Patricia Johns - His Unexpected Family

“Are you going to be all right?” he asked. “Do you need social services to come give you a hand with anything?”

“Social services?” Emily laughed softly. “Do we even have social services in Haggerston?”

“Well, social services consists mostly of Madge Middleton. She’s a foster mom who gives some pretty sound advice.” He shot her a wry grin.

“My mother would be insulted. Don’t you worry about me. I have a big family with lots of women just waiting to tell me exactly how to do things.”

“Good.” He seemed to relax. “You’ll be fine, then. I probably know some of your family.”

“In a place this size, it’s hard not to.” She laughed. “You graduated high school a few years before me.”

“Really?” He eyed her with an amused look. “Are you related to Steve Shaw, by any chance?”

“My cousin.”

“Well, now I’m going to have to root out my old yearbook.” He chuckled softly, the sound oddly comforting.

“Oh, don’t. Ninth grade wasn’t graceful.” Emily rolled her eyes. “Trust me. I was entirely forgettable.”

He gave a slow smile and tapped his notebook with a nub of a pencil. “Can I see your ID?”

“My ID?”

“Policy. I’ve got to make sure you are who I think you are before I leave a baby with you.”

“Oh, of course...” She blushed and headed to the kitchen to grab her wallet. While she rummaged through her bag, she mentally chastised herself. He was here on business, not here to flirt with her. Finding her wallet with one hand and holding the baby in the other, she came back to the living room, determined to be nothing but professional herself.

“How are you doing for baby things?” he asked while he looked over her ID.

“I think I’m all right.”

“The officers at the station brought in a few things from home, if you’re interested,” he said, raising his eyes from her driver’s license and meeting hers with a steady gaze that made her cheeks feel warm. “The officers who have kids, that is.”

“Oh, that’s really nice,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Should I drop them by tomorrow, then?”

“Yes, thanks. I really appreciate this, Chief. Thank them for me.”

Chief Taylor handed her back her license and gave her a formal smile. “Take care. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

With that, Greg Taylor, the handsome chief of police of Haggerston, Montana, trotted down her front steps and got back into the squad car. Emily looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms. Cora’s little hands lay limply across her chest, and she let out a deep sigh in her sleep. She was a beautiful little thing, and looking down at her, she felt an involuntary wave of love.

Oh, Lord, she prayed silently. Is this real? Is she really going to be mine?

As she watched Greg’s car pull out of her drive and disappear, she smelled something, and she laughed softly to herself. Well, one thing was very real tonight, and it was this diaper. It looked as though things were just beginning!

* * *

As Chief Greg Taylor walked back into the Haggerston Police Station, he stifled a yawn. It had been a long day, to say the least, and as he strode through the town’s small station, the officers he passed glanced up and gave him polite nods. The station always looked busy, with telephones ringing, officers coming and going and the general hubbub that came with twenty-odd people focused on their own work. It might not be considered much compared to a city station, but for a place the size of Haggerston, it was something. It might look like chaos to an untrained eye, but to Chief Taylor, who had spent his entire adult career as a cop, it was a smoothly oiled machine...or at least as oiled as discipline, training and several gallons of coffee could make it.

“Hey, Chief!” A sergeant waved a file at him. “Some paperwork from that 11-80 the other day. You want it on your desk?”

“I’ll take it.” Chief Taylor grabbed the file on his way by and headed around the desks toward his office at the far side of the station. He tossed the file on his desk and swung the door shut behind him. He stood in the relative quiet and glanced at his watch. Picking up the phone, he dialed the number to the Shady Pines Nursing Home.

“Shady Pines,” the nurse’s voice sang.

“Hi, this is Chief Taylor. I’m just wondering how my mother is doing.”

“Hi, Chief, this is Fran. Your mom had quite a good day. She had her favorite dinner tonight—Salisbury steak.”

“Oh, good.” He felt the smile come to his lips. “And how is she...otherwise?”

“She’s been confused.” Sympathy entered the nurse’s tone. “She wouldn’t let us bathe her today, but we’re hoping that by later this evening, she’ll be calmer. Sometimes evening routines have a more relaxing effect on her.”

Greg ran a hand through his hair. “Do you need me to come by?”

“You’re always welcome, Chief, but she’s been very wary around men again today. I’m not sure it would do much good.”

He nodded, more to himself than to the nurse on the other end of the call. “Well, keep me posted. I’ll call back later.”

“Absolutely, Chief. You have a good evening.”

He hung up the phone and picked up the file on his desk. His shift had been over for two hours already, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to go home. His mind was still on that 11-80.

11-80. It was easier to refer to it numerically than to voice the reality of the situation. It had been a terrible car accident with crumpled metal, leaking fuel and a gravely injured driver. The semitruck that hit the little car was relatively unharmed, and the truck driver was incredibly shaken, but in one piece, which was more than could be said for the occupant of the car. He tried to push the mental images out of his head, but the one that remained was the pleading face of the injured mother, her face covered in blood and her eyes filled with fear.

“Her name is Emily Shaw. She’s Cora’s godmother. You have to call her. Please. I don’t want my baby with a stranger. You have to call her!”

He’d sworn that he would, and there was something about that young mother’s intensity, her insistence that he take care of this, that stuck with him. Fourteen hours later, that little baby became an orphan when her mother succumbed to her injuries and passed away in the E.R., and the least he could do was fulfill that frightened mother’s last wishes and personally bring the baby to Emily Shaw. Which he had done this afternoon. The baby was now settled with her godmother. Job complete, right?

So why couldn’t he let it go? Why was Emily’s face now swimming in his mind, too?

But the image of Emily Shaw, with her dark, wavy hair and her sparkling eyes, didn’t bring up the same anxiety and guilt that the other images did. A young, dying mother, terrified for her baby. His own mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, unaware of who he was. A tiny infant, orphaned by a fatal accident. Yet there was something comforting in that calm kindergarten teacher with her disheveled papers and self-deprecating laugh. While he knew that his professional position didn’t make a personal relationship with her very appropriate, thinking about Emily Shaw was infinitely more pleasant than the other options.

He’d pick up those baby things the officers had collected and bring them by. Maybe that would tie up this case in his head and let him move on.

Chapter Two

The next afternoon, Greg pulled into Emily’s drive in his unmarked squad car and parked. He sat motionless for a moment or two, listening to the background noise of voices on the police radio. Apparently, there was a 10-33—a triggered security alarm—from a locked store. Across town another officer was taking a Code 8—a restroom break. Like most things, that just sounded better in a numerical code than to state the obvious. Greg’s thoughts weren’t on the voices, however. He found himself feeling somewhat nervous, something he didn’t feel very often. He took a deep breath and opened the car door.