling uneasy, Sue hung up.
And wished she could call Grandma.
HE SHOULDN’T BE DOING this. He was assistant superintendent of a fairly large school district. Had ethical and moral standards to uphold. Examples to set.
Yet Rick drove slowly down the street, anyway, searching for the address Chenille Langston had given him at the cemetery. They’d only had one brief conversation but the young girl had told him that Christy had driven her friend by the place many times, when she’d been lonely for her baby. She’d said she wanted Chenille to know where Carrie was in case of an emergency. Christie wanted to be sure Carrie was cared for. Loved. But Chenille was only a kid herself. No one listened to her, she’d said. They certainly wouldn’t give her a baby.
Chenille’s words to Rick at the cemetery had been “It doesn’t get any more emergency than this.” She’d trusted him to make certain that Christy’s baby didn’t get lost in the system.
So he was using the statement of a confused young woman as justification for circumventing the system?
Maybe Mark and Darla Samson were right. Maybe he did need to talk to somebody. They’d been after him to do so ever since Hannah died the year before.
Maybe he really was nuts.
Not thath is friends had said as much. But he suspected, by the wariness in their eyes, the shared glances when they thought he wasn’t looking, that they thought so.
He’d known Mark, and through him, Darla, for years. Had hired him, in fact, to be the high school basketball coach when he’d been principal of Globe High.
Rick stopped the Nitro in front of a large yard with a smallish house set far back on the property, about ten miles south of San Francisco. It was just after four on Wednesday afternoon. The Samsons would absolutely not approve of this visit.
He could hear a baby crying as he approached the front door, and his heart lurched. Carrie? His flesh and blood?
She sounded hungry.
Rick knocked. And then, seeing the button beside the handle, rang the bell.
The crying stopped. Footsteps approached, on what sounded like a wood floor.
Wood floors were drafty. And…
The door opened.
“Oh. You’re not Barb.”
Rick stood there, taking in the sight before him.
Gorgeous, feminine—untouched by the trappings of accessories—the woman had a pure beauty. And babies. Three of them. One strapped to her front in a baby sack. The other two on either hip.
He wondered which of them was his niece.
He met the woman’s dark brown eyes, taking in her impatience, the blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, the T-shirt and jeans and bare feet. “Can I help?” he asked over the crying, motioning to the babies in her arms.
“No,” she said. She was bouncing her babies. One of whom, the crying one, needed its nose wiped. His nose wiped, if the blue sleeper was anything to go by. “But as you can see, I’m busy, so—”
“I’m Rick Kraynick.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Kraynick,” she said, backing up enough to be able to close the door.
“Wait! Which one is Carrie? I’m standing here. What would it hurt to point her out to me?”
“If you don’t leave this instant, I’m going to call the police.”
Obviously his suit and tie and shined shoes had done nothing to reassure her that he was a good guy. He’d left the jacket on, just in case, in spite of the almost seventy degree temperature.
“I’m going.” But he couldn’t take a step back. Not yet. All three babies were adorable. But one…she reminded him of…“Just tell me which—”
Her foot shot to the door. And just as she was kicking it shut in his face, the crying infant in blue spewed what had to be a full bottle of formula, as though shooting a ball from a cannon. The sour burst hit the face of the baby in the carrier, who promptly started to cry. It covered Ms. Bookman’s arm and chest, her floor, her door and Rick’s shoulder.
The shooter, once he was done, let out the most piercing wail Rick had ever heard.
He was one sick puppy.
Without further thought, Rick stepped inside the still partially open door. Relieving Ms. Bookman of the boy, he placed the smelly baby against his chest so he could rub his back. Soothe the ache.
Some skills, once learned, never left you.
“Go ahead, tend to them and yourself,” he said, loudly enough to be heard over the crying. “There’s no cure for colic but patience. And soft pressure on the stomach. I’ll follow you so you can keep me and shooter here in your sight at all times.”
“I can’t—” The baby still in her arms started to cry.
Reaching for his wallet while juggling the messy baby, Rick threw it on the table. “My license is in there,” he called out over the noise. “My school ID is as well. And all my credit cards. They’re yours while I’m here,” he added. “And I can’t kidnap Carrie while you’ve got her…Go!” he called, sending her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
With another worried look in his direction, she went. Rick followed, making sure to stay in view at all times.
Chapter Six
IT DIDN’T TAKE SUE LONG to get the babies cleaned up. Or herself, either, once she had the girls settled on a blanket on the floor with several brightly colored toys in their vicinity, encouraging exploration. She’d have liked to change, but they had a stranger in their midst.
Settling for hot soapy water and a couple of baby wipes, she was as good as she was going to get.
Rick Kraynick, in the meantime, standing within sight at all times, managed to get three-month-old Jacob cleaned up and to sleep.
“You’re very good at that.” Something about his splayed fingers covering the baby’s entire back, his forearm supporting Jacob’s diapered bottom so tenderly—and competently—made her more aware of the man than she should have been. Than she wanted to be.
She
