The Black Sheep’s Baby

and Emily’s much less complicated demands.

“It’s snowing,” he announced as he placed the diaper bag on the kitchen table.

But nobody was paying any attention to him.

“So, your flight got delayed, huh?” The young man at the car rental counter clicked his tongue in sympathy. “Too bad-happens a lot, these days. You’re lucky you got in at all. I imagine they’re gonna be shutting down here, pretty soon.”

“Shutting down?” Devon glanced up from the rental agreement fine print she’d been speed-reading through and frowned. “Not the interstate, I hope.”

“No, no-I meant the airport. Although, they’ll probably close down the interstate, too. This one’s supposed to be bad-a real Arctic Express.”

“Wonderful…” She wasn’t sure whether or not she’d be using the interstate, but it didn’t sound like good news; the interstate was probably the last thing that would close, and if that happened it didn’t bode well for the lesser roads.

Her perusal of the agreement completed, she nudged it toward the young man with an inaudible sigh of vexation. Devon didn’t like monkey wrenches thrown into her well-laid plans.

The rental agent jerked his eyes away from their rapt appreciation of her hair. He gave a covering cough and murmured, “Okay, Ms. O’Rourke, if you’ll initial here, here, and here, and then sign at the two X’s, we’ll have you on your way. That’s one Lincoln Town Car, non-smoker, with CD changer and GPS.”

“Snow tires?” Devon asked hopefully.

“Uh, all our cars are equipped with all-weather tires, ma’am. But it can be hard to find your way around in a blizzard, especially at night. If you’ve got very far to go, you might want to think about getting a hotel someplace close by, and just riding it out.”

She shuddered inwardly. The size of the airport had come as enough of a shock to her; the idea of being stuck in one of the adjacent hotels was appalling. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said briskly as she picked up her keys. “It’s only about thirty miles or so from here, I believe, and I have the GPS. Now, if you’ll just tell me which one’s mine…” She hitched the strap of her traveling combo handbag-laptop-attache case over her shoulder and reached for the handle of her rolling carry-on.

The rental agent gave a “don’t say I didn’t warn you” shrug. “It’s right outside that door there, ma’am-space number sixteen.” He paused, then, unable to help himself, added, “Must be important, to send you out on a night like this.”

“Oh, it is.” Devon’s smile wasn’t pleasant. The court order stashed away in her attache case seemed to flare and glow in her mind’s eye. Too bad, she thought with grim satisfaction. Mr. Eric Sean Lanagan was about to learn the hard way that one simply did not skip out on Devon O’Rourke, or her clients.

For the second time that night, the barking of the dogs awakened Lucy. This time she was actually in bed, cozy and warm and snuggled against Mike’s back. It seemed like only minutes since she’d closed her eyes.

It had been after midnight by the time she’d gotten Eric and the baby settled in Eric’s old room-he’d insisted on staying there instead of in the clean guest room, bedding down amongst all the boxes of dusty books and old clothes ready to go to the church rummage sale. He’d also insisted on keeping Emily with him, though Lucy had offered to take her-begged to take her-and let him get some decent rest.

Oh, but it had been hard to see him looking so exhausted. So drained and distant-like a stranger. This wasn’t the Eric she remembered, the son she’d yearned for and dreamed of welcoming home again. In her husband’s arms, in the privacy of their room she’d at last allowed herself to cry for that boy whom she knew in her heart she was never going to see again.

“Oh, Mike,” she’d sobbed, “he’s so different.”

“He’s grown up,” her husband replied, stroking her back.

“Yes, but…I don’t know him. He wouldn’t even let me hug him. And…oh, Mike-a baby! I never thought-”

“Hey-you wished for grandkids, remember?” His voice was wry and amused…reassuring. “Goes to show you-be careful what you wish for. Someone might be listening.”

They’d laughed together, then, and she’d fallen asleep with Mike’s arms around her.

Now, she poked him and hoarsely whispered, “Mike-wake up. The dogs are barking. I think someone’s here.”

“Oh, Lord-not again…” He lifted himself on one elbow and squinted at the alarm clock on the nightstand, muttering thickly a moment later, “Tha’ can’t be right…”

Lucy was already out of bed and struggling into her favorite old bathrobe, the fuzzy yellow one that Mike said made her look like a newly hatched baby chick. A glance out the window told her the storm was continuing unabated, but aside from that, she couldn’t see a thing-no car lights coming up the drive, nothing but darkness and swirling snow.

But there was definitely someone out there; she could hear a distant thumping noise, now. Someone was pounding on the door. The front door, which only a stranger would use.

“What in the world?” Muttering breathlessly, she hurried-barefoot and as quietly as possible-out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Mike, grumbling under his breath, was close behind her.

She ran down the dark hallway, flipping light switches as she went. Through the frosted front door glass and heavy storm door she could make out a faceless, huddled form silhouetted by the outside lamp. It kept shifting from side to side and appeared to be wracked every few seconds by violent shivers.

It took Lucy only a moment to open both doors-being country-raised, it would never have occurred to her not to-and then for a second or two more she stared open-mouthed at the apparition standing on her front porch. Surely, it could not be an incredibly beautiful young woman with wild and windswept hair-crimson hair that glowed like fire in the porchlight, yet glittered with a crystalline frosting of ice. Her bare hands clutched a coat together under her chin-a cloth coat, some sort of raincoat, it appeared to be, totally unsuited to an Iowa blizzard.

“I’m so s-s-sorry to b-b-bother you so late,” said the apparition. “My…f-flight was delayed, and I was afraid… they were g-going to c-close the roads, and then it t-took longer than I…th-thought it would to f-find…” All at once the lovely frozen mask of her face seemed to crack, and her eyes took on a look that bordered on panic.

That was more than enough for Lucy. “Oh, good grief,” she exclaimed, and clutching a handful of snow-dusted coat sleeve, hauled the alien visitor inside. It was on the tip of her tongue to add a roundly scolding, “What in the world were you thinking of?” when she felt Mike come up behind her.

His polite “Can we help you?” struck Lucy as a silly question; obviously, if anybody’d ever been in need of help, it was this girl.

But for some reason, maybe the very conventionality of it, the words did seem to revive the young woman’s spirits. Her face once again arranged itself in its perfect mask, and she drew herself up and thrust out her hand in an abrupt way that to Lucy said “Big City” as plain as day.

“Hello-I’m Devon O’Rourke. I hope I’ve found the right place. I’m looking for Eric Lanagan.”

Startled, Lucy blurted out before she thought, “Eric! But, he said-” then caught Mike’s eye and the tiny but unmistakable shake of his head and stopped herself in time. She finished it only in her mind: He said the baby’s mother was dead.

“I’m afraid Eric’s asleep right now,” Mike said smoothly, falling back once more on those polite conventions that sounded so ludicrous to Lucy, given the circumstances. “Would you like some coffee? Is there anyone with you? I don’t see your car.”

At that the woman seemed to hesitate, glancing uneasily back toward the door as if she feared she might have entered some sort of trap. It was what came of living in the city, Lucy thought. Nobody trusted anybody anymore. Probably, she reflected, with good reason.

“It’s down there-” the woman gestured vaguely toward the dark windows “-somewhere. I couldn’t get it up the driveway. I think it might be stuck in a ditch.” She gave a shiver, then a resigned sigh. “And no, there isn’t anybody with me.” A look of surprise flitted briefly across her face as she said that, as if she couldn’t quite believe she’d admitted such a dangerous thing.

Mike chuckled in his reassuring way. “We’re Eric’s parents. You’re safe here. Tell you what-let’s all go in the kitchen while we figure out what to do, shall we? Lucy?”