Father to Be (7 page)

He waved one hand impatiently. “Not you. The other one.”

“The other what?”

“The other social worker. Jeez, don’t you people talk to each other?”

Feeling off balance again, Kelsey took a deep, calming breath. “What other social worker?”

“The one who came to me yesterday and asked me to take the kids—no, not asked, insisted. She said they needed me, said no one else would do. She even got Judge McKechnie to show up in court on a Sunday afternoon to sign an order for temporary custody. What’s her name … Noelle. That was it.”

“Noelle who?”

“I don’t remember. You should know. It’s your office.”

“I admit I’m new here, Dr. Grayson, but I just met all the employees in the office this morning, and there’s no one by the name of Noelle.”

For a long time he stared at her. Once he opened his mouth as if to argue, then shut it again. Then, combing his fingers through his hair, he did argue. “You must be mistaken.”

She shook her head. “There are only four of us. Two intake personnel named Dan and Lisa and two caseworkers—Mary Therese and me. There’s not a Noelle in the bunch.”

“But she gave me a card.” He left the room, and an instant later she heard the slamming of drawers next door. In another instant he returned and handed her a business card. It was the standard card someone who was new to an office would have until she got her own cards printed—exactly the same as the one Kelsey had just given him.

“This doesn’t prove anything.”

He left the room again, then returned with a handful of official forms. “She gave me these.”

None of the signatures on the custody papers were neatly formed, but she could make out Grayson’s scrawl, and the judge’s. She recognized Noelle’s first name only
because she could match the swoops and loops to the letters she knew to look for. The last name was nothing but a scribble.

Seeing that she remained unconvinced, Grayson tugged at his hair again. “She gave me the kids. The sheriff’s department didn’t question her. The hospital didn’t. The judge didn’t.”

“Apparently, someone should have.” Kelsey laid her briefcase on the top bunk, placed the papers and business card inside, then snapped the case shut again. “We’ll have to get this straightened out, the sooner the better. Do you want to take the children with us, or is there someone trustworthy who can watch them while we’re gone?”

His gaze narrowed dangerously at her use of the word
trustworthy
. He seemed to take it as a personal insult. “I’ll ask Mrs. Larrabee to watch them,” he said coldly, quietly. “She’s my landlady, widow of the former mayor, a member of the hospital board of directors and the school board, a grandmother of eleven, and current or past president of every charitable organization in the county. She’s quite trustworthy.”

He walked to the door, then waited pointedly for her to leave. She returned to the living room, where the children once again subjected her to those long, flat looks. With a faint smile she sat down in an easy chair. “Hi. I’m Kelsey. I’m the social worker assigned to your case. Which one of you is Caleb?”

No one answered.

“Jacob? Noah?”

Still no response.

She smiled at the girl. “Well, I know you’re Gracie. Gosh, you’re pretty.”

No smile, no blush, no shyly ducking her head.

Kelsey moved to sit on the coffee table directly in front of them. As one, they moved into a tighter huddle, shrinking
away from her. “Look, kids, I know this is tough. You got along okay without any adults for the last six weeks, and you don’t understand why things can’t just go on the way they were. Unfortunately, they can’t. Kids need grown-ups. You need your dad. But since he’s not here, we’re going to watch over you for him.”

“He’s coming back,” the oldest boy said sharply.

Maybe, maybe not. Kelsey didn’t know the percentage of parents who abandoned their children, then later returned for them, though she was sure some study somewhere had narrowed it to an educated guess. She did know in her experience that it didn’t happen often enough. But maybe Ezra Brown was the exception to the rule. After all, he’d stuck it out two years longer than his wife had. According to the sheriff’s report, he’d told the kids he was going to look for work and would return as soon as possible. Maybe he’d meant to keep that promise. Maybe something had happened to stop him from keeping it.

Or maybe it had merely been empty words.

“I understand you live in the country on a farm. I’ve never seen a farm before. I grew up in New York City. Have you ever been there?”

The oldest boy—Caleb, if she remembered correctly—rolled his eyes disgustedly, making her chuckle. “Feel free to point out a dumb question whenever I ask one. I do manage from time to time. So what do you guys like to do with your summers? Do you swim? Play baseball? Go fishing?”

No response. Not even a flicker of interest.

“When I was a kid, I went to the library a lot. And sometimes my mom would take us to the park, and for one week every summer, we would go to the beach. Have you ever seen the ocean?”

“That’s a dumb question,” the second oldest boy—Jacob, she thought—announced. Caleb scowled at him, and
he protested in his defense. “She
said
to point out dumb questions, and that’s a dumb question. We never been anywhere. How would we go to the ocean?”

“Shut up,” Caleb hissed, and Jacob obeyed.

So Caleb was the key. If he ever relaxed and opened up, so would the others, but as long as he kept his guard up, reaching the kids in any way was going to be a slow, delicate job. She hoped Bethlehem was home to foster parents who were up to the job.

Before she could try again, Dr. Grayson came in. He’d changed into jeans and a less disreputable shirt and combed his hair—though she suspected that before their business was concluded, it would be standing on end all over again. He walked past them without a word, reaching the front door just as a knock sounded. When he returned, the eminently trustworthy Mrs. Larrabee was with him. With her round body and snowy white hair, all she needed was a red dress and spectacles to make a perfect Mrs. Santa Claus.

Dr. Grayson made the introductions, gave the kids a warning to behave, then fixed a less than friendly look on Kelsey. “Shall we go?”

She followed him outside and down the steps. Near the bottom he called over his shoulder, “We’ll take my truck.”

The look he gave her dared her to refuse—which, of course, was her first impulse, and second. The truck was caked with mud. It sat high off the ground. There was no running board to give her a step up, and her skirt was too narrow by far for the challenge ahead. But they could begin unraveling this mess on their way to the sheriff’s department, and the sooner it was unraveled, the sooner she could get down to the business of helping those kids.

She covered her reluctance with what she hoped was a dazzling smile. “Thanks for the offer. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

He looked at her, her skirt, then the truck, and grinned an ill-tempered sort of grin. “Oh, I think I can guess.”

Then he walked around the vehicle and left her to struggle in on her own.

J
.D. watched as Ms. Malone maneuvered her way onto the seat. She had to pull her skirt about four inches beyond decent, revealing a length of nice, tightly muscled thigh, then shimmied it back into place. With a huff she fastened her seat belt, settled her briefcase across her lap, and gave him a look that pretended composure. “We can go anytime, Doctor.”

“You can call me J.D. Everyone else in town does.” He started the engine, backed around her car into the side yard, then headed down the drive. “Where are we going?”

“To the sheriff’s department. I want to talk to the deputy who took the children into custody.”

“That would be Max Davis. I doubt he’s on duty yet.”

“Is Bethlehem so small that everyone knows everyone else’s schedule?”

“Max works three to eleven. That means he won’t be in yet. But, yes, Bethlehem
is
that small. Does that bother you?”

She showed no interest in the neighborhood they were passing through but watched him instead. “Why would it bother me?”

“Some people find small-town life stifling. There are no secrets here.” Save one or two.

Her smile was humorless and made him wonder. “Every place has secrets, Dr. Grayson. Tell me about the children.”

He considered correcting her use of his name, then shrugged it off. Bethlehem was a friendly town, and stiff, unyielding people didn’t do well there. Ms. Malone would
learn to loosen up, or she wouldn’t last long. “Are you interested in my professional opinion or my temporary guardian opinion?”

“Either.”

“I think they’re in pretty good shape considering what they’ve been through. They’re frightened and hurt, and Caleb’s angry. He takes his role as big-brother-in-charge very seriously. He’ll resent anyone who might come between them.”

“Why did you take them?”

Annoyance tightened the muscles in his neck and made his voice sharp. “I told you, Noelle asked—”

“Why did you agree?”

He knew the sort of answer she expected. Though a few bad ones occasionally slipped through the approval process, the majority of people who became foster parents had admirable reasons for doing so. They loved kids. They wanted to help. They felt their lives had been blessed and wanted to pass on the blessing to someone else. They believed they could make a difference.

He
loved kids—from a distance. He wanted to help—again, from a distance. His life had been blessed—until he’d screwed it up. And he
knew
he could make a difference.

He also knew that that difference could be good or bad. He could help, but he could also hurt. He could make one life better, but he could just as easily destroy another, and the guilt from that could destroy him.

So why had he agreed to take the kids? The only answer he could offer was the same one he’d given Holly yesterday.
Damned if I know
. Somehow, he didn’t think Ms. Malone would like it any more than he did.

Fortunately, the courthouse was just ahead. Waving at a cop on his way out to patrol, J.D. turned into the parking lot and found a space. “We’ll have to ask Sheriff Ingles to
call Max in. He lives a couple of blocks away. It shouldn’t take long.”

The sheriff’s department wasn’t busy. It rarely was. The dispatcher looked up from her magazine long enough to wave them into the sheriff’s office, where Ingles set aside the schedule he was working on and got to his feet. “J.D., ma’am. What can I do for you?”

After J.D. explained their reason for coming to see him, the sheriff shook his head with a chuckle. “Impersonating a social worker. Now, there’s something you don’t see too often. Me, if I were going to impersonate someone, it’d be a millionaire. No offense, Kelsey.”

“None taken, Sheriff,” she said dryly.

“Actually, though, there was no harm done. You couldn’t ask for a better placement for those kids than J.D. here. He’s an upright citizen, a doctor, and a shrink to boot. Everybody likes him.”

J.D. felt her gaze on him, and he gave her a smug grin. Her only response was to look away.

Ingles went on. “I can understand your curiosity about who this Noelle is. Pretty little thing, wasn’t she, J.D.? And she sure seemed to know what she was doing. But since everything worked out fine in the long run, it’s not like it’s really a big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal, Sheriff,” Kelsey disagreed. “We can’t have some stranger going around choosing foster parents for wards of the state. Our job is to protect these children. We have rules, regulations, and procedures for just that reason. You should know that.” Sending an accusing glare J.D.’s way, she added, “
You
should know that.”

He did know. When a child was removed from his home, the caseworker made an emergency placement, usually for a few days, with one of the agency’s preapproved foster parents. During that time a petition was filed with the court for temporary placement—again with a
preapproved foster parent. Later, if it became necessary to terminate the parental rights, the caseworker sought a permanent home for the child.

They didn’t just go out, pick a likely candidate—or, in his case, an unlikely one—and say “Here, take this kid.”

But Noelle had done just that. And he’d taken the kids. And now Ms. Malone wanted them back.

Lucky for her, he had no problem with giving them back.

“We don’t get a whole lot of foster care placements in Bethlehem,” the sheriff said mildly. “That’s one reason we don’t have a social worker here.”

“Well, as of this morning, that’s changed.”

The intercom buzzed, and the dispatcher announced Max’s arrival just as he came through the door. The deputy greeted his boss and J.D., then gave Kelsey an appreciative look that made J.D. take another look. Since opening his door to her, he’d been too annoyed or dismayed to notice much beyond the great legs, but now he saw what Max had seen in five seconds—Kelsey Malone was an attractive woman. Her suit was too severe, her attitude too stiff, but the rest of the package—curly brown hair semi-tamed in a bun, hazel eyes, full lips with a lush cupid’s bow, delicately shaped jaw—more than made up for the rest.

She asked Max for his version of events, and after taking a seat, he began. Friday evening he’d gotten a call from Nathan Bishop about four abandoned children. Before going out to the Brown place, he’d called Mary Therese Carpenter, who had met them there. She’d ordered the kids taken into custody, they’d packed their belongings, and he had transported them to the hospital.

“What did Mary Therese tell you before she left?” Kelsey asked.

“She said someone would be in touch regarding the
disposition of the kids. Then Noelle showed up Saturday afternoon, asked for a criminal history check on J.D. She said he would be taking the kids.”

“Did she say Mary Therese had sent her?”

Max thought it over. “I don’t think so. She said … she said she’d been assigned the Brown children and wanted to get them placed as quickly as possible. With J.D.”

“Had you ever met her before?” He shook his head, and she directed the same question to the sheriff, then J.D. When he added his no to theirs, she shook her head too. “So a total stranger showed up and told you—a deputy, a sheriff, and a psychiatrist—that she was with the Department of Family Assistance. She offered no proof beyond a business card that didn’t even have her name on it, and you took her word for it. Not only that, but you gave her four children to do with as she pleased. Do I have it straight?”