His Unexpected Family. Patricia Johns

don’t feel quite right about all of this. There’s something missing. It might be nothing, but...” He shrugged again.

      Emily licked a dab of ketchup off her finger, regarding Greg thoughtfully. Tiny lines were starting to appear around his eyes, and she could see that he shouldered a great deal of stress. He had the rugged features of a man accustomed to hiding his thoughts, but she could see something behind his eyes that she recognized—kindness.

      “I suppose I should tell you,” Emily said quietly, “that Steve is contesting my custody of the baby.”

      Greg winced, then nodded. “Yeah, I could see that coming.”

      Emily shot him a quizzical look, and he put his hands up. “Not because you aren’t an excellent choice to raise the baby, but because these things do tend to happen.”

      Emily sighed. “Well, regardless, I have a big decision to make.”

      “What decision is that?”

      “Whether to fight this in court or not.”

      “That is a big decision.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

      “It’s okay.” She smiled sadly. “I just don’t know what the best thing is for Cora. A big legal battle hardly seems in her best interest, but then, Jessica chose me, and I’d like to think that was for a reason.”

      Greg sighed. “So how are you holding up?”

      “I have good friends, but the family is already choosing sides. My mom will always be behind me, but I was close to my uncle Hank, too—that’s Jessica’s dad. He’ll want his son to raise Cora, no doubt...”

      “It’s getting complicated,” he said softly.

      “Very.”

      “What do you want?” he asked.

      “To raise this baby.” She looked over at Cora sleeping peacefully in the car seat. “I can’t have children of my own.”

      “Oh, I see.” He nodded and took a bite of his burger.

      Stupid, she thought to herself. It was a personal thing to blurt out, and she wished she could take the words back. What did Greg want to know about her fertility? Seriously, Emily, she chastised herself.

      “So what are you going to do?” he asked.

      “I don’t know.” She took a long, creamy sip of her milk shake. “It’s just so complicated.”

      “I can see that.” His blue eyes met hers, and she was relieved to see compassion in them.

      “I wish I knew why Jessica chose me instead of her brother. If I knew that, I’d know if I should be fighting for this or not. I need to know what she wanted, really wanted.”

      He nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair. The comfortable quiet stretched out between them as they each finished their burgers.

      “Greg?”

      He raised his eyebrows in response.

      “Are you going to be investigating my cousin’s death?”

      “I’ll be looking into it,” he said. “I don’t have any reason to suspect foul play, but I’d like to get a few questions answered to put my own mind at ease.”

      “While you’re doing that, would you mind keeping an eye open for something that might explain why she chose me?” Emily asked.

      “Like what?”

      “I wish I knew. I just need a few answers, too, about now, and I don’t know how to get them.”

      Greg was silent for a moment, his gaze moving slowly over her face. His blue eyes seemed to be filled with conflicting emotions, something he wasn’t hiding very well. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Sure.”

      “Really?” Emily laughed nervously. “I didn’t think you’d agree.”

      Greg smiled at that. “I think you could use a favor about now.”

      “Thank you. This means a lot to me.”

      Just then, Cora began to cry, a thin, hiccup-y wail coming from the car seat, and Emily rummaged through the baby bag for a bottle.

      “I’m prepared.” She gave him a wink and gently picked up the wriggling Cora in her arms.

      * * *

      Emily tried to give Cora the bottle, but the baby scrunched her eyes shut and wailed all the louder, turning her face away from the milk. Emily patted her and shushed her, but to no avail. She peeked in the diaper and felt her little face for fever. At first, Greg’s thoughts were focused on the crying, wondering when it would stop, but then he saw Emily’s face and he felt a sudden surge of sympathy. She looked ready to cry, too.

      “What’s the matter?” Greg asked.

      Tears welled up in Emily’s eyes, and she shook her head. “I’m not her mother.”

      Greg could hear the pain in Emily’s voice as she said it, and the thought of the tiny thing crying desperately to find her mother—the mother who had been absent for a couple of weeks now—was heartrending.

      Cora wailed harder, her face turning red as she cried out her frustration or grief, Emily patting her little rump and shushing fruitlessly. The restaurant was empty except for them, and when he looked over at the teens working, he found them staring.

      “Can I try?” he suddenly asked, and as the words came out of his mouth, he was already regretting them. He was more of an iron-pumping kind of guy than a baby-soothing kind of guy, but there was something about the sadness in Emily and the unwanted audience that made him want to fix it if he could.

      Emily agreed mutely, and he took the squirming infant out of her arms. What was he thinking? Cora screamed, her eyes squished shut and her tiny tongue quivering with the effort of her wails. When he tried to hold her close, she writhed and wriggled. He wasn’t sure exactly how to hold her, but he decided to simply use logic. When apprehending a suspect, first you needed to stop the perpetrator and then subdue the limbs. Cora’s legs were squirming quite actively, so he simply pushed the little knees up and pulled her against his chest. Once she was there, she seemed a bit surprised by her position, so he took advantage of the pause in her cries to hum a low, soft note.

      It wasn’t a song. It wasn’t anything, really, just a low sound in his throat that rumbled in his chest. Cora gave a few more squirms, then leaned her tired little head onto his chest, listening to the sound. Emily came around to his side of the table.

      “Have some milk, sweetie,” Emily murmured, and she slid the bottle’s nipple into Cora’s mouth. The infant started to suck noisily.

      “There.” Greg caught her eye and grinned. “Now don’t move...”

      Emily gave him an impressed look. “Wow, you’re good with babies.”

      “I’m normally not.”

      “How did you know what to do?”

      “Lucky guess?” He looked down at the top of Cora’s little head with the damp little swirls of golden-red hair. “I think I just surprised her.”

      The sound of Cora’s soft slurps as she drank her milk filled the space between them, and he looked down at Emily with her dark hair swept away from her face and her long lashes brushing her cheeks with each blink. She sat close to him on the bench as she held the bottle for the baby to drink, and the soft scent of her shampoo mingled with the scent of baby. Just another couple of inches and she could rest her head on his shoulder, too. He pulled his thoughts away from dangerous ground.

      “I’ll have to remember that trick.” She smiled sadly. “I can’t change the fact that I’m not her mom.”

      “Steve’s wife wouldn’t be her biological mother, either.”

      “Well,