The Black Sheep’s Baby

precise and, she was sure, deliberate terminology. “May I ask why?”

He smiled, though not with his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, the way he told us, I guess. Eric’s always been careful with words-what comes of having a writer for a father. What he said was, ‘she’s mine.’ You understand? Not, ‘she’s my daughter,’ or ‘I’m her father.’” The smile made it to his eyes then, just as his mouth tilted into irony. “I know my son.”

Once again she was caught unawares, this time by the poignancy in that particular combination of words and smile. “I’m sorry,” she said abruptly, frowning at her coffee cup. “I know this is awkward-my being here. Like this.”

“Wasn’t much anybody could have done about it.” Mike gave a little shrug. “Couldn’t very well let you freeze to death on our doorstep.”

Devon laughed. “Well, yes, actually, you could have.” Somber again, she looked him straight in the eye-one of her best weapons in the courtroom-and said earnestly, “You have to believe I never meant it to be like this. The storm-”

“What did you mean it to be like?” His interruption surprised her. Suddenly alert, she realized the eyes that gazed back into hers, eyes that before had held only gentleness and compassion, now held a keen and probing light. “Just curious,” he said quietly, studying her, arms folded on his chest. “Seems a little unusual for an attorney to personally take on something like this. Why didn’t you let the authorities handle things?”

Devon made a sound, a soft, unamused laugh, and turned her back on the homey crackle of the fire. “You’re right, it is unusual for the attorney to get personally involved. I chose to, for several reasons. I definitely would have handled it differently if Emily hadn’t been my niece-that’s one. However, since in the normal course of things, Emily winds up in foster care and your son possibly in jail on contempt charges-” Aware that her voice had developed a hard and brittle edge, she abruptly changed both her tone and tactics, schooling her gestures and body language as she would in handling a delicate courtroom situation.

“You have to understand,” she said, one hand upraised, quietly earnest again. “I had no idea what kind of person your son was, what his background was, nothing. Except that my sister Susan evidently trusted him and thought enough of him to leave her baby in his care, even though she knew he wasn’t the biological father.” Her poise slipped and she gave another mirthless laugh. “Of course, my sister was a homeless, screwed-up kid, probably a drug addict, so what does that tell you?”

She told me she’d been abused by her father. Your father.

She gulped cold coffee and just did manage to keep from choking on it. The struggle for control hardened her voice again as she continued, “So, the upshot of it is, I had our firm’s P.I. track him down. Once we had this as his home address, and credit card gasoline receipts started popping up showing him heading east on a direct course to Iowa, it wasn’t hard to figure out where he was going. I thought I’d beat him here, actually. I thought the unexpectedness of my being here, waiting for him, would demonstrate the futility of running, and that I could convince him the best course of action for everybody concerned would be for him to bring Emily back to Los Angeles voluntarily. For Susan’s sake, I didn’t want to see him arrested. And I definitely didn’t want Emily in the hands of social services.”

“Especially,” Mike said dryly, “at Christmastime.”

Devon looked at him and made a faint “Humph” sound. “Believe it or not, I never even thought about that. I keep forgetting it’s Christmas.” She looked around, only then realizing that, comfortable and warm as the room-the whole house-was, she hadn’t seen any sign of holiday decorations. No Christmas tree or wrapped presents, no creche, no wreaths or garlands, not so much as a twinkling light or red velvet bow.

Mike had followed her gaze, and apparently her thoughts. “I know what you mean. We’ve been having the same problem around here. Been meaning to do it-the boxes of decorations are sitting upstairs in Lucy’s work room. Tree’s in a bucket on the back porch. Just haven’t gotten around to it. Lucy’s been in a mood this year…” He paused, then added softly, “She’s been missing the kids more than usual. Eric’s coming home was…like the answer to a prayer.”

Eric. Devon didn’t want to think about Eric, didn’t want to hear his name or remember those unsettling moments she’d just spent with him down in the barn. And yet, she knew she must if she was to regain-and maintain-the upper hand here, where she was so clearly out of her element.

“This is all so different than I imagined,” she said on an exhalation, strolling to the window and on the way trailing her fingers idly across an antique wind-up Victrola and a worn recliner draped with a brightly colored afghan.

Behind her, Mike’s voice sounded amused. “Considering how little you knew of my son, I’m sure it is.”

The desk, the computer monitor, were right in front of her. She touched the monitor, remembering things he’d said before. She said brightly, conversationally, “You said you’re a writer?”

“Journalist, actually. I write a nationally syndicated column-just twice a week, now. And once a month on a rotation for Newsweek.”

Devon turned to stare at him. “Wow. I’m sorry-I feel I should know who you are.” She smiled her regret, meaning it. “The truth is, I don’t have much time for reading newspapers and magazines-mostly what I read are legal briefs and court documents.”

“Ouch,” Mike said with a good-natured wince. “I hate to say it, but it sounds boring as hell.”

She smiled. “It can be. But not always.”

“Sounds as though you like what you do.” Again his eyes had turned probing.

“Yes, I do.” But she was never comfortable talking about herself, and steered the conversation firmly back to the subject she was most interested in. “So you’re a writer-sorry, journalist-and Lucy’s a farmer. That’s an unlikely combination, isn’t it? How did you two meet?”

“A long story. Part of the family folklore.”

Devon waited, but he said no more. She gave a dismissive shrug and said lightly, “I hope you’ll tell it to me some time.” But she was conscious of the same vague disappointment she’d felt, coming in from the cold and finding the kitchen empty. Plagued by unfamiliar and perplexing emotions, she fought down irritation and tried again. “Eric’s not an only child?”

“We have a daughter, four-no, almost five years older.” He picked up a framed photograph from the mantel and handed it to her. “Rose Ellen. She’s a biologist-works for the government. She and her husband are out of the country at the moment-in fact, most of the time these days.”

Devon recognized the pretty, wholesome-looking girl she’d seen in so many of the photos on the walls of Eric’s room. After a moment she nodded and handed it back. “A biologist-wow. And Eric’s a photographer.” She was on the verge of asking how such a thing had come about when Mike interrupted her.

“Photojournalist,” he corrected firmly.

Devon laughed. “He said exactly the same thing to me, you know-down in the barn.”

“It’s an important distinction.” Mike’s eyes were smiling. “As is writer versus journalist.”

“I’ll remember that.” For the first time, she felt some of her own awkwardness and tension ease. “I saw the photographs upstairs in his room,” she said, touching one or two of the frames on the mantelpiece before turning to a collection hanging on the wall next to the fireplace. “Did he take these as well?”

“No, not those.”

Alerted by something in his voice, Devon leaned over to peer at one photograph in particular, a dramatic picture of helicopters flying in formation over a jungle river at sunset. As beautiful as it was, there was something subtly menacing about it. “This looks familiar. Is it Vietnam?”

“It is.” Devon turned to look at him; for once he hadn’t moved up beside her, but stood a little way off, hands in his pockets. “Those are my dad’s. He was a photojournalist, too. A pretty famous one-Sean Lanagan. He was killed in a helicopter crash during the Tet Offensive. Which I realize you’ve probably never heard of.” He tilted his head toward the wall of photographs. “Those came from magazines, actually-some of them. Others I got from my mother. My personal collection, the ones he’d sent me from all over the world when I was a kid, were lost in a fire years ago.”

He paused, then went on in a musing tone, still gazing at the photos. “Eric idolized his grandfather. Always wanted to be just like him.” Again his smile tilted crookedly. “Until recently, I think his biggest disappointment had been not having a war to go to.”

He said it lightly, but thanks to the nature of her profession, Devon’s emotional intensity radar was acute. Issues, she thought.