Somebody's Baby (14 page)

He nodded.

“I know you are applying that to Ophelia, Adam, but you might want to take a look at how it applies to your family.”

“My family?”

“Sure. You give in to the easy urge to feel sorry for yourself. To snap at the people you had to rely upon, to foster distrust of them. Those are not the acts of a man who is trying to live like Christ.”

It took him a moment and a few long, slow breaths, but finally he closed his eyes and nodded. “I see your point.”

“Now as to you and Ophelia—”

“There is no me and Ophelia. Despite Nathan as evidence to the contrary, there never was, really.”

“I wish that made me feel better, Adam.” She retreated inside, went to her son and picked him up. “Relationships and parenting are hard enough without having to cope with this kind of thing.”

“This kind of thing? You mean the whole identical-twins, secret-baby-of-prominent-local-lineage, fathered-by-returning-ne’er-do-well-son thing?” Adam followed her inside, chuckling. “You actually know other people who have to cope with
that
in their relationships?”

“Well-l-l-l.” Josie rocked from side to side with Nathan on her hip before rolling her eyes and conceding with a shy laugh. “Well, no relationship is perfect!”

“I guess not.” Adam laughed, too. “So, how do you suppose that, year after year, generation after generation of imperfect people have managed to fall in love, make a commitment, establish homes, raise families and grow old together?”

Josie fell very quiet. “A lot of them haven’t managed those things.”

“But those who have, what do you suppose a lot of them relied upon to help them get through it all?”

“God,” she said softly.

“Then let’s me and you do that, too, Josie.” Adam held his hand out to her.

“You want…to
pray
…with me?”

“It surprises me a little, too, but these past few days I’ve thought a lot about my new role and what I need to do, about businesses based on Biblical principles and…about us. I think it’s the right thing to do, don’t you?”

She did. So she slipped her hand into his.

Adam took her hand and bowed his head. For a long moment he said nothing. Or perhaps he prayed in silence. Josie didn’t know exactly what to do, so she used the moment to gather her thoughts, to humble herself before the Lord and to praise him and thank him.

She had so much to be grateful for, she realized, even in the midst of all her doubts. For Nathan. For Mt. Knott. For her work. For her baking talent. For Adam.

And for this day. This chance to know how it felt to be a part of a real family.

She drew a deep breath and held it. That’s when she realized that Adam had begun to speak.

“I am a lost sheep, Lord, returned to the fold, and yet not even sure he belongs
in
that fold. I did not come in humility and hope, but bearing pride and a grudge. I am flawed and fearful that I am unfit for the task You have set before me, to be a father to Nathan and a friend to Josie.”

“Friend,” she whispered before she could stop herself.

“Because of all the demands on any relationship, but most of all of those between a man and a woman raising a child together, the bonds of friendship are necessary to endure one another’s faults and missteps with laughter and good will. Thank You for bringing Josie into my life and into the life of our son, Nathan. Help us to face this and every day with faith in You and trust in each other.”

He squeezed her hand, which Josie recognized as his way of asking her if she had something to add.

“Bless all those who gather today.” She choked back her emotions. So many things she wanted to say. So many things she simply could not express except to say, “We submit to Your will and praise Your holy name.”

“Amen,” Adam murmured.

“Amen,” Josie agreed.

He released one of her hands but clung to the other long enough to coax her to look up and meet his gaze.

“You ready for this?”

For what?
she wanted to ask.
For you and I to begin our “friendship”? Or for the responsibility of
transporting and serving enough pie to fill up the considerable bellies of every hungry person in Mt. Knott?

“I’m, uh, I’m not sure.”

“Neither am I.” He laughed softly, almost not a laugh at all. “But ready or not, here we go.”

A
dam would have loved more time alone with Josie, but knew it was for the best that Jed and Warren showed up honking their horns and hollering to their “Sweetie Pie” that they had come to fill up their trucks. Of course, as soon as they peered inside the bakery truck they agreed it was a much better mode of pie transportation.

They happily helped Adam load up the supplies while Josie ran around with the phone glued to her ear, frantically reorganizing her moms-with-mini-vans, answering last-minute questions and checking on the lopsided status of salads versus sides. And each time the three men saw her, she had on a different outfit.

Finally one of the moms arrived in her triple-car-seat and double-bumper-sticker brand-new minivan. With much persuasion she loaded up Nathan and pledged to look after him until Josie and Adam got there.

Josie waved goodbye to the happy toddler, then rushed inside her house, shouting as she did, “I’ll be ready in a sec, Adam. Just let me get a change of clothes.”

“You have a whole pile of clothes that you’ve changed into and out of already on your bedroom floor,” Adam reminded her.

“I know, but I just remembered something I have in the back of my closet,” she called back.

“You look—”

Warren cut him off with a somber shake of his head. “Don’t even try to finish that sentence, son. Not if you hope to get rolling toward the Crumble in the next twenty minutes.”

Jed stood on the front-porch steps. “Warren’s right.”

Warren cupped his hand to his ear and grinned. “Say that again.”

“On this
one
occasion.” Jed drove home the point by placing his hand alongside his mouth and shouting it for all to hear, before he dropped both the hand and his voice and grumbled, “Warren is right.”

Warren chuckled, then turned to Adam, motioning for him to follow along as the older men went to their trucks. “It’s one of them, what you call, no-win situations.”

“A trap.” Jed nodded.

Adam paused on the lawn. “A trap?”

“Uh-huh. Not a bear-trap type of thing, though. More one of those woven-finger-puzzle deals.” Jed touched the ends of both his index fingers together and Adam could picture exactly what he was talking about.

“If you start trying to reason with a woman about how she looks in some kind of outfit you will never be able to extricate yourself.”

Adam thought of the red-white-and-blue shirt that looked sort of sailorish, and the white jeans she had been wearing. “I was just going to say she looks fine.”

Jed sucked air between his teeth.

Warren winced. “Fine? You actually intended to use that word? Fine?”

“But she does. She looks—”

“Shhhh.” Jed put his finger to his lips.

“Don’t say it again.” Warren opened the driver’s-side door on his sun-faded blue truck. He hopped in and gunned the engine. “We’ll meet you down at the Home Cookin’ Kitchen to help load up the pies.”

Jed got into his green truck and gave a wave. “You can thank us later.”

Adam didn’t know if the men meant he should thank them for stopping him from getting into a now-in situation with Josie or for loading the pies. Either way it made him a bit uneasy to feel he was in any man’s debt.

That thought kept him quiet on the whole trip to Josie’s Home Cookin’ Kitchen to collect the baked goods, and as he and the other men passed one another taking pie after pie to the big, waiting bakery truck.

He had come back to Mt. Knott to square away old debts, as it were, to tie up loose ends and be done with the place once and for all. He stood on the sidewalk and watched the comings and goings of Josie’s friends and neighbors, so happy to pitch in and make this barbecue a success for everyone involved.

Mt. Knott, he decided, was not a place you could just be done with all that easily. Each new day, each new association, brought with it a responsibility to others, a connection, an opportunity to be a part of something good and productive and hopeful. How had he lived here so long and not seen that? How had he worked among these people and still managed to lose his way?

He only had to think of the benefactor of today’s picnic to find the answer to that question. Adam set his jaw. As soon as they finished loading the pies he would be going out to the Crumble for the biggest showdown of his life so far. He would face his father, not as a black sheep or somebody else’s baby, but as an equal. Or perhaps, depending on Dora’s recommendation, as his boss.

Why didn’t Adam feel better about that?

“That’s the last of them.” Jed slapped Adam on the back. “You be careful with that precious cargo now, you hear?”

“Don’t worry.” Adam shook off the sting between his shoulder blades. “Not a single piece of crust will be broken.”

“I ain’t worried about the pie, you just get our girl there in one piece.”

“Okay, let’s do this.” Josie stood before him, all smiles and softness.

Something was different about her, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Of course, if he tried to put his finger on anything to do with Josie, Adam knew she’d slap it away and tell him what for. He smiled at the thought and hurried to open the door of the bakery truck for her.

“Thank you.” She bowed her head, started to climb in, then stepped back and asked, “By the way, how do I look?”

It’s a trap.
He could hear Jed growling out a warning.

A no-win situation.
And Warren, too.

Adam shut his eyes and kissed her so lightly on the temple that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t simply kissed a wayward curl. Then he whispered, “You always look perfect to me, Josie.”

“That’s so sweet.” She glanced a feather-light kiss of her own off his jaw then got into the truck. “Let’s go out to the Crumble, then.”

The Crumble.
How many times had Adam snickered cynically over the aptness of that tag for the place he intended to bring down once and for all? Now it sounded like one of the sweetest places on earth.

He drove down the town’s tree-lined street waving as he did to the people bustling out to their cars. They carried blankets and baskets, folding chairs and portable playpens, outdoor games for the kids and at least one wheelchair for an elderly member of the family. This was a big day in Mt. Knott. The Burdetts were finally giving something back, and no one wanted to be left out.

He rolled through the streets of Mt. Knott, past the post office with the American flag—the largest of many that hung from the handful of businesses still operating in the old downtown area—fluttering overhead.

Bingo pulled up on the sidewalk alongside Adam’s truck, waved from his scooter and hollered out, “I’ll be out to the Crumble soon as I finish up my route. Don’t let Jed and Warren eat all the choice cuts and leave me with nothing but bones and gristle!”

“Jed and Warren
are
nothing but bones and gristle,” Adam joked. Still, he hated to think about the kind of trouble he’d bring down on himself if he actually tried to get between Josie’s best patrons and the buffet table. “So you’d better kick that scooter into high gear and don’t waste any time getting out there yourself.”

“Will do!” Bingo gave a salute with the packet of mail in his hand then, true to his word, zoomed off down the sidewalk at top speed leaving Adam in his proverbial dust.

“Admit it.”

“What?” Adam scowled.

“This place is starting to get to you.”

“What? I’ve lived in Mt. Knott all my life.”

“No, you never lived in Mt. Knott, not really. And now that you’ve got a taste of it, it’s gotten to you. You’re starting to care about these people.”

“Some more than others,” he said almost under his breath.

She leaned back against the gray-and-brown upholstery and looked out the side window. “I’ll tell Bingo you said so.”

Adam barked out a laugh.

Josie shifted her shoulders so that her upper body faced him, and she smiled, clearly pleased with herself.

But over what? The joke or because she thought she had him figured out? Had the people of Mt. Knott “gotten” to him all that much? How could that be when he had known them, or known of them, or known they existed at least, all his life? “I want to go on record as not accepting that I haven’t lived in Mt. Knott all my life. Except for college I’ve been right here.”

“You have that right. You said so yourself, you spent most of your life right here.” She made an open-handed gesture toward the slightly rusted sign proclaiming, Carolina Crumble Pattie Way. “On this road, at the Crumble or at the big ol’ Burdett mansion.”

“It’s hardly a mansion.”

“Compared to most of the houses around town?” She waved at some kids who had twisted around and were making faces from the back window of the car in front of them. “It’s a mansion.”

He tucked his chin down and squinted at her a bit sideways, so as not to take his eyes completely off the road. “You’ve been there?”

“Well, no. I just always
imagined.
”

“It’s not a mansion,” he insisted. “It’s a home.
My home.
”

He had never thought of it that way, not even as a kid, but suddenly it was the only way he could see the large craftsman-style residence with secondary ranch-and cottage-style houses for the brothers on adjoining lots.
Home.

Josie had never been there, and he wanted to take her.

“It’s more of a compound, actually. You know, a big piece of land with one big house and some smaller ones. Burke has a ranch-style. Jason has a smaller version of the big house. Cody and Carol have a bungalow, or, uh, is it a cottage? Do you know the difference?”

She shook her head.

“Neither do I,” he admitted.

“And where did you live when you were out there? The barn?”

Actually he had a log house. Strong and sturdy and set apart from the rest, but lacking anything to make it personal inside, anything to give him a reason to have gone there to stay or even visit on this trip back. “Yeah. Me and the other lost sheep, we bunked out in the barn. Baaa-aaah.”

“Except you’re not lost anymore,” she reminded him. “You found your way home.”

Adam started to refute that, or maybe ask Josie what role she had played in bringing it about, but just then he realized they were at their destination.

“Stop.” She held her hand up flat. “I’m going to get out and go on ahead. See that big white tent over there?”

“Sure.” How could he miss it?

“You make your way to that and I’ll figure out the best place for you to park to unload.”

“Can’t you just ride over with me?”

She frowned at the slowly moving line of cars ahead of them. “Adam, I’m supposed to be in charge here. I can’t do that from the back of the crowd.”

“Okay.”

“See you in a minute.” And out she got.

Cautiously he made his way through the old rutted parking lot toward the open area where the barbecue would be held. Partly because he didn’t want to arrive with a single one of Josie’s pies damaged and partly because he wanted to savor every moment leading up to…

Well, that was it, wasn’t it? He had no real idea what he was going to find at the Crumble. No idea what recommendation Dora might have for him. No idea how his brothers would react to his suddenly showing up. No explanation for how his father could be so welcoming to him after a lifetime of treating Adam like an outsider and then more than a year of Adam
behaving
like an outsider.

Josie’s warning to know what he wanted rang in his ears.

When he had arrived in Mt. Knott he thought he’d had such clear goals. He had planned everything, step by step. First step, get out from under his family once and for all. Second step, make anyone who had wronged him pay for not accepting him, not believing in him, by taking over the Crumble and making everyone accountable to him. Third step…

He really hadn’t gotten beyond the second step. Two steps then nothing? Now
there
was a surefire way to get nowhere.

He supposed he could still make a run for it.

Then he saw Josie with the baby in her arms, standing by the large white tent.

The instant she saw him, her face lit up. With her hair that wild knot of curls, her cheeks red and a crowd surrounding her demanding her attention, she looked frazzled but happy. She pointed to a parking spot just the right size for the bakery truck and gave a weary but grateful smile.

Adam wasn’t going anywhere but right where she needed him to be.

He parked, hopped out of the truck and went straight to her.

It was perfect outside, as if the weather itself were connected to the mood in Adam’s heart. Bright and sunny, but not blazing. Breezy enough to keep the bugs away but not strong enough to fan barbecue smoke into everyone’s eyes and effect the taste of all the food.

And Josie looked perfect, as well. Fair as the day and just as gentle, but with just enough energy and bluster to keep him on his toes. Adam reached out and took Nathan from her, bending as he did to place a kiss on her cheek. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. His way of both thanking her for doing all this and of reassuring her that he would be there for her should it start to overwhelm her.

It wasn’t until he heard the subtle gasps and chuckles from the crowd around them that he realized the larger implications of what he’d done.

“What?” He looked around them, challenge in his tone, his posture and his words. “Just my way of thanking Josie for doing such a good job with the pies and all.”

“Oh? Is that how it’s done?” Jed moseyed up to the forefront with Warren at his side. “Here me and Warren been rubbing our bellies, saying ‘Mmm-Mmm’ and leaving generous tips when we pay our bills.”

“Didn’t know we could accomplish as much with a Yankee dime.”

Adam scowled at the old expression. The way he understood it a Yankee dime was a stolen kiss that meant nothing to the one doing the kissing. He didn’t like the implication. A week ago he’d have glared at the old guys and told them just what he thought.