The Stranger's Sin. Darlene Gardner

flushed, chubby cheeks. “Please, please dream on.”

      He wouldn’t have called himself soft-hearted before Toby came into his life, but it had taken Chase about ten seconds flat to fall in love with the little guy.

      He’d fallen pretty quickly for Toby’s mother, too, but that turned out to have nothing to do with love. He wasn’t usually impulsive when it came to women. After Mandy, he wouldn’t be again.

      “You sure that baby will be okay there?” asked Louise Wiesneski, the big-boned, florid-faced librarian who’d set up the talk.

      “He’ll be fine, Louise,” Chase said with more confidence than he felt.

      Her eyebrows formed an inverted V and her mouth twisted. “If you say so.”

      She turned to the small group of people milling about the meeting room. Chase recognized a few faces, but the group consisted mostly of the outdoor enthusiasts who descended on the town in summer to hike, bike and ride the white water down the Lehigh River.

      “Please take a seat,” she commanded. “We’re about to start.”

      The people who weren’t yet seated pulled chairs out from the tables facing the front of the room, the legs scraping on the linoleum floor.

      Toby promptly woke up, his baby blues opening wide.

      His tiny face crumpled, he kicked his short legs and he opened his little mouth. Chase bent down before he could scream, filling the baby’s field of vision with his familiar face. Toby closed his mouth, his lips forming into a pout, and stretched out both arms.

      As timing went, Toby’s couldn’t have been worse.

      Unbuckling the baby from the carrier, Chase resigned himself to having a partner during his presentation. He picked up Toby, smoothing his blond hair back from his flushed face, hoping the baby would be a silent partner.

      A few dozen faces stared up at him while he said a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t opted for a slide show. The way things were going, he’d have a hard enough time passing around the oversize photos he’d brought along.

      “Tonight we have Chase Bradford, a wildlife conservation officer whose talk is titled: ‘That Wasn’t a Mountain Lion.’” Louise’s voice sounded amplified even without a microphone. “Chase will speak about some of the species of wildlife that can be spotted in the Poconos.”

      Doing his best to pretend he didn’t have a baby in his arms, Chase held up a photo of a man kneeling beside a large, dead animal. “Can anybody tell me what this is?”

      The hand of a freckled-faced boy sitting in the front row shot up. He was no older than ten, the youngest person in the room. Before Chase could acknowledge him, the boy asked, “Are you a policeman?”

      “Not exactly,” he said just as Toby covered his badge with a chubby hand. “Think of me as policing the woods and waters. I help hunters, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts enjoy our state’s resources responsibly.”

      Chase repositioned Toby and asked again, “Now does anybody have a guess about this animal?”

      “It’s a mountain lion,” answered a man wearing hiking clothing and a sunburn.

      “That’s right,” Chase said. “A big one, too. Probably somewhere in the two-hundred-pound range. So now you’re probably wondering about the title of my talk.”

      Toby squirmed, obviously still out of sorts from being awakened so abruptly. The baby almost never napped in the early evening but had fallen asleep on the drive over. His routine was seriously messed up.

      “This photo made the rounds on the Internet a while back, with the text claiming the animal had been hit by a truck in a number of locations, including right here in Pennsylvania.”

      Toby whimpered, and Chase bounced the baby the way he’d seen mothers calm their fussy children. Unfortunately motion wasn’t usually the key to soothing Toby. The baby was the ultimate outdoors enthusiast. Take him outside and he instantly quieted.

      Louise crossed her arms over her chest, her lips flatlining.

      “But there are no mountain lions in Pennsylvania and haven’t been since the late 1800s,” Chase said just as Toby let out a lusty wail. He bounced the baby some more, with no success. “This big cat was killed in northern Arizona.”

      The volume of Toby’s cries increased. The freckled-faced boy in the front row covered his ears.

      “Over the years, people have claimed mountain lions are roaming our hills.” Chase spoke louder to be heard above Toby’s cries. “But then some Pennsylvanians also claim to have seen Sasquatch.”

      Nobody laughed.

      Louise straightened from where she’d been leaning against the wall, marched over to Chase and held out her arms. “I’ll take him.”

      Chase’s grip on the baby tightened, but he couldn’t continue the presentation over Toby’s howls. “Sorry about this. He’ll calm down if you take him outside.”

      He had a moment’s doubt before handing the baby over, but the librarian’s entire body softened when she took him. She headed for the door, whispering soothing words, and Chase relaxed.

      The freckled boy’s hand raised, bringing Chase’s attention back to the group. “Do you bring your baby on patrol, too?”

      Considering its inauspicious beginning, the talk went over well. Chase showed the group photos of black bears, coyotes, red foxes and bobcats. The young boy was particularly interested in what Chase had to say about timber rattlers and copperheads, which was basically “Poison—stay away.”

      The talk finally over, Chase picked up the baby carrier and went in search of Toby and the librarian. He found them on the sidewalk outside the library, with Louise balancing the baby on her hip as she pointed out the things around them in a soft, pleasant voice.

      Sky. Tree. Grass. Bench.

      “We just finished up,” Chase said as he walked toward them. “Thanks for watching Toby for me, Louise.”

      The librarian’s demeanor instantly changed, her whole body turning rigid and uncompromising. She handed Toby over, but not before Chase saw her press a quick, furtive kiss to the back of the baby’s head.

      “What were you thinking bringing a baby with you?” she demanded.

      He was thinking he needed to talk his retired father into carrying a cell phone. Then he could have reminded him of his promise to babysit.

      “My dad and I got our signals crossed.” Chase should have mentioned the talk when he got home from work, but figured whatever errand his father needed to run wouldn’t take long. He’d figured wrong.

      “Your dad?” Her voice had a hard, suspicious edge. “Isn’t he a widower?”

      How had she known that? Tourism had arrived in Indigo Springs years before Chase’s parents bought the vacation home where Chase now lived with his father. While Indigo Springs still had a small-town feel, it wasn’t so insular that residents automatically knew everyone else’s business.

      “Yes, he is.” Chase bent to lower Toby into the carrier and started buckling him in, making sure the straps went over the baby’s shoulders and between his legs. “My mother died nine months ago.”

      “I was sorry to hear about that,” she mumbled, then added in a clearer voice, “So if your father’s watching Toby for you, that must mean Mandy’s still out of town.”

      Chase looked up at her sharply at the mention of Toby’s mother. “How do you know Mandy?”

      “She was a regular at the library. She mentioned once she was living with a wildlife conservation officer. That’s how I got the idea to ask you to speak.”

      Chase turned back to Toby and finished buckling the gurgling baby into the carrier.