Ruth Herne - The Lawman's Yuletide Baby

Foster care.

It was a viable alternative. He could drop by and visit the baby, make sure everything was all right. It would give him time to think. Time to rationalize the irrationality of finding babies on doorsteps.

She cooed just then. She leaned back, away from the bottle, and when Gabe looked down, the soft coo of her voice tunneled him back twelve years.

Elise, nursing their baby girl, then Gracie pausing her meal to smile up at him. At her dad. At the man who pledged to keep her safe and sound, all of her days.

He couldn’t do this.

He crossed to the door, needing space, needing air, needing—

He barged through to the outside and hauled in a deep breath.

It wasn’t enough air, not nearly enough.

A wind gust brought a flutter of last leaves down around him, gold and red and orange and yellow, spiraling to the ground.

People around town spouted how they loved fall; the parade of colors; the crisp, cold nights; the sun-swept hills of tree-changing splendor.

They were stupid.

The change of colors signified one thing: loss of life. The leaf got one shot at being glorious before being trampled.

Dark thoughts ran through his head. He’d failed before, miserably. How could Adrianna think him good enough to look after such a prize? Such a perfectly wonderful tiny soul?

“Gabe.”

He turned.

Corinne stood in the doorway. She beckoned him in.

The cold wind picked up, tossing her hair over her shoulders, into her face.

She’d never understand.

Well, she won’t if you don’t give her a chance, his conscience reasoned. She might surprise you because people who’ve loved and lost are pretty empathetic.

He saw Drew beyond the window, his phone to his ear.

Susie was holding the baby as if wishing she could change places with him. The young officer stood off to the side, quiet and still, uncertain.

But not as uncertain as Gabe at that moment. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and raised them up. “I’ll be back.”

“Gabe.” She moved across the narrow porch, her arms clutched around her middle. “Come back, Gabe. Please. Drew’s making arrangements.”

Making arrangements.

Just like that, as if one word from him sealed the baby’s fate. Adrianna had offered him a chance—

A chance he didn’t dare take.

“Tell him to go ahead. I need time, Corinne. Just...” He settled into his car and backed it out, around Drew’s cruiser. And then he drove north, away from the lake, and then west, away from people because the last thing Gabe Cutler wanted to do was fail another innocent child.

* * *

Gabe’s driveway sat empty when he pulled back into the house two hours later.

Drew had sent him a text shortly after he left the lakeshore. Baby in good hands. Take your time figuring this out. We locked up the house.

They’d left. And they’d taken that sweet, innocent baby with them.

Good.

That was better for her. Better than being in his care.

Is it? his conscience wondered. Is being with strangers better for Jess? Or better for you?

He pulled into the drive, shut off the engine and hung his head, ashamed.

He’d run away in that baby’s hour of need. What kind of person did that?

A surprised one?

He ignored the mental sensibility. Gabe wasn’t about to let himself off that easy. Sure, he was surprised, but it wasn’t surprise that sent him scurrying into the hills. It was panic, pure and simple.

The wind swept in from the west, an early glimpse of the coming winter. Leaves spiraled and tumbled in the surrounding darkness, adding touches of color to fading leaf clutter already on the ground.

He parked the car in the garage and climbed out on leaden legs.

Adrianna was gone, but tied up in a swirl of bad choices, she’d tried to do something right. Only it wasn’t right. She said she trusted him with her child, but what she messed up—what she couldn’t possibly understand—was that he didn’t trust himself.

And that made all the difference.

Chapter Five

“Hey, what was going on over at Coach’s house today?” Tee asked as she and Corinne cleared the table from dinner. Callan had gone upstairs to write a report due on Monday. “I saw a bunch of cars there, including Uncle Drew’s, but then they were all gone by the time I was done with my Revolutionary War project profile. Did they have to move more stuff in?”

Corinne shaded the truth to give Gabe time to figure things out. “A case they’d been working on needed some fine-tuning.”

“On a Saturday when he moves into a new house?”

“The law never rests.”

“I guess.” Tee rinsed the last bowls and tucked them into the dishwasher, then asked a question she hadn’t asked in a long while. “Do you still miss my dad?”

Tee never called Dave “Daddy.” Was that because she’d never known him, despite Corinne’s efforts to create a relationship that didn’t exist on a physical level? She didn’t know. She swiped a wet cloth to the table and answered as honestly as she could. “Every day. But not like it used to be.”

Tee scrunched her brow, waiting for a deeper explanation.

“Your dad and I loved each other. And when he died, my heart just about fell apart. It kind of shattered into a gazillion little pieces, like when the ice breaks apart in the spring.”

“Crunching and crackling and groaning.”

“Exactly. But then you were born, like the best gift God could have possibly given me.” Her words inspired Tee’s smile. “Callan was two and I was so busy taking care of both of you that I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I missed him like crazy, but then it was more like I missed him because of what you both missed. Hearing him laugh. Hearing him sing.”

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