The Brennan Baby. Barbara Boswell
turned on her TV set. Nothing claimed her interest, not even the hurricane currently being tracked in the Caribbean by the Weather Channel. She decided to forego the suggested cup of tea. Her stomach was in knots and her throat felt too tight to swallow. The baby’s cries continued unabated, sounding less angry and more and more piteous.
Gillian looked bleakly at her watch. Only six and a half minutes had elasped but it felt like an eternity. Poor little Ashley, exiled to her crib. Gillian wondered if she felt unwanted, alone in the dark world without anyone who cared.
It was a horrible feeling that Gillian knew all too well. To imagine Ashley having to experience such despair was unbearable. She rose to her feet and fairly flew into the nursery. With all due respect to Dolly Sinsel, isolating the baby felt all wrong.
After all, it wasn’t as if Ashley had tried to burn down the house or stone a neighbor’s dog; she didn’t need a stint in solitary confinement as punishment. Ashley was cutting a tooth and she was uncomfortable. Why shouldn’t she cry?
Gillian arrived at the cribside just as Ashley succeeded in pulling the rubber nipple off the top of her bottle and turning it upside down, emptying the juice The baby was so shocked by her sudden soaking, she stopped crying and looked up at her mother with astonished blue eyes.
“Oh, Ashley, you’re all wet and so is the bed!” Gillian was dismayed.
Ashley was furious that she’d been doused. She began to howl again.
“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Gillian picked her up and cuddled her. “I’ll put you in nice dry jammies and then I’ll change the sheet.”
She sponged the sticky juice from the baby, then dried and dressed her in fresh, aqua cotton footed pajamas. And discovered that there were no more clean crib sheets. The other six were in the laundry basket waiting to be taken to the washer and dryer in the basement of the building.
“I’m sorry, Ash. I didn’t realize how low we were on crib sheets and we’ve been so busy after work, I haven’t gotten around to doing the laundry,” Gillian lamented aloud.
Ashley babbled a few syllables in response. Gillian was so relieved that the baby had stopped crying, she felt almost giddy. “We’ll go next door and ask Shelly or Heather if they’ll stay with you while I go downstairs to do a load of laundry now, okay? You like Shelly and Heather, they’re operating room nurses at the hospital, and they gave you some ice cream the other day, remember?”
She carried Ashley into the hall and walked to the apartment on their left, talking to her daughter all the while. Gillian knocked long and loud before she conceded that neither Shelly nor Heather was there.
Gillian sighed. She’d hoped to avoid having to tote Ashley and the laundry basket down to the basement laundry room but with no one to watch the baby, she had no other choice. She wasn’t about to leave Ashley alone in the apartment and she hadn’t met any other neighbors yet... Her eyes flicked to the apartment door across the hall from her own, Devlin Brennan’s door. Assistance from that quarter was not an option. She would never ask him to watch her baby, not even for a moment.
And then the door opened and Devlin stepped into the hall.
Gillian froze. It was as if her thoughts had conjured him up! She stood stock-still, clutching Ashley, and staring at him. He was wearing a faded Detroit Lions T-shirt and jeans, simple and common enough clothes but the way they showcased his male attributes—his muscular arms and broad chest, his long lean thighs and flat belly—evoked a reaction within Gillian that was neither simple nor common. His face was darkened by the shadow of a beard, reminding Gillian of how sexy he looked in the morning when he awakened, unshaven and aroused.
She scowled at the renegade memory. This was no time to recall anything about her three-month lapse of sanity that had characterized her affair with Devlin Brennan.
Her dour expression did not go unnoticed. “I bet the bubonic plague got a less hostile welcome,” Dev said dryly.
“I, uh, I was just seeing if Shelly and Heather are home.” Gillian started toward her apartment. His mere presence threatened her.
“Neither one is there. They’re both working till midnight for the next few weeks. I saw their names on the OR schedule,” he added.
“Oh.”
“I heard knocking out here.” Devlin felt obliged to explain his appearance. She was looking at him as if he were a serial killer closing in on his latest target—which happened to be her. “Anything I can do?”
Gillian shook her head no. She was almost to her door....
Devlin crossed the hall to block her entry, positioning himself in the frame the same way he’d done on the day he had moved into the building. But that time, at least, she’d been inside with Carmen and Mark as allies. Now Mark was back in L.A., Carmen was in Detroit, and here she was, stuck in the hall with no buffers against Devlin’s intimidating presence.
“No friends around as backup this time, huh?” He arched his dark brows.
Gillian was disconcerted that their thoughts were so similar. It was almost as alarming as being trapped with him like this, face-to-face with their child in her arms.
“I’ve been thinking about those friends of yours,” Devlin continued. “How did they know who I was? You never introduced me to them and I know I hadn’t met them before.”
Gillian said nothing.
“Did you tell them about me?” Devlin pressed.
He looked quite pleased by the possibility that she’d been discussing him with others. Such egotism deserved to be quashed! “I told them that some jerk I used to date had moved in across the hall,” she said with asperity. “When you showed up at the door, they drew their own conclusions. And they’re more than friends, they’re my family,” she added proudly.
“Your family?”
“You find it so hard to believe that I could have a family?” Gillian was instantly, angrily on the defensive.
“No, of course not, but—”
“But you visually stereotyped Carmen and Mark and decided that we don’t fit together genetically. Well, so what? We can’t all be whitebread chromosonal clones, like you and your sister ”
And Ashley. Gillian gulped. Why had she ever introduced the potentially explosive topic of genetics and family? Being in Devlin Brennan’s presence seemed to scramble her wits and remove the usual barrier of caution between her thoughts and words. All the more reason why she must avoid him. “Move, Devlin. I have things I have to do and—”
“Are you all adopted or something?” Devlin studied her with an intensity that unnerved her.
She looked away from him, focusing on Ashley, who was gnawing on her tiny fist. “We were unadoptable but we did share a foster home together for a number of years.” Stop staring at me, she silently ordered.
If he received her telepathic command, he did not obey it. He continued to gaze thoughtfully at her. “Thinking back on it, you never mentioned your family while we were seeing each other. Not a word. I don’t even know the names of—”
“There are too many names to name,” Gillian said flippantly. “At one time or another I was probably a foster sister to everybody who passed through Family Services in Detroit.”
“But how did you end up in foster care? What happened to your—”
“Devlin, these questions are pointless. And too late,” she couldn’t resist adding.
“Maybe I should’ve asked them before,” he conceded. “And maybe you should’ve volunteered some information, Gillian.”
“Maybe I sensed that learning my family history wasn’t exactly a priority of yours,” Gillian retorted defensively. Telling her family history was never a priority of hers; she was ashamed of it. “As I remember, you