I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (10 page)

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Authors: Francis Ray

BOOK: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow
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“
M
ADISON,” ZACHARY REPEATED, HIS throat dry, trying not to let his fear convey itself to Manda.
Madison opened the refrigerator and rummaged around until she found a container of strawberry-banana yogurt. “She can stay, but only until you can make other arrangements.”
“But—”
She whirled. “Don't push it, Zachary.” There was just enough snap in her voice to cause Manda and Zachary to start. “It shouldn't be too difficult to find a couple though a private adoption agency who won't mind you checking their references personally, then the great-aunt can sign over custody to them.”
Appalled, Zachary pulled Manda closer to him. “You can't pass her around like a sack of potatoes.”
“Another family would be best for her.” She tore open the carton and discovered she didn't want it after all. She ate some anyway. It was cool and tasted like paste.
“You're forgetting one thing.”
She glanced up at him. “What?”
“She has a connection to you she won't have with anyone else. You were married to her father.”
Pain widened Madison's eyes. Her hand clenched. Yogurt rose up out of the carton and dripped on the floor.
“I didn't mean to upset you,” he said, hating the lost look in her eyes. Snatching a handful of paper towels, he handed her a couple, and deftly, with Manda still in his arms, wiped up the spilled yogurt from the floor. “But I was a teenager before I knew who my father was. It takes a long
time to get over that feeling of being unwanted. I know the questions Manda will have when she is older, the self-doubts.”
Madison heard the strain in his voice, but wasn't ready to forgive him. “Is that why you're fighting so hard for her?”
“Partly.”
She might admire him if he wasn't fighting against her and disrupting her life. “Excuse me.” Madison went into her bedroom, combed her hair, and returned with her purse.
Zachary eyed her warily. “You're going out?”
Madison pushed her big-lens sunglasses on top of her head. “I have some shopping to do.”
Zachary nodded. “I don't mind keeping her until you get back.”
Madison stared at him as he bounced a now-sleeping Manda on his shoulder. “Don't you have a business to run?”
“I can't be at all my sites,” he told her. “Like I said, I have men and women working for me that I can trust. If you show me where she's going to sleep, I'll bring in her things.”
Possessions means permanence. There was no turning back now. Her stomach felt queasy. “The bedroom across from mine.”
He nodded. “I'll just put her down and go get her stuff out of my truck.”
She watched him take a light blanket from the diaper bag and try to spread it out on the carpet while not disturbing the child. Madison took the blanket out of his hand. “The floor is too hard.”
He looked up at him with dark eyes. “If she wakes up while I'm gone, I don't want her to roll off the chair or sofa and hurt herself.”
“You really don't mind staying here, do you?”
“No,” he smiled. “If it's all right with you it will give me a chance to see how the house is holding up.”
Madison was suddenly tired of the charade. “I was going to the store to buy things for her.”
A slow grin spread across Zachary's face. “I think I have everything she'll need in the truck, and what I don't have, if you'll make a list, I'll go get it.”
 
 
Three hours later, Madison couldn't imagine a single item Manda needed. They'd tried to put the crib, playpen, stroller, car seat, and swing into the
bedroom across from her, but it became clear that it wasn't all going to fit. The only other bedroom large enough for all the things Zachary had purchased was Wes's bedroom, but Madison had no intention of going in there. They'd ended up putting the crib in Madison's bedroom for the time being and leaving the rest across the hall.
“She tends to wake up in the night a little fretful, so it may be best that she's in here,” Zachary said, aware once again that the bedroom with its soft feminine colors and smells belonged strictly to Madison.
Madison eyed Manda in the swing, “talking” to a butterfly through the French doors in the den. They'd already discussed her care, and the feeding schedule the nurses had helped Zachary work out. Her medical records which, after a special-delivery letter of Madison's temporary guardianship, were being sent from Manda's pediatrician in Amarillo.
Zachary's beeper went off. He glanced at the number and frowned. “Excuse me. I have to take this.”
Madison didn't say anything as he moved away a short distance and pulled out his cell phone. She was well aware of the promises men made, but seldom kept. She understood Manda's care would fall to her.
“Is there anything else you think she needs?” Zachary asked, walking back into the room a short while later.
Here it comes
, Madison thought. But she wouldn't make it easy for him. She crossed her arms. “No.”
Coal-black eyes stared down at her for a long time before Zachary said, “Why don't I fix you some soup and after you eat, you can lie down? I'll watch Manda.”
She snatched her arms to her sides. “What?
“Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. Between birthday parties, picnics, weddings, and an assortment of other events I've attended, I've taken care of my share of children at a variety of ages.” Taking Madison by the arm, he gently led her to the sofa and, with light pressure, urged her down in the seat, then picked up her feet and placed them on the cushions. “You're worn out. Rest, and I'll fix that soup.”
Speechless, Madison watched him check on Manda, then head for the kitchen. He wasn't what she expected, and the unexpected often made her suspicious. It wouldn't last, but … she hadn't been sleeping well and at the moment she was too tired to worry about the mysterious
Zachary Holman. Her eyes flickered close. She'd rest just for a little bit.
In a matter of seconds she was sound asleep.
 
 
Madison woke slowly. Before she even opened her eyes, she wanted to shut them again. Instead she sat up, surprised to find herself in her own bed with the duvet thrown over her.
Zachary.
She could either be annoyed or thankful. She decided to let it ride. Annoyance required too much energy. Getting out of bed, she smoothed back the covers. A minute later she discovered she was still standing there, running her hand repeatedly over the same spot.
Once, she never would have avoided a problem, but in the last two years she had evaded issues when she should have faced them. Perhaps if she hadn't, she and Wes could have worked through their problems and he might not have turned to another woman. Was Madison to blame for her husband's adultery? Was there a lack in her that had pushed him into the arms of another woman?
Her eyes closed. How could he have asked her to care for his child by another woman, knowing how devastated she had been when she lost their child?
But if not me, who?
Turning, she saw the four-poster crib, yellow and beautiful with a rainbow and clouds painted on the head and footboard. Despite her best effort, she felt an ache deep in her heart. That should have been her baby's crib. Her head fell forward. There it was, what had been lurking in her subconscious since Wes had told her. Why had his child with another woman lived and not theirs?
She had to get out of there. Rushing to the door, she flung it open and ran straight into Zachary. Manda was asleep in his arms.
“I was coming to check on you.” He frowned. “What's wrong?”
She shook her head.
Zachary saw it in her face, the hurt, the grief. Without thought he pulled her against his chest. “It's all right. It's all right.”
She smelled aftershave and baby powder. She jerked free. “No, it's not,” she hissed. “I hate the thoughts going through my head and I can't stop
them.” She tried to hold them, but they spilled hot and angry, out of her mouth. “Why couldn't it have been my child that lived and not theirs?”
Zachary's eyes widened.
Before he could answer, she brushed past him. She hadn't known she had that much hate in her.
Placing Manda in her crib, he caught up with Madison as she was going out the French doors in the den. He recalled too well the depth of her pain when she had lost her baby. How much could one woman take?
Furious, she whirled on him with clenched fists. Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Leave me alone!”
“I can't,” he said grimly, watching her closely, wishing there was another way. “You're hurting.”
Her laugh was ragged. “And that's my excuse for hating her?”
“You don't hate her.” His voice was gentle, soothing as he tried to find the right words. “You're dealing with a lot of emotions right now, none of them comforting. It'll take time to work through them. Give yourself that time and don't judge yourself.”
“You obviously have come to care about her. How can you stand there and not despise me as much as I despise myself now?” she asked, her voice and body trembling.
“Because I've stood in your place, in a way.” His mouth firmed. “My father didn't marry my mother as he promised; instead he married another woman. I was a teenager when I found out who he was. But he had a family and wanted nothing to do with me. There was a time I would have given anything for him to have accepted me.”
He gazed down at her with anguished eyes. “In a fit of anger, I spouted off how I felt to my mother, a woman who had always loved me and done her best by me. Until the day I die I'll remember the look on her face—regret, hurt, but so much love. I wanted to hurt her. She understood even while I rebelled and made her life miserable. She never stopped loving me. So you see, I can't judge. If I thought for a moment you'd mistreat Manda in any way, I wouldn't have brought her here in the first place.”
Madison took a deep, steadying breath. “You seem to see something in me I don't.”
His large, callused hand reached out and gently brushed the hair from her cheek. Her skin beneath his fingers was soft and warm. He had the strangest notion to keep stroking. “I was there when you held
and comforted Manda in the hospital. Just follow those same instincts.”
“I didn't know who she was then,” she pointed out unnecessarily.
“And what do you know now?” he asked quietly, undisturbed by the hard look she sent him. “You know that she's suffered a loss that neither you nor I had to cope with. You know that her birth was not of her doing. You know that she needs a home. You know that when she looks at you it is without judgment. You know she wants to love as much as she needs to be loved. Remember those things when doubts creep into your mind.”
She shook her head and stared up at him in amazement. “Why didn't you talk this much when you were building the house?”
He laughed. Even to his ears it sounded forced.
If you only knew
. “Come on. I kept your supper warm.”
 
 
Thirty minutes later Zachary walked to his truck feeling a lot better than he had when he'd arrived that afternoon. Manda was where she belonged, but he was under no illusions that it would be easy for her to stay. Deep in thought, he opened the truck's door and got inside.
No one had to tell him that another woman would have tossed him and Manda out without a second thought. Others might have kept her out of a sense of duty, but never love. Manda needed and deserved to be loved. Madison, despite all the emotional upheaval she was going through, had put the welfare of Manda before her own. Although she didn't think so, her actions took courage and compassion. She was quite a woman. He hated lying to her, but at the moment he couldn't see that he had a choice.

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