The Late Bloomer's Baby Read online

  She stalled for time by checking Luke’s diaper, and when she glanced up she almost groaned at the gleam in Ethan’s eye. He was watching her in that way. She had to do something, fast.

  She’d pick a fight, but keep it low-key. She didn’t want to upset Luke again or draw the older kids’ attention away from the television—which, she realized in that instant, was silent.

  Callie glanced toward the living room. Roger’s kids were standing just beyond the sofa, gawking at her and Ethan. Had the hushed adult conversation caught their attention, or were the children expecting a fight? Whichever it was, apparently she and Ethan were more interesting than the latest hit Japanese cartoon.

  Smiling at Angie, Callie said, “Josie has Popsicle treats. Want one?” Without waiting for an answer, she opened the freezer and pulled out two red ones—she had neither the energy nor the wits to referee a brawl right now—then she hurdled the gate and strode past Ethan to hand them to the kids. “Eat in here,” she commanded. “And watch anything you want on TV.”

  The markedly confused kids plunked down in their previous places, clicked the television on again and peeled the paper from their treats.

  Callie reclaimed her spot on the kitchen side of the gate. “Go away, Ethan. We have too much bad history. Your being here would…” Her voice trailed off when she noted her husband’s scowl.

  He stepped over the gate, rushed past Callie and caught the diaper bag just before Luke pulled it onto his head. “You have to watch babies this age,” Ethan said as he set the bag in the middle of the table. “Some of my friends have them, and they can get into a lot of trouble.”

  Another calamity averted, by quick-moving Ethan. Callie wasn’t usually so slow, except she was distracted. By Ethan, darn him. After crossing the kitchen, Callie stuck her hand in the diaper bag. She located Luke’s favorite plastic blocks and tossed them onto the kitchen floor.

  Luke ignored them, choosing instead to grasp the knees of Ethan’s jeans to pull himself up. The little devil stood on sturdy legs, opened his mouth, looked at Callie and said, “Mum-mum.”

  Not Mama exactly, but almost.

  Callie opened the freezer door and grabbed another red Popsicle. She unwrapped it and handed it to Luke, who plopped his well-padded bottom onto the floor to examine this new kind of food.

  As her little boy began to create a colossal mess on his face, hands and clothes, Callie returned her attention to Ethan. “As I was saying, we can’t be around each other.”

  “I think we’d do all right.”

  Callie shook her head. “The flood put my sister’s life in turmoil. Our bickering would make things worse. Just go.”

  “I have no intention of fighting with you, Callie.”

  “Believe me, we’d fight.” Callie caught a motion out of the corner of her eye and looked down.

  Luke was banging his goopy snack against Ethan’s shoe.

  Ethan looked, too, but he didn’t react. “Are you still that upset with me?” he asked, and offered Callie one charming dimple.

  She sighed. Her feelings for Ethan were overwhelming, especially with him just inches away, gazing at her through eyes that warmed her faster than any form of external heat.

  But anger was still somewhere in the mix.

  She nodded.

  Ethan eased his foot away from Luke. “Will you be in Kansas for a while or do you have to get back to your job?”

  “I took a leave of absence.”

  “You did?”

  “Josie and I are all the family Isabel has, Ethan. I’m not so detached that I’d stay in Denver while she’s going through something like this.”

  He nodded. “All right. Then I’ll concede for now,” he said. “I’ll try Isabel’s house again. I want to at least offer her my best wishes.”

  Callie hesitated. If Ethan went to the house alone, Isabel would refuse to talk to him. She’d follow the plan.

  But if Ethan mentioned that he’d been inside Josie’s apartment—that he’d spoken to Callie or watched the children playing—Isabel might not know how to react.

  Callie stood up straighter, as if to add oomph to her words by speaking them from a higher plane. “She’s probably at the house by now, but she’s working hard. Let’s not disturb her.”

  Ethan pulled paper towels from Josie’s countertop holder and wiped red slush from his shoe. “If she’s busy I’ll stay only a minute.”

  Callie extended her open palm. After Ethan had deposited the towel there, she held his gaze and tried to look stern. “You can’t go to the house.”

  “Sure I can.”

  “Ethaa-nn!”

  “Callie!”

  She broke the stare and walked toward the sink, intending to toss the towel into Josie’s wastebasket. On the way, she stepped in one of Luke’s slush puddles, slid on one foot and almost landed on her bottom. She gripped the counter and turned to glower at Ethan, whose expression held a glint of laughter.

  She could slap him silly.

  Or kiss him.

  Lord. How could she even think that? She should have learned her lesson when Ethan had left her.

  She had learned her lesson.

  Apparently, recognizing the wrongness of something didn’t stop her from wanting it. But she could resist. Ella Blume had raised strong daughters. And smart ones. Callie could handle this.

  Wiping her sneaker with the same paper towel Ethan had used, she scrambled to think of some indisputable reason for him to return to Wichita without seeing her sister.

  He spoke first. “Look at the bright side. This way, you won’t have to deal with me a minute longer. But you and I should talk before you head back to Colorado.”

  She tossed the towel on the counter and eyed him. “About what?”

  “The marriage,” he said, his face impassive. “We are still married.”

  Yes, they were. If Callie didn’t have an irresistibly cute, diaper-clad reason for shying away from legal proceedings, she would have divorced Ethan a long time ago. But she’d never wanted to draw his attention to her life. She’d done some checking soon after Luke’s birth, and had learned that a discussion of children showed up on most divorce documents. A couple either had minor children or didn’t, and filed papers accordingly.

  Even if she’d lied, stating that she and Ethan had no children, she’d feared that Ethan would show up in Denver for one last talk and get the surprise of his life. Now Callie resisted an urge to check on Luke, who had crawled beyond the table and chairs where she couldn’t see him.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t file for divorce,” Ethan said.

  Callie shrugged. She’d had nightmares about this day. She’d blocked reality, hoping that Ethan would follow in her father’s footsteps and disappear, still legally married but uninterested in active participation. While that might have been a pipe dream, it had worked for her mother. It had worked for Callie for almost two years.

  Why not forever?

  Ethan jangled his keys in his pocket and stepped over the baby gate. Callie couldn’t let him go to the house alone. With Isabel’s phone out of commission, she couldn’t even call to warn her sister about the slight change in plans.

  “I’ll go with you,” Callie said, searching the kitchen floor for Luke.

  “Wouldn’t that defeat your goal?” Ethan said. “I thought you wanted me out of your way.”

  She wanted him to leave without discussing a divorce, and if she spent much time in his company she feared the subject would come up.

  She ignored his comment. “Give me a minute to change the baby,” she said. Then she grabbed sticky Luke from beside the microwave stand and the diaper bag from the table, and vaulted past Ethan. She turned off the television on her way to the bathroom.

  “Kids, finish the Popsicle treats. We’re going to Isabel’s.”

  “Dad says her place isn’t safe,” R.J. said as he scrambled to his feet.

  Callie stepped into the bathroom and opened both sink taps. “You’ll be fine,”
she hollered as she soaked a wash-rag and cleaned Luke’s face. “The floodwater has been pumped out. Just avoid anything that looks dangerous.”

  “Can your baby go?” Angie called out. “Daddy says the water was combob-ulated!”

  “That’s contaminated, birdbrain,” R.J. said.

  But it was Angie’s little-girl sweet voice that reverberated in Callie’s mind.

  Your baby, she’d said.

  Not the baby.

  Callie cringed, then carried Luke into the hallway to gauge Ethan’s reaction. He was standing by the front door, checking his wallet. He didn’t appear to have heard, thank heaven.

  “Don’t worry about the baby,” Callie said to Angie. “And don’t worry about your safety. I’ll protect all of you.”

  Roger’s kids gave her funny looks, but she ignored them and returned to the bathroom to finish getting Luke ready. Their opinions about her sanity meant very little.

  Ethan’s continued cluelessness was paramount.

  AS HE DROVE TOWARD the old Blume house, Ethan felt a hollowness in his gut. Officials were still speculating about why the levee had failed. Even if engineers determined a cause, affected folks would probably always fear heavy rains. Or they’d move to higher ground.

  The neighborhood of small row houses at the southernmost tip of Augusta had been hit hard. Tall piles of ruined furniture lined the curbs and smaller pieces of garbage had drifted everywhere. Limbs and soggy papers dotted driveways and lawns, old tires rested on budding bushes, and some kid’s plastic play gym adorned the middle of an elaborate garden. The upturned slide matched the color of the jonquils blooming at the garden’s edge.

  Those bright little beacons of hope couldn’t be cheerful enough. A lot of people had a lot of work to do. Some would have to start over entirely.

  It was just as bizarre to travel the few miles out of town with Callie trailing him like a bloodhound on the scent of a fugitive. His normally cautious wife had already run one red light in her effort to keep up with him, and her eyes were glued to his car’s bumper.

  She was acting very strange.

  Maybe she was as affected as he was by the reunion. Sweet mercy, she was beautiful. Her long blond hair had always been pretty, but today it looked thicker. Her boyishly thin body had filled out, too. He’d always admired her legs, but the added curves made her almost too powerfully feminine.

  He’d always suspected that she’d be a late bloomer.

  He wondered if she had someone to confide in these days—someone other than her sisters, who held many of the same distorted beliefs that she did.

  Callie was brilliant in every way but socially. She might help find a cure for cancer someday, but she couldn’t see that her mother had been wrong to bundle all men together and toss them out like last week’s newspaper.

  Ethan had rescued Callie, once. He’d pulled her away from her mother’s erroneous teachings and into life. He’d relished his protective role until the stresses of energy-zapping careers, Ella’s death and carefully timed love-making had torn them apart.

  During that last year, they’d hardly been friends.

  The separation had probably convinced Callie that her mother had been right all along, but Ethan couldn’t worry about that any longer. His days of proving his devotion to Callie were finished.

  He’d come to Augusta to check on Isabel, just as he’d said, but he’d known all along that he intended to speak to Callie if he saw her. He’d had divorce papers ready for over three months, ever since his first date with his chief’s niece last New Year’s Eve.

  Dating LeeAnn felt wrong since he wasn’t legally free, but he’d hated the idea of sending the papers to Callie by courier. He’d made plans to fly to Denver several times, but something had always come up. On one of his free weekends, LeeAnn had invited him to her mother’s birthday celebration. Another time he’d been called in off-duty to help locate a four-year-old girl who had vanished from her grandmother’s backyard. Often the end of his shift didn’t correspond with the end of his call-out, and he used his off hours to recuperate.

  Maybe he’d avoided the task for other reasons. After loving a woman like Callie, dating again was difficult. But it was time to move on and he knew it.

  Ethan would talk to Callie long enough to assure himself of her well-being, then he’d tell her about the papers and make arrangements for the two of them to meet with his lawyer. He’d pay for the whole shebang, and if she asked for anything he’d be generous. Callie had nothing to lose, and LeeAnn would be pleased.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror, ensuring that Callie was still behind him as he drove up to the house.

  Set back from the road about thirty yards, the old Blume homestead was surrounded by lush trees and bushes. Ella had cherished her privacy. Today, the house also sported a lonely pile of discards near the ditch. A floral sofa rested atop a mattress, which was piled on top of quite a few other ruined items. Ethan could imagine the destruction inside. Isabel must be very shaken.

  After unfastening his seat belt, Ethan pulled his checkbook from the glove box. He could at least offer Callie’s sister some financial help. Since he wouldn’t need to fly to Denver to talk to Callie about the divorce, he could put that money to better use.

  Two car doors slammed, then Ethan watched the two older children emerge from Callie’s car and race toward the house. Callie followed, lugging the youngest boy and the diaper bag.

  Ethan opened the door, stepped out and slipped the checkbook into a hip pocket. It hurt to see how easily Callie balanced the smallest child on her hip. She’d wanted children—she’d ached for them. Babysitting must be tough for her.

  Callie didn’t glance backward at the sound of his car door slamming, and she appeared to be in an awful hurry. She opened the storm door and the inside door for the kids, followed them inside and closed the doors behind her.

  Ethan stopped in the drive. Boorish behavior was Callie’s biggest pet peeve. Perhaps she’d forgotten he was right behind her and planning to come inside.

  Or maybe she didn’t want to see him.

  He stepped onto the porch and knocked on the storm door. Callie couldn’t have gone far. If she didn’t answer, he was prepared to let himself in. Hell, he’d bust the door down if necessary. And he wouldn’t leave until he learned why his normally cool wife was acting crazy. In the past, she’d lost her composure only when they were arguing.

  Or when they were in bed.

  The memory sent a rush of want through his body, and left him standing on Isabel’s porch feeling half-turned-on.

  Sweet mercy. He couldn’t think about Callie that way.

  He opened the storm door and scanned the interior door for weak places to bust through. Before he could knock, however, Isabel answered. Her hair had fallen from a bun and she wore a stained sweatshirt.

  After they’d greeted each other, she stood smiling at him, but she didn’t come out and she kept her body wedged in the narrow crack.

  He wasn’t surprised. Apparently, Callie’s sisters thought she needed their protection. “You’re not going to ask me in, are you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  He pulled out his checkbook. “I’m going to help someone in this town, even if it’s just to donate money. I’d prefer it if that someone was you.”

  “Oh.” Isabel blinked. “You don’t have to give me money, Ethan. I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s your choice,” he said. “I’ll donate three hundred bucks to you personally, or I’ll let the Salvation Army distribute it however they see fit.”

  “Oh. Well, great. I’m sure they can use the help. Thanks.” Isabel smiled.

  “I’d rather help someone I know,” he said. “And if you take my money, I’ll get some of my work buddies to help with a larger donation for charity.”

  Isabel still seemed unconvinced, so he raised his eyebrows and pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “A few hundred dollars might replace that sofa out there.”

  She sighed heavily. �
��All right.”

  “I need a pen.” Ethan had a pen, but he hoped this latest ploy would get him past the door.

  “Just a minute.” When Isabel shut the door in his face, Ethan realized she intended to find a pen and bring it out. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. When he heard murmurs overhead, he realized that Callie and the kids must be hiding in Isabel’s attic storeroom.

  That was fine. Strange, but fine. They wouldn’t stay up there long. Callie wouldn’t want the children to be frightened in the dark, stuffy space.

  As he waited for Isabel, Ethan wandered into the living room. It was devoid of furniture, the carpeting had been stripped and the walls showed a dingy line of discoloration from the water. The wet wallboard would need to be replaced. The insulation, too.

  When Isabel returned, she acted surprised to discover him inside. “Oh! Ethan, you’re in here,” she said in a loud voice that bounced off the bare walls.

  He’d been announced, and he didn’t care. He frowned at Isabel and waved a hand at the room’s mess. “I’m sorry about all this, Izzy.”

  “It’s hard to look at, isn’t it? Anything below three feet was ruined by the water, including every single thing in the basement. Mom’s old textbooks, the boxes of Christmas things.” She smiled sadly. “Remember that old cedar chest?”

  Yes, he did. Ella had refused to tell Callie and her sisters about the old piece, so they believed it had belonged to their father. “Sure I do,” he said.

  Isabel shrugged. “It came unglued. The pieces floated everywhere.”

  Ethan took her hand briefly, offering a consoling squeeze. “Save the pieces,” he said. “It could probably be repaired.”

  She offered him the pen. “Maybe.”

  As he wrote, he asked, “What are you working on now?”

  Isabel sighed. “We’re ready to tear out the wallboard and hire a crew to replace it.”

  At least she was on the right track. “You have people helping you, then?”

  “I have plenty of help.”

  Isabel shot a glance at the ceiling, and Ethan knew Callie was behind her odd behavior. The Blume sisters stuck together no matter what. If he wanted to talk to Callie, he was going to have to entice her from the attic. Isabel wasn’t likely to help.