Dead Calm. Lindsay Longford

forefinger over the baby’s cheek and stared out at the neon lights sliding past in the darkness. The slap-slap of the windshield wipers punctuated the silence.

      He sighed. “I’ve got your back, Tyree.”

      “Okay, then.” Tyree let out a sigh of his own. “Didn’t mean to push so hard.”

      “Yeah, you did.” Finnegan scooched down farther into his seat, adjusting the quiet infant against him. “You realize you’re plumb irritatin’, don’t you?”

      “Hell, yes.” Tyree’s smile was quick and open. “Part of my charm.”

      “Whoever said that was a damned fool.”

      “Hey, man, don’t you go insulting my Yvonna, hear?” They slid to a stop under the protected entrance of Poinciana’s ER. Water spurted onto the side windows. “Not if you want any more of her potato salad.”

      “Well, there you go then. Obviously Yvonna, a woman of brilliance and charm of her own, has adopted you as her very own charity case, Tyree. That’s the only explanation.” Yanking the hood of his slicker up with one hand, Finnegan hoisted the blanket over the baby, tucked her under his rain gear and slid out of the car. As he did, he added, “But in spite of her unfortunate taste in husbands, I sure do admire that woman’s potato salad.”

      At his sudden movements, the baby waved its tiny fist under the blanket, gave a burp of movement and then lay still again as Judah shouldered his way through the ER doors.

      He saw her, of course.

      It had been that kind of night from the start. One screw-up after another. Why should he expect anything else at the end of a lousy day?

      A flicker of movement caught his gaze, nothing more than her arm rising to her forehead, but he slowed. He wanted to look away, felt the urge so strongly that he almost believed for a second that he was walking toward the desk and the crowd of people in front of it.

      But something about her gesture checked him, rooting him to the floor.

      Unable to look away from the figure at the end of the hall, he watched her.

      And resented her because he couldn’t look away. Resented the power she had to compel his attention.

      Resented her most of all because he didn’t want to look away.

      They were standing close together, Sophie and another doctor, the man stooping down to her. Her head was bowed. She’d jammed her hands into her pockets. From time to time she nodded as the man jabbed his finger in the air. With each nod, her dark hair bounced, swung forward, hid her expression.

      It was the slump in her shoulders that held Finnegan’s attention.

      Exhaustion.

      Defeat.

      He understood defeat, its nasty-ass gut-punch. That’s what his eyes read in the sag of her shoulders, in the brace of her sneaker against the wall behind her.

      He just hadn’t figured cocksure, bold-as-brass Sophie Brennan for someone who’d ever look this defeated.

      This diminished.

      All the sparking, combative energy had drained away, leaving her small and helpless, the bells on her goofy socks silent.

      Suddenly, as if he’d whispered in her ear, Sophie’s head jerked upright. She looked straight at him for a long moment.

      Judah held her gaze, willing her to blink.

      She didn’t.

      The infinitesimal lift of her chin was the only sign that she saw him.

      No, he thought. Not helpless at all. Not Sophie.

      “Hola, tall, dark and battered. Back so soon? It’s only been three hours. Got something else you want sutured?”

      “No thanks. And it’s been four hours.” He glared down at the woman tapping him impatiently on the arm. The picture ID clipped to the pocket of her blue scrubs gave him her name. Cammie Esposito. The same short, round-faced nurse who’d rushed Sophie out of the examining room earlier.

      “What in the world do you have there? Not somebody’s pet poodle, I hope? We don’t do pets. Even for good-looking hombres like you, amigo.”

      He pushed his parcel toward her. Once more a miniature fist pushed free of the blanket and banged his hand, a soft graze of skin against skin.

      She lifted the edge of the blanket. “Oh, my.” All teasing gone, She took the baby from him and turned abruptly toward Sophie and the man still with her. “Dr. Brennan, you’ll want to see this.”

      Sophie’s clear voice rode lightly over the relative quiet of the ER. “Sure, Cammie. Be right there. What’s the problem?”

      “A baby.”

      “A baby?”

      He watched as Sophie pushed off from the wall, watched as she straightened her shoulders, and he recognized the effort. Like the last embers flaring in a gust of wind before dying out, she suddenly glowed. Even her hair gleamed now with that touch of firelight he’d noticed before sparking in the dark curls.

      Her hands were still jammed in her pockets, though.

      He noticed that, too, and wondered about that bit of body language and what it might mean.

      Details.

      His preacher daddy had been a humorless man with meanness bred bone deep. All his passion had been spent in an adoration of God that left no room for love of humankind. But he’d said one good thing to Judah. Judah didn’t believe in anything else his daddy had said, but he’d never forgotten the old man’s beautiful voice, sonorous, one of those hypnotic magic voices that could fill the pews of their small church, pronouncing, “God is in the details, Judah,” he pronounced. “Don’t you be forgetting that. You pay attention, hear?”

      Then the preacher man had slapped him twice, once on each side of his face. Hard enough to leave a bruise. “Hear me?”

      Judah heard.

      And he’d remembered.

      In his experience he’d concluded it was more likely the devil he discovered in the details. Still, he’d found that bit of instruction to be one of the few useful bits of his father’s legacy.

      If Tyree knew it was Judah’s pa who’d taught him the basic rule of being a detective, Jonas suspected Tyree would hoot about that, too.

      George had known.

      With a quick tap on his arm, the nurse interrupted the melancholy flow of his memories. “What a doll. Girl?”

      He nodded.

      “Oye, muy bonita. Pobrecita. What’s the story?”

      “It’s…she’s…” he corrected himself, “she’s been outside a while. Don’t know how long, though.” He rubbed his hands along the side of his slicker and water sluiced off, dripping to the floor and splashing against his jeans. “It’s a rough night. Don’t know anything about babies, but she seems okay. A bit warm, maybe. Quiet.”

      “Sí, this baby’s come to the right place.”

      Judah shifted as Sophie reached him.

      “Detective.” Her expression dismissed him.

      The hairs along his arms rose lightly as her scent reached him. “Doctor,” he replied politely.

      Her gray-blue eyes glittered momentarily, then flickered to the bundle. “What brings you back this evening?” Her tone was cool and crisp.

      “Morning, actually,” he said, matching her coolness.

      “So it is. Do you need our attention again? Or have you managed to keep yourself out of harm’s way for a few hours?”

      “I’m not your patient this time.” He