Baby Love

  It looked—gray. Rafe leaned closer to peer at it, convinced his eyes must be deceiving him. The last time he’d looked, it had been white. Of course, he couldn’t recall exactly when that had been—or how drunk he was at the time.

  “It’ll do for a baby diaper. It’s just the light.” At least he hoped it was only the light. “It isn’t really dirty.”

  “How long since you washed it?”

  “Not long.” He thought back. “In South Dakota, I think it was.”

  “South Dakota?”

  “Yeah. This big old gal who ran the mission there washed my clothes while I was sleeping one off. That was only—let’s see…” Rafe peered at the shirt again. Shit. “What day is this?”

  “The twenty-sixth of October. Or is it the twenty-seventh?”

  “You mean it’s damned near Halloween?”

  She flashed him a slightly appalled look.

  How time did fly when you never sobered up. “Really? I can’t believe it’s almost November.”

  She let the T-shirt puddle on the floor next to his leg and reached for the front of her blouse again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kendrick, but I can’t possibly put something that filthy on my baby. Better if I use my blouse and wear your shirt myself. Close your eyes, please,” she said in a shaky voice that told him she felt none too sure he wouldn’t attack her the instant he glimpsed bare skin. “I’ll just slip your shirt on first. Then I’ll change Jaimie. All right?”

  “All right.”

  He leaned his head back and started to close his eyes. Only just as his lids were fluttering shut, he felt her lean forward to peel the blouse down her arms, and somehow, his upper and lower eyelashes never quite met.

  After a two-year abstinence, it seemed to Rafe that he should enjoy stealing a peek at a partially clad female. Instead he felt as if a mule had kicked him in the guts. Her back was covered with bruises, all of them still an angry red, which he knew from experience would darken in another day or so to deep black-and-blue marks. Interspersed among the bruises were superficial cuts. There was no mistaking them for anything but the marks of a man’s ring, for they were surrounded by knuckle prints.

  Rafe ended up closing his eyes, all right, not to preserve her modesty, but in outrage. The sick son of a bitch! The pictures that exploded in his mind snapped him rigid with fury. To bruise a woman like that, a man would have to repeatedly drive his fists into her body, using all his strength.

  It seemed like an eternity passed before she finished changing the diaper. As he once again enfolded her in the coat with him, he couldn’t help but notice how the fussy baby eagerly nuzzled below her ear.

  “I think he’s hungry,” he needlessly pointed out. “Don’t you think you’d better try to feed him again?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Would you mind closing your eyes again, please?”

  In answer to that question, Rafe loosened his grip on the coat so she would have room to maneuver and let his eyes fall closed. Jaimie suddenly broke off in mid-screech, his eager little mouth making suckling sounds that seemed inordinately loud, considering the racket of the train.

  No more than a second passed before he began to screech again. Rafe could tell by Maggie’s movements that she was growing agitated. He heard her make a soft sound of distress. The infant quieted for a bit and then resumed crying.

  Concern filled him. He didn’t consciously make the decision to open his eyes. One moment, he was being a perfect gentleman, and the next he was getting an eye-full. To give himself credit where it was due, he had not a lascivious thought as he gazed over Maggie’s thin shoulder at her breast. It was so swollen and bruised that he cringed. As hungry babies will, Jaimie latched eagerly onto her nipple each time it touched his lips, suckling none-too-gently on the tumid, discolored peak. Rafe knew it had to hurt like hell.

  Leaning slightly to one side to see Maggie’s face, he spied a tear slipping down her cheek. His heart caught at the resolute expression she wore. She clearly meant to feed her baby, no matter how much pain it caused her. He could almost feel every pull of the baby’s mouth. A fragile flower? Not by anyone’s standards. She was a delicately built woman, but hidden under all that fragility was a spine laced with steel.

  In the end, her attempts to feed her child were a failure. Her milk refused to come down in either breast. Each wail from the baby cut through Rafe. A man never forgot being a father, he guessed. An almost overwhelming sense of helplessness came over him. When a baby was hungry, you fed it, bottom line.

  Rafe estimated they would reach the next stop in about forty minutes. Every second of that time would seem like an eternity. He had to get away from this pair. They were unearthing feelings inside of him that he’d worked too damned hard to bury. He didn’t need the hassle—or the heartache.

  Jaimie cried only a short time before falling into an exhausted sleep, which Rafe counted a blessing until Maggie broached a concern he hadn’t considered.

  In a quavering voice, she said, “I think he’s already losing his strength.”

  “How long has he gone without eating?”

  “I started having some trouble nursing him late yesterday afternoon. He got a little to eat, I think, but maybe not that much. I was really upset, and—” Her voice trailed away. “Well, you know—things didn’t go exactly right. I thought it was because I was so tense. In the book I have, it says nervousness can cause that.”

  Nervousness could be a cause. But then, so could severe bruising and swelling. After seeing what he had, he figured it was more than likely the latter.

  “So he’s missed only a few feedings?”

  She nodded, looking worried and miserable. “He eats pretty often, though. About every two hours because he’s still so small. Do you think he’s losing his strength?”

  His own babies had never missed a meal unless they were sick, so he was certainly no expert, but it seemed to him it should take longer than this for a kid to grow weak with hunger. On the other hand, though, Jaimie was tiny, as she said. Newborns didn’t have the stores of fat older babies did.

  “Nah,” he assured her with more confidence than he felt. “Babies are tough little nuts.”

  “Are they?” she asked hopefully.

  “Sure they are. We’ll reach the next stop soon. He’ll be fine for a half hour. There’s bound to be a store where you can buy him a bottle and formula.”

  She shook her head.

  Rafe didn’t want to hear this. Why me, God?

  “I don’t have enough money. All I’ve got is eighteen cents in my pocket.”

  He really, really had to get away from her. Why was she telling him her problems? If she was entertaining the notion that he might help her, she had a shock coming. When he hit the next town, he would sweep a few parking lots to buy a bottle, all right. A booze bottle.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “Do I what?”

  “Have any money?” She turned those big brown eyes on him again. “Normally I’d never presume to ask. I’m sure I can find some sort of work in—what was the name of that town again?”

  “Squire.”

  “Squire.” She darted the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip. “Even if it’s a small place, I can find something to do and earn some money. Only it would take hours. Jaimie is hungry now, and he shouldn’t wait that long to eat.” She squeezed her eyes closed, as if calling on all her reserves of strength. When she lifted her lashes, she said, “I can’t just make him wait and risk him getting sick.”

  His throat closed off. Christ. Around this girl, he spent half his time oxygen-deprived.

  Her mouth started to quiver even as she raised her chin in a futilely prideful way. Oh, God. He knew what she was about to say, and he was tempted to clamp a hand over those sweet lips before she could get it out.

  “I won’t lie and say I’ll pay you back because we probably won’t ever see each other again.” Her eyes went dark with shame, but she didn’t lower her gaze. Rafe could see this was the mo
st difficult thing she’d ever done. “But I’ll make you a trade if you’ll give me the money for a baby bottle and formula.”

  “A trade?” Why he posed it as a question, he had no idea. It was blatantly obvious what she meant.

  “My baby’s hungry, Mr. Kendrick. I’ll do anything I have to in order to feed him.” Her white cheeks suddenly pulsed with pink. “Anything.”

  Rafe wanted to tell her he had no money and no way of getting his hands on any, but that wasn’t entirely true. So instead he just gaped at her, the gold wedding ring he wore on a chain under his shirt burning a hole in his chest.

  Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink. Then she averted her face, the very picture of humiliation. “I see,” she said, her voice taut.

  Only, of course, she didn’t see. She was a beautiful young woman, and no unattached male in his right mind could fail to want her.

  “Maggie, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

  Keeping her head bent so her hair hid her face, she raised a staying hand. “Don’t,” she said thinly. “Please.”

  Rafe tried to imagine how she must feel. It took a giant stretch of imagination. He’d never tried to sell his body and been turned down. He had, of course, been hit up more than a few times, but not by a young woman who had never sunk to such depths and was finding it to be the most humiliating experience of her life.

  Though she had a child, there was a sweetness and innocence in her eyes he knew damned well wasn’t feigned. He’d have bet every dollar he had in the bank that no man but the father of her baby had ever laid a hand on her.

  “Honey, listen.”

  She shook her head, her hand still raised to silence him. “Please. Just forget I said it.”

  Rafe got a horrible urge to laugh. It wasn’t the way she thought, and God help him, he wasn’t sure how to set her straight without scaring her half to death. But neither did he want her to continue believing he didn’t want her. Thinking that way could wound her in ways that wouldn’t heal for years.

  “Sweetheart, you’re beautiful. So beautiful my eyeteeth ache when I look at you.”

  She threw him a startled look.

  “Trust me. If I had a few bucks in my pocket, I’d be one happy man.”

  He slipped his arms around her and the baby, knowing even before his voice trailed away how sincerely he meant that. He did want to make love to her. The realization stymied him. What the hell was happening to him? He recalled his dream again, and an icy fear slithered through his belly. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from caring more about this girl than was smart—or even rational. Was this what Susan had been trying to tell him, that he was about to meet someone very special and—

  No. He swallowed, hard, and told himself not to be an idiot. He didn’t believe in premonitions or fated encounters, and he sure as hell didn’t believe he’d had a ghostly visitation from his late wife. It was just a dream. A stupid, whiskey-soaked dream that had meant absolutely nothing.

  Marshaling his thoughts, Rafe forced his mind back to the moment. His voice sounded gruff and a little shaky when he said, “Please, Maggie, don’t think for a second that I’m not interested in your offer. I’d take you up on it so fast it would make your head spin if I had a cent to give you. But I don’t.”

  “You don’t have any money on you at all?”

  “Not a cent. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.”

  For some reason, the way she said that made him smile again. “You can always get help from the mission. Most towns have one, and a woman with a baby will get red-carpet treatment.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t go somewhere like that.”

  “Why? If you’re feeling embarrassed, don’t. Everyone needs help sometimes.”

  “It isn’t that. I’m just—” She broke off and shook her head again. “There may be people looking for me.”

  He tightened his arms, wanting to hug her and the baby close to protect them. Who might be looking for her? Jesus. Was it the cops? He burned to ask, but two years of this kind of life had taught him not to ask too many questions. And since he doubted she’d answer anyway, why bother? Even if she was wanted by the cops, he couldn’t believe it was for anything serious.

  He drew her gently against him. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you get some rest? While you’re sleeping, I’ll think of some way for you to get help.”

  “I can’t go around lots of people,” she stressed.

  “I understand that. I’ll think of something. Trust me.” He smiled slightly. “I’m an old hand at this lifestyle, remember. I know all the ropes.”

  To his surprise, she gave in to the slight pressure of his arms, twisting sideways to rest her cheek against his chest, the baby’s tiny feet nudging his abdomen. Rafe wanted to think she followed his advice because she was beginning to trust him, but he suspected it was exhaustion getting the best of her.

  Within seconds he felt the tension leave her body. He gazed down at her, thinking how sweet she looked with her relaxed mouth pushed slightly off center. He touched a fingertip to her pale cheek, testing the fragile curve of bone under her soft, silken flesh.

  When he felt positive she was deeply asleep, he reached inside his shirt and drew out his wedding ring. The setting of large, fiery diamonds glinted at him in the thin morning light, a reminder of why he wore it hidden on a chain under his shirt. Flashing diamonds on a boxcar was a good way to get your throat slit.

  Susan. Against all his objections, she’d worked in a hamburger joint to pay for this ring, insisting she had to buy him something as nice as he’d gotten her, and that she had to pay for it herself. The purchase price had been a little over four grand. It was anyone’s guess what it might be worth now. Pawnshops were notorious for paying a fraction of an item’s value. Still, he figured he could get several hundred dollars for it.

  He made a fist around the ring and closed his eyes. He couldn’t hock it. His wedding ring was his last link to Susan and his past, the one thing left to him that he treasured. In the two years since he’d been bumming the rails, he’d seen some mighty lean times, but never once had he considered hocking his ring.

  Maggie and her baby weren’t his problem. When they reached the next town, he’d give her his coat. That was the best he could do for her. Clenching his teeth, Rafe slipped the ring back inside his shirt where it could rest close to his heart. As it settled against his chest, he imagined he could hear Susan chiding him. Oh, Rafe. It’s just a ring. Can you really turn your back on a baby?

  As the imagined whisper grew clearer in his mind, Rafe could finally conjure a picture of his wife’s face. It had been so long since he’d been able to remember exactly how she looked that he let his head rest against the wall and closed his eyes, smiling as he traced each of her features. Dear God, how very much he had loved her.

  Susan. He knew if she were here, she’d hock that ring in a heartbeat to feed a hungry baby. In a way, Maggie reminded him a little of her. Not in looks or mannerisms, of course, but in the way she loved. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget the look in her eyes when she’d offered him her body in trade for a bottle and formula. He had almost been able to taste her shame, yet she’d made the offer without a thought for herself.

  He sighed and pressed his palm over his chest, the blunted edges of the ring digging into his flesh. If he wanted to be able to live with himself, he knew what he had to do.

  But it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Chapter Three

  Now that the train had stopped, the boxcar was eerily quiet. Maggie had no idea exactly what time it was, but judging by the brightness of the sunlight, she guessed it was at least eight-thirty or nine. The songs of birds drifted on the frigid morning air, the sounds faint and incongruously cheerful in such a drab, filthy place. Trying to block out the faint smell of cow, she concentrated instead on scents she caught on the breeze, a wintry blend of icy dampness laced with evergreen that was underscored by the acrid odor of engine fumes.

>   Huddled in the cowboy’s warm coat with her back to the wall, she watched the open doorway, terrified that some bum might spy the empty car and climb inside with her. After her experience last night, she had no illusions. Most men were rats.

  Oh, God, she was tired. She had a headache, an allover sick feeling, and her back was killing her. All she wanted was to close her eyes and sleep for a while. But Jaimie would awaken soon, and when he did, he’d be hungry. She could only pray the cowboy kept his part of their bargain and returned with a baby bottle and formula.

  She closed her eyes, picturing his tall, lean body. Hard strength emanated from him like the electrical charge in a high-voltage area. No matter. She simply wouldn’t think about it, that was all. She’d just let him do his thing, blocking it out as best she could, and afterward, she’d pretend none of this ever happened.

  Nausea rose in her throat. She gulped it back. She kept remembering how he had touched her cheek just before he left, his fingertips lightly caressing her skin. I’ve thought of a way to get my hands on some cash. Stay right here. You’ll be safe for the short time I’ll be gone. Maggie had yearned to add, Until you come back, you mean? Only she hadn’t been able to work up the nerve.

  That was just as well. She had made him the offer. Right? No one had forced her. And she should be glad he’d decided to take her up on it. What happened to her wasn’t important. Nothing mattered but her baby. Nothing.

  Rafe stood on the sidewalk outside the pawnshop, head bent, his shoulders shrugged against the cold as he gazed at the ring that lay on his palm. He wanted so badly to put it back on his neck chain and just keep walking. Who had elected him savior of the world?

  But though he tried, he couldn’t make himself move on down the sidewalk. He kept hearing Jaimie’s cries of hunger. He lifted his head and hauled in a deep breath of air so icy it nearly choked him. Kitchen exhaust from a diner emitted the scent of grilled meat on the brisk breeze, the odor almost acrid. His eyes burned as he stared through the streaked front windows of the pawnshop at the jewelry and electric guitars and doodads on display. Broken dreams. Life had a way of dealing rotten hands, and the sad stories were as varied as the people who experienced them. Now one more broken dream would lie in there on that cheap red velvet.