Verdict: Daddy. Charlotte Douglas
Keeping his attention on the traffic, from the corner of his eye, he caught her staring at him. She was even more beautiful than he’d first thought, with her hair ruffled by the wind and one silken leg crossed over the other, revealing a delectable knee and shapely thigh where her skirt had crept higher.
Feeling suddenly awkward at the turn his thoughts had taken, he strove for a neutral subject. “Lucky that the doctors could intervene so quickly with Patricia.”
Marissa nodded. “Today’s medications, if administered in time, can alleviate the effects of a stroke. She should be out of the hospital in a few days.”
“But Agnes plans to stay a couple weeks. She’ll wait on Patricia hand and foot once she’s out of the hospital. Lucky sister. If I was sick, there’s no one who’d take better care of me than Agnes. Once when I was down with the flu, she almost drowned me in chicken soup, hot toddies and tons of sympathy.”
Marissa twisted on the seat toward him and intensified her gaze. “You realize,” she said in a no-nonsense tone, “that you have no choice now but to turn Annie over to the authorities.”
“Because Agnes can’t take care of her?” Blake shook his head. “I’ll hire a nanny. I’m sure there’re plenty of competent people out there who can help me care for Annie until the right adoptive parents come along.”
Marissa sighed, her warm breath stirring the air in the truck and Blake’s senses, as well. “That’s not the point.”
“Sure it is. How can you hand a sweet little angel like Annie over to a cold impersonal system? It’ll break her heart.”
“Foster parents aren’t monsters.” Marissa’s frustration with him was evident in her firm statement and the jut of her very pretty chin.
“Some are,” Blake said quietly, struggling with memories he’d promised himself he’d forget.
Marissa sat silent for a moment, as if digesting what he’d said. When she spoke again, her voice had lost its edge, her posture relaxed. “But you really have no choice. Everyone will know you have her. Unless you leave town with the baby.”
“I can’t leave. I have a business to run.” Blake reminded himself of the appointment he had with the developer the next morning, the appointment he’d canceled today because of Annie.
“Dolphin Bay’s a small town,” Marissa continued. “Eventually someone’s going to turn you in. Vienna Pitts has already tried.”
In the back seat, Bo emitted a low growl at the mention of his neighbor’s name.
“I’ll have to turn you in myself,” Marissa continued, “if you don’t. Not reporting an abandoned child is a criminal offense.”
He glanced at her sharply before returning his gaze to the road. “You’re sure of that?”
“I can’t name the exact statute, but I’ll bet my law degree that’s the case.”
Blake tightened his grip on the steering wheel and didn’t attempt to hide his disgust. “All I want is to keep a sweet little kid safe, and that makes me jail bait? What a country.”
Marissa placed her hand on his arm, and his flesh tingled beneath the smooth warmth of her skin. “Look at it this way. What if Annie had been left on old man Sellars’s front porch?”
“The guy who abused his dog?” Blake shuddered at the memory of the sad, emaciated little pooch.
“Imagine how he’d treat an infant.”
“I don’t even want to go there,” Blake admitted.
“That’s why the laws are on the books, to protect children from falling into the wrong hands.”
“But I’m not like Sellars. I just want to help her.”
“I know that.” Her immediate agreement stroked his ego. “But the law doesn’t, the courts don’t. Not without a proper investigation. And if you’re serious about helping Annie find the right parents, the last thing you need is to get on the wrong side of the system. They’re the ones you’ll have to work with to make sure Annie’s placed in a good home.”
Blake kept his eyes on the traffic while his mind went into overdrive. Motivated by memories of his own unhappiness as a child, he’d hoped he could spare the little bundle deposited on his doorstep the same fate. Too confident that he could simply follow his heart and do what was right, he’d counted on a smart lawyer to manipulate the system in her favor. Behind him, Annie stirred and cooed in her carrier, obviously awake but also content. How could he place her in the same circumstances that had caused him so much grief?
“Any suggestions?” he asked Marissa. “Not that I’m agreeing to turn her in,” he added quickly.
“I know what caring for Annie means to you,” she said softly.
Her empathy wasn’t empty words. More than anyone else in the entire world, Marissa knew what he’d been through, knew how often, just as soon as he’d begun to put down roots, develop attachments to his foster family and feel as if he belonged, something had occurred that necessitated his removal to another foster home.
In his first placement, it had been his foster mother’s discovery that she was pregnant with twins. Suddenly there was no room for a rambunctious five-year-old who wasn’t their own. In his second home with an older couple, Mr. Flint had had a heart attack, and his wife, burdened with his care, couldn’t keep up with eight-year-old Blake. And then there were the Barbers, the place in his memory where he refused to go. Marissa, however, had seen his welts and bruises. Covering up the evidence of abuse in summer shorts and T-shirts had been all but impossible.
Beside him, Marissa sat silently for a long time, seemingly lost in thought as they exited the Skyway and headed through St. Petersburg on the interstate.
“Do you trust me?” Her unexpected question broke the stillness.
Blake flashed her an appreciative look. “That’s why I came to you in the first place.”
“Then let me think about this and make a few calls when we get back to your house.”
“You won’t turn me in?” Blake wondered for an instant if his trust had been misplaced.
“Not until we’ve exhausted every option,” she said. “But I’d be lying if I promised not to. I have a responsibility to the law. And to Annie.”
Her last statement hurt. “I feel a responsibility to the kid, too.”
MARISSA SAT in the authentic Stickley arts-and-craft-style chair, with its deep, comfy cushions, and cradled Annie in her arms. Bo curled at her feet. The friendly animal had taken a liking to the child and dogged the steps of whoever held her. Opaque sage-green draperies, drawn across the windows at Marissa’s back, shielded the room from the prying eyes of Vienna Pitts, ever vigilant across the street.
The child’s weight felt comforting against Marissa’s heart and filled her with a soothing contentment. Annie sucked the last of the formula from the bottle provided by Agnes, and her tiny eyelids fluttered. Even though the baby was dropping into sleep, Marissa was reluctant to place her in the crib Blake had moved from Agnes’s house into his living room. She liked too much the feeling of completeness that holding Annie provided.
Blake came in from the kitchen with an earthenware mug of steaming coffee and set it on a table by her elbow. With his own mug he settled into the chair opposite hers in front of the hearth. Instead of flaming logs, inappropriate in the Florida heat, the fireplace held a massive terra-cotta pot of verdant, healthy ferns, a testament to Blake’s skill with plants. His simple but impeccable taste was evident in every corner of the room, from its pale camel-colored walls to the rich-honey finish of the heart-of-pine floors, and the Hal Stowers beachscapes on the walls. Blake’s business must be booming for him to afford such art. She smiled inwardly, glad that the homeless friend of her childhood finally had such a special place of his own.
“Did