The Baby Barter. Patty Smith Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ responsibility of raising a child, especially a baby with special needs, not worried about the family who’d abandoned her before she’d barely taken her first breath. “Sarah’s mother gave her up when she was just a few minutes old.”

      The mouth he’d been fascinated with just seconds before went taut. “Poor woman. Probably didn’t know what to think after what she’d gone through.”

      Mack’s throat tightened. Was Thea implying the woman had been coerced into letting the baby go? “Sarah’s mother could have kept her.”

      Thea leveled pleading blue eyes at him. “Maybe she thought she didn’t have a choice.”

      Oh, people had choices. Mack saw it in his work all the time. And when they got caught making the wrong one, they had to face the consequences. Thea had never understood that, especially where her wayward sister was concerned. Mack straightened and crossed his arms over his chest, his suit coat pulled uncomfortably tight. “Why have you been nosing around Ms. Aurora’s the last two days?”

      Her brows drew together slightly. “How did you know about that?”

      At least she had the good sense not to deny it. “It’s my business to know what’s going on in this county.”

      “Ms. Adair reported me.”

      If he hadn’t been so annoyed, he would have laughed. Thea had always been quick to call things as they were, except in the case of her sister. “You still haven’t answered the question.”

      She closed her eyes, her fingers tightening around the straps of her purse. Her words were a soft whisper, as if in prayer. “Lord, I don’t know where to begin.”

      Unease knotted in Mack’s stomach. Thea had never been one to cry uncle, not even when the burdens her family placed on her fragile shoulders seemed to be too much to carry. What could have happened that would shake her this badly? Lord, give me the wisdom to handle this situation with Thea. Help me treat her fairly no matter what happened in the past. Mack rested a hand against the small of her back and gently pushed her toward a row of empty chairs. “Why don’t we go over here and sit down?”

      Faint color gathered in her cheeks as he held out a chair for her then took the place beside her. “The bad guys don’t stand a chance with you, do they, Sheriff?”

      A stall tactic, but he remained quiet, ready to listen. Thea would open up about whatever was bothering her when she was ready.

      She cleared her throat. “It has to do with what was going on with my sister the last few months of her life.”

      “You mean the accident?”

      Golden curls shimmered against the pale skin of her neck as she shook her head. “No, I mean...before the accident. When she came back to Marietta last spring.”

      Eileen Miller was in Marietta last spring? Not possible. Mack would have noticed. The woman had always been the type to stand out, draw attention—so different from her sister. “The night of the accident was the first time I’d seen her in years.”

      She drew in a deep breath as if to snap at him, then must have thought better of it. “But she was here in town last spring. In particular, around May eighth.”

      Sarah’s birthday. The best day Mack had had in years, falling head over heels with the abandoned baby who had been placed in his arms—and deciding to adopt her. While everyone else celebrated the end of the conflict in Europe, Mack celebrated the beginning of his new role, that of Sarah’s father. “Eileen had a way of making her presence felt. If she was here, Thea, I would have noticed it.”

      “I know she was here, Mack. She wrote in a journal she kept that she was out at the farm with Momma on VE Day.”

      Mack blinked. That wasn’t possible. How had Eileen snuck back into town without him being aware of it? Granted, last spring had felt like a roller-coaster ride with President Roosevelt’s unexpected death, then the war ending in Europe, not to mention the Bell Bomber Plant laying off some of the women workers. What else had happened right under his nose that he’d been unaware of?

      “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Mack. Eileen probably kept out of sight due to her condition.”

      Mack turned sharply to stare at her. “She was pregnant?”

      The news wasn’t truly a surprise. Eileen had been trouble since the moment she started powdering her nose and wearing high heels. Mrs. Miller had always been very stiff, very proper. She wasn’t a warm person, not even with her daughters, but she’d been tolerably friendly, participating in community events and active in the church until the gossip surrounding her younger daughter’s antics had begun. After that, she’d rarely come to town. Whenever Eileen got into trouble, it was always her big sister who came to bail her out.

      But it seemed odd he hadn’t heard about Eileen coming back in the spring or having a baby. Odder still that the few times he’d been called out to tend to Mrs. Miller, who had grown increasingly rattled and confused as age set in, never once had the woman mentioned a child. Mack scrubbed his jaw. “Where’s the baby then?”

      “That’s just it, Mack. Momma says the baby has been stolen, and I need to go and bring her home.”

      Another mess for Thea to clean up. Hadn’t that always been the way with Mrs. Miller and Eileen? Well, this was one problem he could help her clear up. Mack shoved his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out the small notebook and stubby pencil he kept on him for moments like this. “Do you know the name of the baby’s father? I could check with him, see if he or his family have the child.”

      “No, but...” She hesitated, what color she had in her cheeks fading, though her chin still arched at a determined angle. Whatever she was about to say, Mack knew he wouldn’t like it. “Momma knows who has the baby.”

      “Who?”

      “Ms. Adair.”

      “Aurora?”

      Thea gave him a certain nod. “Momma said she knew it the first time she saw Ms. Adair in town after the baby was born.”

      “That’s why you’ve been spying on Aurora’s place.” The pieces began to fall into place for Mack. “You think Sarah is Eileen’s baby?”

      “It makes sense. Sarah looks to be about the right age, and she’s the spitting image of Eileen when she was a baby. Momma said it would be like Ms. Adair to take her.” Sorrow along with another emotion—determination?—stared back at him. “That child you want to adopt is my niece, Mack. And I want to take her home.”

      * * *

      For a moment Mack’s eyes went wide with shock, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Then he huffed a laugh and shook his head.

      Surprise shot through Thea. He thought her claim was so ridiculous that he was laughing at her? Not very gallant for the boy who’d protected her from the ugly whispers her sister’s behavior had generated around their high school campus, who’d listened as she’d poured out her heart over her mother’s indifference, who’d been more than her friend.

      He was the only one who ever seemed to understand her—and he knew how much her family meant to her. Eileen was gone, but her sweet baby was here, and all Thea wanted was to give СКАЧАТЬ