Linda Goodnight - Baby in His Arms

But this was spring. Christmas was months away.

Suddenly, the small wrapped bundle stirred. Creed’s heart jumped, kicking up to a hundred knots. A man who’d flown helicopters over Iraq wasn’t scared of anything. Except very small human beings who cried a lot and couldn’t talk. Or walk. Or feed themselves.

A pair of tiny fists rose from the odd-looking bundle. Right behind them came the mewling cry.

His heart slammed against his chest wall as if he’d lost power over Whisper Falls with the chopper filled with sightseers. Creed rushed to the altar and fell on his knees beside the bundle. A tiny baby, face wrinkled and red, eyes still puffy and slanted as if she or he was brand-new, quivered and kicked. The tiny rosebud mouth opened with a loud, distressed wail.

Creed glanced wildly around. Surely this child had a mother around here somewhere. Reverend Wally Schmidt opened the church every morning at five before making his trek over the mountains to his day job in Fayetteville. If Creed arrived early enough, sometimes they prayed together. But not this morning. The church was empty. Not even Wally’s four-wheel drive was parked outside. There wasn’t another soul around except him and this little bitty, squalling baby.

Heart revving faster by the minute, Creed offered up a quick prayer and then whipped out his cell phone and did what any sensible man would do. He called 9-1-1.

* * *

The sound of JoEtta Farnsworth’s moped had barely died when the Whisper Falls police chief slammed through the double doors into the sanctuary. Short and stocky and tough as shoe leather, the middle-aged blonde looked like a scooter-riding version of Amelia Earhart.

“What’s going on in here?” she demanded in voice like a foghorn.

“I found this baby,” Creed said, realizing how sad that sounded. People found pennies, not babies.

It was weird. He, an only child whose experience with babies was limited to diaper commercials on TV, was downright heartsick to think anyone would leave a baby alone. Even if the little thing had been left in a church, he or she was alone. Abandoned. Helpless.

“What do you mean you found her?” Chief Farnsworth eyed him as if he was a teenaged driver caught spinning doughnuts on Main Street.

“I came in a few minutes ago, and there she was.” He hitched his chin toward the long, oak altar.

“On the altar?”

The baby stirred. “Wrapped up in this thing. It’s a tablecloth, I think.”

“Uh-huh. The kind you carry on picnics.” The chief stepped closer. “Flannel on the inside. Vinyl on the outside.”

“She quieted down when I picked her up.”

He’d rocked her, too, and sung “Jesus Loves Me” in the rough, pathetic voice that could make dogs howl and soldiers throw things. She’d seemed to go for it.

Creed didn’t mention the singing and rocking to the chief.

“Anyone else around?”

“No one I saw.”

“Did you look? Check in the office or the bathroom?”

“Never thought about it. She was crying.” A man would be heartless to walk away from a cry like that.

JoEtta peeled back the vinyl to peek at the sleeping face. “You say she’s a girl? What about the umbilical cord? Is it still attached?”

Creed blinked, horrified. “I didn’t look. I just thought she seemed pink and round like a little girl.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake. Let me see its belly.” The no-nonsense policewoman pushed aside the cloth and peered down at the naked baby. “It’s a girl, all right,” she said. “New as the dew.”

The baby started crying again.

“Well, pardon me, missy,” JoEtta said with a snort.

Creed rewrapped the baby and snuggled her close to his shirt. She stopped crying.

“I think she likes you, Creed.”

Creed figured the little thing was simply happy to be held. Either that, or desperate to escape Chief Farnsworth’s rock-grinder voice. But the idea that she liked him tickled his chest, anyway. “What are you going to do with her?”

“Call Social Services.” JoEtta pointed at the altar. “Sit down there and do whatever it is you’ve been doing to keep her happy while I search the church and make sure there’s not a mama lurking around.”

“You think someone walked in here and had a baby, then left her?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Not in Whisper Falls.”

The chief made a rude noise in the back of her throat. “I beg to differ. A woman had twins one year on the Ferris wheel at Pumpkin Fest because that idiot Buster Grubenheimer thought she was screaming from fright and wouldn’t shut down the ride.”

“True. I’d forgotten about that. She named the babies Ferris and Wheeler.”

“Sure did.” JoEtta slapped her thigh and guffawed. The baby jerked. “Sit tight. I’ll be back.”

Creed grinned as the short, squat chief stomped away, gear rattling at her side.

The sanctuary grew quiet again. A large round clock on the back wall reminded him of the time. With a grimace, he sat down on the front pew.

“Don’t worry, princess,” he said to the sleeping face. “I won’t bail on you. Not like your mama did.”

He fished for his cell phone and canceled his first scenic flight of the day. He’d no more than ended the call when the baby’s mouth opened in a whimper that quickly escalated to a cry.

Creed scooped the frantic bundle against his chest and patted her back. She was probably hungry. He was about to sing again when the police chief marched in from the vestibule.

“Social worker’s on her way.”

“You didn’t find any sign of the mother?” he asked.

“Nope. The way I figure it, the mother slipped in, left the baby and made a run for it.”

Left at the mercy of strangers.

The idea twisted in Creed’s gut. Through a cap of fine dark hair, he could see a pulse in the infant’s head. The sight scared him silly. “Maybe we should call Dr. Ron.”

“The social worker will make that determination. She ought to be here any minute.” The back door opened. “See? I told you. Howdy, Melissa.”

“Chief Farnsworth.” A surprisingly young woman wearing very high heels with a black business suit and crisp white blouse bustled into the room. Before Creed could say a word, she took the baby from him.

He didn’t think he liked her.

* * *

Haley Blanchard got the call at ten o’clock. She stripped off her gardening gloves, stuck her feet into a pair of flip-flops and jumped into her minivan. Never mind that her hair had escaped its topknot and now danced in auburn wisps around her face, or that she was sweaty, grubby and needed a shower.

A baby had been abandoned. The thought quickened a sinking sensation deep in her gut, a moment of deep pity. But this was her job. Fostering was what she did. If a child was in need of a temporary home, she provided one. She didn’t let her emotions get in the way of doing the right thing.

Haley reached Dr. Ron’s clinic in less than ten minutes, a thousand questions and thoughts racing through her head. Who found her? Where? Was she healthy? Who would abandon a baby in Whisper Falls?

As she entered the building, flip-flops smacking the tile, she was greeted by Chief JoEtta Farnsworth and a social worker, Melissa Plymouth. The three were well-acquainted, having worked together on child welfare cases many times.

“Where’s the baby?” Haley asked.

“Dr. Ron’s checking her out.”

“What happened? Where was she found?” Haley ran her hands down the sides of her dress, glad for the hand sanitizer hanging on the wall.

The chief gave her a brief rundown, answering the questions she could. At the moment, no one knew why the baby had been left at the church or by whom.

“Did Reverend Schmidt find her?”