The Black Sheep’s Baby

Chapter 3

B efore his mother could say a word, Eric sang out with false cheer, “Hey, Mom!” He motioned her into the room with a savage little jerk of his head. “Say hello to the viper you let into your house last night.”

Then he got out of her way while his mother swept past them both, her house shoes making sandy noises on the linoleum floor. When she reached the table she halted and rounded on them, fired up and vibrating like some kind of self-contained energy source. And, darned if Eric even remembered that old yellow bathrobe she was wearing, the one that had made her seem to the little boy he’d been like a tiny broken-off piece of sunshine.

“What’s this?” she rasped in that rusty-file voice of hers, glaring at her houseguest. “Devon? Something about you taking Emily? What’s this about a court order?”

The lawyer’s mouth popped open, but Eric, who was beginning to enjoy himself, got there first. “That’s right, Ma.” He lifted the bottle and squinted at what was left in it before placing it on the counter, then shifted the little one to his shoulder. “This lady has chased me-” he said that in a crooning tone as he patted “-all the way from L.A. She means-ah, there you go, darlin’-to take Emily, here, away from me.”

Beside him, Devon carefully put down the piece of toast she’d been holding and dusted crumbs from her hands, like someone preparing to do battle. Folding her arms across her chest, she turned her head toward him and said in a low, even tone, “I wouldn’t have had to chase you if you hadn’t skipped town. You do know I could have sent marshals to arrest you and bring you back by force?”

His mother heard that, and exclaimed, “Arrest you?” She glared, outraged, at Devon, then glanced wildly toward the back porch door. For one lovely moment Eric thought she might be about to do what he’d threatened to do-throw her houseguest out on her rear, blizzard or no.

Apparently that thought occurred to Devon, too, because she pushed away from the counter and appealed to Lucy in a hurried and breathless voice. “Mrs. Lanagan-Lucy-please believe me, that’s the last thing-”

“You said you were a friend of Eric’s!”

She shook her head emphatically. “No. I said I was looking for Eric. I’m sorry if you misunderstood.”

From his spectator’s spot at the counter, Eric sourly muttered, “Lawyers.”

Devon shifted her attention back to him; he could feel her eyes even though he still couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her. That once had been more than enough.

“Look,” she said, “it doesn’t have to be like this.” He had to admit that quiet but vibrant voice would be a real killer in the courtroom. “I wanted to come myself, to meet you in person and, perhaps, appeal to your sense of compassion.”

“Compassion!” With one word, she obliterated the emotional shell he’d built around himself, like popping a balloon.

“-and fairness-”

“Good God-fairness?” Eric was so incensed he could hardly believe what he was hearing, much less articulate a reply. All he could do was stare down at the upturned face of the baby, now asleep and snoring gently on his chest, keep swallowing hard over and over again, trying without success to ease the knots of emotion inside him. Knots of fear, and anger and fierce protective devotion.

“Yes, fairness.” Having put him out of action for the moment, Devon was appealing once more to Lucy. “I’m an attorney, Mrs. Lanagan. I represent the O’Rourkes-”

“O’Rourke?” Lucy sounded like a startled frog.

“Emily’s grandparents. Parents of Susan O’Rourke, Emily’s mother. They’ve filed a petition for custody-”

“Wait a minute,” Lucy interrupted, “didn’t you say your name was O’Rourke?”

Eric swore softly but savagely.

“Mrs. Lanagan…please-”

“Hey,” Mike said from the doorway, not even trying to smother a yawn. “What’s going on?”

Eric let out his breath in an audible hiss. He had mixed feelings about his dad walking in just then. On the one hand, the interruption was at least something of a safety valve; he could feel tensions easing, not only in himself but in the room as well, as though everyone in it had taken the moment to retreat and regroup. On the other hand, his confidence in his own adulthood was having a hard enough time finding its compass in this house where he seemed to be constantly and confusingly tilting back and forth between being someone’s father and someone’s son.

“Mike.” Lucy pressed a hand to her forehead. “She’s a lawyer. She says she has a court order. She means to take Emily away.”

“Now wait a minute.” Devon had a hand up as if to ward them all off. “That’s for a judge to decide. All my clients want is a fair hearing. They have a right-”

“Your clients?” Three faces turned toward Eric, wearing almost identical expressions of surprise, as if, he thought, they’d all forgotten he was there. The little one chose that moment to stir on his shoulder and draw a long shuddering breath. He shifted her into the cradle of his left arm and began automatically to rock her, soothing her, soothing his anger. “Who’re you kidding? Just who are you, really? Come on, quit lying to us.”

“I’m not-”

“Evading, then. Come on-your name’s O’Rourke.” His lips curved stiffly, though he felt no amusement at all. Bracing himself, he forced his eyes to meet the ones he’d been so steadfastly avoiding. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Or did you think I’d consider it a coincidence that you happen to look just like her?”

Well…not just like her, he realized now that he was looking at her, really looking, for the first time. Hardship and drugs had robbed Susan O’Rourke of the beauty and vitality she’d been born with, long before Eric had ever laid eyes on her, dulling the fiery hair to a coarse and tarnished bronze, turning luminous alabaster skin to the color and texture of dirty chalk. But it was the eyes that made him understand, maybe for the first time, just how cruelly Susan O’Rourke had been cheated of everything she could have-should have-been. The eyes that glared back at him now held sparks of green fire. They glowed with life and energy and intelligence. Staring into them made him burn with sadness and anger, remembering Susan’s eyes, especially the way he’d seen them last-sunken pools, shadowed with hopelessness and despair, fading to flat, final emptiness.

“Susan was my sister.”

The words broke the tension that had been building in that dimly lit kitchen, like a baseball hurled through a window. Totally engaged with each other in some sort of tug-of-war of wills, Devon and Eric both ignored Lucy’s gasp, Mike’s small gesture warning her to be still.

“I wasn’t trying to evade anything,” Devon went on, in a voice utterly devoid of emotion, speaking only to Eric, now. “And I certainly didn’t intend to lie to anyone about my identity. I simply didn’t think it was relevant. As I said, I’m here acting as attorney for the O’Rourkes-period. The fact that they also happen to be my parents, and that the baby you’re holding is my niece, has no bearing on anything. You know that a judge has ordered you to submit to tests to prove your claim of paternity. If you are, in fact, this child’s father, then you will have an opportunity to explain to a judge why you think you, a single man with a globe-trotting lifestyle, should be granted custody of an infant over a mature and loving couple able to provide a secure and stable home.”

Loving couple. Stable home.

To Eric the words were knives, stabbing at his heart. He caught his breath and held it, afraid that if he let it loose all the rage and grief inside him would come with it. And he didn’t want to take that risk, not while he was holding the little one. He’d promised-he’d sworn on his life-to protect her. He’d vowed to make sure none of it touched her, ever-neither the violence nor the ugliness of the images in his mind.

“Mr. and Mrs. Lanagan-please, hear me out. Let me explain…” He could hear Devon appealing to his parents in that cold, intelligent voice, so different from Susan’s. Susan’s voice had been higher pitched, sweeter, but cracked and ruined, so that she sounded like a little girl with a sore throat.

“Eric, you have to keep my baby safe. Don’t let them get her. Please…promise me you won’t let them have her. Please…”

“I will…I will. I promise.”

Those were the last words Susan had ever heard. In the next moment the monitor’s alarm had gone off and nurses had come running, shoving him roughly aside. He’d stood then almost exactly as he was standing now, holding the little one just like this, gazing down at her perfect, innocent face while his insides filled up with the ache of an angry sadness, and elsewhere in the room people went on speaking to each other in words that had no meaning to him.

“It’s true, Lucy…Mike.” Devon had her back to him now, addressing his parents as if they were a jury-which was, he understood, just what they were: a jury of two. Her voice was vibrant, but the emotion in it seemed calculated to him; she sounded like an actress-a good one-doing a scene from a play.

“Susan-Emily’s mother-was my younger sister. She ran away from home five years ago, when she was fourteen. My parents tried everything they knew of to find her, without success. We hadn’t heard a word from her in all that time-we didn’t know whether she was alive. We probably still wouldn’t know, except that when your son brought her to the hospital, she was unconscious and he-” she tossed a little nod toward Eric “-claimed he didn’t know her last name. They listed her as Susan Doe. Eventually, the police identified her from fingerprint records my parents had given when they’d filed the missing person report. They’d had us both fingerprinted when we were kids, apparently.” She paused for just a moment, and Eric saw her touch her forehead as if that troubled her, somehow.

Then she drew a regrouping breath and went on. “Of course, my parents rushed to the hospital. They were too late. Susan had died.” With flawless timing, she let the words hang there.

Lucy, his mom-tough as nails on the outside but, as Eric well knew, with a marshmallow interior-made a distressed sound. He saw her reach for his dad’s hand. To hide her triumph, Devon turned from them and took two slow steps toward Eric. Her eyes burned into his as she continued her relentless summation…burned with that cold green fire.

And in spite of himself, in spite of everything, he found himself admiring her. He thought, my God, she’s incredible. Incredible. How, he wondered, could a woman look so damn beautiful so early in the morning, with smudged makeup, uncombed hair and wearing his dad’s old flannel bathrobe?

How could someone so damn beautiful be so damn wrong? And how could looking at someone that beautiful make him feel so full of…what was it he felt? Not hate-hate was cold, bitter, a decay in the soul. This was something white-hot in his gullet, like a slug of straight whiskey; a fire underneath his skin, an electrical charge delivered straight to his brain. Watching her, listening to her, made him burn with anger, seethe with frustration, vibrate with excitement.

Damn her. She made him feel-there was only one word for it-aroused.

“She’d regained consciousness,” Devon said softly, still speaking to his parents but holding his eyes, “long enough to provide the information for her baby’s birth certificate. Since she had named Eric Lanagan as the father, Emily had been released to his custody.” Displaying a nice flair for the dramatic, she whirled back to face her real audience. “Since then, he has refused to allow my parents-Emily’s grandparents!-to visit her. You can imagine how much grief this has caused these people-to find their lost child after so many years only to lose her forever-” at which point, predictably, Lucy sniffed, coughed ferociously and dabbed at her nose “-and then on top of it, to be denied the chance to see and hold their grandchild. I’m sure you can understand why Susan’s parents are hoping to have the chance to raise their daughter’s little girl.”

“Like a second chance,” Mike said, and there was a suspicious gruffness even in his voice.

“Exactly…” It was a sigh of satisfaction. Eric halfexpected her to add, “I have nothing further, Your Honor.”

He looked defiantly straight at them, then, because he could feel them all watching him. Three pairs of eyes arrayed against him, full of questions and accusations. His mom and dad sitting close together at the table, Lucy with one hand clutching Mike’s and the other clamped across her mouth and her eyes suspiciously bright. And Devon standing, half facing them, with one hand on the back of a chair and her head turned toward Eric, as if she’d just finished addressing a jury. As, of course, she had. And it was obvious to him that he’d already been found guilty.

He had to get out of there, blizzard or no blizzard. He had to find a way to calm his mind, prepare himself for the battle ahead. He could put the little one down in his room-she’d sleep awhile, yet-and go someplace peaceful and quiet.

And he knew, suddenly, just where he could go. The place he’d escaped to so often during the turbulent years of adolescence.

But first, he couldn’t hold back the question. One question. He hurled it at Devon and it shattered the silence like a shovelful of gravel slung against a wall.

“Why’d she run away?”

“What?”

Ah-was it only his imagination, or had Devon suddenly gone still…still as a marble statue? Except, he thought, no statue had ever had hair that vivid.

“You heard me,” he said harshly, staring at her so hard his eyes burned. “If your parents’ house was such a great place to raise a kid, why did Susan run away from it?”

Her eyes shifted downward to the hand that rested on the chair back, for that moment the only thing alive in her frozen face. Then she pulled in a breath, drew herself up, and said stiffly, with none of the previous vibrancy, “My sister was always…a difficult child. She was headstrong, spoiled. Rebellious. I imagine she ran away because she didn’t like my parents’ rules. I’m sure she thought she was being mistreated-”

He couldn’t stop a laugh; it made a sound like blowing sand. “No kidding.” Tucking the little one more securely into the cradle of his arm, he pushed away from the counter. No one said a word when he moved toward the door.

Halfway there, though, he turned. Again, he felt as if he had no choice as he softly said, “Tell me something, Devon. How can you do this? To Emily. After-”

“What?” She’d gone wary and still again, just like before. “After what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He took a breath, then shook his head. No. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t say it, not with his parents-his mom-sitting right there. Instead, he smiled a hard little smile. “Susan used to say she had nobody-you know that? Nobody who cared a damn about her. Nobody in this world, that’s how she put it. That includes you, doesn’t it? You said, you imagine she probably thought she was being mistreated. Don’t you know what was going on in that house? Where were you when your sister needed you?”

It was cruel, and he knew it. It wasn’t like him; he knew that, too. He felt the weight of his mother’s reproachful glare and fortified himself against it, bracing himself to meet instead that other pair of eyes…green-fire eyes.

There was no flinching this time; she lifted her chin and those eyes stared back into his. “I was away-in law school-when Susan left. I’d have been there for her, if I’d known-”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Eric said softly. He turned and left them there.

His going left a void that wasn’t quite silence. To Devon it felt like a sort of hum, a current of tension and distress that was almost audible.

She heard Lucy exclaim, “I don’t know what’s happened to him, I swear,” and probably would have gone after her son then and there if her husband hadn’t tightened his hand on hers and held her where she was-a tiny, private gesture. She also saw the tight, shiny look of worry on Lucy’s face, the tense and skittery way she sat, like a little brown bird perched on a fence, half a heartbeat away from flight.

“How ’bout some of that coffee you made? Sure smells good.” Mike’s gaze, thoughtfully appraising, rested for a long moment on Devon, and she felt a curious tickle of unease. She couldn’t have explained why; his eyes held only kindness and compassion.

They’ve seen a lot, those eyes. They understand too much.

“I’ll get it,” said Devon, and was surprised when her voice came out sounding as rusty as Lucy’s. “How do you take it?”

“Black is fine.”

“Lucy?”

“What? Oh-yes…black for me, too.”

Devon busied herself with the cups, and it didn’t seem strange to her that she, the guest, was serving coffee to her host and hostess. She was bemused and dismayed, though, to find that she felt shaky and nervous doing it.

I’m probably just hungry, she told herself as she bit savagely into cold leathery toast.

Chewing stolidly, she thought about the scene that had just played itself out in the predawn quiet of a farmhouse kitchen…her first meeting with the Opposition. Her thoughts weren’t happy ones. She hadn’t handled it well. She’d allowed herself to be blindsided, and that never happened. When she thought about why it had happened, all she could come up with was an appalling list of mistakes. Her mistakes. Devon hadn’t gotten to be where she was-that is, one of the most respected and feared young attorneys in Los Angeles-by making mistakes.

Mistake number one, she’d failed to prepare herself. So far, the information she’d been able to assemble on Eric Lanagan was proving to be woefully inadequate. Most of what she knew was in the form of statistics gleaned from Emily’s birth certificate: age, race, state of birth. From that, with the help of her firm’s private investigators and a judge’s court order, she’d been able to put a trace on his credit cards. Finding him, tracking him down-that had been the easy part. Finding out who he was-that was where she’d slipped up.

Mistake number two, she’d fallen victim to her own preconceived notion of what kind of person Eric Lanagan was.

Which had led directly to Mistake number three, seriously underestimating her opponent.

And why not? she furiously asked herself. Twenty-eight-year-old man with no employer of record befriends nineteen-year-old homeless woman and gets her pregnant-that sure said Punk-Sleazebag-Loser loud and clear to her! Didn’t it?

She’d come prepared to despise Eric Lanagan and to fight him tooth and nail on behalf of her parents for custody of her sister’s child. But she hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected him to have parents who would unhesitatingly take her in in the middle of a blizzard and give her a bed and pajamas and an old flannel bathrobe that smelled of sunshine. She hadn’t expected Eric Lanagan to have such an interesting and compassionate face, and eyes-like his father’s, she was startled to realize-that gave the impression they’d seen way too much of the world’s failures and cruelties.

And, she thought with a curious little flutter high up under her ribs, it was damn hard to despise a man while he was holding a tiny baby in his arms, tenderly, expertly feeding, burping and then rocking her to sleep.

“So-you live in Los Angeles, then?”

Devon jerked her gaze and her attention back to the two people who were sitting at the table, sipping coffee and watching her-one warily, the other with that quiet curiosity she found so unnerving. She chewed toast, drank coffee, swallowed.

“That’s right-downtown L.A., actually.” It was Mike who’d asked, but she addressed her reply to Lucy as well. And all the while she was telling the Lanagans about her high-rise corner condo-from one side of which, on a clear day, she could see the Pacific Ocean, and from the other, snow-capped mountain peaks-making bright, tension-easing conversation, with another part of her mind she was gnawing and nibbling at the problem-the enigma-of their son, like a dog with a thorn in its paw.

I need to find out more. I have to get to know him.

Footsteps thumped on the stairs, making no effort to be stealthy. Devon’s heart lurched, and so did her hand; she swore under her breath as hot coffee slopped onto the front of the flannel bathrobe. Again Lucy started to get up, and again Mike held her where she was. The footsteps clumped down the hallway; a bulky shape flashed past the service room, past the open kitchen doorway. The door to the back porch opened, then banged shut. A moment later the outer door did, too. Three pairs of eyes jerked toward the windows, as if pulled by the same string.

“Chore time,” Lucy announced. And this time when she pushed back her chair, her husband didn’t try to stop her.

The windows were filled now with a swirling, milky light. Dawn had come, and no one had noticed.

Devon retreated to her room while around her the farmhouse awoke to the routines of a snowy winter morning. Footsteps clumped up and down stairs, doors banged, buckets rattled-activity as incomprehensible to Devon as some mysterious ritual performed by aliens. She wished she could be interested in, or at least curious about what was going on. When, after all, was she ever again likely to find herself on a farm? But all she felt was frustrated. Thwarted. Boxed in. She had things to do, important things. But right now none of those objectives seemed achievable. Without the means to accomplish her purpose, without the ability to change her circumstances, she felt powerless-and Devon O’Rourke did not like feeling powerless.

She’d have to call her office, at least-let them know what had happened. Still too early for that, though; the offices in L.A. wouldn’t be open for hours. Even if she’d had her cell phone with her, which she didn’t. What had she been thinking of, to leave it in the car? And where, exactly, was the car?

Pacing to the windows did nothing to soothe her restlessness. In fact, it made her feel even more as if she’d been shut into a box-all she could see out there was a wall of swirling white. Now and then the snow thinned enough to unveil shadowy shapes-nearby, the gnarled skeletons of great oak trees, and farther away, the hulking mass of a huge old barn, the kind she’d heretofore seen only on the pages of calendars and in children’s picture books. She couldn’t see any sign of the rented Lincoln Town Car complete with GPS-though she knew it had to be out there, somewhere, under all that snow. She hoped it wasn’t in the road, at least. She hoped it wasn’t-though she suspected it might be-in a ditch.

Someone, a bulky and indistinguishable shape in a parka, was crossing the snowy swath between the house and the barn, accompanied by two smaller shapes which romped and frisked in excited circles around the bulky one. Mike, apparently, because a moment later there was a soft tapping at Devon’s door, and Lucy put her head in.

“Hi-” her voice was scratchy-soft, her smile strained. “I just wanted to check and make sure…Mike and I have to go out and do chores. Since Eric’s not…uh… Can you keep an ear out for the baby in case she wakes up?”

Suppressing panic, Devon gulped and said, “Oh-sure, yeah, that’s fine. No problem.”

“Eric’s gone out.” Lucy gave an embarrassed little shrug and left it hanging.

“So I gathered. But, if you don’t mind my asking-” Hell, she’d ask it anyway, in utter exasperation. “Where could he possibly go, in this?”

Lucy’s smile slipped, became gentler, less strained. “Oh-the barn, I imagine.” She stepped into the room, still holding the doorknob, and leaned against the partly open door. She was wearing quilted snow overalls, Devon saw, over a thermal turtleneck pullover. “It’s where he always used to go when he was upset about something…or mad at us.” Devon hadn’t said a word or changed her expression, but Lucy suddenly shrugged and looked uneasy. “Well, you know how kids get.”

“Not really,” said Devon in a companionable sort of way. “Never having had any myself.”

Lucy made a sound like swallowed laughter. “Well, you were one-and not so very long ago, either. You must remember what it was like.”

“Not really,” Devon said dryly.

Lucy looked at her for a moment as though she didn’t believe her, then smiled again, that same soft little smile, and for some reason this time it seemed almost unbearably poignant. “You said your sister was headstrong and rebellious? That pretty much describes Eric, when he was growing up. Maybe that’s part of what drew them to one another, do you suppose? Kindred spirits…”

Her eyes flew to the windows and she drew herself up, looking fierce and faintly embarrassed. “I’ve got to see to my animals. Sorry to bother you-just wanted to make sure-”

“Go ahead. I’ll look in on the baby, no problem.”

“Okay…well…shouldn’t be long…” Halfway out the door, Lucy turned back to sweep Devon with a quick, appraising look. “If you need any warmer clothes, help yourself to whatever’s in the closet. It’s mostly just things I haven’t gotten around to giving away, anyway.”

“Okay, thanks.” Devon stepped quickly forward when Lucy would have closed the door. Wedging herself into the open space she said in a low voice, terrified that she might wake the sleeping baby, “Uh, you said Eric’s in the barn? I really do need to talk to him. Do you think it would be okay if I…”

“I’d wait a little while,” Lucy said, and her smile was more wry, now, than sad. “Give him time to work it off.”

Thwarted once more, Devon gave a little huff of frustration. “Work what off?”

“Whatever it is,” Lucy said softly, “that’s eating him up inside.”