Father to Be (3 page)

He
wasn’t that person. He’d already proved it. If he tried and failed again, he could do the same damage times four, and that was too big a risk to take.

“They’re good children,” Noelle said quietly. “I won’t deny that they have some problems. You understand the issues of abandonment better than I. You can help them deal with those issues better than anyone.”

His gaze strayed to the photos again, to Caleb in particular.
The boy stared fiercely at the camera, as if daring anyone to come too close. He was angry, bitter, and, no matter how well he hid it, frightened. He needed stability in his life—a safe home, a parent to lean on, a chance to grow up before having the burdens of the world dumped on his thin shoulders. He needed to be average—just another kid living a normal life with loving parents.
Not
just another statistic.

Noelle was right about one thing. Professionally, he could help the kids. There hadn’t been any call for his specialty since moving to Bethlehem—abuse, neglect, and abandonment simply didn’t happen there the way it did in big cities—but he hadn’t lost his touch. He’d simply lost his taste for it. These days he preferred patients who were less needy, whose problems were minor in the scheme of things. Patients who hadn’t suffered unspeakable horrors, whose heartbreak and sorrow didn’t reach right inside him and take up residence. These days he preferred safe patients, and while Caleb, Jacob, Noah, and Gracie Brown might be safe to J.D. the shrink, they presented a definite danger to J.D. the man.

“Have you tried the Thomases? Alex and Melissa love kids.”

Noelle gave no sign of hearing the desperation in his voice. “Alex Thomas is the children’s court appointed attorney. He can’t also be their foster father. He agrees that you’re the best choice.”

“What about the McKinneys? Maggie and Ross have plenty of room for four kids, and she would be home with them all day. Or what about—”

“They need
you
, Dr. Grayson.”

He turned away to face the church. Reverend Howard was locking the heavy doors while his wife and son waited at the car. Everyone else had gone home with their families or with friends. No one had to be alone in Bethlehem
on Sunday unless it was by choice. Someone was always ready to offer a welcome.

“This town has given you a lot,” Noelle said quietly.

That was true. It had saved his sanity, if not his life. It had given him a place to heal and the acceptance and love to do it. But the process wasn’t finished yet, and taking in those kids—especially Caleb—wouldn’t help it along.

Neither would turning his back on them.

He felt a gentle touch on his sleeve, heard Noelle’s voice directly behind him. “It’s not easy to place four children together. You know that. You also know how devastating it can be to children in their situation to be separated. We can’t take those children away from Caleb, or take Caleb away from them. They couldn’t bear it.”

He fixed his gaze on the cross atop the church. “I have only two bedrooms,” he said flatly, “and one of them is an office.”

“The children are adaptable. They won’t mind sharing their space with a desk and a few books.”

That wasn’t the point, he wanted to protest.
He
minded sharing his office space with four kids.

But that wasn’t the point either. He rarely used the office, rarely had a case that required after-hours work. The point was, he didn’t want these kids—this responsibility, this danger—but he felt he should take them.

Felt
. God, how long had it been since he’d really, truly felt anything?

Two years, three months, one week, four days, and fifteen hours, give or take a few minutes. Not that he was counting.

He tried one last objection. “Don’t you have any qualms at all about placing a five-year-girl with a single man?”

“Not with you and not with three brothers who fiercely protect her.” A heavy pause. “I’ve always thought it unfair
that men are automatically suspect when it comes to children, for no reason other than their gender. Surely you don’t believe a five-year-old boy is safer with the average woman than a five-year-old girl is with the average man?”

No, he didn’t. He knew too well that abusers came in both genders.

The sinking feeling in his stomach warned him that he was about to betray himself. He was about to open his mouth and make a decision he couldn’t back away from. No matter how much he wanted
not
to make that decision, he couldn’t stop it. It was beyond his control.

He turned to look at her. “All right,” he agreed stiffly. “I’ll take them. But only for a few weeks. No more than a month.”

A brilliant smile lit her face. “Thank you, Dr. Grayson. You won’t regret this. Well, from time to time you probably will, but not in the long run.” She gathered the photographs and returned them to her attaché. “Judge McKechnie has agreed to give us a few minutes of his afternoon to get the formalities out of the way, then we’ll pick up the children and get them settled in at your place. Shall we go?”

She started walking before she stopped talking. J.D. watched her with a scowl. “You were awfully sure of yourself, weren’t you?” he muttered, too low, he thought, for her to hear.

She turned at the end of the sidewalk and smiled again. “No, Dr. Grayson. I was sure of
you
—sure you would do the right thing. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

That, he admitted grimly as he joined her, remained to be seen.

H
er eyes gritty from too many miles, Kelsey Malone gave a sigh of relief when she passed the road sign proclaiming that her destination was only five miles ahead. It had been a long journey from New York City to Bethlehem, one she’d anticipated ever since the Department of Family Assistance, formerly the Department of Social Services, had announced that it was reopening an office there. After much consideration—taking stock of her life, which was less than she’d hoped it would be—she’d put in for the job and gotten it.

There hadn’t even been any competition. Not many people wanted to live in small, remote towns that needed their services only a few days a week. But a town where people treated their children like the gifts they were—a town a good six hours from the city—fitted Kelsey’s current definition of perfect. Now she was almost there, just minutes from her new home, new office, and new life.

As the road wound down into the valley, the highway became Main Street and cut straight through the heart of town. The quaint shops, the grassy square, the kids skipping out of an ice cream shop with their parents close behind, all combined to stir deep within her a yearning for a place she’d never known, a life she’d never lived. The town was small-town America at its best.

There was no motel in Bethlehem, just a gracious old inn that exceeded her budget, so she’d rented an apartment sight unseen. She’d shipped her belongings from the city and arranged to meet the manager at three o’clock to trade the key for her deposit and first month’s rent. Unfortunately, it was only a few minutes after two. She’d grabbed a burger at the last gas-up, so she settled on a tour of the town to pass the time.

Her friends had acted as if she were moving to the wilds, had wondered how she would survive without all the big-city conveniences. She’d reminded them that there
was
life outside the city—electricity, telephones, even computers—and a leisurely drive through the streets that made up Bethlehem’s downtown proved her right. There was a movie theater, restaurants, a grocery store, a computer-cum-electronics store, and a bookstore—everything she needed to survive. She passed several clothing stores, doctors’, dentists’, and lawyers’ offices, craft shops, hair salons, and gift shops—the icing on the cake.

Big-city conveniences combined with the ease of smalltown living. On top of that, Bethlehem was definitely one of the prettiest places she’d seen in a long time. Oh, yes, she could live here and love it. Life could be perfect here.

She pulled into a parking space in front of the first pay phone she noticed, took out her brand-new calling card, and dialed her parents’ home number. In the middle of a summer Sunday afternoon, her father was probably relaxing with a beer in front of the TV while her mother finished cleanup from the family dinner. For most Sundays in her life, Kelsey had been there to help with the cleanup. It gave her a lump in her throat to think that that family tradition was a thing of the past now—at least, for her.

When Kathleen Malone answered the phone, Kelsey heard the sounds of water running in the background. Without even closing her eyes, she could easily summon a picture of her mother, still wearing her church dress with Grandma Kelly’s ruffled bib apron covering most of it, washing dishes in the sink while the nearby dishwasher served as draining rack. “Hi, Mom, it’s me,” she said, expending extra effort to make certain her voice sounded cheerful.

“Kelsey! Did you get there safely? Is everything all right? Let me dry my hands so I can get your phone number before I forget. We missed you today at dinner. The table seemed awfully emp—”

“Mom, I’m fine. I don’t have a phone yet—I’ll get that
taken care of tomorrow—so you can keep washing dishes.”

“Well? What’s it like? The town, I mean. Is it everything you’d hoped for?”

“It’s pretty, Mom. It’s old, but it’s very charming. It sits in a valley with mountains all around, and it’s really lovely. You’d like it.”

“Was it worth moving halfway across the state for?”

Kelsey sighed softly. To say her parents weren’t happy about her moving was a slight understatement. She understood their concern. She was their only daughter, and they worried about her. There would be a lot less to worry about with her living in Bethlehem, she’d tried to tell them—shorter hours, a safer environment, less crime, less stress—but they hadn’t been convinced. They wouldn’t stop worrying until she was married, staying home, and having babies, and preferably living only a few blocks away, like her brother, Sean.

“It’s not so far, Mom,” she said patiently. “You can come visit any weekend, and I can come home from time to time.”

“You can’t come for Sunday dinner. You can’t come to your cousin Angela’s baby shower this Friday. Of course”—honesty forced Kathleen to acknowledge this—“not being too fond of Angela, you would have found some way to get out of that even if you were here.”

“Yes, I would have,” Kelsey agreed with a laugh.

“So tell me all about your apartment.”

“I haven’t seen it yet. I just got into town not ten minutes ago.”

“I can’t believe you signed a lease on a place without seeing it first. It could be a dump. It could be on the wrong side of town. It might not even exist. The man could have taken your money and left the state.”

“Mom, I don’t think Bethlehem
has
a wrong side of
town. I’m not sure they have any dumps either.” All the houses she’d caught a glimpse of in her back-and-forth tour of downtown were neatly maintained, not unlike the houses surrounding her parents’ place. “I haven’t signed anything, and no one’s taken my money. I offered to send the manager a check for the deposit, and he said it wasn’t necessary, that we could take care of it when I got here.” A town with so few child welfare problems that it needed only a part-time social worker, and an apartment manager willing to do business with a stranger based on nothing more than a verbal handshake—two strong suggestions that she was in for a nice change of pace.

“Well, I hope you haven’t been taken,” Kathleen said stubbornly. “And remember, honey, nothing’s permanent. If you find that you’ve made a mistake, you can always come back home.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’d better get going. I gave you both my home and office addresses, didn’t I?”

“Yes, I’ve got them.”

“And I’ll call you this week with the phone numbers. Give Dad a hug for me and tell him I love him.” She swallowed hard. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too. And I really do hope you’ll be happy there, even if I haven’t acted like it. It’s just that we’ve gotten used to having you nearby. We’d hoped to have you here always.”

“I know. But it’s not so far. Think about coming for a visit, will you?” She hesitated only a moment. “I’ll talk to you later, Mom.”

“You be careful.” It was Kathleen’s standard farewell, whether on the phone or in person, and all her life Kelsey had heeded the advice. It was part of the reason she’d wound up in Bethlehem.

After hanging up, she turned toward the car and realized that the courthouse was down the block. Since she still had
time to blow before her three o’clock appointment, she drove the short distance to take a look at her new office. She could see what she had and what she needed before tomorrow’s trip to Howland to meet with her new supervisor.

Most of the spaces in the courthouse parking lot were empty. The cars there, she assumed, belonged to the police officers and sheriff’s deputies whose departments filled the first floor. Ignoring the elevator, she climbed broad stairs to the second floor, where city and county offices shared space with courtrooms, and followed an arrow to the third floor, where her own office was tucked among a dozen others.