Some kind of wonderful (31 page)

The baby's screams got louder. As if Liz knew she

were being abandoned again and was determined not to be forgotten so easily.

Lacey clapped both hands to her ears as hot tears of misery streaked her face. "Stop. Just stop crying! Stopit-stopitstopitstopit.. "

Liz flailed her arms and legs, tossed her little head back and forth, and screeched like a tiny demon.

Lacey gasped for air to draw into her heaving lungs, then hit the doorway, turned around, and ran. Liz's screams followed her. Chasing her down the hall, through the living room and kitchen and right out the back door. Like a howling ghost, those cries swirled around her in the darkness, grabbing at her, no matter how far she ran.

In the middle of the yard, Lacey stood barefoot on the grass, feeling the dew, cool on her feet while the cold ocean wind slapped at her, as if trying to push her back into the house. To deal with the mess she'd created. To take care of the child she'd claimed to want so desperately.

"I can't go back," she whispered brokenly, staring up into the night sky. Her gaze fixed on just one of the thousands of twinkling lights and she talked directly to it, as though it were a hole in Heaven's floor and her voice was headed directly to God.

"I can't. I know I should. I know she's mine. But I can't." She shook her head, pushed her hair back from her face, and let the tears fall. "I feel like I'm all twisted up inside. Like I can't breathe. If I stay, I might get mad at her. And I can't get mad at her, she's just a baby. Oh, please ... tell me what to do. Help me"

But Heaven must have been closed for the night, because no thunderous voice echoed out of the sky.

There was no band of angels flying to the rescue. There was only the wind. And the baby's screaming. And her own pounding heart.

The baby's cries echoed on and on around her, drifting through the house and out the open door to lie like a smothering blanket atop her. Lacey dropped to her knees as the tears raged and fought inside her.

Misery, anger, frustration, pooled together, whipping through her system until she shook with the force of the emotions. Her head pounded in time with the racing beat of her heart and Lacey felt as though her brain was about to dribble out her ears.

Covering her face with her hands, she listened to the wind rustle the leaves of the trees. She listened to the distant sound of a train traveling along the coast. She listened to the throbbing punch of her own heartbeat.

And she listened to the baby scream.

On and on and on.

She wanted to run.

She wanted to get away.

She was a terrible person.

A worse mother.

God.

She had to get out.

Carol propped her feet up on the coffee table, picked up the bowl of popcorn, and settled back into the sofa cushions. Quinn lay on the floor right in front of her, his head tipped up, resting on her leg.

"Don't worry," she said, catching the big-eyed look her dog was sending her way. "There's enough popcorn for you, too."

He woofed his thanks, then snapped the kernels she tossed him out of the air.

"Okay, tonight it's a Stargate marathon, so no talking, right?" Carol reached over, rubbed Quinn's head, and told herself she was glad to have everything back to normal. She'd taken the crib down an hour ago and had only paused a time or two to cry a little at the sad emptiness of it. Tomorrow, she'd return it to Maggie and move on, as she'd moved on so often in her life.

Quinn nudged her knee again, looking for more popcorn, and she obliged him, filling her palm. Delicately, he nibbled at them, brushing her hand with his warm breath.

Without the crib to remind him of what he'd lost, Quinn had begun to act like his old self. And so, Carol thought, was she. Picking up the remote, she punched in the right channel and focused on fiction rather than reality.

The knock at her door had her grumbling even as she tripped over Quinn on the way around the sofa. "Do you have thumbs?" she asked. "Can you open the door? No, I don't think so. So why not let me go first?"

He waited by the door, a friendly sentinel, ready to welcome or defend.

Carol turned the knob, pulled the door open, and met Lacey's tear-filled gaze.

"Oh, God, Carol, the baby won't stop crying. Maybe she's sick or something."

Carol's stomach pitched, and when Jack's door opened across the hall, she didn't even glance at him. All she could see was the tear-streaked face of the girl in front of her and Lizardbaby, lying in the crook of her arm. Everything inside Carol leaped up in joy and she tried hard to

get a rein on her heart's instinctive reaction. But how could she when the child she loved so much was there, within reach again?

As if demanding the attention that was her due, little Liz screwed up her tiny features and let loose with a howl that snapped everyone into action.

In response to the baby, Quinn moaned and sounded like a freight train as he pushed past Carol and moved to stand beneath his baby. Lacey jiggled the infant in a frantic, herky-jerky motion that told Carol the girl was walking the fine edge of control.

Jack stepped out of his apartment and Carol moved at the same time, edging closer to Lacey and the baby.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Fine," she said, not trusting her voice to work on more than a one-word answer.

His features tightened, but he didn't go back into his own apartment. Instead, he turned away from Carol and expertly scooped Liz out of Lacey's arms. Instantly, the baby quieted. Silence dropped over the three people clustered together in the tiny hallway lit only by the Christmas-tree sconce. Lacey stared at the baby, hurt confusion dazzling her eyes. "How did you ..."

"She probably sensed how tense you were, that's all," Carol said quietly, trying to quell the urge to grab the baby from him. She remembered just how good he was with Liz. How the baby had settled for him and no one else and she wondered why it was he couldn't see it. Couldn't see how much he had inside him to give.

And she wondered how she would ever live without him.

"She's going to sleep," Jack said and swayed gently from side to side, easing the baby's tiny hiccups of distress. Quinn moved in close, nudging his nose up

against the child, leaning into Jack and whining in sympathy.

"I couldn't make her stop," Lacey said, her face crumpling. Fresh tears streamed from her eyes and ran unchecked down her cheeks. "She's been crying forever and she wouldn't stop." The girl's voice rose and fell like waves on a choppy sea. She looked from Carol to Jack and back again, carefully keeping her gaze from landing on the now-sleeping baby.

"Nobody has all the answers," Carol said, stepping close enough to rub Lacey's back with long, gentle strokes. "You're doing the best you can."

"It's not enough," Lacey said, and at last looked at her daughter. Shaking her head fiercely, she repeated, "It's not enough for her. She deserves better than me. Better than what I can give her "

"It's okay. Liz is all right now. Everything will be all right." Carol wrapped her arms around the girl and held on, sensing that Lacey was hanging on tight to the unraveling threads of control. The girl curled into her, laying her head on Carol's shoulder and sobbing as though her heart were being ripped out of her chest.

"You did the right thing coming here, Lacey," Jack said softly.

"I needed help," she said.

"And you were smart enough to get it," Jack told her.

The girl sent him a grateful, tear-filled look, then inhaled sharply and turned back around. "Nothing's all right, Carol. Nothing is." She wrapped her arms around Carol's waist and clung to her as a drowning man would grab at a lifeline. "I can't do it. I tried. I really did. But I can't do it."

Carol's heart lurched painfully in her chest. Hope was a desperate cry through her brain. Her blood roared

through her veins and her stomach did a quick spin. Her emotions churned and charged through her mind, one after the other in a crazy parade of color and sound. She didn't know what to think. What to dream.

Lacey pulled her head back to look at Carol. Ignoring the man and baby behind her, she met Carol's gaze squarely, and in a voice that dripped with shame and regret, she said, "Would I be a terrible person—a terrible mother—if I asked you to take Liz?"

Carol's knees went weak at the same time that yearning rushed in to fill her heart so completely, it ached in response. "Lacey ..."

"You love her," the girl said, her words tumbling from her mouth in a torrent that wasn't slowed down by little things like commas or periods. "I know you do because of how you treated her before you knew about me and I know I really hurt you when I took her away and I know I don't have the right to ask you to be my baby's mother, but I can't do it, Carol. I tried and I just can't do it because moms are supposed to know stuff and all I know is how much I don't know. And if I keep her"—she tossed a glance at the sleeping baby lying in the sheriff's arms—"I'll mess it up and I'll ruin things for her when she doesn't deserve that, you know?"

At last, she ran out of breath and steam. It was as if all the air left her body at once and she slumped, from the top of her head right down to the toes of her sandals.

Stunned and too overcome to speak, Carol felt the sting of tears fill her eyes. Her vision blurred as she watched a girl become an adult before her eyes. And pride rippled through her.

She risked a glance at Jack and saw naked emotion in his eyes. Pleasure for her, and sympathy for Lacey. If

there was another, deeper emotion there as well, she didn't identify it. Because what would have been the point?

She drew in a breath, then reached up to cup Lacey's face in her hands. This girl, suffering the pangs of guilt and defeat, was the one important thing right now. The one person she had to reach. Had to convince. Staring into those blue eyes so filled with despair and shame, Carol felt another solid tug on her heart.

"I'm proud of you, Lacey," she said, speaking slowly, clearly, willing the girl to believe her.

Lacey's bottom lip trembled and she blinked at the tears crowding her eyes. Soul-deep confusion glittered in those watery blue eyes, but along with that emotion was another. Hope. Proud of me? But I messed up everything."

"No." Carol spoke quickly, shaking her head for emphasis. "No, you didn't." Smoothing the girl's tangled hair back from her face with a gentle touch, she smiled through the tears clouding her own vision. "You wanted to love Liz, there's nothing wrong with that. You wanted to take care of your baby, that's good, too."

"But I failed."

'This isn't failure," Carol said, and dipped her head to make sure Lacey was looking directly into her eyes as she said, "This is growing up. This is realizing that what you want to do isn't always what you should do."

She thought about that for a long minute, never looking away from Carol's steady gaze. Breathing slowly, deeply, easing back from the brink of despair.

"You think?" A world of longing colored those two words.

"Oh, yeah." Carol pulled Lacey in close for another tight, brief hug. "I know!'

The girl nodded and swiped away her tears before glancing at her daughter again while speaking to Carol. "Would you want to, you know, adopt her, so you could be her real mom?"

Carol's heart squeezed tight in her chest and she had to fight to speak past the huge knot lodged in her throat. "I love Liz, Lacey. I always will. And I'd love to be her mom."

"Good." Lacey nodded, then for the first time since arriving at Carol's door, she smiled. Faintly at first, but it was at least a smile. "And I can still see her, too, when I come home froqa school and stuff?"

"Anytime you want," Carol assured her.

A soul-deep yearning careened through her system as Carol watched Lacey gently take Liz from Jack's arms. Once his hands were empty, he shoved them into his jeans pockets as if he didn't know what to do with them anymore.

Liz squirmed, screwed up her little face, then settled uneasily into sleep again, her soft breaths huffing into the stillness. Lacey ran one finger over the baby's cheek. "I really do love her."

"I know," Carol said, her voice pitched low enough to be a lullaby. "Me, too."

Nodding again as if reassuring herself that she was doing the right thing, Lacey handed the baby over and Carol cradled Liz close, feeling the slight weight in her arms slide right down into her heart.

Where she belonged.

"Why don't we go inside, Lacey?" Carol said, barely able to tear her gaze away from the child she held so closely.

"Okay." The girl blew out a breath that seemed to

shudder right through her, then she turned and went into the apartment.

Left alone in the hallway, Carol and Jack stood separated by no more than a foot of empty space. The indistinct light threw shadows across his features and made his expression that much harder to read. In her arms, Carol held the baby she loved—and within reach was the man who could make the dream complete.

Within reach and yet so far away.

"I'm glad for you," he said, his voice rumbling along her nerve endings to sizzle and pop in the pit of her stomach.

"Thanks, Jack." Throat tight, her heart ached now only for him. For the other missing piece of the whole.

Jack stepped in closer. She could smell him. That faint, indefinable scent that screamed inside her and made her think of long, dark nights spent wrapped in his arms. His gaze moved over her hungrily, burning her flesh as surely as though he'd touched her.

"Carol, I—"

"Carol?" Lacey's tremulous voice wobbled from inside the apartment. "Can I have a Coke?"

"Sure."

Whatever he might have said was lost in the shattered spell lying between them. And maybe it was just as well, Carol thought as she took a single step back. She couldn't bear to hear another apology. Couldn't watch him turn his back on what might have been, one more time.

"I've gotta go," she said, eager now to have Liz back home. To savor the richness of having a child to love. To protect. To help her forget the wildness she saw in Jack's eyes and the craving for more that rippled through her.