The Lawman's Yuletide Baby

“Gabe Cutler, what’s going on?” Susie kicked off her shoes and crossed to Corinne’s side as if magnetized by the sight of such a small baby. “Oh, have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” she whispered softly. “Mack, come see.”

Mack raised a questioning brow toward Gabe, then followed Susie. “It’s a baby, all right.”

Susie jabbed him with her elbow. “It’s an amazingly beautiful and wondrous gift from God,” she scolded, only half teasing. “And someone left her here, Gabe?”

He waited until Drew was inside, then shared the details.

“I’m not sure of any other particulars,” he said, “but it seems we have a situation on our hands.”

“Not a situation.” The baby fussed and didn’t burp, so Corinne stood and circled the room. She rubbed the tiny girl’s back and murmured soft and sweet encouragement. “She’s a baby, not a situation. There is a big difference.”

“A baby whose presence has caused a situation, then,” he acknowledged. Now what on earth was he going to do about it?

“Then Jessie is your cousin, Gabe?” Susie eyed the baby from her spot in the middle of the room, and he’d have to be blind to miss the look of longing in her gaze. She and Mack had been trying for years to have a baby, with no success.

“Well, kind of. Her mother is, so I guess she is, too.”

“She’s your first cousin once removed,” Corinne said softly. “If you have kids someday, she’d be their second cousin. Oh, there,” she crooned when the baby let forth a burp far too big for such a tiny child. “Good girl, doesn’t that feel so much better?”

The baby pulled her little head back and smiled a big, wide, toothless grin of agreement.

The entire room stood still.

“Oh, Gabe.” Susie looked over at him, then Mack. “She is so perfect.”

“And I expect she wants the rest of that bottle now,” Corinne supposed. “Susie, do you want to feed her?”

“May I?” She exchanged one of those feminine looks with Corinne, the kind men recognize but can never quite comprehend.

“It would be rude of me not to offer,” Corinne told her as she laid Adrianna’s daughter into Susie’s arms. “This way we both get our baby fix.”

Susie sank onto the couch and began feeding the baby.

“Well, it is a tough situation.” Drew didn’t mess around with semantics. “Gabe, she may have left the baby with you but not with your consent, so we’re still talking a possible case of child abandonment here. Except with Adrianna gone, the baby becomes a ward of the state, I believe.”

“Leaving her with her cousin isn’t the same as on a stranger’s doorstep.” Corinne didn’t hesitate to jump in, but then Drew was her brother-in-law. “She had the presence of mind to draw up legal papers countersigned by witnesses and a notary. I think she did way more than most desperate mothers might do under the circumstances. She had a contingency plan when things went bad and had her friend implement the plan, but the mother’s intent is clearly defined in these papers.” She held up the legal forms Gabe had retrieved from the diaper bag.

“There’s protocol, Corinne.”

“Drew. Darling.” She crossed the room and looped her arm through her brother-in-law’s and Gabe knew the chief of police didn’t stand a chance. “There is always protocol. And sometimes there are moments when protocol gets bested by common sense. Gabe’s cousin did one of the smartest things she could have done for her baby girl. She left her with a man who’ll see to her future as long as it takes.”

“He’ll what?” Gabe stared at her, dismayed. “You mean watch over whoever takes her, right?”

“Takes her?”

The disbelief in his neighbor’s eyes should have shamed him, but this wasn’t his fault. Adrianna should have known better. She knew his past. Corinne didn’t. “She can’t stay here, Corinne.”

“She can’t?”

Mack frowned when Susie tucked the baby closer to her chest. “What are you going to do with her, Gabe?”

Silence reigned.

Corinne stood less than ten feet away. Was she disappointed in him?

Well, join the club because he’d been disappointed in himself for years.

The uniformed officer cleared his throat and Drew withdrew his phone. “I can call Child Protective Services, Gabe. They’ll find a foster home for her. They’ve always got emergency placement homes lined up.”

Foster care.

It was a viable alternative. He could drop by and visit the baby, make sure everything was all right. It would give him time to think. Time to rationalize the irrationality of finding babies on doorsteps.

She cooed just then. She leaned back, away from the bottle, and when Gabe looked down, the soft coo of her voice tunneled him back twelve years.

Elise, nursing their baby girl, then Gracie pausing her meal to smile up at him. At her dad. At the man who pledged to keep her safe and sound, all of her days.

He couldn’t do this.

He crossed to the door, needing space, needing air, needing—

He barged through to the outside and hauled in a deep breath.

It wasn’t enough air, not nearly enough.

A wind gust brought a flutter of last leaves down around him, gold and red and orange and yellow, spiraling to the ground.

People around town spouted how they loved fall; the parade of colors; the crisp, cold nights; the sun-swept hills of tree-changing splendor.

They were stupid.

The change of colors signified one thing: loss of life. The leaf got one shot at being glorious before being trampled.

Dark thoughts ran through his head. He’d failed before, miserably. How could Adrianna think him good enough to look after such a prize? Such a perfectly wonderful tiny soul?

“Gabe.”

He turned.

Corinne stood in the doorway. She beckoned him in.

The cold wind picked up, tossing her hair over her shoulders, into her face.

She’d never understand.

Well, she won’t if you don’t give her a chance, his conscience reasoned. She might surprise you because people who’ve loved and lost are pretty empathetic.

He saw Drew beyond the window, his phone to his ear.