His Secret Baby. Marie Ferrarella

since I was ten.”

      “No, no, I mean, you just gave birth. Cooking is taxing, especially a big meal like Thanksgiving. You shouldn’t exert yourself.”

      “By Thanksgiving it’ll be closer to four weeks than to ‘just,’” she pointed out, smiling at his concern. “And as for not exerting myself, I solemnly promise I won’t go hunting for the turkey anywhere but the grocery store this year.”

      Josiah sighed. He knew it was useless to argue. Eve had been a stubborn little girl and she had grown up to be a stubborn young woman. When she made up her mind about something, no one could talk her out of it. It was both a source of pride and despair for her father, Josiah recalled.

      “You are a hard young woman to keep down, Eve Walters.”

      She smiled warmly at him. “So I’ve been told. Then it’s settled? You’ll come?”

      “Yes, I will come. As long as you allow me to bring dessert.”

      Pleased, Eve put out her hand. He took it in his bony one and shook it. “Done,” she told him. Just then, a lusty wail was heard over the baby monitor positioned on the coffee table. “Ah, I believe that’s Brooklyn asking to see her great-uncle.”

      He rose to his feet, remarkably agile for a man in the latter half of his life. “Then let’s not disappoint her.” With a flourish, he bowed at the waist and offered the crook of his arm to her.

      Rising, Eve hooked her arm through his. “Let’s not,” she agreed with a warm smile.

       Chapter 9

      It looked as if a tornado had made a pit stop in her kitchen, leaving pots, measuring spoons and cups, and ingredients—both large and small—scattered every which way.

      At the moment, Eve felt just a shade away from overwhelmed. She scanned the formerly neat kitchen and sighed. The clock on the wall to her immediate right kept insisting on swallowing up minutes. She was running out of time and falling drastically behind.

      Though she hated to admit it, Eve realized she’d bitten off a little more than she could chew. Okay, a lot more. She was seriously regretting having turned down Adam’s offer. He’d volunteered to bring a fully cooked turkey dinner, prepared by a local caterer, to the table for her. At the time, she’d turned him down, confident that she could pull it off the way she had before.

      Thanks to Adam’s help every evening, she’d been getting more sleep and grew stronger. So much so that she thought, since it was nearly a month since she’d given birth to Brooklyn, she finally was back to her old self.

      But standing here, in the middle of her chaotic kitchen, with the stuffing only half-baked and demanding her attention, the potatoes refusing for some unknown reason to cook to the point where they were soft enough to mash, and the turkey needing basting every fifteen minutes, not to mention that she had to stop periodically to feed or change an overly fussy baby, her goal of having everything ready by five o’clock was becoming the impossible dream.

      Sound suddenly emanated from the baby monitor on the counter. Brooklyn was awake and crying. Again.

      Eve pressed her lips together, trying to ignore the sound.

      Brooklyn’s wail grew louder.

      Her daughter had gotten accustomed to being scooped up within moments of voicing her displeasure. Eve knew schools of child-rearing sometimes frowned on that, claiming that to deny instant gratification was actually good for the baby. But the sound of her baby’s cries just twisted her heart. Besides, she reasoned, how could too much love be a bad thing?

      Still, today would have been a good day to put one of those “let the baby cry a little” theories to the test. Eve tried and remained where she was.

      She lasted all of a minute and a half. Throwing up her hands, she wiped them on her apron then hurried to the staircase.

      “Mama’s coming,” she called out, taking the stairs as quickly as she could.

      The pitiful cries continued until she entered Brooklyn’s room.

      “Maybe you’d like to come down and give me a few pointers,” she said to her daughter as she picked the infant up.

      Brooklyn sighed deeply, as if some horrible wrong had just been righted, then lay her head down on her mother’s shoulder, tucking herself against her mother’s neck.

      The missing piece of my puzzle, Eve thought, patting the baby’s bottom. She could almost feel the deep affection in her chest doubling the moment Brooklyn lay her head down.

      Remaining where she was for a moment, Eve drew in a deep breath. No offensive odor registered. “Okay, you don’t need changing and you just ate an hour ago, so you’re not hungry. You’re just lonely up here, aren’t you?” she murmured, stroking her daughter’s back. It was a toss up who was more soothed by the action, Eve mused, Brooklyn or her. “Okay, come with me,” she said cheerfully, leaving the room and heading for the stairs. “I know just where to put you.”

      On his last visit—yesterday—Josiah had brought yet another gift for the baby. It was what amounted to a motorized port-a-crib, complete with music some expert declared that babies enjoyed. He’d had Lucas put it together for her. The finished product currently stood in the family room.

      “Time to put this little contraption to the test,” Eve announced. Very carefully, she deposited Brooklyn into the port-a-crib.

      The moment her back made contact with the thin mattress on the bottom of the crib, Brooklyn began to fuss again. Eve quickly wound the motor. The port-a-crib slowly swayed to and fro, the gentle action keeping time with the soft strains of a lullaby.

      Brooklyn’s eyes widened. Entranced, she stopped crying. Her expression became alert, as if trying to pinpoint where the sound came from.

      If she didn’t know better, Eve thought, she would have said her daughter was smiling.

      “Bless you, Josiah,” Eve murmured. With slow, careful movements, she repositioned the port-a-crib so that she could easily keep an eye on it from the kitchen.

      Eve had no sooner done that than a loud hissing noise demanded her attention. The water in the pot with the potatoes had finally begun to boil, and just like that, it was boiling over. The water splashed onto the surface of the electric burner and cascaded down along the front of the stove.

      The last time that had happened, Eve suddenly remembered, the stove had short-circuited, throwing the oven portion out of commission for an entire day. She didn’t have an entire day to spare. She didn’t even have half an hour to spare, she thought, trying to bank down a wave of panic.

      “No, no, no,” Eve cried, as if the urgent entreaty could somehow perform a miracle and send the water retreating like the Red Sea scene in the classic The Ten Commandments.

      Grabbing a towel, Eve frantically stemmed the descending tide. In the background, she heard the doorbell ring.

       Now what?

      It was too early for either Adam or Josiah and his driver to arrive. People didn’t sell magazines door-to-door around here on Thanksgiving, did they?

      She decided to ignore whoever was on the other side of the door. But the doorbell rang a second time. And Tessa, suddenly alert, began to run back and forth from the front door to the kitchen.

      Now someone was knocking instead of ringing. She glanced at her dog as she made a second round-trip dash. “What is it, Lassie? Did Timmy fall into the well?”

      Tessa barked, as if in response to the question.

      Feeling harried, Eve looked over toward Brooklyn to make sure everything was all right, then hurried over to the front door.

      She pulled it open without bothering to ask who it was.