Custody for Two

“She knew she could count on me,” Dylan insisted.

“Yes, she knew that, but she also realized you’d sacrificed for her for eight years. Eight years you put your dreams aside for her. She knew how much being a wildlife photographer meant to you.”

“Not as much as she did,” he protested quickly.

“You proved that,” Shaye reassured him. “You stayed here and worked on the paper when all you wanted to do was to catch a plane to someplace exotic.”

His green eyes became piercing in their intensity. “You seem to know a lot about me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s an uncomfortable feeling when I don’t know you. Have you had experience taking care of kids?”

“In my job I sometimes have to. But besides that— My mother died when I was ten. I had brothers who were eight and five. My father, a cardiologist, was gone a lot, so I had to take care of them.”

“On your own?”

“No, he hired a housekeeper, but she didn’t tell bedtime stories or know where they left their favorite toy. She didn’t take the time to make peanut butter and marshmallow crackers or help them build a clubhouse.”

“You were a sister and a mother hen?” Dylan asked perceptively.

“Sometimes that boundary blurred. I’m not so sure my brothers didn’t resent it as much as appreciate it.”

Dylan looked across the room out the window, as if trying to see into the past—perhaps the years in foster care…the years when Julia was his life…the years when he pursued his vocation. “I never tried to be a father to Julia. We were brother and sister and that was the only bond we needed. At least, I thought so.”

Now she could see he was thinking about Timmy and maybe wondering exactly why Julia had asked her to be guardian rather than him. She had explained, but maybe that explanation hadn’t been enough.

Footsteps sounded outside the waiting room and Dr. Carrera stepped inside. “We’ve got Timmy stabilized again and we’re monitoring him closely. I think it would be better for you and him if you just give us some time here. Take a break. Get something to eat or take a walk.”

“What if something happens?” She’d been staying close, hoping in some way that would help.

“I have your cell phone number,” the physician said kindly.

“You have mine, too,” Dylan interjected gruffly. “I left it with the nurses at the desk.”

The doctor looked from one of them to the other. “Legally, I know Shaye is the guardian, but I realize, Mr. Malloy, you are the blood relative. Is there something I should know about?”

When Dylan moved, he did so agilely, like one of the beautiful animals he photographed. A male tiger came to Shaye’s mind.

Standing beside the doctor now, Dylan shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “I found out about Julia on Sunday. I didn’t even have time to shower or change before I left Tasmania, and I didn’t sleep on the plane. I haven’t had a chance to absorb the fact that I don’t have a sister anymore, let alone the surprise that she wanted Shaye to be the baby’s parent. Shaye and I need time to talk.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “How about a walk outside?”

Most men would probably have asked her to share a cup of coffee either in the hospital cafeteria or in the family restaurant across the street. But not Dylan Malloy. He wanted to take a walk on a cold February evening in Wyoming. Her royal blue parka hung on an old-fashioned brass coatrack in the corner. A leather bomber jacket hung there, too, and she assumed it was Dylan’s.

Dylan’s gaze passed over her cranberry blouse and her navy slacks as well as her black shoelike boots.

“Do you mind going for a walk?” he asked her. “I suppose we could stay here and talk.”

She’d seen nothing but the confines of the hospital for the past two days. Even last night she’d curled up on the couch to get some sleep. She needed the cold to clear her head as much as he did.

Standing, she went to the rack for her parka. “I could use some fresh air.”

“If anything else occurs, I have your numbers,” the neonatologist said diplomatically, and disappeared down the hall.

Neither of them spoke as they walked to the elevator. Dylan pressed the button. Shaye wrapped her scarf around her neck then pulled her hair from under it. Reaching into her pocket, she found her knit hat and pulled it onto her head.

When they stepped into the elevator, she could feel Dylan’s gaze on her and she realized her whole body was responding to it…to him. She was warmer than she should have been and she attributed that to nerves, anxiety about Timmy and everything else that had happened. Certainly a man couldn’t make her warmer just by looking at her. That had never happened with Chad, although she’d considered herself in love with him. She’d thought he was madly in love with her. She’d been wrong. Yes, she’d loved him, but apparently Chad had seen her as convenient and disposable.

Why was she thinking about that now when there were so many other things to think about…so many things to feel? Whenever she stopped thinking, she started feeling. Missing Julia, realizing Timmy would never know his real mother, made her sick inside.

Aware of the bulk of Dylan beside her, she felt awkwardly self-conscious. She usually knew what to say and how to say it. Why not now? Because the stakes were so high and involved her becoming a mother? Because the grief they shared could form a bond neither of them might want?

In the lobby, she pulled on tan leather gloves.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Hiking is a habit for me. It’s the way I catch the right photograph, the way I solve a problem or find an answer.”

She couldn’t keep her gaze from passing over the thick hair that fell across his forehead and shagged over his collar. His hands were bare though he did wear rugged-looking shoes. “Aren’t you going to be cold? It will soon be dark and there’s a wind.”

“I don’t think a stroll around the hospital will do me in.”

According to his sister, this man had climbed a glacier to get a particular shot. Her worry for him was unwarranted. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

He held up a hand to stay her words…as an apology for his sharpness.

Looking into his very green eyes, she saw his anguish over Julia as well as Timmy. “It’s okay. Come on.”

They headed for the door.

Nestled at the foot of the Painted Peak Mountains, Wild Horse Junction had been born in the eighteen hundreds and some of the original buildings had survived. The town was a mixture of old-fashioned and modern, classic and contemporary—from Clementine’s, the saloon turned honky-tonk and now modern day bar and grill, to a saddle shop, trading post, discount store and modern hospital. Wild Horse had a little bit of everything.

Thank goodness Wild Horse Junction’s St. Luke’s Hospital had a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The unit was only three years old. A few years ago, a celebrity who spent summers on her ranch in Cody had been passing through Wild Horse Junction when she’d gone into premature labor. There had been complications, but the obstetrician at St. Luke’s had saved both the actress and her baby. To show her gratitude she had endowed the hospital with a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Although Wild Horse Junction was still basically a small town, it had become a center in Wyoming for babies born at risk.

Shaye’d thought about leaving Wild Horse once. She would have had to, to follow Chad. But she hadn’t really wanted to. Her family was here. Her good friends, Gwen and Kylie, whom she’d known since grade school, were still here. During tourist season, all kinds of people came and went, and she found them interesting and exciting. Yet most of them left and she stayed. That was the way she liked it.

Unlike Dylan Malloy.

Julia had told her how he’d dreamed of getting away from the time he was a small child, from the time his father had bought him his first camera.

“A walk around the hospital or across the street to the park?” Dylan asked as they exited the building.

“To the park.”

Wild Horse Junction’s park was an unusual one. The town had been named for the wild mustangs that used to roam the Painted Peaks but now mostly lived in the Big Horn Mountains about an hour away. Bronze sculptures of the beautiful animals had been added to the park since the early nineteen hundreds. Black wrought-iron benches were plentiful and every spring the city council made sure they were refurbished and kept in good shape for the residents come summer.

She could imagine bringing Timmy here, walking him in a stroller. When he grew older, she could see him playing on the swings at the south end of the park. During the past two days she’d purposely created pictures in her head of the future, believing they’d come true. The pictures eased her loss and kept her away from the truth that she’d never see Julia or Will Grayson again. Her eyes burned from the tears she’d shed and she almost wished she could go numb instead of having to deal with the depths of loss.

Traffic was sporadic as she and Dylan stood at an intersection to cross the street. They’d just stepped off the curb when an SUV suddenly rounded the corner and sped by them. Dylan reached for Shaye’s elbow, holding it protectively to let her know when it was safe to cross. Unlikely as the sensation was, she seemed to feel the heat from his long fingers and his large hand through the down of her jacket.

As if he sensed something, too, he looked at her, and even though the night was turning dark and shadowy, she caught an awareness on his face…some kind of current between them.

Flustered, she hurried with him across the street, his long strides making her quicken hers. As they entered the park’s winding stone-covered path, snow began to fall lightly. Shaye lifted her face and the feel of the flakes somehow seemed to cleanse her of the chaos of the past few days.