The Baby Barter. Patty Smith Hall

of it? Granted, last spring had felt like a roller-coaster ride with President Roosevelt’s unexpected death, then the war ending in Europe, not to mention the Bell Bomber Plant laying off some of the women workers. What else had happened right under his nose that he’d been unaware of?

      “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Mack. Eileen probably kept out of sight due to her condition.”

      Mack turned sharply to stare at her. “She was pregnant?”

      The news wasn’t truly a surprise. Eileen had been trouble since the moment she started powdering her nose and wearing high heels. Mrs. Miller had always been very stiff, very proper. She wasn’t a warm person, not even with her daughters, but she’d been tolerably friendly, participating in community events and active in the church until the gossip surrounding her younger daughter’s antics had begun. After that, she’d rarely come to town. Whenever Eileen got into trouble, it was always her big sister who came to bail her out.

      But it seemed odd he hadn’t heard about Eileen coming back in the spring or having a baby. Odder still that the few times he’d been called out to tend to Mrs. Miller, who had grown increasingly rattled and confused as age set in, never once had the woman mentioned a child. Mack scrubbed his jaw. “Where’s the baby then?”

      “That’s just it, Mack. Momma says the baby has been stolen, and I need to go and bring her home.”

      Another mess for Thea to clean up. Hadn’t that always been the way with Mrs. Miller and Eileen? Well, this was one problem he could help her clear up. Mack shoved his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out the small notebook and stubby pencil he kept on him for moments like this. “Do you know the name of the baby’s father? I could check with him, see if he or his family have the child.”

      “No, but...” She hesitated, what color she had in her cheeks fading, though her chin still arched at a determined angle. Whatever she was about to say, Mack knew he wouldn’t like it. “Momma knows who has the baby.”

      “Who?”

      “Ms. Adair.”

      “Aurora?”

      Thea gave him a certain nod. “Momma said she knew it the first time she saw Ms. Adair in town after the baby was born.”

      “That’s why you’ve been spying on Aurora’s place.” The pieces began to fall into place for Mack. “You think Sarah is Eileen’s baby?”

      “It makes sense. Sarah looks to be about the right age, and she’s the spitting image of Eileen when she was a baby. Momma said it would be like Ms. Adair to take her.” Sorrow along with another emotion—determination?—stared back at him. “That child you want to adopt is my niece, Mack. And I want to take her home.”

      * * *

      For a moment Mack’s eyes went wide with shock, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Then he huffed a laugh and shook his head.

      Surprise shot through Thea. He thought her claim was so ridiculous that he was laughing at her? Not very gallant for the boy who’d protected her from the ugly whispers her sister’s behavior had generated around their high school campus, who’d listened as she’d poured out her heart over her mother’s indifference, who’d been more than her friend.

      He was the only one who ever seemed to understand her—and he knew how much her family meant to her. Eileen was gone, but her sweet baby was here, and all Thea wanted was to give that darling girl a home with her family. Why was that so difficult to understand? Shouldn’t Mack be happy that someone from Sarah’s birth family wanted to claim her now? Instead, he seemed to find the very idea laughable. “Maggie would have your hide if she heard you laughing at me like that.”

      “Maybe,” Mack replied, giving her an unrepentant smile that made her heart trip over itself. “But she’d have to catch me first.”

      A smile tugged at the corner of Thea’s mouth, but she caught herself before she made a complete idiot out of herself and smiled back. What on earth was she doing, almost flirting with the man! She had to make him understand the situation. Otherwise, Eileen’s baby would be adopted by him, and the opportunity to raise her sister’s child would be forever lost to her. “I don’t think what I said was that funny.”

      “It wasn’t.” A weak grin tugged at his lips. “It’s just that Ms. Aurora has a hard enough time providing the necessaries for the children left in her care without going out and stealing more of them to spread her resources even thinner.”

      “Maybe there was a misunderstanding,” Thea argued. “Maybe Eileen was upset, or overwhelmed, and considered giving up her baby. But Momma says she changed her mind. She just didn’t get a chance to take her back before the car accident. This isn’t an abandoned baby anymore—this is a little girl whose family wants her. Momma and I are entitled to have her.”

      Thea glanced into blue eyes studying her intensely as if he were staring straight into the very heart of her soul. She swallowed. No wonder the people of Marietta trusted Mack to watch over their town. He could probably drum a confession out of the most hardened criminal, let alone a young girl still haunted by the cries of her sister, years ago, longing for the first child she’d borne—a child she had held only once before the baby was whisked away in the night, never to be returned. Thea had left town to find that baby...and she had failed. This was her chance to make things right, and she wasn’t going to let it go. How could she make Mack at least listen to what she had to say? “Have you ever known me to lie, Mack?”

      He glanced down at her, the lines in his face taut. This was killing him. Thea knew it, but wasn’t it better to learn the truth now than after the adoption had gone through? “What kind of proof do you have to back up your allegations that Sarah is Eileen’s child?” Mack asked. “A birth certificate? An entry in the family Bible?”

      “I haven’t checked with the courthouse about a birth certificate yet.” She’d never seen a family Bible around the house but that didn’t mean her mother didn’t have one stashed somewhere. “But I do have Eileen’s journal. She wrote about delivering a little girl, just as everyone was celebrating the end of the war.”

      “Which will only prove she had a baby around VE Day.” Mack leaned close enough so that only she could hear him. “Until you have some kind of proof that Sarah is that baby, I’d suggest you keep your claims to yourself.”

      “Then will you promise to hold off on the adoption until we’ve figured out this situation?” she countered.

      A muscle in Mack’s jaw jerked slightly, then he relaxed. “I’m not sure there is anything to figure out, Miss Miller. According to the courts, Sarah has been abandoned and can legally be adopted.”

      “Miss Miller,” was she? So, he’d dug in his heels. Well, she could be just as stubborn. Thea crushed her fingers into the leather sides of her purse. She’d need a new one after the punishment this one had taken today. “You can’t think I’m just going to let you adopt my niece without putting up a fight.”

      “We still haven’t established Sarah is Eileen’s child.”

      “It’s like I told you. Sarah’s the right age, and she has the same sandy-blond hair and blue eyes that Eileen did when she was a baby.”

      “That’s all circumstantial evidence, Thea. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

      She knew that, but the more she thought about the situation, the more convinced she was that the little girl Mack aimed to adopt was her niece, especially considering what her mother had told her of the baby’s abnormalities. “According to Momma, she was born on May eighth. I’m sure the birth certificate will back that up, once I locate it.”

      “She probably wasn’t the only kid born that day,” Mack replied, though his cheeks had gone slightly pale beneath his tanned complexion, as if the news had hit a sore spot. Clearly, that was Sarah’s birthdate, as well. “And finding the official record might not be as easy as you think. It can take months for a birth certificate to