Bringing Baby Home (18 page)

Liz pushed her laptop out of the way and dropped her head on the desk. “No,” she softly cried. “This just can’t be.”

The sobs that rolled up and out of her mouth seemed to start in the bottom of her soul. Questions careened through her mind. What if this doctor lost interest after the election? What if the mother’s depression returned or she couldn’t care for Prisha?

A sense of helplessness—hopelessness—engulfed her. Even the voice that said this was a good thing—Prisha would know her mother’s love and have a nice life in India—was drowned out by the sad truth that Liz had lost her baby.

A light tap at her door made her look up. “Not now.”

The door opened anyway. The head that popped in wasn’t her mother’s. “David,” she cried, stumbling to her feet. Unsteady as a drunk, she crashed into his open arms.

She wept freely, knowing he understood what it meant to lose a child that you loved. Blubbering, she tried to explain. “P-Prisha is gone. H-her real mother came back.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Liz shook her head. “No. How?”

He put his hand in her hair and drew her head against his chest. “Someone from India called to see how you were taking the news. They were worried about you.”

Her mother had known when Liz arrived home. That explained the profound sadness she’d read in Yetta’s eyes. Liz had been too exhausted to give anything around her much thought,
but she’d picked up on the fact that something was amiss.

“The woman who called wasn’t able to talk for long because of the cost. Yetta was under the impression you hadn’t discussed this with your sisters and she wasn’t sure what to say or why you’d chosen to keep this to yourself. Is it because of what happened to you in Bosnia?”

Liz had kept Prisha a secret partly because she was afraid something might go wrong in the adoption process. She’d been warned time and again about how unpredictable foreign adoptions could be. She hadn’t wanted to disappoint her family—again. She’d already failed them where her father was concerned.

“I should have told them, but I knew they’d want to help. Grace would have given me the money from her trust fund in a heartbeat, but then I would have felt that Prisha was partly hers. I was selfish. I wanted her all to myself. And now, I’m paying for that.”

He rocked her back and forth as a father might a little child. “Liz, this isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”

She pushed back to face him. “What do you mean?”

“Think about your prophecy. A man of darkness. Me. If you hadn’t rescued me, Prisha might still be at the ashram, waiting for you to adopt her.”

Liz wanted to deny the validity of his words, but she couldn’t. She’d thought the same thing just before he walked in. If she hadn’t invited him to the wedding…no, she refused to believe that her life would have been better if David had died in the fire that consumed his home.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said, standing up. “Everything I’ve touched in my life, I’ve ruined. My grandmother used to call me a hard-luck kid. We’ve only known each other a few weeks and I’ve managed to upset your whole
life. You narrowly escaped death in the desert. Your car is totaled and now the child you love is gone. I’m bad news for those who mean the most to me.” He looked at her. “That’s why I’m leaving.”

She wasn’t surprised by his statement. She’d known that once he was free of the threat Ray Cross posed, David would want to reclaim his old life. Who wouldn’t choose being a respected chemist over peddling cacti? “When?”

“Soon. Your mother suggested I call your cousin—the one who’s a long-haul trucker and see if I could catch a ride on one of his transports. He’s got one leaving at midnight for Tennessee. That’s close enough for me.”

“You’re going home.”

“I have no idea where that is. Hell, I’m not even sure I know what that word means. But I can’t stay here.”

She knew she should try to stop him. He meant more to her than any man she’d ever known. He’d brought joy and beauty into her life, too, but what if he was right? What if in saving David, she’d made a fatal choice that she would have to live with for the rest of her life? What if Prisha’s surgery turned out to be nothing more than a publicity stunt? If Prisha died, Liz knew she’d never be able to forgive herself—or David.

Two weeks
had passed since David had hitched a ride on an eastbound 18-wheeler. Liz’s tears had long since dried. Was she happy about the situation? No. But life did go on. Routines reappeared.

Like the weekly roundtable of sisters.

Liz, who hadn’t slept a full eight hours since her desert escapade, usually arrived at her mother’s early to talk to Yetta for a few minutes before Kate and Alex joined them.

“Katherine told me your teas have become a hot item at several local markets,” her mother said once they were both seated at the table.

The kitchen smelled familiar and reassuring. Liz stirred the liquid in her cup. “I know, it’s really weird how this sorta took off. I set up a display in this trendy little market near Romantique the day after David left and I’ve had to restock it every other day. I can barely keep up production, which is why I’m looking for a place to rent. I’ve outgrown my garage. Especially if Reezira and Lydia are going to work for me.”

Work had been her salvation. She’d lost so much so fast, she probably would have lost her mind, too, if her roommates and her sister hadn’t conspired to keep her busy. Jo, Kate’s
partner, had been the first to call, needing more tea. Then the market had placed a triple order. And Crissy had appeared with a request for several herbal teas she suddenly couldn’t live without.

Instead of running away from her pain—as she always had in the past—Liz was working through it. But one thing was still bothering her.

“Mom, it hit me last night that my prophecy was wrong.” Yetta looked up from the newspaper Liz had brought in with her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I saved David, the man of shadows, and lost Prisha, the child of light, but now I don’t have either one of them in my life. Is that how it was supposed to work?”

Yetta rocked back in her chair and sighed. “That’s a very good question. But are you sure you saved David? It seems to me that you both saved each other. That’s what people who love each other do. Your father rescued me from becoming a dried-up old maid—you’d be surprised how many boys were put off by my ability to see beyond their smart suits and nice manners. And I kept Ernst grounded. If not for me, he’d have drifted around like…well, like his brother.”

“I never would have been in that danger if not for David.”

“And the bad man wouldn’t have known where to find David if not for you.”

Liz’s mouth dropped open. She’d forgotten about that. “Does that matter? I mean, we saved each other on the desert, but I still lost Prisha.” And David.

Yetta leaned over and took Liz’s hand. “Prisha came into your life at a time when you desperately needed hope. She gave you that. When you came back from India, I remember thinking that I’d never seen you so focused and driven. And happy.”

“But if I was never meant to save her then—”

“Darling girl,
you did save her. You reunited her with her family. You gave her mother time to deal with whatever was keeping her from embracing her daughter wholeheartedly. And because of your interest in adopting Prisha, you motivated her family to take action. Isn’t that something to celebrate?”

Liz had actually come to the same conclusion herself, but hearing her mother say so out loud drove home the point. She was happy for Prisha. According to Jyoti, Prisha’s mother appeared to be trying to make up for the time she’d missed in her daughter’s life.

The sound of a car in the driveway caught Liz’s attention. She stood up and walked to the window. Alex, who was strolling up the driveway, paused to embrace Kate, who had returned from her honeymoon a few days ago, but had been so busy with Maya, Jo and Romantique that Liz had barely seen her.

And she looked absolutely glowing.

I know how that feels
, she thought with just the tiniest pang of envy. She’d felt the same all-encompassing joy with David, and she wanted it back. But how could she reclaim that feeling when she didn’t know where—or who—he was.

She turned to look at her mother, who was grinning. “If you need our help, all you have do is ask,” Yetta said. “Your sisters are a tremendous resource. Especially Grace.”

“She’s in Detroit. What can she do?”

“She’s engaged to a
gaujo
cop. And if Nikolai can’t help us, I’m sure Ezekiel will.”

“Speaking of Zeke, I haven’t seen him around here lately. Did you two break up?”

“One has to be going steady to break up, doesn’t one?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “His daughter just gave birth to
her first child. I encouraged him to go to California to be with her and try to make peace with the past. As Katherine will attest, moving forward is a lot easier if you’re not struggling with bonds of guilt and remorse that keep pulling you backward.”

Liz opened the door for her sisters and hugged them both. They looked a bit surprised by her display of affection, but neither said anything. After giving Kate a chance to relate the highlights of her honeymoon in Tahiti, Liz got down to business.

“Okay, here’s what I need. First, I’m—”

Kate interrupted. “Wait. Stop. Did I miss something? You’re not the sister who asks for help.”

Alex waved the question away. “That was before she nearly died on the desert after the madman totaled her car and tried to kill her boyfriend.”

Kate’s eyes went wide and she looked at Yetta. “Mom, tell Alex to quit teasing. What really happened while I was gone?”

Yetta looked at all three girls then, with a low chuckle, sat down. “You see, this madman intent on revenge kidnapped your sister and…”

Liz tuned out the story. She had more important things on her mind than yesterday’s news—like how to find David and convince him that he had a life waiting for him here in Las Vegas. A life with her.

A
LTHOUGH IT HAD BEEN
two weeks since David left Nevada, he’d put off contacting his ex-wife. He’d passed by Kay’s house, which was right next door to the home he’d owned when they were married, a dozen times, but had yet to figure out a way to gracefully return from the dead.

He’d finally decided to use an intermediary—Kay’s husband,
Brent. Once he’d cleared up the matter of his official death certificate, he faxed a copy to Brent at his office. Brent had called back almost immediately.

Shock and disbelief were Brent’s first response, followed by concern for his wife. “Kay is pregnant,” the man blurted out after David reassured him this wasn’t some kind of sick joke.

“I drove past the house yesterday. She was putting a baby in the back of an SUV. She didn’t look pregnant.”

The admission that David had been in the old neighborhood apparently gave Brent pause, but he quickly added, “Just barely. A total surprise. We had to have help conceiving B.J., um, Brent, Junior. He just turned nine months. The older kids adore him. We haven’t even told them about the new baby. Just in case…well, you know the first trimester can be tricky.” His voice trailed off as if realizing that his assumption that David knew anything about pregnancies might be flawed.

“Then it’s a good thing I notified you, instead of just knocking on Kay’s door one day, right?”

“Yes,” said the man who’d been David’s neighbor for nearly eight years. For six of those years, Brent had been married to a woman who’d also worked in government. One day, the wife drove off never to return. Brent had kept the house; she’d remarried a few months after the divorce was final.

“Look, I don’t want to cause problems, Brent. I’m just trying to get my bearings. I know I left Kay holding the bag after the fire at the lab, and I want to apologize. A very wise woman told me that moving forward is a lot easier if you’re not carrying the full weight of your mistakes with you.”

“Do you think apologizing is going to make up for the hell she went through after the explosion?”

David
didn’t know what to say.

“She was devastated at first. Then, later, after the funeral, she read something that made her change her mind.”

David snickered. “She decided it was better that I’d died?”

“No, she told me she didn’t think you were dead.”

“Why did she think that?”

“You can ask her when you see her.” Brent sounded resigned. “I’ll call her and set up a meeting. Probably without the kids, if you don’t mind. The twins took quite a while to warm up to me, and they’re at an age that…well, we’ll see. Maybe Kay will disagree. I know you cared for them when you two were together.”

N
INETY MINUTES LATER,
David was standing on the porch next door to the home he’d once owned. Both places looked exactly the same, although someone had painted the front door of David’s home a dark purple.

He pushed the bell.

Kay answered the door almost immediately. Brent stood behind her, his expression far less welcoming—less jubilant than his wife’s.

“Paul,” she cried, wrapping him in her arms and pulling him close. She seemed shorter and rounder than he remembered, but she smelled the same—Youth Dew and cookies. She’d always loved to bake.

“Paul,” she said again, her voice wobbling with emotion. Tears rolled down her cheeks when she pulled back to look at him. “You’re too thin. You’re not eating, are you? And, oh dear, what a hideous mustache. Is it fake?”

For the first time since leaving Las Vegas, he threw back his head and laughed. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think, Kay?”

She put her hand on his arm and coaxed him inside.

“You know
me, speak first, think about propriety second. But it really isn’t you.”

He chose to ignore her observation. “Thanks for seeing me. Brent, you must have really made good time to get here.”

“I have a different job now. With a private contractor. Closer to home.”

Kay insisted on serving them coffee, along with a plate of homemade cookies. The smell was intoxicating and brought back memories he’d thought long gone. “Brent probably filled you in on what happened, right?” he asked Kay.

She nodded. “You did the right thing, Paul. I always had misgivings about Ray’s miracle fountain of youth. I knew you were too honorable to poison the public just to make a buck.”

“A couple of billion bucks,” he said, surprised by how good her praise felt.

He finished his cookie then sat forward, elbows on his knees. “I came to apologize, Kay. I should have figured out a way to tell you the truth. To warn you. But the U.S. marshals convinced me that any deviation from the plan would put you and the children in danger.”

Before she could say anything, a high thin wail sounded from the counter behind him. David jumped slightly and turned to see a small speaker of some kind.

“I’ll get him. Probably needs a change,” Brent said, standing up.

“You can give him some juice—half juice, half water, remember.” To David, she said, “I’m trying to wean him. We just found out…” Her smile was so bright it almost hurt to look at her. “Did Brent tell you?”

David nodded. “Yes, congratulations.”

“I know five children isn’t politically correct, but we can afford them and, damn it, I’m a really good mother. It’s all I ever
wanted to do. Be the best wife and mother I could be.” Her red-apple cheeks glowed a little brighter. “Which is why I felt so guilty about Brent. You were my hero, Paul. You rescued me from purgatory. But I never should have married you.”

“Kay, you and the kids filled a huge void in my life. But I was so caught up in my work—and my ego—I didn’t appreciate what you brought to me.”

She smiled sadly. “We both made mistakes, but I’m not making excuses for myself. Brent is a good man. Neither of us meant for the affair to happen. But I was lonely.”

He knew she didn’t intend to sound as if she was making an accusation, but he wouldn’t have protested if she had.

“I never believed you were dead, Paul.”

She’d been using his old name since he’d shown up and he hadn’t corrected her. “That’s what Brent said. How come? I saw a video of the funeral. You seemed pretty choked up.”

She frowned. “You’re right. I was convinced at first, but a few days after the funeral, I read a newspaper report that said you’d perished trying to save your animals. I remembered you mentioning months earlier that the research portion of the lab had been shut down.”

“Wow. That’s pretty clever deductive reasoning. If they’d asked me first, I would have told them to delete that part of the story. And they should have known better. My instructor always said that too many details will bring everything down like a house of cards.”

Brent still hadn’t returned. Maybe he’d wanted to give them a few moments alone. David appreciated the gesture, but his feelings for Kay had coalesced into friendship—the kind that existed between distant relatives or pals who went through hell together in college but somehow survived.

“Kay,
I’m moving to Vegas. I’ve met someone. We left things kinda up in the air, so I’m not sure what I’ll find when I get there, but I have to give this a try. I think it’s best where your kids are concerned, too. I don’t know if my showing up again would cause problems between the boys and Brent, but why take chances? They probably don’t even remember me.”

She shook her head. “That’s not true. Come with me.”

He followed her through the neat, but well-lived-in house to a large oak-paneled room off the kitchen. The family room, he assumed. One wall was made up entirely of shelves and an oversize projection-type TV. Scattered amongst the books and knickknacks were dozens of framed photos.

He picked up one that had once rested on the dresser in his bedroom. His parents and him. Taken just a few weeks before their accident, this photo was one of the few his grandmother had saved. She’d claimed that looking at pictures of her daughter was too painful.

“You’ve remained a part of our family, Paul. Ariel loves this photograph. She calls you her angel. The twins used to talk about you a lot. Mostly to upset Brent, I think. They blamed him for our divorce.”

“Which is wrong. I’m to blame for that.”

When he started to put the photo back on the shelf, she shook her head and pressed it into his hands. “No. Like you said, we both made mistakes. Maybe neither of us was honest about why we got married in the first place, but that doesn’t matter now. I’m just so happy that you’re alive.”