The Black Sheep’s Baby

stuff. You think she’s going to come back here to Iowa and run a farm?

“Who else? My mom’s brothers?” He snorted derisively as he touched their portraits in turn. “You’ve already ‘met’ my uncle Rhett, here, the former president of the United States. His kids…my cousin Lauren, she’s a lawyer, married to a Native American sheriff. They live on a reservation out in Arizona. My cousin Ethan’s a doctor. He’s married to Joanna Dunn-you know, the rock star, Phoenix? Can’t see either of them coming back here to take up the family business, can you?” Devon shook her head, but he wasn’t looking for an answer.

“Then there’s my cousin Caitlyn…” He paused. Small seismic tremors were rippling through him, the beginnings of something of too great a magnitude to be called an idea. More like an inspiration.

Caitlyn. Of course.

He cleared his throat and glibly continued. “She’s a social worker-works for a non-profit human rights organization of some kind. Nobody really knows exactly what Caty does…” Which was a lie. He did, actually, and was probably the only member of the family other than Caitlyn herself who did. “Except that she travels a lot. Definitely not the type to sit home on the farm.

“Her dad, my uncle Earl-better known as Wood-teaches school in Sioux City. He’s a great guy, but he abdicated years ago. After my grandparents died, both of my uncles left my mom to sink or swim here on her own-and she might have sunk, too, if my dad hadn’t come along when he did. Gwen always said it was Providence…” He stopped, because a lump had come unexpectedly to his throat.

He was trying to swallow it when a voice close behind him softly prompted, “Gwen?”

She’d startled him; he’d almost forgotten he had an audience, he’d had this discussion with himself so many times. He turned with Gwen’s portrait in his hands. Frowning at it, he said thickly, “My mom’s great-aunt, I think. She lived with us when I was growing up.” He took a deep breath and looked around the room. “This was her sitting room-Gwen’s parlor, we called it. Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve been here since she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

It was the standard, automatic response. Eric shrugged it off. “She was over a hundred years old-I’m not sure exactly how much over, but quite a bit. Hey-it had to happen.”

“Is that her picture?” She held out a hand, and Eric, nodding, handed it over. “One of yours?” He nodded again, wondering how she knew. “She looks like a neat lady,” Devon said, making what might have been an inane comment sound as though it came straight from the heart.

Eric said nothing for a moment, gazing down at the face he’d photographed so many times…this one a favorite of his, the lovely aged face turned slightly away from him and lifted joyfully to the sun. “She had the most incredible voice,” he said, trying again to laugh. “Like music…always just a grace note away from laughter.”

“But,” said Devon thoughtfully, “her eyes seem sad.”

The observation both surprised and touched him. Looking over at her, standing almost shoulder to shoulder with him, shorter than he was though not by much, his eyes on a level with the top of her head, he felt a sudden and intense wave of longing, and had no idea what it was he was longing for.

“I always thought so,” he said gruffly. “Mom said it was because her husband was killed in the Second World War. Anyway, she never remarried.” He paused, looking around him at the room he’d never before seen without Gwen’s presence in it, hearing in his mind’s ear the music of her laughter. Regret made his voice even harsher when he added, “I didn’t make it to her funeral.”

She looked up at him, and he forced himself not to waver under the impact of that intent green gaze. Reminding himself that it had been his own idea, this sharing of the secrets of his soul. “Why not?”

He shrugged and looked away again. “I was in Africa at the time. There was a famine…”

“There’s always a famine in Africa, isn’t there?”

“Yeah,” Eric said dryly, “and that’s apparently what the whole world’s attitude was at the time, because this particular famine didn’t even make the evening news here. Just stuck away somewhere on the back pages of the international section of the newspapers. Old news.” Except to the children who were dying, he thought bitterly. “It was a story I thought needed telling.”

He feels things more deeply than most people…and not only that, unlike most people, he also gets involved. Devon was experiencing disquieting stirrings, the awakening of new impressions and perspectives. She was surprised to identify one of those as respect.

“Were your parents upset with you for not coming home for the funeral?” she asked in a careful, gentle tone, as she would if she were interviewing a particularly fragile witness.

Eric considered a moment, then let out a breath. “No,” he admitted almost reluctantly, “they pretty much understood.”

Devon let the words lie there in the fertile silence. She watched his face as he gazed down at the portrait of the old woman in his hands, then let his eyes travel slowly across the mantelpiece, touching each photo there in turn. Finally, bringing his gaze back to her, he muttered it again, as though in awe, “They understood.”

There was silence again, and it became too hard to maintain contact with those eyes. She jerked hers back to the family photo gallery. “Well. You do have quite a family.” It sounded lame. It wasn’t what she wanted to say. She felt a new burning in her belly and identified its source with a small sense of surprise.

Envy. I envy him. You have a wonderful family, she wanted to say. Even scattered all over the world, you can feel their warmth, their love. I envy you.

“Not what you expected?” His voice had a cool and bitter edge. Jerking her eyes back to him, she saw that his smile had slipped off center, and knew what he was thinking even before he said it. “That’s what you get for prejudging people.”

She opened her mouth to protest, wanted to deny it, to explain. A soft snort forestalled her.

“You know what’s funny?” Eric said, and there was no rancor in his voice. Only wry amusement. “You’re probably still doing it. Right this minute. Right now you’re probably thinking, Wow, what a great family, right? From one extreme to the other. But you know what? The truth is generally somewhere in the middle. Hey, I love my family, but they’re not perfect.” He snatched up a photograph, a black-and-white wedding picture she thought might be his grandparents’. “It’s like this photograph. We’d call it black-and-white, but if you look closely, it’s actually a whole bunch of different shades of gray.” He thrust it at her, a little self-consciously; she thought he wasn’t comfortable on the soapbox.

Cautiously smiling, she said, “Does that mean you no longer believe I’m a complete one hundred percent ogre?”

He paused, obviously caught off guard. Then a smile flickered behind his eyes as he said somberly, “Not a hundred percent. Maybe…fifty.”

“Okay,” Devon triumphantly breathed, “we’re making progress.”

There was another pause before he answered without the smile, a wary and thoughtful, “Are we?”

And she couldn’t answer him, not the glib and confident affirmative she’d planned. Where is this going? she wondered with a stab of panic. Last night she’d set off in a blizzard, full of self-assurance, certain of her path. Today, in a warm house, safe from the storm, she felt lost, afraid to put a foot forward or say a word lest it lead her into hidden peril.

What had changed? This man, Eric Lanagan, with his gentle eyes and hollow cheeks and fierce hawk’s nose…he was still her adversary. That much hadn’t changed. What was different, she realized, was the battlefield. She was accustomed to seeing every contest in terms of…yes, black and white: me-my client-against them. But like the photograph in Eric’s hands, this landscape seemed to be all in shades of gray. She was like a lander on a new planet, picking her way over unfamiliar terrain, never knowing when or from where the dangers might come.

He was waiting for her answer, she realized, watching her with unreadable eyes and lopsided smile. She murmured something ambiguous, but even before she finished she could tell he’d stopped listening. His head tilted, and his eyes lifted toward the ceiling.

“The baby’s awake,” he announced, returning the wedding picture to the mantel and heading for the door. Halfway there he paused and gave a jerk of his head, inviting-no, ordering-her to come along.

Devon’s heart thudded; she opened her mouth, words of panicked protest already tumbling from her tongue. But he shook his head and made an imperious gesture with his hand, reminding her suddenly, remarkably, of his mother. “Come on,” he said gruffly, a masculine version of Lucy’s rusty voice, “it’s about time you met your niece.”

Mike had found Lucy sitting on Eric’s bed, holding the baby up in front of her, rather the way she’d hold a