The Child She Always Wanted. Jennifer Mikels

to a hospital, she decided to have the baby at home.”

      His shoulders raised, but that was the only visible change.

      “She had a midwife come to the trailer.” Rachel took a step closer. This was far more difficult than she’d imagined. “There were complications. We called for an ambulance, and they rushed her to the hospital, but—”

      He kept staring past her as if she were invisible.

      “Before she reached the hospital, she was gone.”

      “Why didn’t she have it in the hospital? She had a job, medical insurance, didn’t she?”

      She had loved Marnie like a sister but wasn’t blind to her faults and hoped he wasn’t, either. “She took off a lot and lost the job.” She didn’t wait for him to ask why. “There was a man. She wanted to be with him.”

      His jaw tightened slightly, but he held on to a stone face.

      Rachel presumed he’d mastered that look when he was young. “Kane, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do—”

      His deep-set eyes came back to her. “Was she scared?”

      The memory of that night closed in on Rachel again. “I don’t think so.” She felt tears smarting at the back of her eyes and grabbed a deep breath. Tears now would do no good. “She wasn’t really aware,” Rachel added. “It all happened so fast.” Her voice trailed off. She was talking to his back. “Wait,” she said before he reached the door. She wasn’t insensitive to his need to be alone. She wished she could have offered some kind of solace, but what could she have said? That evening had been awful, frightening. She’d lost a wonderful friend. But it didn’t matter what either of them felt. Heather had to come first for both of them. “What about Marnie’s baby?”

       Chapter Two

       S ilence hung in the air. Seconds on the kitchen wall clock ticked by with excruciating slowness before he swung back, before those eyes locked on hers. “Baby?”

      No, he didn’t look baffled. He looked dazed. As much as she wished she could give him time to mourn, she had to make him understand. Heather existed. If he didn’t accept his obligation— She let the thought die for a moment, hating to think of Heather as an obligation. But his acceptance of his responsibility for Heather might be the little one’s only hope for a life that didn’t include foster homes. “Heather—the baby is Marnie’s. You’re her uncle.”

      As if someone had poked him hard in the back, it straightened. “So you say.”

      What did that mean? Didn’t he believe her? “I’m telling the truth.”

      In anger most people shouted, he spoke low. “You come here with a story about my sister and a baby. Okay, I don’t doubt my sister is—” He paused, his gaze dropping to the folded sheets of paper on the table. In an abrupt move he picked them up and unfolded one. Absently he ran a thumb over the seal of Texas on the paper confirming his sister’s death. “Okay. My sister is…gone. You’d have no reason to lie about that.”

      She heard a silent but. “You don’t think I’m telling the truth about Heather?”

      “The baby could be yours. You could be trying to pawn it off as Marnie’s.”

      “Pawn it off!” Fury rose so swiftly Rachel thought she’d lose her good sense and take a swing at him.

      “She’s your sister’s baby. Not mine.” He had no idea how much it hurt her to say that, how often she’d made herself remember that, since she had started caring for Heather. If he saw Heather’s gray eyes, eyes so like his own, or touched her and felt the velvety soft skin, he would never turn away from her. But he hadn’t even seen her yet. “Heather is yours.”

      Before she could utter a protest, she watched him snag a rain slicker from a hook by the door. A second later it closed behind him. How could he walk away? Heather was his flesh and blood. He was the only one she had. How could he be so unfeeling, so indifferent? And what should she do now? She had no choices, she realized.

      Planning to return to the motel for the night, she went to the bedroom and lifted Heather into her arms. Because of Kane’s reaction, misgivings about him nagged at her. Rachel drew Heather closer, wishing for some way to know she was making the right decisions for her.

      Since that night, she’d become responsible for Heather. She’d been the one who’d first held Marnie’s baby. She’d cuddled the newborn close while the midwife had frantically tried to save Marnie’s life. After a call to 911, with paramedics crowding Marnie, Rachel had wandered to a far end of the room, rocking the newborn and praying for her friend.

      No one’s fault. An unexpected rise in Marnie’s blood pressure. A cerebral hemorrhage. It would have happened at any time. Those were the words said to Rachel. Her friend’s life had been a thin thread, ready to snap. That knowledge had been small consolation.

      Rachel had lost a best friend, a woman she’d been as close to as her sister, Gillian. And as Rachel would do for her brother or sister, she would have done anything for Marnie. With her gone, that loyalty transferred to Marnie’s baby, to a child she was struggling not to get too attached to.

      Rain slowed to a drizzle by the time Kane reached Tulley’s Bar. His skin and hair damp, he straddled a stool at the scarred wooden bar and downed a whisky quickly, letting the heat burn his throat while he read the death certificate once more.

      Because his old man had been a drunkard, Kane drank cautiously and never set foot in Tulley’s before sunset. Too many times his father had reached for a drink to start his day.

      He stared at the amber liquid in his glass while he fought a myriad of feelings. The shock from Rachel’s words settled over him. It seemed unreal, impossible. Marnie was gone. His stomach muscles clenched. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been in his life for more than a decade. He’d believed she was somewhere else, that her life was better than the living hell they’d shared with their old man after their mother had died. But Marnie wasn’t happier. She was gone. He would never see her again.

      He wanted to vent anger, but who deserved it? And to give in to a softer emotion never occurred to him. He’d blocked any urge to cry when his mother had died. Losing someone else close to him only reinforced something he’d always known. There was danger in letting the heart feel too much.

      So what now? Did Rachel have his sister’s belongings? Who’d paid for the funeral? And what about the kid? Was it really his sister’s? If it was, what would he do with it?

      At seven the next morning Kane had no answers. Even before he opened his eyes, he cursed the sound of rain thudding against the roof in a steady, syncopated beat. Through his bedroom window he saw the dreary gray sky. In no hurry he stretched on the bed, then roused himself. Rain had canceled yesterday’s tours. Today the Sea Siren would be stuck at dock all day. Yawning, he yanked on jeans and tugged a T-shirt over his head.

      In the kitchen he plugged in the coffee brewer. On the table were the papers Rachel had given him. He unfolded the birth certificate. Heather Riley. He noted that someone had typed the word unknown on the line for the father’s name. The seal of Texas made the document legal. He closed his fingers around it. Calmer now, he could talk sensibly to Rachel. With only half a dozen motels in town, he assumed he’d have no problem finding her.

      He gave himself half an hour to nurse a couple of cups of coffee, shower and shave, then drove his truck down Main Street toward the Sea Siren to talk to his deckhand before he started his search.

      Instead of going to the boat first, as he spotted Rachel’s van parked outside Benny’s Café, he negotiated the truck into an adjacent parking lot. No amount of avoidance would work. He parked his truck and strolled toward the café. Through its windows, he saw her.

      Head bowed, she sat in one of the blue vinyl booths. As he opened the café door, the bell above it jingled. The café was decorated in blue and white. A