Patricia Hagan - Sun-Kissed Baby

Elaine sounded pleased to tell her that they probably had the best of any grove in the state. “The Starke family has always taken care of their workers, whether year-round or migrant. We have a wonderful day-care center and one of the caretakers is even an LPN—licensed practical nurse. You won’t have to worry about your baby at all. Just come on in today.”

“It will be tomorrow morning. I have to pack.”

Nick Starke stared at the stack of mail on his desk. He hated being inside doing paperwork, preferring to be in the groves. He enjoyed the whole process of growing fruit, from standing on a ladder and handpicking to watching the oranges roll along the assembly line for grading and stacking in boxes. He was a grower through and through and could not imagine any other kind of life.

Elaine peered through the open door to say she was going to lunch. “I’m going to Newt’s place on the river. The word’s out he’s got fresh alligator tail. Want me to bring you a basket?”

“Do I ever.” He loved the delicacy, which tasted like fried chicken but was sweeter, more succulent, and not nearly as greasy.

“Oh, by the way—some woman called this morning, and when she found out you weren’t here wanted to know how she could get in touch with Mrs. Starke. I told her there was no Mrs. Starke.”

He frowned. He and Gina had been divorced almost five years. He didn’t even know where she was and no longer cared. It was strange that any of her friends, old or new, would try to contact her at the groves. “Did you get her name?”

“No. Actually, she was looking for a job. Maybe she thought your wife would hire her since you weren’t around. I told her she’d have to talk to Mike.”

“Good.” He took out his wallet and gave Elaine the money for his lunch.

When she left, he leaned back in his chair, propping his feet on the edge of the desk.

Hearing that someone had asked to speak to his wife stirred up memories of Gina.

Bad memories.

He had met Gina in college, when he was attending Florida State to get a degree in agriculture. She was two years younger and studying to be a teacher, but when his father passed away right before Nick graduated, she bluntly said she wanted to marry him, quit school and help him with the family business. He was not resistant to the idea. Gina was pretty, and the sex was great. His mother had died a few years earlier, and he had not looked forward to going home to live alone.

But there was an obstacle—a painful, embarrassing secret he had kept to himself till the time he felt he should tell Gina. The sad news was that he could not father a child. Childhood mumps had left him sterile. But she said it didn’t matter. They could always adopt.

And so they had married and everything had been fine—for a couple of years. Then Gina began to complain about living in a rural area. She didn’t like the family home and complained it wasn’t modern enough. Nick’s grandfather had built it more than fifty years ago, and though it had withstood savage winds from several hurricanes, Nick agreed that maybe it was somewhat old-fashioned. So he’d given her free rein to redecorate, and she’d spent a fortune doing so, even putting in a swimming pool.

But it hadn’t been enough. She was still miserable and began spending more and more time in Orlando, shopping, she said, with girlfriends from college days.

Then when they had been married about four years, Gina dropped a bombshell. She had been having an affair, had fallen in love with the man and wanted a divorce so she could marry him. Fool that he was, Nick asked her to reconsider, suggesting they go to a marriage counselor and try to work things out. Nick was not the sort of man to take marriage vows lightly.

Gina quickly dashed all his hopes and smashed his heart into little bits and pieces with the news that she was pregnant. To twist the knife, she cruelly reminded him that all the marriage counseling in the world couldn’t change the fact he couldn’t father a child.

At least he could be grateful Gina had not taken him to the cleaners financially. Florida was a no-fault divorce state, and, ordinarily, she would have been entitled to half of everything. But all of his assets had been premarital. They owned nothing jointly, so there had been nothing to divide. Still, she had asked for a mind-staggering sum of alimony. But when it was revealed that she was pregnant by another man, the judge had denied her.

Nick swiveled in his chair to look out the window at the rows of orange trees stretching as far as the eye could see. Perfectly straight lines like soldiers at attention.

Maybe he was a fool, but he just hadn’t felt right about Gina leaving with nothing when he had so much. So he had written her a generous check, which she had snatched from his hand and walked out without a word. He hadn’t heard from her or seen her since.

He had thrown himself into his work, and there had been plenty of it. Once in a while, he dated but never let things go too far. Never again did he want to feel the crushing humiliation of having a woman cut him down because of his sterility. So he tended the groves, went deep-sea fishing in his boat now and then, read a lot and told himself he was content with his life.

After all, being lonely was better than having another woman make him feel like less of a man.

By the time Scotty’s things were loaded into the Jeep, there was scarcely enough room for Carlee’s few belongings. Alicia had worked almost up to her due date to make enough money to buy him everything she thought a baby might need. The crib had to be left behind in favor of the easier-to-pack portable crib, along with the playpen, but Carlee managed to cram in the bouncing swing he loved, along with the high chair.

She only hoped Elaine Streeter had not been exaggerating about Starke Groves’ facilities for their migrant workers being so nice. It made her cringe to think of some of the conditions she had heard about—outdoor plumbing, windows with no screens, broken-down furniture and sparse appliances. Mr. Burns made a special effort to make his workers comfortable, but even he did not provide day care with an LPN in charge. That sounded too good to be true, especially when she found it hard to believe Nick Starke cared about children in general. Knowing that he had been aware of Alicia’s pregnancy all along filled Carlee with so much anger and resentment she wondered how she could even be civil to the man.

But she would manage, of course. After all, Scotty’s welfare, as well as his future, was at stake here, and for his sake, she wouldn’t blow it.

Give the man the benefit of the doubt, a part of her argued. Get to know him before forming an opinion.

Yeah, right, another side fired back. He was just one more selfish, self-centered man with the morals of a tomcat, possessing the same lack of conscience as her father and Alicia’s father had. And, Carlee grimaced, her ex-husband, as well.

With Scotty sleeping soundly in his car seat, she headed north up Interstate 95 to Titusville, then west to the sleepy little town of Snow Hill near Lake Harney. The trip took about an hour. Very convenient for Nick Starke to drive down to Cocoa Beach to see Alicia. Had she not gotten pregnant, he’d probably still be seeing her and making her think he was still having a difficult time getting a divorce.

Several times she started to turn back, afraid she was wasting her time. After all, a man who had done what Nick Starke had was, in all likelihood, not going to turn out to be the answer to her problems. But she had nowhere else to go and couldn’t have stayed where she was, not when she was being evicted. At least now she would have a job and a good place to leave Scotty while she worked.