The Baby Wait. Cynthia Reese

      “You’ve never had any faith in this, have you, Joe? So why’d you go along with it?”

      “Because. You. Want. A. Baby. The one damn thing I can’t build for you with my own two hands. If I could, I’d go turn one out on a lathe for you right this very minute. I can’t buy a baby. I can’t borrow it. I can’t make it. Do you know how that makes me feel? To see you crying and to know that I can’t fix it? Me? The guy who goes in behind crappy contractors and cleans up their messes for half the price?”

      “We’re fixing it!” Hearing Joe say the things I’d suspected he’d been thinking ripped into me like a chain saw. “If you’ll just believe…”

      Dear Reader,

      Every year hundreds of babies from China find loving homes in the U.S. Each one of those stories has a happy ending where baby and parent are united at last. One of those happy endings is my own—my husband and I brought our daughter Kate home from China in 2002, when she was just eight months old.

      Our wait, though long, was nothing like Sara and Joe’s, and my childhood was nothing like Sara’s. But I kept thinking, what if? What if something had happened? What sort of woman would hang on? Why? What would her husband, hiding his own broken heart, do?

      I thoroughly enjoyed creating all the characters who people Joe and Sara’s world. Dublin, Georgia, is real—though I’ve taken small liberties with south Georgia geography and created the town of Campbell—which doesn’t exist. Also, for dramatic reasons I chose a shorter initial Wait; the current wait, which fluctuates, is now about a year. Joe and Sara’s story isn’t my story—it’s theirs…and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

      If you’re interested in adopting from China, see links from my Web site, www.cynthiareese.net, which will point you in the right direction. I look forward to hearing from readers!

      Cynthia Reese

      The Baby Wait

      Cynthia Reese

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Kate,

      My sweetie-pie, my miracle baby, the gift

       God gave me…I love you!

      This book would not exist without the help of

       so many people: my editor, Laura Shin, who took a chance on me, and other Harlequin editors— Jennifer Green, who listened to me stammer out this idea, and Ann Leslie Tuttle, who called it the book of my heart. Thanks, too, go to my agent, Miriam Kriss; to my critique partners: Cindy Miles, Steph B., Tawna Fenske, Nelsa, R, and Babette D.; to my husband, who thinks I’m welded to my laptop; to Tessa Hill for an inside look at how adoption agencies work (any errors are my own); to my sister and my mom for believing in me; to the 2005 BIAYers and to the entire staff at Bellevue Avenue Post Office—thanks for getting my work to my editors on time, every time!

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Cynthia Reese lives with her husband and their daughter in south Georgia, along with two dogs, three cats and however many strays show up for morning muster on their back deck. She has been scribbling since she was knee-high to a grasshopper and reading even before that. A former journalist, teacher and English professor, she also enjoys cooking, traveling and photography when she gets the chance. The Baby Wait is her first book.

      An invisible red thread connects those who are

       destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.

      —An ancient Chinese belief

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

      CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

      CHAPTER ONE

      I STOOD in an airport, not an English printed word or a Caucasian face in sight. Old Chinese women swarmed me like an angry colony of bees. They shook their fingers in my face. They looked me up and down, jerking their heads in disdain. I could not understand a single word they said. Finally, one tiny, shrunken lady shoved her face close to mine and in broken English shouted, “Missy, you forgot baby! No lucky baby for you!”

      Another Chinese lady whipped a black telephone that looked straight out of the 1940s from behind her back. The force of the phone’s rings made the handset vibrate.

      And, then, consciousness seeped in. The phone’s ringing was a digital buzz, not the t-ling t-ling of the old heavy clunkers. My phone. My cordless. In my bedroom, not a Chinese airport.

      It had to be Ma, probably drunk again, maybe even in jail. I groped for the phone, dropped it and retrieved it from the jumbled-up covers.

      “Hello?” I squinted at the clock.

      “Sara? It’s Joe.”

      I sat up, pushed a hand through my mussed hair. “What is it? And what happened to the alarm? It’s eight o’clock.”

      “I turned it off. You said you weren’t going in this morning. I thought you could do with the extra sleep.”

      He sounded a little wounded at my lack of appreciation. “Um, thanks. Did you need something? Forget your lunch? I’ll take it by.”

      “No, I just wanted to let you know I could meet you at the doctor’s office. Things here are under control, and the trusses are going up faster—”

      “Joe, it’s just a routine Pap smear, okay?” I interrupted him. “Relax.”

      Joe sucked in a breath, apparently not believing what I said. “You always used to get so down when you had to go to the ob-gyn…what with the pregnant women. And I’m worried, anyway. Damn, Sara. With all you’ve been through, nothing’s routine about a visit to your ob-gyn.”

      “Joe.” I thought for a moment about how to proceed. My stomach had already tensed from being reminded about today’s appointment, but I ordered my nerves to calm down. “I’m a big girl, and I want to go by myself. We talked about how important it is for me to do this on my own.”

      “I know. I know.” He sighed. “Well, call me when you get through. I may be on the roof of this house, trying to get trusses in, so if I don’t hear the phone ring, just leave me a message, okay?”

      “Sure. The minute I get out. I’ll see you tonight. And, hey…thanks for offering. I love you.”

      “Back atcha,” he said before hanging up.

      I replaced the handset and swung my feet to the floor, my heart still racing