The Black Sheep's Baby. Kathleen Creighton

was something Eric could understand. Now. In fact, he understood a lot of things he never had before, now that he’d experienced those protective paternal feelings himself, firsthand.

      He rubbed the back of his neck and felt the tiredness there creep right on down into his bones. Bracing himself, he turned to look his father straight in the eyes. “Sorry, Dad. I just didn’t think I could afford to stop. I was afraid that storm was going to catch up with me before—”

      “You didn’t stop?” Lord help him, his mother had found her voice. And it was as sharp-edged and scratchy as he remembered it. He felt an unexpected surge of emotion as she rounded on him, all puffed up like an angry hen. “You mean, you drove all the way here from…what, L.A.? With that tiny baby in the car? Without stopping? Eric Sean Lanagan, I swear—”

      “I stopped when she needed feeding or changing,” he protested. And damned if he wasn’t starting to feel like that kid again, defensive and resentful—until he caught a glimpse of something way back in his father’s eyes, something he’d have sworn was laughter. He managed a smile then, though his face felt stiff with it; it had grown unaccustomed to that particular exercise. “She’s a real good baby—took to traveling like she was born to it. I’m tired, though…” He made no attempt to cover his yawn, then felt his smile turn crooked. “What about it, Mom? Still got a bed here for me?”

      She didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at him with her chin high and her arms folded across her chest, riled up and breathing hard. He had the feeling she might be holding her arms like that because she was using them to keep herself together. There was a shiny, fragile look around her eyes that made him want to pull his gaze away from her—only he couldn’t. She looked so tiny…so much smaller than he remembered. He wondered if it was because she’d actually shrunk, or because he’d grown.

      Then…“There always has been, Eric,” she said in a furious, breaking voice. And there was a suspenseful little silence, like the moments between the lightning and the thunder.

      It wasn’t a thunderclap but something much smaller that broke the silence—a series of snuffling, snorting noises. Eric turned toward it—he was well-conditioned to that noise by now—but his mother was there before him, reaching into the nest of blankets in the infant carrier and making crooning sounds. Startled, he glanced at his father, but his dad wasn’t looking at him. His dad was watching his mother as she lifted the little one from her carrier and held her up so they could both look at her…and look, and look, and look.

      Eric stood and watched them all from what felt like a great distance, or—the more apt analogy came to him—as if he were seeing them through the lens of one of his cameras. There was Emily, blinking and squinting the way she did when she was getting herself waked up, working her way through her repertoire of expressions. His father’s expression he couldn’t read at all. But his mother’s…oh, man. His mom’s face was rapt, radiant, beautiful. The everpresent camera in his mind clicked madly away, and his photographer’s heart grieved for the priceless moment…the once-in-a-lifetime shot lost.

      His emotions were a mess, a hopelessly tangled, senseless knot, and because he didn’t want to begin to try to pick those emotions apart, he said gruffly, “Her formula and stuff are in the diaper bag. It’s in the car. I’ll get it.” And he fled from the warmth and love and security he’d come so far to find and plunged back into the darkness he’d grown accustomed to, the darkness and all-enveloping loneliness.

      And the cold.

      He’d forgotten about that cold. It shocked his body but cleared his mind, so that when he came back into the kitchen he was violently shivering but better prepared to deal with it all—his dad’s questions and his mom’s fussing, and Emily’s much less complicated demands.

      “It’s snowing,” he announced as he placed the diaper bag on the kitchen table.

      But nobody was paying any attention to him.

      “So, your flight got delayed, huh?” The young man at the car rental counter clicked his tongue in sympathy. “Too bad—happens a lot, these days. You’re lucky you got in at all. I imagine they’re gonna be shutting down here, pretty soon.”

      “Shutting down?” Devon glanced up from the rental agreement fine print she’d been speed-reading through and frowned. “Not the interstate, I hope.”

      “No, no—I meant the airport. Although, they’ll probably close down the interstate, too. This one’s supposed to be bad—a real Arctic Express.”

      “Wonderful…” She wasn’t sure whether or not she’d be using the interstate, but it didn’t sound like good news; the interstate was probably the last thing that would close, and if that happened it didn’t bode well for the lesser roads.

      Her perusal of the agreement completed, she nudged it toward the young man with an inaudible sigh of vexation. Devon didn’t like monkey wrenches thrown into her well-laid plans.

      The rental agent jerked his eyes away from their rapt appreciation of her hair. He gave a covering cough and murmured, “Okay, Ms. O’Rourke, if you’ll initial here, here, and here, and then sign at the two X’s, we’ll have you on your way. That’s one Lincoln Town Car, non-smoker, with CD changer and GPS.”

      “Snow tires?” Devon asked hopefully.

      “Uh, all our cars are equipped with all-weather tires, ma’am. But it can be hard to find your way around in a blizzard, especially at night. If you’ve got very far to go, you might want to think about getting a hotel someplace close by, and just riding it out.”

      She shuddered inwardly. The size of the airport had come as enough of a shock to her; the idea of being stuck in one of the adjacent hotels was appalling. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said briskly as she picked up her keys. “It’s only about thirty miles or so from here, I believe, and I have the GPS. Now, if you’ll just tell me which one’s mine…” She hitched the strap of her traveling combo handbag-laptop-attache case over her shoulder and reached for the handle of her rolling carry-on.

      The rental agent gave a “don’t say I didn’t warn you” shrug. “It’s right outside that door there, ma’am—space number sixteen.” He paused, then, unable to help himself, added, “Must be important, to send you out on a night like this.”

      “Oh, it is.” Devon’s smile wasn’t pleasant. The court order stashed away in her attache case seemed to flare and glow in her mind’s eye. Too bad, she thought with grim satisfaction. Mr. Eric Sean Lanagan was about to learn the hard way that one simply did not skip out on Devon O’Rourke, or her clients.

      For the second time that night, the barking of the dogs awakened Lucy. This time she was actually in bed, cozy and warm and snuggled against Mike’s back. It seemed like only minutes since she’d closed her eyes.

      It had been after midnight by the time she’d gotten Eric and the baby settled in Eric’s old room—he’d insisted on staying there instead of in the clean guest room, bedding down amongst all the boxes of dusty books and old clothes ready to go to the church rummage sale. He’d also insisted on keeping Emily with him, though Lucy had offered to take her—begged to take her—and let him get some decent rest.

      Oh, but it had been hard to see him looking so exhausted. So drained and distant—like a stranger. This wasn’t the Eric she remembered, the son she’d yearned for and dreamed of welcoming home again. In her husband’s arms, in the privacy of their room she’d at last allowed herself to cry for that boy whom she knew in her heart she was never going to see again.

      “Oh, Mike,” she’d sobbed, “he’s so different.”

      “He’s grown up,” her husband replied, stroking her back.

      “Yes, but…I don’t know him. He wouldn’t even let me hug him. And…oh, Mike—a baby! I never thought—”

      “Hey—you wished for grandkids, remember?” His voice was wry and amused…reassuring. “Goes to show you—be careful