Jenna Kernan - Surrogate Escape

Dr. Hauser had the tiny girl on a digital scale as she kicked and fussed, with Lori standing watch. Hauser’s jowly face made him look both sad and serious. Unlike many in their tribe, Hauser kept fit and trim, but the lines at his eyes and the flesh at his neck told that he was well past his middle years.

The doctor leaned in, speaking to Lori, who recorded something—the weight, Jake assumed—in the chart neatly held to the metal clipboard.

Lori then set aside the chart and expertly lifted the tiny pink girl and bundled her in a soft-looking flannel wrap. She placed the girl on her shoulder and did a little bounce to comfort the infant. She seemed completely relaxed with a baby on her shoulder. Jake found himself smiling. It was at that moment she turned and noticed him there. Their gazes met, and she smiled back. He knew this by the crinkling of her eyes at the corners. She turned the newborn so he could see the tiny face, as if he were the nervous father coming to see his baby girl. Lori nodded at the baby and then glanced back to him. Look what we did, she seemed to say. We saved this little one.

He nodded, his smile broadening as a familiar warmth welled inside him. This was how she had once looked at him, and he missed it.

The warm welcome in Lori’s eyes as she continued the rhythmic bounce made her look so different from how he usually saw her. They’d begun a routine of her spotting him when he had business at the clinic and him pretending not to see her, his eyes shifting away as he searched for an escape route. The only time he allowed himself to look at her was when she didn’t know he was there. Until today. Now he saw her and she saw him. Something inside his chest tightened.

Tinnin made a sound in his throat. “That baby is white.”

“I think so,” said Jake.

“All white, I mean.”

“Agreed.”

“So, if the papa wasn’t Apache, why would a white girl come up here to have a baby?”

* * *

LORI SET THE sleeping baby into the bassinet and then let Chief Tinnin and Jake Redhorse into the delivery room. Hauser lowered his mask to offer a greeting as he stepped past them. Then he headed down the corridor toward the urgent-care area and the patients already waiting. Lori offered her two visitors both a mask. Tinnin’s limp was growing worse by the minute.

“How is she?” asked Tinnin, holding the mask to his face.

“She’s perfect. A little small but otherwise healthy.” She glanced at Jake, keeping her distance. The joy had fled, and now her steady gaze held a familiar caution.

Her attention flicked back to the chief.

“We need a blood type,” said Tinnin.

“We do that routinely. I’ll be sure you get a copy of the results.”

“What about the baby?” Jake interjected.

“I’ll be here until Burl arrives.”

Burl Tsosie was one of the four nurses here, along with Lori, Nina and Verna.

“Any word from Protective Services?” asked Tinnin.

“Not yet, but they usually make us the temporary guardians. That gives them time to secure placement, if the mother isn’t found.”

“She’s not getting that baby even if she is found.” Jake’s outrage crept into his voice. “Because I’m placing her under arrest.”

Lori’s eyes rolled up, and the breath she let out was audible.

He glanced at the baby, sleeping peacefully, her tiny eyelashes fanning her pink cheeks. She’d be placed and adopted, he realized. Why did that eventuality make his chest ache? He met Lori’s gaze and saw she also looked troubled. They’d found her, and somehow that gave him a personal stake in what happened to this baby girl.

“When?” said Tinnin, referring to the arrival of a Protective Services representative.

“I’m not sure,” said Lori. “They have an office in Globe and one in Flagstaff. Depends on what other business they have.”

“I’ll stay,” said Jake.

Lori’s brow wrinkled. “It might not even be today.”

Jake set his jaw but said nothing.

Tinnin cast him an odd look.

“It’s a lock-in area,” Lori said to Jake, offering her upturned hands with her explanation. “No one but the parents get near one of our babies.”

“I’m still staying.”

It was clear from the placement of one hand on her hip that Lori did not appreciate his intrusion into her territory.

Jake and Lori squared off.

Tinnin turned to hobble toward the door, pausing to look back at Jake. “Suit yourself, Redhorse. You’re off duty. But try to get a few hours sleep.”

The door closed behind him, and the chief wobbled past the viewing window and out of sight.

Lori returned her attention to Jake.

“Mask,” she said, pointing to the mask he now held at his side.

He tied the top string around his head, then looked down at the newborn he’d found in his truck. She was very pale, but beautiful. He’d never thought babies were beautiful before. His chest ached again, and he itched to hold her. He reached out with one finger to stroke the infant’s cheek.

“Don’t touch the babies. You’re not clean.” Her crisp tone let him know that this was very definitely her dominion, and she did not appreciate him inserting himself here.

He wished he could keep the baby. Jake frowned. Of all the stupid ideas in his life, that fleeting thought was second only to the idea that he could control himself in the bed of his new pickup with Lori Mott back on that long-ago summer night when they were both sixteen. He never had been able to control himself around Lori. Still couldn’t. She riled him up. It was one of her special talents—making him crazy for her without seeming to do anything at all. He’d been young and dumb. They both had been. Everyone was mad at Lori for trying to snare him. He didn’t know if that were true. He did know that the idea of getting married so young had scared him. He was afraid they’d have a kid and then another until maybe he’d end up robbing a store out of sheer desperation, just like his father. During his junior year, he had carried the scholarship offers around with him, but he had known he wouldn’t use them. He had believed that he’d never get a four-year degree or come back to wear the uniform. Instead, he had thought that he’d marry Lori and live on the rez in public housing and work for the lumber mill or with the tribe’s cattle. His mother and her mother wouldn’t speak to one another. Still didn’t. And his mother had said she would not attend the wedding.

But he had been the one who had driven them out to the reservoir and afterward let Lori take the fall for what they had both done. It was his fault as much as Lori’s. That made him most angry of all.

Ty had told him that her older sister had tried to pin a baby on him because of his reputation, but he’d been smart enough to never sleep with Jocelyn. Ty said Joceyln had slept with so many boys in high school no one knew whose kid it was. Had Lori done the same to him?

Jake blinked, but his vision remained blurry. He rubbed his burning eyes and swayed. When had he last slept?

* * *

WHEN LORI CAUGHT Jake weaving with fatigue, she convinced him to sit down at the nurses’ station. It was a mistake, because in pressing him into a stool, she felt first the taut muscles that offered resistance, and then the warmth of his skin. Now her palms prickled. But she tore herself away from temptation and brought him something to eat and drink—yogurt, applesauce and orange juice, everything served in tiny clear plastic cups.

“Aren’t you tired?” he asked.

“I only came on duty at six a.m.”

“I called before six,” he said and blinked wearily at her.

“I was early.”

“Better than being late.” He grinned.

Was that a reference to when she had missed a period and had told him using those very words? She narrowed her eyes on him as her attraction warred with bitter memories.