LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I wish you’d reconsider this baby thing,” Mark said as they sat, a bench apart, untying the shoes that they left in the lockers behind them in between these Friday workouts.

      Half an hour had passed since either man had said a word to each other.

      “ ‘This baby thing,’ as you put it, isn’t negotiable,” Rick grunted.

      “It’s ludicrous, man. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment.”

      Disappointment? That would be a step up from the hell that had been his constant companion since he’d lost Hannah the previous fall.

      A darkness that had dissipated, for hours at a time, since he’d heard about the orphaned baby living half an hour away from him. He was meant to do this.

      “You really think they’ll give a baby girl to a single guy? Come on, man, they don’t even like to give them to couples who are living together and not married, let alone to a man living alone.”

      Rick didn’t bother to respond. He wasn’t just a man. He was Carrie’s uncle.

      He stripped off his shirt and shorts, dropped them in a pile in front of his locker and strode to the shower.

      The two men had just secured their lockers when Mark spoke again.

      “It’s not fair to her, either, is it?” he asked, his chin jutting as he faced Rick across the bench. “To be a stand-in for what you lost?”

      “No one, I repeat, no one, will ever replace Hannah.”

      “You think I don’t know that?” Mark’s gaze was filled with an empathy the two men didn’t generally share with each other. “You think I don’t know that while you might be breathing and moving, you’re no longer alive? I watched you dust yourself off back in high school, each time you got moved to another family.

      And then again when Sheila took off. You’ve done it again. You go to work, you rule with your firm but fair hand, but you’ve got no heart.”

      “Then you don’t need to worry about me using some-one else’s baby to replace my own, do you?”

      “I’m worried that you’re going to take a little girl from the chance of a loving, two-parent family, and bring her to a house of grief.”

      “Then I guess it’s a good thing you don’t think I’d stand a chance getting her, isn’t it?”

      “Ah, Rick, come on. This is me. I’m worried about you.”

      “Yeah.” Rick was the first to drop his gaze. “I’m kind of worried about me, too. But everything else aside, man, rest assured, I’m positive this is the right thing for me to do.”

      Grabbing his keys, he headed for the door.

      “MA, DO NOT LET Uncle Sam make you feel guilty about that necklace.” With Carrie on her hip, little newborn William sleeping in his car seat carrier on the floor, and three-month-old Michael napping in a swing, Sue used her free hand to straighten up the family room Saturday morning. Picking up toys. And talking into the Bluetooth her parents had bought her for Christmas the year before. “That’s what your father says, too,” Jenny told her, “and I know you’re both right. But I’ve spent a good part of my life wishing Sam and I were closer. Looking for something I could do to show him how much I love him. And…”

      “He had no business assuming that Grandma’s diamond necklace would go to him.”

      Michael sighed, but didn’t wake up.

      “Well, he did, actually,” Jenny said.

      “We had dinner with your aunt Emily and uncle Sam last night,” Luke added. “He’s ordered Emily and Belle to have nothing to do with Adam and the rest of the Frasers, and wanted your mother to agree to stay away from him, as well—”

      “Which, of course,” Jenny interrupted, “I didn’t agree to, but it turns out that our dad told him the diamond would be Sam’s when both he and mom were gone.”

      Our dad. Those words took on a whole new world of meaning now that they knew Robert had been Jenny’s dad biologically as well as legally.

      Her mother seemed to be taking the deceit a whole lot better than Sue was.

      “But Grandma wanted you to have it,” she said now. “Just don’t do anything rash, Ma. Give yourself time to get used to the idea of not having been orphaned. And I’m glad you told him you weren’t going to obey him. You need to get to know Uncle Adam.”

      God, how strange was that? Joe’s dad, her uncle?

      She hadn’t talked to her boss since the day of the will reading. Was kind of afraid to, actually.

      She’d thought his adult coolness toward her had been because of her rejection in high school. But if that was the case, all would be well now, right? Maybe she’d rejected him because, on some level, she’d sensed they were related.

      “I’ve been telling her that the necklace was Sarah’s to give, not Robert’s.” Luke jumped in again, his voice as clear as her mother’s via their high-tech cellular phone. “From the look on Emily’s face, I don’t think she and Belle agree with Sam about staying away from Adam, either.”

      “I’m sure Belle wouldn’t,” Sue said, and then added, “Take the necklace with you back to Florida. Don’t leave it in the lockbox at the bank here.”

      For all she knew Sam had a key to the lockbox. “Do you have it now?” she asked, as it occurred to her that it might already be too late.

      “We do,” Luke said. “We got it yesterday afternoon.”

      The appointment with Stan that they’d asked her to join them for. She’d been accepting delivery of William.

      She’d had Michael for two days. He’d settled in nicely. But then, he’d been in another foster home since his birth. He was used to commotion.

      William, at three days old, was still just acclimating to the world.

      “You have to see it, Sue, honey,” Jenny piped up.

      Carrie stuck a finger in Sue’s mouth. Sue kissed the little tip. And had a mental flash of a man’s face—staring with longing at his niece. Why couldn’t she just forget the man? “I’ve seen it, Ma.” She forced herself to clear her mind of the man who’d been haunting her. “Every time Grandma wore it.”

      “It would help to look at it again, hon,” Luke said. “Help you accept that your grandma is gone.”

      “I don’t need help.” Unless they could find a way to get Grandma back to her.

      “Sue, love…” Jenny started.

      “We’ll bring it when we come for dinner,” Luke finished for her.

      Smiling at the baby in her arms, finding solace in the innocent stare she received back, Sue said, “Just bring yourselves. You’ve got a newborn to bathe, Ma.”

      Babies. If life stayed about the stream of infants in and out of her life, she could control it. Mostly.

      “I sure wish you’d put in for vacation,” Luke said. “Come back to Florida with us for a few weeks. A change of scenery would do you good. This next little while is going to be really hard for you in particular, sweetie. From the day you were born, Grandma was the one person who seemed to be able to reach you—”

      “Okay, you guys, really, I’m fine. Can’t we just enjoy our last night together?”

      Her parents’ return flight to Florida left first thing in the morning.

      And they were as desperate to take care of her as she was to be left alone.

      IT WAS SATURDAY, with still no word regarding an emergency hearing to put a stay on whatever adoption procedures were pending for

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