Dr. Mommy

But instead of answering his question, she said, “Define ‘halfway home.”’

Nick growled under his breath. This didn’t sound good. “Cavanaugh’s Liquors on Route 30,” he told her. Then he asked again, “Why?”

“So you’re skirting the wilds of Haddonfield, right?”

Nick growled again. “Yeah. Why?”

“And you got four-wheel drive in that big bucket of yours, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

But he still didn’t get a response to the one question he really wanted answered. Not a response that he liked anyway. Because his superior asked another question of her own. “You know a lot about kids, don’t you, Nick?”

As questions went, it wasn’t that unusual a one for a man in his line of work to hear. “I know enough,” he said. “Why?”

“Don’t you got, like, a lot of nieces and nephews?”

“Eighteen, last count,” he replied. “Why?”

“That’s right,” Lieutenant Skolnik said thoughtfully. “Your sister Angie just dropped two last month, didn’t she?”

Nick was fast losing patience with this interrogation. Not just because he seldom indulged in chitchat with his boss, but because he was cold, and he was tired, and the snow was coming down harder and at least two of the six bottles of Sam Adams in the seat next to him were calling his name.

“Uh, no offense, Lieutenant,” he said slowly, “but, um…I’d appreciate it if you could tell me just where the hell this line of questioning is going.”

“I need you to answer a call for me in Haddonfield,” she said finally.

“Oh, come on,” he pleaded, even though he knew it was pointless to try. “I just pulled a double shift, and I haven’t had a day off in two weeks. I’m supposed to have three days off solid. You promised, and I earned it.”

“I know, Nick, and I’m really sorry,” she said, her voice conveying her genuine apology. “But you’re the only one who can take care of this.”

He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. Then aloud he said, “Define ‘this.”’

“We got a report of an abandoned baby in Haddonfield,” she told him. “And we got nobody in the area who can respond right now. Since you just left here twenty minutes ago, and since I know your proclivities regarding Cavanaugh’s,” she added parenthetically, “I figured I could catch you in the area.”

Before he could object further, she gave him the exact address, and Nick whistled low. “That’s a pretty primo rent district. Who’d be abandoning a baby there?”

Wryly his lieutenant replied, “Gee, just a shot in the dark here, but…maybe somebody who can’t take care of it and wants it to have a better life?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Even if it means breaking the law to get it?”

“Yeah, well, believe it or not, Nick, there are some people out there who hold the laws of our great state in contempt. I know that comes as a shock to a guy like you, but…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “So, why do I get the assignment? I kinda had other plans.”

Not that those plans consisted of anything major, he conceded to himself. Just a little sleeping and eating and watching what was left of Saturday Night Dead with Stellaaaa—not necessarily in that order. But there was no reason his lieutenant had to know that.

“You get the job,” she told him, “because, like I said, between the New Year’s revelers and the snow, we can’t get anybody else out there tonight. And nobody at Social Services is answering the phone right now. Dispatch says the woman who made the report sounds pretty frantic. Says she can’t take care of the baby. So somebody’s gotta go get that kid. You’re a couple miles away. You got four-wheel drive. You can swing by there and take care of it and, even with the paperwork, be home by morning. Then, I promise you, you can have four days. Solid.”

Being home by morning, Nick thought, was highly debatable. Not only was morning barely seven hours away, but the way the snow was coming down, it wouldn’t be long before even four-wheel drive would be totally ineffective. Still, it would be nice to get an extra day off out of this. And he was only a couple of miles away. And he did kind of have a soft spot for kids.

Dammit.

“All right, all right,” he relented, however reluctantly. “I’ll take care of it as fast as I can. But those four days you promised? I better get every last one of ’em. Without being bothered once.”

“You got my word, Nick,” Lieutenant Skolnick promised. “Scout’s honor.”

He told himself not to dwell on the fact that Suzanne Skolnik seemed in no way the Scout type, scribbled down the particulars of the reported abandonment, then ground the Wagoneer to life. Was it his imagination, or had the already fierce snowfall doubled in severity in the few minutes he’d spent on the phone? He shook the thought off. No problem. His Jeep was more than reliable, and he had little trouble maneuvering it over the snow and slush. In no time at all—well, not much time at all—Nick rolled to a halt in the driveway of the house to which he’d been directed.

Nice piece of real estate, he thought. Must have set the owners back a pretty penny, but then, people who lived in neighborhoods like this one usually didn’t have to worry too much about paying the bills. The place was lit up outside like a Christmas tree, and Nick could tell that when it wasn’t snowing like a big dog, it was probably a real showplace, carefully landscaped and tended. A big two-story monstrosity, it had the look of English aristocracy about it, with bay windows leaded in a diamond pattern, and stained glass all around the front door. It was the kind of place that was perfectly suited for big garden parties and intimate tea socials.

In other words, it was about as far removed from Nick’s own personal reality as it could possibly be.

As a South Jersey boy, born and bred, he was blue-collar in the extreme. And damned proud of it, too. His father had been a cop, just like his father’s father had been, and his father’s father’s father before that. All the Campisanos were either in law enforcement or fire fighting, and all the Gianellis, on his mom’s side, worked in the Gianelli bakery. That’s where Nick’s mom had invariably been while he was growing up—when she wasn’t seeing to the needs of her six kids.

Nick chuckled in spite of himself as he gazed at the big house before him. His family sure could have used that much square footage when he was growing up, but chances were the occupants of this house probably didn’t have any kids at all. At most, they probably only claimed one or two. He’d shared a small bedroom with his two brothers the whole time he was growing up, and his three sisters had made do with another. The little brick bungalow in Gloucester City had only had one bathroom for the longest time, until his father and his uncle Leo had installed another one in the basement when the Campisano children started turning into Campisano teenagers.

What a luxury that had been, he recalled now with a fond smile. Two bathrooms. No waiting. Not beyond twenty or thirty minutes, anyway.

Still, Nick wouldn’t change a thing about his upbringing. Even though there had never been a dime to spare, and even though he and his brothers and sisters had all gone to work in one capacity or another when they turned sixteen, he’d never felt as though he lacked anything in life. The Campisanos were a close-knit bunch to this day, and it was no doubt because they’d learned to share and compromise at an early age.

Nick wouldn’t have it any other way. There was nothing in the world, he knew, that was more important than family. Nothing.

He glanced down at the sheet of paper where he’d scrawled the information Lieutenant Skolnik had given him about the abandoned baby. The dispatcher had done her best to record the particulars accurately, but the woman calling in had obviously been more than a little upset, and the baby had evidently been squalling like a demon seed right next to the phone. Dr. Carrie Wayne was what the woman’s name was. Nick just hoped this was the right house. Focusing on the big Tudor again, he decided that whatever kind of doctor she was, she must be damned good at it.

He shoved open the driver’s side door, pushing hard against an especially brutal gust of wind, then he heaved himself out into the storm. The snow easily covered his heavy hiking boots—it must be almost a foot deep by now. He tugged up the zipper on his navy blue, down-filled parka, stuffed his hands into his heavy leather gloves and slung his hood up over his head. No sense courting pneumonia on top of too much work, he thought. Hey, he intended to enjoy those four days off he had coming.

By the time he trudged his way to the front door, he was huffing and puffing with the effort it had taken to cover the short distance, thanks to the wind and snow. And he was thinking that he’d better get this over with quick if he had any hope of finishing by morning. He rapped his fist hard against the wooden part of the front door, then thought better of that and jabbed the doorbell twice. Then he took a step backward to wait. The howling of a baby greeted him from the other side—yep, it was the right house, all right—and then someone pulled the door inward. Nick opened his mouth to say something in greeting.

Opened it to say something in greeting, but not one single word came out.

Because once he saw who stood on the other side of that door, he couldn’t speak at all. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. All he could do was stare at the black-haired, blue-eyed woman standing there, and remember how soft and fragrant was every single curve and valley that lay beneath those shiny purple pajamas she had on.

Not Dr. Carrie Wayne, he thought inanely. Dr. Claire Wainwright. As if he needed anything else to make this night more pointless and irritating than it already promised to be.

Two

The baby had been crying off and on ever since Claire had picked her up, but she’d gone absolutely ballistic at the sound of the doorbell. Yet even with a baby screeching in her ear, the moment Claire opened the door and saw Nick Campisano standing on the other side, she heard nothing but the roar of her blood rushing through her body.

Nick. God. Of all the people who could have shown up in response to her call, why did it have to be him?

Oh, sure, she knew he was a cop, and that he worked and lived within twenty minutes or so of her house. But never in her wildest dreams had it occurred to her that when she called the police to report an abandoned baby, Nick would be the one who’d show up to respond.

Why would they send a narcotics detective? she wondered. And if they did send a narcotics detective, then why did it have to be the one who’d taken her virginity more than fifteen years ago?

Oh, come on, Claire, she immediately chastised herself. He didn’t exactly take your virginity, did he? You pretty much wrapped it up with a big bow and gave it to him.

She shoved the reminder away before it could become a memory, and forced herself to step backward into the house. Evidently needing no further invitation than that, Nick strode easily into the foyer, and she hastily closed the door behind him. She watched in silence—well, she was silent, anyway, even if the baby was still howling—as he shoved the hood back from his head and tugged off his gloves, his gaze never wavering from hers as he completed the actions. And she noted, too, that in the three years that had passed since she’d last seen him, Nick’s dark hair had begun to go a bit gray.