Surrogate Escape. Jenna Kernan

front door without his familiar white Stetson or uniform jacket and charged her driver’s side like a bull elk.

      “Hurry,” he said.

      Lori grabbed her tote and medical bag and followed as Jake reversed course and dashed back into his home. Lori ran, too, her medical bag thumping against her thigh as she cleared the door. Once inside, she heard the angry squall of a newborn.

      Jake stopped in the living room before a dirty red polar fleece, which sat beside a couch cushion on his carpet. On the wide cushion was a baby wrapped in a familiar fuzzy green knit blanket, its tiny face scrunched and its mouth open wide as it howled. Lori’s stride faltered. She knew that blanket because she had knit it herself from soft, mint-colored yarn. She glanced at Jake. Why had he kept it?

      Jake pointed at the baby. “It’s turning purple.”

       Chapter Two

      Lori scooped up the infant and cradled the tiny newborn against her chest. The sharp stab of grief pierced her heart. She’d held dozens of newborns since that day, but none had been wrapped in her blanket and Jake had not been standing at her side. It was all too familiar. She tried to hide the tears, but with both hands on her charge she could not wipe them away.

      Jake stepped up beside her and rested a once-familiar hand on her shoulder. His touch stirred memories of pleasure and shame, and her chin dropped as she nestled her cheek against the fuzzy head that rooted against her neck.

      She turned and allowed herself to really look at Jake. Oh, she had seen him since her return, often in fact, but she’d refused to let herself look, refused to allow the emotional gate to swing open. But the baby and the blanket had tripped some switch and she wanted to see him again, if only to remember why she had once loved him. Permission granted to herself, she braced for the pain. His brow had grown more prominent, and his broad forehead was made wider because his hair was tugged back in a single pony at his neck, which was dressed with blue cloth. He always wore blue now.

      No, not always, she remembered. Once, he’d worn his hair wrapped in red cloth. Jake’s ears showed at each side of his head and she noticed they seemed tucked back, as if he needed to hear something behind him. He wore a silver stud in each ear. Police regulations required that he wore nothing dangling, but she preferred the long silver feathers she’d given him. Did he ever wear them?

      His jaw was more prominent now, having grown sharp and strong. The taut skin of his cheeks seemed darker than the rest of his face due to a day’s growth of stubble. She traced the blade of a nose with her gaze, ending at his mouth, and watched his nostrils flare and his lips part. Their eyes met and she went still, seeing the familiar warm amber brown of his eyes. He still made her insides quake and her heart pound. Memories swirled as he took a step forward. He rested his hands on her shoulders and angled his jaw.

      Oh, no. He’s going to kiss me.

      Instead of revulsion, her body furnished blazing desire. She told herself to step back but found herself stepping forward. The newborn in her arms gave a bleat like a baby lamb, bringing her back to her senses. Had she been about to stroke that familiar face?

      She stiffened. Damned if she’d give him the chance to hurt her again. She was through with men who treated her like she wasn’t good enough. There were men out there who judged you by yourself instead of by your family. Jake Redhorse was simply not one of them.

      “I’m sorry, Lori.”

      She narrowed her eyes at him and made a disbelieving sound in her throat. Was he sorry that she’d come, sorry that he’d nearly kissed her or sorry that anyone else in the world was not here to help him?

      His mother would have been an option—his mother, who had called her an apple, red on the outside and white on the inside, because her father had been white. Then she’d called her siblings pieces in a fruit basket. Lori was well aware that none of her siblings shared the same father, because no one ever let her forget it.

      His mother had disliked her right from the start, but after May Redhorse learned about Lori’s condition and that Jake planned to marry her, her dislike solidified to distain. Mrs. Redhorse was a good Christian and a bad person.

      Finally, belatedly, Lori stepped back. Jake’s eyes still had that piercing look of desire. She drew a breath as she prepared to throw cold water on him.

      “You could have called your mom,” she said. Bringing up his mother was a sure way to douse the flame that had sprung from cold ashes between them.

      His mouth twisted. “She can’t get around very well right now.”

      Lori recalled the diabetes and the toe amputation—more than one. His mother had always been a big woman, and the disease had only made her less mobile. Some of her anger leaked away.

      “Yes, of course.”

      “What’s wrong with it?” asked Jake, pointing to the fussing infant.

      “Hungry, maybe. Let’s have a look.”

      Lori found Jake’s kitchen and laid the baby on his dinette. Then she peeled back the blanket and stroked the knit edge.

      “You kept it,” she said.

      “Yeah.”

      “Why?”

      “Just reminds me of her.”

      Lori didn’t need a reminder. She carried the memories in her heart like a spike. The baby girl she’d lost. Jake’s baby. At the time she thought the miscarriage was her fault, that she must have done something wrong. She knew better now.

      The baby before them had ceased fussing and stared up at them with wide blue eyes. The infant was pink and white, with skin so translucent you could see the tiny veins that threaded across her chest and forehead. She was clearly a newborn, still streaked with her mother’s blood.

      Lori shrugged out of her coat and Jake stepped forward to take it. Always the gentleman, she thought. Perfect as Captain Freakin’ America. Captain of the soccer team, basketball team and track team. Fast, smart and somehow once interested in her. The world made no sense.

      “What’s that white stuff?” he asked, peering over her shoulder, his breath warm and sweet on her neck.

      “That’s the caul. It’s the tissue sack that surrounds the baby in the womb. I hear that some Anglos believe that wearing the caul is lucky.”

      “What Anglos?”

      “The Irish, I think. Maybe Scottish. I can’t recall. My granddad was a Scot.” Why did she feel the need to remind him her father had not been Apache?

      * * *

      JAKE GLANCED AT HER, letting the desire build again. He knew her grandfather had been a Scot. He even remembered her father. He’d been a redhead who worked for the oil and gas company in Darabee for a while. He was the reason that Lori’s hair took on a red gleam in the sunlight. She’d taken a lot of teasing over that in grade school. She even had a light dusting of freckles over her nose. Or she had as a child, anyway. It made her different. Jake thought those differences made her more beautiful, but he’d been one of the worst in middle school. Anything to get her attention, even if it was only to see her flush and storm off.

      Lori had changed over the five years of separation, and at age twenty-one, she had grown into a woman’s body. Her skin was a healthy golden brown and her mouth was still full but tipped down at the corners. Above the delicate nose, her dark brows arched regally over the deep brown eyes. The sadness he saw there was new. Today she wore her long, thick hair coiled in a knot at the base of her skull, practical like her uniform. And the hairstyle disguised the soft natural wave in her hair. Lori worked with children and babies, so her top was always alive with something bright and cheerful. Today it was teddy bears all tumbling down her chest with blocks. The bottoms matched, picking up the purples of the top and hugging her hips. The shoes were slip-on clogs with rubber soles. White, of