The New Baby. Brenda Mott

walked, and as Amanda bent to retrieve the paper from the floor, Danny nearly bumped into her.

      “Look out, Danny.” His wife balanced the baby in the crook of one arm, and clutched his sleeve with her free hand, tugging him sideways.

      “Excuse me, ma’am.” Danny gave Amanda an apologetic smile as she straightened, paper in hand.

      “No problem.” Her lips curved in response, but her face went ghastly pale, and Ian wondered if she’d stood up too fast after bending over to reach what she’d dropped.

      Her eyes locked on the baby, and the look of sadness and longing he saw there gave him a chill. Amanda’s expression closely mirrored one he knew he’d worn more than once.

      How many times had he searched the faces of babies so many years ago, looking for familiarity in their features? And later, in the scout troop he occasionally supervised. Most recently, wondering where his son might be today, he caught himself watching the faces of teenagers he saw around town. The pizza delivery boy, the kid who pumped gas at the BP station…

      No matter how futile the effort, Ian couldn’t stop looking.

      Amanda wore that same haunted expression as she stared briefly at the baby, then turned away and quickly tried to hide what her face so clearly said she’d felt. She saw Ian watching her, and waved her fingers in a see-you-later gesture, then headed down the hall and ducked into an office, closing the door behind her. Ian mumbled a greeting to Danny and his child-wife as they passed by, his thoughts whirling. Outside, he climbed into his pickup and cranked the engine, leaning his elbow on the open window as he backed out of the parking space.

      Had Amanda given up a baby when she was young? He shook off the thought, telling himself it was ridiculous to assume things about a woman he didn’t even know. Her reaction could’ve been due to any number of things. Maybe she had a half-grown kid at home and longed for the days when the child had been an infant. His cousins often complained how quickly their little ones grew up. Or maybe she wanted a baby and didn’t yet have one.

      Or maybe he was nuts, thinking and worrying over a stranger and what her life might involve. But he couldn’t help it. The sorrow he’d seen in Amanda had hit him right in the stomach. And the way she’d tried to hide her emotions before anyone noticed left him wanting to go back inside the building and ask her what was wrong. Tell her he’d sit and listen if she needed an ear to bend or a shoulder to lean on. Because he’d been there.

      He’d felt pain as deep as that in Amanda’s eyes on a cloudy day sixteen years ago.

      A day when he’d signed his newborn son away to a pair of total strangers.

      CHAPTER TWO

      IAN PULLED OFF HIS welding gloves and laid them on the workbench next to the horse trailer he’d been working on for the better part of the afternoon. Bought at a bargain, it needed new feeder racks, tack compartment dividers and metal hooks for halters and ropes. The customer who owned it was a regular, always finding something or other for Ian to weld or repair.

      Hot and tired, he set his hood on the welder and removed his welding sleeves. Despite the day’s accomplishments, he still felt an empty hunger no amount of hard work ever seemed to erase. He hadn’t been able to get Amanda Kelly off his mind these last few days, no matter how many customers came to his shop to chat and bring him things to do.

      He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Papaw the other morning while they ate the doughnuts he’d brought.

      “I couldn’t help but notice the way you looked at Miss Kelly,” Papaw said. His sharp blue eyes had studied Ian.

      “Sure, and who wouldn’t?” Ian couldn’t help grinning. Papaw still had an eye for the ladies, and probably would until the day they laid him to rest. “She’s a good-looking woman.”

      “Won’t get no argument from me on that,” Papaw said. “But I reckon I saw more to the way you watched her than that.”

      “What do you mean?”

      The old man grunted. “You know what.” He shook one finger at Ian. “You’re a workaholic, boy. When was the last time you took a woman out?”

      “On a date?”

      “No, on a fishing trip.” Zeb gave him a playful punch in the arm, his aim as good as it ever was. “’Course I mean on a date.”

      Ian shrugged. “I don’t know.” He pondered the question. “Last Valentine’s Day, when Billy Ray’s sister Sheryl was in town?”

      “That’s just what I’m saying.” Papaw shook his head in a gesture of hopelessness. “You need to get out more.”

      “I can’t ask Amanda out,” Ian protested. “She doesn’t even know me.”

      “Can’t never did anything. Go on and ask her. I’d do it myself, if I were ten years younger.”

      Ian laughed and Papaw gave him a sly grin, made wider than normal by his dentures. Then he grew serious. “How’re you ever gonna make a family of your own if you’re alone all the time?”

      How indeed? The thought ate at him now as Ian closed the shop door, locked it and headed for the barn. Banjo, Papaw’s buckskin mule, brayed at him from the connected paddock, wanting a treat. Ian gave him some sweet feed, then walked up the hill to the house he’d called home for the better part of his life. The worn porch steps creaked as he climbed them, and Cuddles, the Rottweiler he’d had since she was a pup, rose from her place near the steps and wagged her stubby tail. He patted her and fed her from a sack of dog food he kept on the enclosed back porch before going inside the house.

      The kitchen was way too quiet without Papaw here. He’d lived with Ian ever since Mamaw passed away a year ago. But then he broke his hip, and all that had ended. At least for a while. From the fridge, Ian grabbed a can of beer, popping the top as he walked into the living room. Maybe his grandpa was right. He really didn’t have much of a social life, and couldn’t remember the last time a woman who wasn’t a relative had entered this house.

      The men on the Bonner side of the family seemed to outlive their women more often than not. His mom had succumbed to cancer long ago, and his dad now lived in Virginia, close to three of his own sisters and their grandkids. With Ian an only child, Matthew Bonner had probably given up on ever having grandchildren of his own. Ian often wondered if his dad regretted having taken part in convincing him to give up his son all those years ago.

      Sinking into his favorite chair, he propped his booted feet on the ottoman and looked around, trying to view the room the way a stranger might see it. What would Amanda Kelly think of this place if he were to invite her over? The living room was clean but cluttered, the windows bare of curtains. With neighbors no closer than a mile away, and the house sitting up on a hill some distance off the road, there was no need to worry anyone would look in. Like most other homes outside Boone’s Crossing, the place was surrounded by woods, with a grove of trees in the yard, the pasture spreading out beyond.

      Ian closed his eyes and pictured walking up the front steps with Amanda, inviting her in for a cold drink. Probably sweet tea or Coke. She didn’t look like a woman who drank beer. Maybe wine. Not his thing. But then what did he know? As Papaw had pointed out, he didn’t make much time for dating, and overall, women were a mystery to him.

      Still, he’d managed to do his share of tomcatting in his younger days, which had gotten him in trouble to begin with. His high school sweetheart, Jolene Bradford, had taken his heart, his class ring and his virginity, all in short order. Getting Jolene pregnant during their sophomore year hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d ever done. Giving up their baby boy had seemed a step in the right direction toward growing up and making responsible decisions. Or at least, it did at the time.

      But as the years went by, the regret of not knowing what had become of his own child had worn on him. He’d lost himself in work, starting with after-school jobs and helping Papaw at the welding shop and with putting up the tobacco they used to raise. One day seemed