Dream Baby. Ann Evans

led the way to the bolted double doors, his toenails clicking on the plank flooring as he woofed threateningly. Nora tightened the grip on the collar of her robe.

      “Sorry. We’re not open,” she called out as she flipped on the outside lights.

      “Not even for me?” a feminine voice full of tentative humor asked.

      Surprised, Nora slipped back the bolts and pulled one of the doors wide. Isabel Petrivych had spent her college breaks for the past three years working at the Hideaway, and although she wasn’t expected back on the payroll until spring break, she would always be a welcome visitor.

      “Happy New Year, Nora,” the girl greeted brightly.

      “Happy New Year to you, too. What are you doing here?” Nora asked.

      The girl’s long black hair was unbound, falling in an ebony waterfall over one shoulder. She tossed it back in a reckless gesture and grinned hopefully. “I guess I didn’t know where else to go.”

      They both jumped as the sudden pop-pop-pop of fireworks exploded in the night sky.

      “Why aren’t you out partying?” Nora asked as they watched the last streamers of red and blue twinkle out of existence over the pines.

      Isabel turned back to face her, and suddenly Nora caught the glimmer of tears welling in the young woman’s eyes. “Partying is the last thing I should be doing right now. That’s what got me into this mess. I’ve been so stupid...”

      Isabel’s voice broke with emotion as she swiped the tear away with the back of one hand. She laughed, but the sound was choked, desolate.

      Nora’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach as she gazed at that sweet, troubled face, and when she spoke, she rushed into speech herself, “Izzie, what is it? What’s happened?”

      The girl shook her head, more wildly this time. “Oh, Nora, you’re not going to believe this...” She grimaced shakily. “I’m pregnant.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      May 1999

      

      THE KID HADN’T SAID a word in over two hundred miles.

      Jake Burdette slid another glance away from the road, just to make certain his son hadn’t fallen asleep or turned to stone or gone into some sort of cosmic trance.

      Nope, Charlie was still with him all right, still seated in the front seat of the car, still so uncommunicative Jake might as well have been keeping company with an upscale kids’-store mannequin. One twelve-year-old boy dressed in clothes that were too tailored, a haircut that was too precise, a suitcase that was too expensive and an adolescent chip on his shoulder as big as a house.

      Since the moment Jake had picked him up at Thea’s in New York—his private school term barely over—then flown down to Norfolk, and on to Orlando, conversations between the two of them had been increasingly one-sided. Nothing more than shrugs and grunts and a few uh-huhs ever since they’d hit the interstate. Not even the eye-popping excess of billboards advertising Florida’s theme parks got a reaction, and Jake’s suggestion that someday they might return for a trip to Walt Disney World was met with a complete lack of interest.

      Jake stifled a huge sigh and glanced out the window.

      There was no doubt that this little side trip to Florida had come at an inconvenient time in Jake’s life, a time when he really needed to focus all his attention on Charlie.

      But right now, he had to keep his promise to his brother.

      And Florida wasn’t that bad. After inching through the traffic congestion of Orlando, they’d headed north, past Thoroughbred country in Ocala, through the long corridor of rolling land that made up Florida’s panhandle. The area made you realize not all of the state had given way to the big developers. It was woodsy and wild, and it reminded Jake of some of the wonderful places his grandfather had taken him and his brother, Bobby, camping in Virginia.

      To a spoiled snob of a city boy like Charlie, it must look like the backside of the moon.

      Maybe Jake should tell him about a few of those childhood trips. They needed to start someplace. He opened his mouth to speak, but in that moment there was the familiar sound of electronic music. Charlie had pulled the video game out of his backpack. The kid could go hours on that thing.

      So much for a folksy tale to bond them together.

      An hour later Jake pulled off the interstate to gas up. Charlie was still smashing invaders from some high-tech planet—evidently meeting with success, if all the beeps and metallic crashes emitting from the video game were any indication. Still not a word of conversation. The only change in the boy’s stony countenance was the occasional frown of displeasure he gave the game in his hands.

      Jake watched him covertly as he ran gas into the sports car’s tank. His son had a sweet forehead, wide and unblemished and intelligent. Without trying very hard, Jake could remember when the boy was four and had suffered through chicken pox—chicken pops, he’d called them—and Jake had sat by the side of his bed and stroked and stroked Charlie’s forehead until the boy had dropped into a restless sleep. Where had all that trusting innocence gone?

      He screwed the gas cap back into place and then leaned against the passenger door. “You want a soda from the machine?”

      Still fighting his video war, Charlie shook his head. There was the descending sound of a sudden defeat, and with a sigh of complete disgust, Charlie switched off the game and tossed it into the back seat. He stared out the front windshield.

      “Sorry,” Jake said, guessing that he’d broken the boy’s concentration, and therefore caused him to lose the war. Jake turned and headed toward the convenience store. He seemed destined to remain on his son’s enemy list.

      But for how long? How long would it take to reestablish a relationship that had once been taken for granted? He couldn’t give up. Charlie was his now. Thankfully, Thea had seen the wisdom in avoiding an ugly court battle.

      From the interstate they bumped onto the cracked, paved road that led to Blue Devil Springs. “Almost there,” Jake remarked, trying for a cheerful tone.

      No response. No surprise there.

      “Look, Charlie...Charles,” he corrected himself when the kid turned an annoyed glance his way. “I know you’d rather be back in New York with your mom. I know you’re angry because you’re with me now. I don’t expect you to understand all the reasons behind that decision, but someday when you’re old enough...”

      He stopped. God, he sounded so much like his father. And the kid would resent a lecture. A different approach was definitely in order.

      “You know, after I take care of business in Florida, and we get home to Norfolk, you might find you like it. It has beaches. And we can go to the mountains, up to Washington...”

      Again he stopped. He sounded pathetic, trying to find favorable comparisons between the two places.

      He searched his son’s profile, looking for some chink in Charlie’s armor and not finding any. The kid’s jaw was tight with tension, and his gaze out the front window seemed impenetrable. And then suddenly the boy’s mouth gaped open a little, and he muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

      Jake discovered why when he jerked his glance back to the road.

      They’d reached the town of Blue Devil Springs.

      Town was probably too big a word for the place. It wasn’t much. A few cross streets made up all of the downtown area, a collection of businesses that bore simple, unvarnished pronouncements like Ed’s Hardware, Painted Lady Antiques, the Cut ’n Curl, and a small establishment called simply the Pork Store. If Andy and Barney and the whole Mayberry crowd had been looking for a place to retire, this could have been it.

      He drove slowly past the main intersection. Looking