The Baby Season. Alice Sharpe

orange, two black, a gray-and-white, a pure white and a tabby. Little meows. Tiny little pink tongues and blurry bluish eyes.

      “Go ahead, touch one,” Jack said as he gently stroked a tiny white-and-pink ear.

      “Oh, I couldn’t,” Roxanne said. They looked far too fragile to touch. Jack seemed to know what he was doing, but his finger looked huge next to the kitten’s head.

      Pointing at each kitten in turn, Ginny said, “Blinky and Fuzzy and Foggy and Casper and Blackie and George.”

      Just then, the mother cat appeared at Ginny’s elbow and jumped down into the crevice. As she flopped onto her side, the kittens, meowing in earnest now, jockeyed for position until everyone was lined up with their own nipple and settled in for lunch.

      The cat, purring, began bathing her offspring.

      “Isn’t motherhood something?” Jack said.

      “I wouldn’t know,” Roxanne mumbled. Motherhood wasn’t something she spent a lot of time thinking about. Out of nowhere, she heard Kevin’s voice again, telling her this very thing just four days earlier.

      Jack turned his attention to his daughter. “Okay, sweet-pea, time to leave Flossy and her babies alone. And remember, don’t tell Aggie.”

      “’Cause it’s a secret.”

      “That’s right.”

      As Ginny scrambled down the stack, Roxanne said, “The kittens are a secret from the dog?”

      He shrugged. “Not really, but little kids love secrets.”

      Ginny was back on the floor within seconds, Jack right after her, Roxanne slowly following. Jack took her hand again and steadied her last few steps to the ground.

      By now, Ginny was running out the door. Jack released Roxanne’s hand. She gestured for him to go after his daughter, happy to have a moment to collect what was left of her wits.

      “That Ginny is one sweet little kid, isn’t she?” Carl said, emerging from a stall with a bucket of grain.

      Roxanne jumped at the sound of his voice—she hadn’t realized he was still in the barn. “What? Oh, yes. Adorable.” For a second, she thought of the little pink-and-blond child and actually felt a smile tug at her lips. She’d had no idea little girls were so…well, cute.

      Vaguely uncomfortable with her gut reaction to Carl’s remark, she added, “Carl, have you lived out here long?”

      “All my life.”

      “Ever hear of a woman called Dolly Aames? She’d be about sixty now. I know she lived in this area forty or so years ago. Maybe right here in this very house.”

      He straightened up and scratched his fleshy chin. “The Wheeler family has been here longer than that,” he said. “Jack’s grandfather built the house. Sorry, but I don’t remember anyone by that name ever living here.”

      It was getting to be a familiar refrain. “Thanks, anyway. Jack said I could use the phone.”

      “Sure thing. Come on into the house,” Carl said.

      As she hobbled across the yard beside Carl, she said, “This place is really beautiful.”

      “It is nice,” he said with a fond smile. “’Course, what with Doc’s schedule, all the heavy work falls to me and the other hands, but that’s the way I like it. Been here long enough now that the place feels like home. Know what I mean?”

      She decided to ignore his question about home—it made her feel funny inside, the way he phrased it. Home? Home was where you slept, where you paid rent, where you got dressed in the morning to go to work. She said, “Doc?”

      “The guy you rode in with.”

      “Jack Wheeler?”

      “Sure. Only almost everyone calls him Doc Wheeler, just like his dad before him.”

      Roxanne glanced ahead to find Jack standing on a rock porch. He seemed to be studying her as she hobbled along, his expression hovering somewhere between anxious and…unreadable. She didn’t know why she made him look like that. His daughter didn’t. His horses didn’t. Not even Carl did.

      She suddenly found herself wanting to make him relax and maybe even grin, and she racked her brain for something funny to say.

      Nothing came to her.

      She tried a smile.

      He nodded politely while holding out a cordless phone, then he spoke to Carl. “People are going to start arriving soon. Maybe we’d better convince Aggie that she and her pups would be happier out in the barn. It’s about time for them to move anyway.”

      Carl nodded and disappeared into the house.

      Roxanne took the phone. She was about to ask for a phone book when Jack met her gaze and rattled off a number. She punched it in, got an answering machine saying that Oz, of Oz Repair and Towing, was out on a job, leave a name and number, he’d get back to you. She found a number on the phone and left it on Oz’s answering machine along with her name and on second thought, Jack Wheeler’s name.

      “Looks as though you’re stuck with me for a while,” she told Jack.

      He grunted. “Oz can be a little…unpredictable. He’s got things going on at home, too. He’ll get back to you, all right, only on his own time schedule.” He stared at her for an eternity and added, “We’re having a party for Ginny. I need to shower and change clothes before the guests arrive.”

      “She’s very charming,” Roxanne said.

      Now his face softened again. The man was obviously a sucker for his kid. Roxanne found that rather intriguing. She couldn’t imagine either of her parents going out of their way to host a birthday party for her at such a tender age…okay, at any age.

      “I can’t believe she’s already three years old,” Jack said.

      It suddenly occurred to Roxanne that Jack’s wife hadn’t only abandoned him but their child. How incredible! Having made the decision to have a baby, how could the woman then abandon her?

      On the other hand, how could she abandon Jack Wheeler?

      She said, “Carl said you’re a doctor. What kind?”

      “General practitioner. I have a little office in Tangent. I’m one of a dying breed of small-town doctors. I do everything from tending to the dying to delivering babies.”

      “Delivering babies,” she mumbled. “Why am I not surprised?”

      “Listen,” he said, obviously trying to figure out what to do with Roxanne. “A kid’s party is going to be boring as hell for you.”

      “I don’t mind.”

      “It’s a big house. There are plenty of places to relax until Oz calls back.”

      “Will there be any adults at the party?”

      “Yes—”

      “From around here?”

      “Of course.”

      “Maybe one of them will know something about Dolly Aames,” Roxanne said. “Would you mind if I invite myself to your party?”

      He looked her up and down. Until that moment, she wasn’t even aware she knew how to blush, but under his scrutiny, imagining what a mess she was, she felt her cheeks grow warm. Maybe it was just the blasted sunburn catching up with her.

      “I could wash first,” she said. “And maybe borrow a shoe.”

      He looked unconvinced that washing or shoes would help her appearance. How he managed to suffuse this skeptical expression with enough sexual energy to rival a nuclear power plant was fascinating and would require further contemplation on Roxanne’s part.

      But