Janice Johnson - Lost Cause

“If you mean it,” she said weakly.

He took the helmet from her. “Got something to write with? I’ll give you my number.”

“Oh. Okay.” Horribly conscious of him watching, she scrambled off the bike and then tugged down the hem of her skirt before she pulled her briefcase and purse from the leather bag. When she found a pad of paper, he scribbled the number in dark, slashing lines. “I usually spend at least a couple of hours,” she warned.

“No problem.” His mouth crooked. “You might want to brush your hair.”

Her hand went to her head in instant reaction, and he grinned, then put the helmet on his own head and started the motorcycle, raised a hand as if to say, See ya, and took off with a small spurt of gravel.

She was left gaping after him, stunned by that smile. She’d been wrong. Oh, so wrong. His smile was devastating. Cocky and yet also somehow sweet.

Which was a very strange word to use about a man who looked as tough and self-sufficient as he did.

Shaking her head, Rebecca walked to the front door and rang.

The Coopers were as nice as she’d anticipated, accepting with apparent equanimity her explanation of a car breakdown and a chance ride to explain windblown hair. Beth Cooper showed Rebecca to the bathroom where she discovered her skirt had swiveled so that the zipper was to one side instead of in back where it belonged. She turned it, smoothed wrinkles without much success and brushed her hair, then returned to the living room.

Beth smiled. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“I would love coffee,” she agreed, with more fervency than was probably appropriate.

Her hostess laughed and went to get it, leaving Rebecca to chat with Ronald Cooper.

In the next couple of hours, she coaxed them to talk about their own childhoods, their parents and the family gatherings that Beth admitted had begun to depress her these last five years as they struggled to get pregnant and her two sisters had three kids each.

“Mary Ellen once said just thinking about getting pregnant is dangerous for her.”

Her husband rumbled.

“She didn’t mean to be tactless,” Beth said hastily. “But it stung. Because I’m the one with the problem.”

Ronald laid his hand over hers.

Rebecca knew from their file that Beth couldn’t carry a baby to term, so in vitro fertilization wasn’t an answer for them. “Did you consider finding a surrogate mother?” she asked. “Perhaps one of your sisters?”

“They haven’t offered,” Beth said.

Her husband said firmly, “I don’t care that much about having a son who is mine. You know? We just want a child.”

“Do you have a preference as to gender?” When they didn’t answer immediately, she amended, “A girl or a boy?”

Their heads shook in unison. Neither cared. Yes, they’d consider a child of mixed race, although they guessed their druthers were for a Caucasian baby just so he or she didn’t stand out at those family gatherings and so people weren’t always thinking, Oh, she must be adopted, when they saw the Coopers together.

The agency’s policy was to, whenever possible, place babies with parents of their dominant race. It took unusually committed parents to provide a child of another race some sense of identity with his biological roots. In the 1970s, many black children had been placed with white parents, but in the decades since, there had been a shift in attitude. In any case, too few babies of any race were available for adoption to satisfy the hunger of childless couples. Many, frustrated, chose to go overseas.

Beth’s parents had been sterner than Ronald’s, but the couple agreed on how they wanted to raise their children.

“We’ve spent years shaking our heads and saying we wouldn’t say that or do that, so confident we’d be having kids when we were ready,” Beth confessed. “There’s never been any doubt that someday we’d have a family. We’ve saved so I can stay home for a few years, until they’re school age, for example. We talked about using that money for a foreign adoption, but then I’d have to go back to work and put the baby in day care, and we just never wanted that. Not if we could help it.”

They showed her around their small trilevel, including the bedroom upstairs right across the hall from theirs that would be the nursery. It was a big, sunny room, the walls painted yellow, a twin bed, child’s table and chairs and toy chest the only furnishings.

“Our nieces and nephews spend the night sometimes,” Beth said. “We enjoy having them.”

Rebecca guessed the pleasure was bittersweet, a chance to sample what was denied to them, but she smiled in agreement.

“We haven’t really decorated,” Beth continued. “In case we never—” She stopped, pressed her lips together. “This could be a sewing room.”

Rebecca talked to them about the birth mother’s role in choosing the placement for her child, and the profile birth parents would be shown of the couples like the Coopers who were waiting. She warned them of how long the wait might be before they were likely to be offered a baby. Faces shining, they assured her they’d wait ten years if they had to.

“Does this mean you’re approving us?” Ronald asked, voice gruff.

She smiled at them both. “I think you’ll make wonderful parents. I have no hesitation in recommending that you go on our list.”

She was moved to see that Ronald’s eyes got as damp as his wife’s before he harrumphed and wiped at them. It made her wish she could call them tomorrow and announce that a newborn was ready to go home to them. Unlike some older couples, though, they had time; they’d started trying to get pregnant when Beth was twenty-four or -five, so now she was thirty-three and her husband only two years older.

Rebecca used her cell phone to dial the number Gary had given her. He answered with an abrupt, “Lindstrom.”

“Hi, this is Rebecca Wilson. Um, if you’re still willing—”

“Five minutes.”

Dead air told her he was gone. Well! So much for her prepared speech about how it was fine if he’d gotten busy doing something else, getting a taxi was no problem, etc., etc.

Next she called the auto repair shop where she had asked that her car be towed.

“Can’t get to it until tomorrow,” she was told. “Check with us, say, eleven o’clock?”

Yes, fine, she could do that.

Obviously, she needed to rent a car. She had an appointment in Seattle tomorrow morning and had promised to go to dinner at her mother’s house in Woodinville that evening. Instead of having Gary take her back to the agency, maybe she’d have him deliver her to a car rental office.

She borrowed the Coopers’ phone book to look for the handiest location, finding one not a mile from her agency. By that time, the distinctive throaty roar of a motorcycle outside gave notice that her ride had arrived.

The Coopers thanked her profusely and waved goodbye from the doorstep as she left.

When she reached the street, her cynical Good Samaritan nodded toward them. “Are they still trying to convince you that they’re great people? Or did you make them happy today?”

“They can’t just be friendly?” She took the helmet from him, both relieved and a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to put it on again for her.

“It would be normal to go back in the house now. Don’t you think?”

She turned and gave a reassuring wave at the couple, who waved back. Yeah, okay, it would be normal for them to go back in the house. Instead, they stood side by side, holding hands, smiling at her.

“I gave them hope.” She settled the helmet on her head and fumbled with the strap.

He lifted a tanned, calloused hand and fastened it for her. “They’re going to get a kid?”