Dream Baby. Ann Evans

the car and stared down at the video game in his hands. “I hate him.” he muttered to himself.

      Well, maybe hate was too strong a word. He really didn’t know the guy well enough to hate him. Dislike, maybe. Yeah, that was it. Intense dislike. You couldn’t burn in hell if you only disliked your father, could you?

      He’d have to ask Marisela, his mother’s housekeeper. The old woman was Catholic and knew everything there was to know about God and what he’d let you get away with. She’d know whether Charlie was in big trouble or not.

      If he ever saw her again. Which might be never, now that his father had taken him away from his mother.

      No. Stolen! That was the word. What was that phrase he’d heard somewhere...? Like a thief in the night. Yeah, that was the way it had been.

      Only his father had come to his mother’s Manhattan apartment in broad daylight, and his mother hadn’t been weeping and wailing and carrying on about the loss of her son. Thea was much too dignified for that, and crying only made you look foolish, she’d once told him, so he really hadn’t expected her to try to stop his father. She had other ways to deal with him. Charlie was sure she had an armload of lawyers looking over their new custody agreement right now, finding a way to get him back to New York and...and civilization.

      Away from here. This place was creepy. Too quiet. Lots of dark wood and hanging moss. All the little cabins made it look like a ranch, but there wasn’t a single horse or cowboy in sight.

      Maybe he’d get out of the car and poke around. Or maybe not. Who knew what was out there? He was comfortable in the city, where the doorman always looked out for him, and security cameras were in every corridor of the apartment building. Here, there could be grizzly bears in the woods that surrounded the main house.

      The idea made him shiver, so he forced himself to think about his mother. He pictured her missing him in New York—with no one but her personal assistant, Anthony, and Marisela to talk to in the apartment. No one to ask her how the latest photo shoot went and actually care about her answer.

      He looked out the car window, growing more impatient by the minute. He sure hoped they weren’t going to stay in this dump for the night.

      

      NORA SLOWED her pace as she went down the front steps of the lodge, giving herself time to regather her composure. Her breath was captured inside her like a square, solid box pressing against her rib cage. Her cheeks felt fiery, and she turned her face into the exquisite relief of a passing breeze.

      She’d never been much of a fighter. Never confrontational. Even as a child she’d been the peacemaker in the family.

      So what had she been doing just now? Lying through her teeth to a total stranger. Hearing her voice get higher and higher as she became more and more defensive. Ready to lay a flying tackle on this interloper if he so much as lifted a threatening finger in Isabel’s direction. Even now, the adrenaline was still pumping, pumping in her veins, until she felt almost light-headed with the force of it. And why—for God’s sake?

      She felt silly, embarrassed by the assumptions she’d made about Jake Burdette in there. Not the father, but the baby’s uncle. He must think she was an idiot. Oh, it was comical, really...

      Only she didn’t feel like laughing. Not at all.

      Beneath all the feelings of humiliation and stupidity lay a tiny trickle of fear, slipping through her insides, leaving her cold and frightened.

      Why was he here? What did he want? Why now, when she’d just begun to really believe that her life could be different, that her life could be made up of all the wonderful things she’d ever dared to dream about. John Forrester was drawing up the necessary paperwork. A safe delivery. A petition to the court. A few signatures. Then the dream of motherhood would become a reality.

      Deliberately she settled on the bottom step and drew in a deep lungful of air. Okay, she told herself, okay. Burdette’s coming here today didn’t have to be a bad sign. It didn’t mean he was here to effect some sort of reconciliation between Isabel and his brother. He was probably just trying to do the right thing by her even if his younger brother wouldn’t. Maybe he planned to give her some money. Pay her doctor bills. Offer her a place to stay until the baby came.

      Yes, that was why he was here. He looked like a man who took his responsibilities serioùsly. And in spite of that aggressive attitude, he had kind eyes—the soft hazel of autumn leaves. A man with eyes like that wouldn’t hurt you, not deliberately. She had to remain positive, upbeat.

      Closing her eyes, she willed herself to focus on the images nearest her heart—the baby. What he would feel like in her arms. His sweet smell, the softness of his hair, the whisper of his breath as she held him against her neck. Was there anything more heavenly than that—?

      “Is my father ever coming out?”

      Nora opened her eyes. A boy squinted down at her, his hands fisted on his hips, a look of pure annoyance etched across his childish features. He wasn’t a bad-looking kid, but he was clearly in the pit-bull jaws of adolescence—no patience with adults and little desire to develop any.

      Nora stood, brushing off the seat of her leotard. In spite of his preppy, clean-cut appearance, the boy looked tired, and Jake Burdette lost a point in her parenting manual. “Your dad might be a little while. Would you like to come for a walk with me?”

      “Why should I? I don’t even know you.”

      She stuck out a hand. “Nora Holloway. I own this place.”

      He took her fingers in a reluctant handshake. “Why?” he asked in a voice richly steeped in sarcasm.

      It looked as though the kid had inherited some of his father’s manner. Nora didn’t rise to the bait. She’d spent too many years winning over unenthusiastic boys and girls who had been dragged to the Hideaway by parents who were determined that they experience “the Great Outdoors.” She smiled at him. “Not your kind of place, huh?”

      “Not in a million years.”

      “Oh, well. Do you like animals?”

      He shrugged. “I guess.”

      “I have a shed behind the main lodge where I take care of wild animals that have been injured. Want to see it?”

      “Not really.” With overt disinterest, he plucked a handheld video game out of his back pocket and began a slow march back to the car.

      She wondered if Jake Burdette knew what a poor job he’d done in raising his son. “Well, you’re on your own, then,” she called after him. “So long.”

      She didn’t look back as she walked behind the main lodge, but she could feel the boy surreptitiously watching her. He might not want to acknowledge it, but she suspected he had a kid’s natural curiosity about where she was headed and what she was doing.

      Her spirits lifted a little as she trooped down the short, grassy pathway that led to the building at the edge of the woods. The rehabilitation work she did with the animals in the shed usually took all her concentration. Maybe it would help keep her mind off Jake Burdette and what he might be saying to Isabel right this moment.

      As kids, Nora and Trip had cobbled together a playhouse from scrap lumber, setting it far enough away from the main lodge to escape their parents’ watchful eyes. Five years ago, enlisting almost no outside help, Nora had expanded the playhouse, turning the modest structure into a rehab station that could house a small number of wounded animals. As a wildlife rehabilitator licensed by the state of Florida, she usually had half a dozen patients, but right now there were only four, with an eagle scheduled to come in from a nearby vet’s office sometime soon.

      The door to the shed creaked a little as she opened it, announcing her arrival to her charges. There were screeches and the flutter of wings from the cages holding an orphaned crow named Jeckle and a mockingbird named Begger, a chattering trill from Bandit, a raccoon who’d suffered numerous cuts when he’d been mauled by a dog, and a sniff of interest from the