The Late Bloomer's Baby

“Just that you’d hear within six weeks,” Callie said. “But I did learn that some charities are offering immediate aid in smaller amounts. I’ll check that out tomorrow.”

“I need money right away,” Isabel said, her blue eyes wide. “I’ll have to hire an electrician, a plumber and a couple of carpenters. We can’t handle the more complicated repairs, and I’m already behind on Blumecrafts’ orders.”

“I know. This money is meant for toiletries and clothes.” Dropping into a chair with Luke in her arms, Callie added, “I also learned that you aren’t the only one who got caught without flood insurance, Izzy. I heard a FEMA guy say he figured that less than a hundred Augustans were covered.”

“But there are eight thousand people living here!”

Callie nodded, then smiled at her sister. “When I was waiting to turn in the paperwork, I got the strangest feeling. Everyone in the waiting area looked overworked, maybe a little lost. For once, I felt like one of them.”

“I guess if there’s an upside to this flood, it’s that we Blumes are just a part of the crowd,” Isabel said. “And of course that we get to spend time together. I miss having you around, Cal.”

Their reclusive mother hadn’t trusted school officials, and had taught Callie and her sisters at home from kindergarten through high school graduation. For the most part, she had kept them at home, isolated from a world she considered evil. They’d felt like three against the world. Sometimes, they still did.

“I miss you and Josie, too.” Callie studied her youngest sister’s colorful kitchen. “You’ll be okay with money, I think. I’ll help with the bigger expenses until your funds come through, and Josie can help you refinish the inside of the house without it costing too much. We’re lucky to have an interior designer as a sister.”

As Isabel nodded her agreement, a loud scream sounded from the bedroom. Both women winced, and Luke’s wiggles grew more vigorous. “I hope Josie doesn’t mind having kids in her apartment,” Isabel said. “Or us cramping her space.”

“She’ll get over it.”

Roger’s children raced into the kitchen, and Roger Junior interrupted the conversation to ask if he and his bird-brained sister could watch television. Then the children continued their squabbling in loud whispers that made Luke giggle.

Had the entire world become bad mannered, or only the people in Augusta? Callie caught her sister’s eye and shook her head. Then she glared at the kids until they quieted.

“Well, Isabel, as you were saying, I’m here now,” Callie said, hoping to send a clear message that interruptions would not be tolerated. “You can go on over to the house.”

After Isabel had disappeared into Josie’s bedroom to get ready, Callie narrowed her gaze at Roger Junior. “One hour of television. Nothing lewd or violent.”

She followed them into the living room, where they flopped onto the carpet in front of the TV. When Roger Junior got up to grab a bag of chips from the top of Josie’s refrigerator, Callie stopped him. “No snacks in the living room,” she said, and ignored his complaints.

She left Luke on the living-room floor and waited for her sister to appear from the bedroom. “Will Roger’s kids eat lunch here?” she asked as Isabel carried a box of plastic gloves and some bottled cleaners to the front door.

“Roger should arrive to get them any minute,” Isabel said. “If he doesn’t, there’s peanut butter in the pantry.”

After Isabel left, Callie latched a baby gate across the kitchen entrance, shut the bathroom and bedroom doors and tossed a soft ball on the floor for Luke to chase around.

“You kids help me keep the baby safe, would you?” she bellowed over the noise of some cartoon. “If you open this gate, close it behind you. Doors, too.”

Roger Junior pressed the mute button on the TV remote control and glanced up. “Sure, ma’am.”

Callie noticed the change. With Isabel gone, the boy had become more respectful. Callie would guess that he took his cues from his father.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes?”

“Are you really a doctor?”

Grateful for his belated show of manners, Callie smiled. “Yes. I’m not an M.D., though. I’m a research scientist.”

“You look at human brain cells in petri dishes?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

The boy stuck his thumb up between them and scrunched his entire face into a smile. “Call me R.J.,” he said before he turned up the sound and returned his attention to the cartoon.

Callie chuckled, suspecting she’d just been given a supreme compliment.

“Can I pway wif your baby?” Angie asked.

Callie showed her how to roll the ball to Luke, and kept watching until all three kids were occupied. Then she climbed over the baby gate to search Luke’s diaper bag for a bottle.

Someone rang the doorbell. Must be the kids’ dad. Callie decided she’d offer to babysit for a while longer so Roger could hightail it to the house to help his girlfriend.

“R.J., answer the door, please,” she hollered, as she crossed to the kitchen sink to fill the bottle with water. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

Callie heard the door open, then an extended silence. She poked her head around the corner just in time to watch a tall, dark-haired man close the door behind himself.

But it wasn’t Roger.

It was Ethan.

The only man Callie had ever loved or trusted, and the only man who could hurt her.

Then. Now.

Forever.

Lord. In all the commotion, she’d forgotten her all-important plan. She wasn’t supposed to answer doorbells when she and Luke were alone. She should have thought harder about who might be standing on the other side of that door.

Luke sat facing the front door and smiling with the golden-brown eyes and dimpled cheeks that made him the spitting image of his daddy.

Rethinking her plan wasn’t an option. Callie barely remembered to keep her legs under her body. She propped a hand against the baby gate and watched as Ethan surveyed the children sprawled around Josie’s living room.

Did his eyes linger when they passed over his son, or was that Callie’s imagination?

Ethan’s gaze sailed across the space to meet hers. “Hello, Callie,” he said. As he stepped farther into the room, his eyes darkened to a serious brown.

He’d reacted to seeing her, not the baby, she realized.

Lucky thing. Callie’s secret was safe for the moment.

Still, her pulse pounded so furiously in her ears that she had the crazy notion Ethan could hear it, too. Her throat was dry, and her muscles were wobbly.

She needed to sit down.

No, she needed to grab her baby and make a run for it. But Luke was very near his father, which would mean that Callie would have to dash right past Ethan on her way out.

Right past the solid chest that had caught a million of her tears. Right past those muscular arms, and that passionate mouth.