Three ten-year-old boys faced Annie by the couch where she sat holding Lily. They shifted from one foot to the other, and tugged on their shirt collars. Annie smiled at their nervousness.
“You gonna always dress her in pink?” Tommy asked.
“She’s a girl, dummy,” José put in. “They always put girls in pink.”
“She has a lot of different clothes.” Annie ruffled José’s hair. “What do you think of her?”
“Kinda red.”
“And little.”
“I think she’s beautiful,” Zach said from behind them. “Okay guys, here’s some cookies and milk. Dig in.”
“You her daddy,” José told Zach. “You gotta think she’s beautiful.”
Sam, who’d said very little, munched his cookies, then nailed Zach with a very adult look. “What’s her last name?”
A muscle pulsed in Zach’s throat. “Montgomery-Sloan.”
“You and Annie? You still ain’t married?” the little boy asked.
José kicked Sam.
“I was just askin’.”
“It’s all right, José.” Annie turned to Sam. “No, we’re not married yet, Sam.”
“How come?”
“For a lot of complicated reasons.”
Sam looked at Zach. “Parents should be married, don’t ya think, Zach?”
Zach nodded. “Yes, I do think parents should be married. Sometimes, it’s not always possible, but it’s the right way to do things.” His words were glib, but Annie detected the underlying edge to them. “However, I think this conversation is tiring Annie. I’m going to help her upstairs, then the four of us can talk some more about this, if you want.”
After hugs from the guys, Annie went to the bedroom with Lily. She dozed, then fed the baby while Zach took the boys home. He returned just after Lily had finished her lunch.
“Thanks for bringing the boys here,” Annie told Zach when he came into the bedroom.
He gave her a weak smile.
“And thanks for your comments. It’s important for them to know—”
“Shh,” he said sincerely. “Let’s not get into this. Now’s not the time.” He lay down opposite her while Lily slept peacefully between them. Smells of baby powder and milk wafted around them.
Zach outlined Lily’s small fingers with one of his. “She’s so tiny.”
“Seven pounds is big for a baby who’s four weeks early.”
“Yeah, well, she practically fits in my two hands.”
Smiling, Annie reached over and ran her knuckles over his jaw. “You need a shave.”
“I haven’t had time to shower yet today. I’d forgotten how much care a baby demands.”
Annie yawned. “How many times were we up last night?”
“Four.”
“You didn’t have to get up with me every time.”
“I wanted to. I’m going to give her a bottle tonight, right, so you can sleep through one of the feedings?”
“Yes. But you sleep through one, too. No sense in us both getting worn-out.”
“It’s a deal.”
Zach stood and stretched, the long lines of his body clothed in a rumpled denim shirt and jeans. Leaning over, he gently took Lily off the bed. She didn’t wake as he cuddled her to his chest, then placed her in the bassinet in the corner of the room. Annie was struck again at how experienced he was at caring for an infant. He came back to sit on the bed. “I’ve got to make a few calls.”
“Where?”
“For one, to work.”
“How are they doing without you?”
“Fine. Devon’s shown a lot of initiative during this whole thing.”
“You can go into the office if you want. I can call my mother, or yours.”
“No. We both wanted this whole week alone, with no one else staying here.” He placed a kiss on her shoulder. “You’ve already had too many visitors.”
“I know. But we couldn’t turn our family away.”
“Or the boys.”
She said, “Les didn’t look good last night, did he?”
Zach’s shoulders tensed. “No.”
“Anything new with the case?”
“Not that I know of.” Zach pulled down the bedcovers, then tugged at her arm. “Come on. You don’t need to concern yourself with the case right now. You should take a nap while Lily does.”
“I have to feed her again in two hours,” Annie said, climbing under the blankets.
“Greedy little sucker, isn’t she?”
Annie smiled, settling into the pillow. She grasped Zach’s hand before he could leave and kissed it. She was still as overcome by her feelings for this man as she’d been since she went into labor. “Will you sleep with me after your shower and calls?”
Leaning over, he brushed her closed eyes with his lips. “I’ll sleep with you for the rest of my life, love.”
She thought he’d left, but when she heard a rustle, she opened her eyes. Zach was at the bassinet, staring down at the baby. The profound, tender look on his face affected Annie deeply.
She’d have to think about Sam’s comment when she woke up.
o0o
At six o’clock the next morning, Annie found Zach stretched out on the couch, Lily clasped to his naked chest. He’d been with the baby the whole night. When Lily wouldn’t settle after her 2 o’clock feeding, Zach had gotten up and walked her while Annie slept. He’d never come back to bed. The sight of them now flooded her with love for them both. She sat down in the rocker and watched him.
He’d been a wonder with the baby...
Her navel’s fine, Annie, it’s supposed to be this red...yes, she’s warm enough, but if you swaddle her like this, she can’t flail her arms and scare herself...It’s okay to give her one bottle a day, it’s good for her, actually...You’re just tired, honey...That’s why you’re crying...Get some sleep and I’ll listen for her...
To Annie, his expertise was a godsend, though it made her sad because it proved once again how much of a caregiver he’d been to his brothers and sisters. Knowing now what it took to deal with an infant, Zach’s childhood seemed even more unfair.
Lily stirred and raised her head. Annie jumped up and went to the couch before the baby could wake Zach.
But it was too late. His hands gripped Lily, making her squall.
“It’s all right, I’ve got her, Zach.”
Sleepy-eyed, rumpled, he stared at Annie. His beloved blue eyes were muddy with fatigue. Sinking back down, he buried his face in the pillows.
“Why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll take over.”
“No,” he mumbled groggily. “I’m fine.”
She smiled. He fell back to sleep in seconds, now that he knew Lily was all right.
Back on the rocker, as Lily suckled noisily, Annie stared at her ex-husband. When had she become convinced she was ready to marry him again?
“When, Lily?” she whispered to the baby. “When Daddy got us through the delivery? When he cried when he saw you? When he walked with you all last night so I could sleep?” A thousand images of Zach whirled through her brain.
Smiling, she raised Lily to burp her. “Shall we tell him when he wakes up, sweetheart?” she whispered to her daughter. “Tell him it’s time to make us legally his?”
o0o
Zach woke feeling fuzzy and disoriented. He was on the living-room couch, and the December sun filtered through the window. He glanced at the old clock over the fireplace. Noon. Dragging himself off the sofa, he headed up the stairs. At Lily’s doorway, he stopped to check on her. They’d put the baby’s bassinet in her own room, hoping she might sleep better. Right now, she nestled in the crib, sleeping like an angel.
Yeah, some angel, Zach thought, smiling to himself.
The smile died when he entered Annie’s room. She was lying in bed—covered with sweat. Her cheeks were red and her breathing shallow.
Kneeling beside her, he asked, “Sweetheart, what is it?”
She looked at him with too-bright eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t feel well. Since about ten o’clock.”
He touched her forehead. It was alarmingly hot. Without a word, he went to the bathroom and returned with a thermometer.
By then, she was shaking with chills. “Here.” He stuck the thermometer into her mouth and held her hand while they waited for the beep.
“What is it?”
“High.”
“What?”
“A hundred and three.”
Annie’s eyes widened.
He said, “I’m calling Kathryn.”
It took ten minutes to get through to the midwife. “Give her Tylenol and sponge her down,” she told him.
“What’s causing this?”
“Ask her if her breasts hurt anywhere.”
“Do your breasts hurt?”
Annie nodded.
“Check it, Zach.”
Gently, Zach tugged at the delicate buttons on Annie’s nursing gown. “There’s a big red spot on her left breast,” he said into the phone.
“See if it’s lumpy.”
Annie moaned when he touched it.
“Yes.”
“It’s probably a clogged milk duct.”
He told Annie, “A clogged milk duct.” He said to Kathryn, “Is it serious?”
“Not if it’s taken care of. Now, here’s what you do...”
When Zach hung up the phone, he gave Annie some Tylenol and bathed her in tepid water. It made her shiver. Then he got the heating pad and helped her adjust it over the sore area.
All the while, Annie moaned. “Soon, sweetheart, the Tylenol will take effect soon.”
She began to sweat again. Purposefully, he quelled the panic rising inside him. He mopped her forehead and murmured nonsense words to her.
He was going for more water for a second sponge bath, when Lily started to cry. He got the baby and brought her to Annie.
“Here, sweetheart, try to feed her. Kathryn said it will help clear the duct, the more Lily eats.”
Annie slid down on the mattress while Zach placed the baby on the bed. Lily nursed vigorously—while Annie perspired and closed her eyes—to block the pain, he guessed. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to be calm.
When Lily was done, Zach changed her, then put her in the crib.
She screamed.
Picking her up again, he came back to the bedroom. The heating pad had slipped from Annie’s breast and Kathryn had said heat was crucial to unclog the duct. Zach sat down, replaced the pad with one hand, holding the baby with the other. As soon as he sat, Lily began to squall again.
Zach looked around, his heart beating fast in his chest.
He had to bathe Annie again.
He had to make sure she kept the heating pad on.
Lily continued to scream.
“Damn,” he said.
Spying the phone, he grabbed it to call Sonya. When the machine picked up, he left a brief message, then he hung up and dialed his mother.
“Hello.”
Lily drowned out his answer.
“Pa, it’s Zach,” he repeated. “Is Ma there?”
John snorted. “No, she went to see a psychic with Sonya.”
“Oh, hell.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Annie’s sick and Lily’s screaming her head off.”
He transferred the baby to his other shoulder and patted her back.
“I have to do some things for Annie...”
“I’ll be right there.”
Forty-five minutes later, Annie’s temperature had climbed to a hundred and four. But at least Lily was quiet—somewhere downstairs with his father. Clutching the phone in one hand, Zach kept the heating pad on Annie’s breast as he dialed Kathryn again.
“If it reaches a hundred and five you’ll have to come to emergency,” Kathryn told him. “They’ll put Annie on a cooling blanket. Keep close tabs on her temperature.”
Swallowing hard, Zach resumed his ministrations.
At three o’clock, her temperature was still a hundred and four.
At four o’clock, it had gone down to a hundred and three again.
She fed Lily, and John Sloan whisked the baby away.
At 6:00 p.m., Annie’s fever finally broke.
Zach practically wept with relief. After helping her into a clean nightgown, and changing the sheets, he settled her back to bed. Then he went downstairs.
His father rocked Lily and talked to her. “And someday, I’ll take you fishin’. Your daddy loved to fish. You’ll like it, too.”
Drained, Zach stumbled into the living room and collapsed on the sofa. John held his finger to his mouth, as he got up and brought the baby to the smaller crib situated in the corner of the room. Gently, he placed Lily face up, then rubbed her stomach when she stirred.
“You’re pretty good at that,” Zach said.
“Yeah. I guess it’s like riding a bike. You never forget.”
He studied his son. “Annie better?”
“Uh-huh. Her fever broke.” Zach stared at his father. “I was scared, Pa.”
“A man gets scared when he thinks something might happen to the woman he loves.”
Suddenly, Martin Mann’s leering face flashed before him.
“You take care of Annie real good, son,” John said.
How’s Annie’s car?
The front door opened. “Zach, Annie, it’s me,” Sonya called from the foyer.
Just in the nick of time. Now that her mother could take care of Annie, Zach had something very important to do. He would wait no longer.
o0o
The Corrigan House was dark when Zach drove up to it. Since the den was in the back, he exited the car and took the small walkway around to the rear of the property. Sure enough, one dim lamp burned in Les’s favorite room.
Zach rang the back doorbell. No one answered. When he tried the knob, it turned easily. A very bright moon helped him find his way to the den doorway.
Les was sitting on his recliner, both hands gripping a bottle of liquor. A fire had burned down, its dying embers adding to the gloom instead of making the room cozy. Les stared at a far wall. Tracking his gaze, Zach saw the memorabilia covering an expanse of about fifteen feet of wall space. Though he couldn’t see the individual pieces clearly, he knew there were golf trophies, plaques honoring Les as a civic leader, engineering degrees and framed photos. If he remembered correctly, there was even a shot of him and Les at their college graduation, cocky, arrogant and ready to take on life.
“Hello, Les,” Zach said simply.
Les’s head came up fast. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“Give up on me, Zach.”
“Why, because you’ve given up on yourself?”
Les shook his head.
“Where’s Marion?”
“She took Jason. She’s staying with her mother for a few days.”
“Why?”
“Because she married a loser.”
Zach came farther into the room. “Did she?” There was a large leather ottoman in front of the recliner and Zach dropped onto it. He linked his hands between his knees and faced his friend. “I wonder just how much of a loser you really are.” This close, he could see Les clench the open bottle of Johnny Walker Black. It was half-full. “Why are you drinking, Les?”
“Because I’ve lost everything.”
“No, you’ll lose everything if you keep at the booze.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does.”
“You’re a good friend, Zach.”
“Am I?” When Les didn’t answer, he continued, “Then why have I let you get away with this charade?”
Les wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voiced was strained.
“Why won’t you look at me?”
Still, Les didn’t meet Zach’s stare.
“Look at me, Les. Look at me when I tell you that my wife and daughter are in danger because of Martin Mann.”
Les’s head snapped up again. His features were drawn tight with disbelief. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
Drawing back into himself, Les shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course you do. I need facts now, Les. I need the truth.”
“What did you mean about Annie?”
Zach drew in a deep breath. “Mann paid me a little visit. He hinted that he was having Annie watched. That he could hurt her.”
“No...” Les bolted off his seat, the scotch falling to the floor with a thunk. Liquor spewed onto the rug, stinging Zach’s nostrils.
Les began to pace. “No, it’s not supposed to happen like this. He told me...he told me no one would get hurt this way...he said—” Les stopped talking abruptly and whirled to Zach.
Zach stood, too. “He said what, Les? Tell me exactly how Mann talked you into taking the fall for the collapse of the staircase.”
“He didn’t talk me into anything. I’m guilty, Zach. It’s as simple as that.”
“What are you guilty of, Les? And don’t try to convince me you’ve told the whole story. I don’t believe it.”
Stubbornly Les remained silent. Zach crossed to him and grabbed his arm. “I don’t want you to be blamed for the staircase’s collapse if it isn’t all your fault. I love you like a brother. But if you won’t tell the whole truth for yourself, you’ve got to do it for Annie. Because I’ll never let you jeopardize her for some false sense of responsibility. I won’t let it go, Les. Do you hear me? I won’t.” He took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest. “So you might as well tell me now.”
Right before Zach’s eyes, Les crumbled. His shoulders sagged and tears began to stream down his cheeks. He sank onto a straight chair by the wall and covered his face with his hands. “I had no idea the plan would go like this.”
Zach knelt before his friend. “Tell me, Les.”
After long seconds, Les uncovered his face. His eyes met Zach’s. “The day the pits were dug, I had a hangover, like I said. Marion and I had had a terrible fight the night before, and I turned to the booze. All that was the truth.”
“Okay.”
“Because I wasn’t used to the liquor anymore, I was sick that morning. I wanted to go home and sleep. By noon, we dug eight pits, and the results were the same. Gravelly soil. No clay. No pockets.”
“Go on.”
“Mann cornered me—asked me what was wrong with me.”
Zach’s heart sped up. “Mann was there.”
“Yes. He was supposed to have dental surgery, but it was delayed a day.”
Zach heard Jonathan Gumby’s words, I’m gonna check out one more thing. The doctor was out of town right up until that day. I wanna check the flights and stuff—that’s where I was going when the accident happened.
“Anyway,” Les continued, “I told Martin I felt sick. He said I could go home. He’d supervise the rest of the pits.”
“I see. Did you go home?”
“Yeah, I signed off on the log for the eight pits I’d supervised.” He held Zach’s gaze as he confessed, “And then I signed for the last four.”
“The ones that weren’t dug yet.”
“Yes.” Les grabbed his arm. “But the soil condition was adequate for the first eight. Chances were, the soil would be adequate for the rest of the pits, too.” Les swore. “Mann promised me he’d call me if anything came up with the other four pits. He promised me, Zach.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
Zach got up, grabbed a chair by the desk, brought it around and straddled it, facing his friend.
“What happened, really?”
“They found an old mine shaft when they were on the last pit. Martin contended it was still a judgment call, whether or not the soil needed fill, but he was lying. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time.”
“You know that now? For sure?”
“Yeah. When the staircase fell, the original shovel operator panicked and called me. He told me it was pretty clear-cut the pit needed fill.”
Zach sighed. “Les, I still don’t understand why you took the blame.”
“Because I’m at fault.”
“For signing logs prematurely. Not for causing the staircase to fall.”
“I would have lost my license anyway.”
“Probably.”
Les said nothing else.
“How did Mann convince you to do this, to take the full blame?”
“He said that we’d both go down, if everything came out. And that if I took the blame alone, said it was a judgment call on my part, I’d only lose my license, like I was going to anyway.”
“Ah, I get it. And if the whole truth came out— Mann had knowingly concealed a subsoil condition to save money—then he could be charged with criminal negligence.”
“Yes. Since I had nothing to gain by concealing the condition—the standard contract said that Mann assumed all costs of preparing the ground—the authorities would believe that it was really a judgment call.”
“And either way, you’d lose your license.”
“Yes. Mann promised he’d find work for me, if I cooperated. That there were plenty of jobs in contracting that I could get without an engineer’s license. He’d take care of me.”
Zach stood and paced the length of the den. “You still made a bad choice, Les.”
“Zach, I had no idea you or Annie could be hurt by my confession. I thought it would exonerate you.”
“Did he threaten you in any way?”
“Only indirectly.” Les stood, too, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “He said if word got out about my drinking, then even subcontractors wouldn’t hire me.”
“So you went along with his plan.”
“It seemed the best route.” Les hesitated. “And he’s paying for my lawyer.”
Zach stopped and stared at Les. “Not anymore, buddy.” Determined, he strode to the phone on the desk, picked it up and dialed. After three rings, Spence Campbell answered. “Spence, I want to see you tonight. I have somebody who needs your help.”
After he hung up, Zach crossed to Les. Without another word, he reached out and hugged his friend.