stuck in the foster-care system until I was eighteen.”
“You never mentioned your mom before. Or anything about what you remember from when you were real little.”
She shrugged, but she could feel an old, aching sense of haunting from the inside out. “My parents’ story was older than time. They were two young kids, hot in love-too hot to keep a lid on their hormones. When my mom got pregnant, they both dropped out of school. Two sixteen-year-old idiots with no money and no job skills-undoubtedly thinking they could live on sex and love. The fun part didn’t last long. My dad died, some kind of car accident. I have no memory of him at all. But I was with my mom until I was six.”
“And that’s when she took off.”
She shifted restlessly, not meaning to move closer to Justin. She just never liked talking about feelings or the past. “I keep thinking one of these days I could find her. I still run a search every once in a while. But the point is, back then, she couldn’t handle me. I certainly didn’t realize it then-but I do now. She was in trouble in every way a woman can be in trouble. Alone, broke, a small child to take care of, thinking a little drug here and a little alcohol there would take the edge off the worry, no skills, getting more desperate with every loser she took up with.”
Justin fell silent for a moment. “Win…why didn’t you ever mention any of this before?”
“Because there’s nothing to say. I work with girls like her every day-girls in trouble because they’ve gotten over their heads, made one mistake and watched the rest of their lives fall down like a stack of dominos. The only thing my mom ever really did wrong was fall in love-or should I say, fall in lust-too young. Cripes, Justin, you know all this-”
He shook his head. “No, actually, I didn’t. I remember my mom talking to my dad. I knew you’d been abandoned when you were a kid. And that your mom had left you with a note, that she’d be back for you as soon as she wasn’t so broke, something like that. And I remember the Gerards being furious-”
That made her blink. “The Gerards were furious? About what?”
He lifted a hand. “I was seventeen, Win. I wasn’t listening that much to neighborhood stories. But there was some story about when Sissy Gerard first saw you…I don’t know what foster family you were with, but it was at a county fair, something like that. Something about the way the family treated you that infuriated her. She came home, told Paget that he was hiring a lawyer and they were getting you away from those people and bringing you home-and that it was going to be your last home until you were grown.”
“I didn’t know that. I didn’t remember any of it, either,” Winona admitted. “I just remember the Gerards. Sissy and Paget’s faces in this sterile Social Services office. She just wrapped her arms around me as if she’d known me forever. God. They are such good people.”
“Yeah, they are.” Justin scratched his chin, his eyes suddenly lightening up. “And you were a pistol and a half back then. Clawed anybody who was nice to you. Spit at all the boys. Fought on the playground-”
She had to grin. “Hey, you dog, whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always yours.” His tone turned so quiet that she had to quit chuckling and suddenly looked at him. Really looked. But he was already talking again. “So this baby is going into foster care? In fact, pretty immediately?”
“No.” The single syllable was out before she could stop it. “What’s this No? Isn’t that what you pretty much told me happens to an abandoned child?”
“The baby has to go somewhere-a place that’s honored by Social Services and the court-until something is determined about her parents. Whether they’re around and fit, or whatever. And that place is usually foster care. But if the foster-care system is crowded-and right now it’s disastrously crowded-then someone else can be assigned temporary guardianship, if they fit the criteria.”
“Win.”
“What?”
His voice wasn’t a whisper, but melted butter couldn’t have been softer. “You don’t want to give her up, do you?”
“I don’t want her going in foster care. Lost in the foster-care system, like I was.” Her own voice came out fierce and sharp. She couldn’t seem to help it. “I fell for her the minute I laid eyes on her. I admit it. And I admit that’s stupid. A good cop never gets emotionally involved. But whoever left her on my doorstep, Justin, must have known me somehow. It’s hard to pretend that doesn’t matter. It does, to me. I just want to know that if she goes back to her parents, they’re in a position to take good care of her. And until then…”
“You want to keep her.”
“I don’t want her in foster care,” she repeated. A thousand memories were in her head. She didn’t have the words for any of them. She only knew that they added up to one thing. She didn’t want-she refused to think about- this baby living the childhood she had, flip-flopped between homes and people who neither wanted her nor had room or time for her. But damnation. Somehow, totally unlike her, she could suddenly feel so much emotion welling that her eyes were actually stinging. It was ridiculous. She never lost control like that-not with Justin, never with Justin.
Obviously she had to find an immediate way to lighten things up. She forced a grin-her infamous snappy grin- and cocked an eyebrow at him. Considering all the times he’d joked about marrying her, this should be a guaranteed way to get a laugh out of him. “Normally, the court wouldn’t consider a single working woman to be a good bet for that temporary guardianship business. You wouldn’t like to marry me, would you? It would really up my chances.”
Four
Justin felt his heart stop, then start galloping at breakneck pace.
Winona wasn’t
There were just a few tiny differences in these circumstances, though.
He’d always meant those offers.
And the sudden advent of the baby in Winona’s life was obviously deeply affecting her. She’d never admitted that she needed help with anything-and for damn sure, she’d never given him the opportunity to come through for her in any way. Justin didn’t quite comprehend all the emotional ramifications for her with this baby, but he was dead positive of one thing. He’d been waiting for a chance-any chance-with her for years now. And he wasn’t about to let it go.
“Okay, let’s do it,” he said lightly.
For the first time all evening, the haunted tension left her eyes and she laughed. Really laughed. “Sure. Nothing to it, right? Just get a license and hit the Justice of the Peace. Just what you were dying to do this week.”
“Actually, it sounds like a lot of fun to me.” He leaned back, as if he could find nothing more important to do than stretch out his long legs.
She was still laughing. “I can just see the headlines in the social column on Sunday. Royal’s Most Eligible Bachelor Finally Cuffed By A Cop. And I’m sure there’d be some comments about the bride having to give up her six-year-old Jeep and suffer driving your Porsche-not to mention having to face up to all the trials of suddenly being filthy rich-”
“Shut up, Win. I know you were joking, but why don’t you think about it? You sounded really serious to me about wanting to keep this baby.”
“I was. I am…but holy mackerel, Justin, I never meant it about getting married. It was just a joke. It wouldn’t even solve anything, because Angel’s mother could show up at any time. Today, even. Or tomorrow-”
“And maybe she won’t ever show. But even if she knocks on your door in a matter of hours, the courts wouldn’t just let her have the baby back. Isn’t that what you were just explaining? That it’s not automatic that the mother would get Angel back-not after abandoning her the way she did.” It wasn’t hard for Justin to fill in the blanks when Win’s fears were right in her eyes giving him easy clues what to say. “So no matter what, Angel is going to be ‘housed’ somewhere for a while-and that could be a long while. Long enough to make a difference in her life, if she’s in a good situation. Or a bad one.”
