Читать книгу: «Raising Baby Jane»

Chapter One

“Just remind me one more time why I agreed to do this!” Allie Todd growled at her sister Karen Pirelli.

Karen didn’t answer. She was gripping the steering wheel of the minivan so hard that her knuckles were white. Her shoulders were hunched, her forehead was pleated and those little sounds coming from her mouth were probably prayers.

The road—track—they were driving on probably wouldn’t have been in great shape even on a dry summer’s day. At the end of a brief January thaw, after several big snowstorms already this winter, it was slushy and slippery and positively frightening.

“Can’t be much farther,” Karen muttered, peering ahead. “Connor said—”

She broke off. They’d come out of the dark pine woods into a cleared space that in summer would have had room for several cars. It must have been plowed a couple of times this winter. There was dirty snow heaped up in lumpy, untidy banks on two sides. But it hadn’t been plowed recently.

On the third side, there was the track that Karen had just negotiated, and on the fourth—

Karen slammed on the brakes. Worst thing you could do on a snow-slippery road. Allie could have told her that, though if she’d been driving herself, she would probably have panicked, as Karen had, and made the same mistake.

The minivan suddenly embarked on a skating career. It swirled elegantly in one direction then the other, before it came finally to a stop about two inches from the sharp, four-foot drop down to the sheet of lake ice.

Karen told Allie shakily, “I owe you one, okay?”

But Allie shook her head. “No. That’s one thing you’ll never have to say to me, Karen. You know that.” She cleared her throat to get rid of the sudden huskiness in her voice, then added, “I shouldn’t have complained about coming up here.”

“No,” Karen argued, “ I shouldn’t have asked you to do this, when I know it’s so hard for you to—” She changed tack quickly. “And anyway, I know you’re not much of a cabin gal.”

“Just how primitive is it going to be, did he happen to say?”

“No, he didn’t.”

They both sat in the front of the minivan, peering out across the white lake to the snow-covered island in the distance.

Karen slumped her arms onto the steering wheel and groaned, still looking sick.

“Are you okay?” Allie demanded uselessly.

“I’m fine.” She took a shaky breath. Then she took another one. “I meant to tell you on the way up, but you were sleeping. I’ve got some news. I—I’m pregnant, Allie.”

“Oh, Karen, that’s wonderful! That’s just so great!” Allie said, her voice fogging again.

“I know.” Karen smiled, relief evident in her face. Allie understood at once that her sister hadn’t been confident about how she’d receive the news. “John and I are just so thrilled,” she went on. “Although I feel pretty disgusting a lot of the time, and—”

She stopped, and they both turned instinctively to look at the six-month-old baby asleep in the backseat. She was a beautiful girl. Just beautiful. On her head there was a fine growth of silky, dark-gold hair. On her plump rosy cheeks, there were two fans of extraordinarily long, satiny black lashes. Her skin was so peachy and translucent that a blue vein across her nose showed quite clearly. It was the prettiest, purest color.

There was a short silence, then Allie carefully voiced a small part of what they were both thinking. “They’ll be very close in age.”

“I know. Thirteen months apart.”

“Jane won’t remember…” Allie began.

“…what it was like before she had a baby brother or sister,” Karen finished. “Don’t worry about it, Allie, it’s not a problem. Really! John and I have been wanting a big family for so long. There were so many times we despaired that it would ever happen. And you know that nothing about what we’re doing with this is a problem for me. Whatever you decide about anything in the future, if you want—”

“It’s okay, Karen,” Allie answered with difficulty. “I know. You’ve promised me that from the beginning. I guess I’m still working things out.”

“It’s only that my energy levels are down at the moment. John’s away on business till Wednesday. I should have gone with him, taken a break, but the chance to do this book cover was too good to turn down. The movie rights for it have already been sold. Nancy Sherlock is huge these days.”

“And with a temperament to match, evidently.”

“With a temperament to ma—” Karen began to agree. Then she stopped abruptly and put her hand over her mouth, gripped by nausea.

“Let’s get you out of this car, so you can walk around and get some air.”

“I can’t open the door.”

“I know. And I’m not letting you climb across to my side in your condition. Not with that big old gearshift in the way.”

Allie quickly jammed on her dark blue velour hat and wriggled her fingers into warm woolly gloves, then jumped out of the car and went round to the driver’s side. “Hang in there,” she ordered her sister, both protective and stern. “I’m going to shovel back the snow as quick as I can. You still look like you’re about to throw up.”

“Might,” Karen agreed through clenched teeth. She folded her arms across the steering wheel and buried her face in them, breathing carefully.

Not caring that her gloves were immediately soaked through, Allie began to drag armfuls of snow out of the way of the door. It was slower work than she’d anticipated. The snow bank was like a big, puffy quilt, and the van looked as if it had decided to snuggle in for the night.

“Would a shovel help?” said a male voice.

Allie looked up, startled, and found the orange scoop of a snow shovel staring her in the face. She sat back on her haunches, a little breathless and hot, and looked up higher. A handle. A leather-gloved hand. A big, thick, black coat sleeve ending in an impressive shoulder. Finally, a man’s face beneath a black, stretchy wool hat. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

There was something about him that immediately had Allie off balance. Literally. She stumbled and wasn’t steady as she straightened. It didn’t help that she hadn’t heard his approach across the slightly softened ice, above the effortful pant of her breathing and the sound of scraping snow.

Karen still had her head hidden in her arms, but she had heard his voice.

“Connor?” came her muffled query.

“Yeah, hi.” He leaned an arm on the minivan’s door frame and examined Karen through the half-open window. “I guess you didn’t intend on parking quite so close to the lake, right?”

“Right.”

“Feeling sick?”

“Right again.”

“Yeah, it can shake you up, a near miss like that. That drop’s pretty sharp.”

“Connor, this is Allie. Allie, meet Connor Callahan. Sorry…about the…informality.” She lapsed into silence once more and went on taking those deep, careful breaths.

“Nice to meet you, Allie.”

Connor stuck out his glove and she shook it, then saw his face as the action squeezed a trickle of icy water from the sodden wool. His grimace was designed to get a reaction from her, and it worked.

She laughed. “Not exactly waterproof, I’m afraid.”

Without another word, only a speaking glance, he began to shovel back the snow from the door. He moved with an efficiency that looked effortless, and he was singing what seemed to be a sea shanty under his breath. It was a very appealing sound and Allie almost felt like joining in.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” she suggested after a moment.

“Yeah, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to do it before you got here,” he said. “Some stuff came up at work that I had to deal with before I could take off. I’d hoped to get here a couple of hours earlier, and I should have told Karen to pack some snow chains.”

“Nice idea,” Allie agreed easily, “assuming either of us knew how to put them on.”

She peeled off the sopping gloves, dropped them onto the roof of the minivan with a gesture of distaste and tucked her hands beneath her upper arms to warm them.

Connor straightened from his work for a moment and studied her thoughtfully.

She was petite, a compact bundle of dark blue with her arms folded like that. She was smaller than her sister, and darker, too. Hair of a glossy black-brown escaped from beneath her hat and reached her shoulders.

He couldn’t see much of her face. She had that velour hat jammed down so low, it shaded her eyes completely. All he could see was a soft mouth, not wide but gorgeously shaped, and high, well-defined cheeks that were pink from the cold. She would have looked about sixteen if there hadn’t been such a determined, contained aura to her pose and her expression.

He’d never been slow to form first impressions about a woman. With this one, those impressions were good. He had a feeling that the favor his pretty neighbor had pressed on him might turn out to be interesting.

Allie was hopping up and down now, trying to keep her feet warm. He hoped they weren’t as wet as her gloves in those leather boots, meant for city streets.

“Your sister hasn’t told me much about you,” he said to her with a slow grin, “but I’m getting the impression you’re not the wilderness type.”

“Not since I quit Girl Scouts at age twelve,” she agreed. “I’m a lot more the curling-up-in-front-of-a-blazing-fire-with-some-good-music-and-a-book-and-a-mug-of-hot-chocolate type. Is…uh…that going to be a problem this weekend?”

Allie asked the question a little nervously. Her boots were leaking and her hands were throbbing. She really didn’t want to hear that this cabin they were headed for had no electricity and one smoky woodstove in a ramshackle kitchen.

“You mean does my brother’s place have a blazing fire?” Connor asked.

“For starters, yes.”

“I can arrange it,” he drawled.

He had a jaw as square and strong as his snow shovel, a body like a professional sportsman and a voice like gravel dripping with melted fudge. Allie resisted the impulse to conclude that the man could probably “arrange” just about anything he wanted. In the nicest possible way.

As he returned to work, she had to fight the urge to say to him, “Sing that sea shanty again,” because the rhythm of it had meshed so well with the rhythm of his body, and he had the growling, rollicking singing voice of a pirate.

“Okay, Karen, that’s freed it now,” he said, after a couple more minutes. “Why don’t you get out and I’ll move the car to a safer spot?”

“Thanks,” Karen answered, straightening at last from the steering wheel where she’d been resting her head on her arms.

She climbed awkwardly out onto the snow, and the fresh, cold air brought some healthy color back into her cheeks.

Connor slid into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition and maneuvered the minivan so that it sat neatly beside his own Range Rover. While he was doing so, Allie said quietly to her sister, “Going to be okay?”

“Fine now,” Karen nodded.

“Does he know about the baby?”

“Not yet. We’ve only just started telling family. You’re the first apart from Mom and Dad and John’s parents.”

“I won’t say anything this weekend, then.”

“I may have to tell him, if I keep getting sick like this. I guess I’m nervous about that book cover, which isn’t helping. Nancy Sherlock has already rejected two previous versions done by other artists, and they must have roped me in as a desperation measure. I’ve never done cover art for an author this big before. Apparently, she wants a ‘natural feel.’ She thought the backdrop and the models they used before were ‘too fake.’ And she saw the covers I did for Gloria Blackmore’s ‘Harvest’ trilogy and loved them.”

“So there you are,” Allie soothed. “She loves your stuff.”

Karen made a face. “She has a reputation for changing her mind without warning. I mean, was she serious about those models? I decided to try it with you guys because you’re both photogenic, but you’re not professionals. Only maybe that was crazy?”

“Trust your intuition, Karen,” Allie soothed again. “You’ll calm down once you get behind your camera.”

“Which reminds me, I’d like to get some photos of the lake right now before the light changes. There’s a great feel and quality to it at the moment, so crisp and clean. And before Janey wakes up.”

Allie nodded, ignoring the slight tightening of her throat that happened every time her sister mentioned baby Jane, especially in that tender yet casual way.

Connor was with them again, and had heard Karen’s words. “Having an attack of inspiration?”

“If that suits you,” Karen nodded. She was already on her way to the rear door of the van to get out her camera equipment.

“It’s fine,” he agreed. “I’ll bring the snowmobile across for our gear. I checked the ice, and it’s rock-solid out there. The softening from the thaw is only in the top half inch. Meanwhile, my fellow ‘model’ here, can look after her little niece if she wakes up.”

He tossed a casual grin across to Allie, then his face darkened and fell, and she knew she hadn’t managed to hide her stricken expression. Suddenly, she realized how vulnerable she was going to be this weekend, having to spend it so close to Karen and Jane with a stranger looking on.

“Hey,” Connor came in quickly, “Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to. You’re not nervous about this gig, surely? Treat it as a joke. I am! I’ve never modeled for anything before.”

“Neither have I,” she managed.

“And the idea of having your sister do one of those vibrant, romantic book-cover paintings of hers based on photos of us tickles me to death. I leaped at the chance to goof off for a three-day weekend.”

“I guess I should look at it that way, too,” Allie replied, thankful that he’d unknowingly given her an easy way out of admitting what was really eating away at her heart.

“Or is it the thought of changing a diaper that’s so frightening?” he teased.

Could he read her mind?

“Yes, it’s terrifying,” she answered, trying to make it sound like a joke. “I’ve never changed a diaper in my life.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

He raised one eyebrow and tucked in the corner of his mouth, and she could tell he wasn’t impressed. Damn it, damn it, it was none of his business! Thrust deep in the pockets of her coat, her thawing hands were shaking.

“I’ll be back in about five minutes,” he said, then paused for a second. “No, make that ten. I have a couple of things to do inside the house.”

“Ten minutes. Okay,” she nodded.

Karen had her camera lens attached and her tripod positioned out on the wooden boat dock that thrust out into the lake from the far end of the parking lot. Jane was still fast asleep in her car seat. The engine was switched off now, so the car’s heating wasn’t on anymore. She’d get cold, soon.

Opening the door of the minivan as soundlessly as she could, Allie reached in and unfolded the baby quilt that was sitting on top of the diaper bag. She tucked it in around Jane as well as she could with the restraining bar of the baby seat in the way, hardening herself against any ambush of tenderness. Had Karen’s news about her pregnancy changed anything? The possibility overwhelmed her.

Then she closed up the car again, leaving one window open just a crack to let in some air, and went over to her sister.

“Have you known him long?” It was almost an accusation.

Karen looked up from her viewfinder. “Nearly five months,” she said, betraying no surprise at the question. “Maybe you don’t remember. His place used to be rented out, then it came up for sale and was empty for about three months until he bought it. He moved in early September, and that was when we first met him.”

Allie nodded. The explanation told her everything she wanted to know. But Karen had more to say.

“He’s a great guy, Allie. The kind you could trust with your life. John and I have met his parents and two of his brothers, and they’re a close, wonderful family.”

“That’s good to know,” Allie answered. She trusted her sister’s judgment in a way that she trusted few other things in life these days. Then, changing the subject deliberately, she added, “Getting some good stuff?”

“Don’t know yet,” Karen answered. Her eye was already back peering through the viewfinder. “But I’m not taking any chances on this. I’m going to shoot as much film as I can so that there’s no way Nancy can come up with a suggestion for a scene that I can’t cover. I love those clouds just feathering above the mountains.” She waved a hand. “I want to take a whole lot of winter-landscape shots as well, for this photographic kids’ book I’m planning on the four seasons.”

Allie laughed. This was typical of Karen. She had energy to burn, and usually more irons in the fire, professionally and personally, than she could count. Allie repeated this gentle accusation out loud.

“Irons in the fire?” Karen looked up, with a self-conscious expression. “What do you mean?”

“Well, despite your being so nervous about the Nancy Sherlock cover, you still have time to think about a kids’ book.”

Karen’s expression cleared. “Oh. Right. That.”

“Why, what did you think I meant?”

“Nothing.” Very offhand. Not looking at Allie. Very seriously taking pictures and talking about the book cover again.

Allie felt a tiny tickle of suspicion and alarm, but she let it slide.

“I’m going to do night shots, interiors,” Karen was saying. “And I want to get out the clothing this afternoon, if we can, so I can get some shots of you wearing—”

She stopped abruptly and gave a hiss of dismay. She’d been taking pictures as she talked, changing lenses, moving the tripod, and the camera had just made a strangled, clicking sound that even Allie recognized wasn’t right.

“Hang on,” Karen said carefully, “Let’s try again.” She pressed the camera’s small silver button but nothing happened. “I’m not going to panic,” she informed Allie in a panicky voice.

“Okay, good,” Allie agreed.

“I’m just going to check out each possibility very carefully and slowly,” she continued, madly rattling, clicking, shaking and winding every bit of delicate camera apparatus that she could lay her hands on.

“Sounds sensible.”

“And if there is something wrong with it that I can’t fix,” she announced, ripping the entire roll of film out of the camera in several torn sections and dropping them onto the ice-encrusted dock, “I’m not going to overreact.”

All of which didn’t fully explain why Connor was greeted, on his return with the snowmobile several minutes later, with the news that as soon as baby Jane and all the bags were unloaded, he had to drive the minivan up to the main road. Karen needed to make an emergency dash into Albany to get her very expensive, state-of-the-art, obscure brand of camera repaired immediately.

“I’ll be gone three hours max,” she finished.

“Karen, it’s over an hour’s drive each way,” Connor pointed out patiently. “And then you have to get the—”

“Okay, three and a half. But I’ll be back before dark.”

“It’s already nearly four o’clock.”

“Before dinner.” She paused at last, and listened. “That’s Jane waking up, Allie.”

“Yes, I can hear her.”

Jane was waking up happy. There were some singing and cooing and gurgling sounds coming from the backseat of the van.

“If you can get her and put on her snowsuit, Allie, then Connor can take you and her and the diaper bag over to the cabin now, while I unload the rest of our gear. Then he can come straight back and drive me up to the main road. I can be on my way in five minutes.”

This time, Connor didn’t even bother to offer a more realistic time-frame, and Allie was too busy thinking, Jane. I’m going to have to look after Jane. All by myself. No one else around at all. For at least half an hour while Connor drives up and walks back down and loads our gear onto the snowmobile. And then when he gets back, it’ll be just him and me and Jane. For hours. I don’t want to do it. I’m scared. I’m not ready. I don’t know yet if I’ll ever be ready. Why can’t Karen see that? Why isn’t she helping me with this?

Because Karen was scared, too.

Allie could see it and hear it in the panicky plans and the jittery movements. First and foremost, Karen was a mother and a wife. She wanted a big, loving, untidy family in her big Victorian house next to Connor’s. But she had a strong creative drive as well.

Her career as a commercial artist and photographer was important to her, this cover for a guaranteed bestseller was her biggest break so far. She needed to continue this success if she and John were to afford that parcel of kids they dreamed of. She didn’t want to blow it, and her camera had jammed, and of course she was scared.

“Sounds do-able,” Connor said. He gave an apparently casual glance at the horizon over the snow-covered mountains that ringed Diamond Lake and added, half under his breath, “More or less. If we’re lucky.” Then aloud he said, “Let’s go, Allie.”

“Don’t hold dinner for me,” Karen told Connor. “Although I’ll definitely be back.”

“Of course you will,” Connor soothed her, as if he hadn’t just spent five minutes trying to convince her she shouldn’t go in the first place. He hunched his shoulders against the growing chill. It was only just past four o’clock, but the day was darkening by the minute. There was bad weather in the forecast, although it hadn’t made its appearance yet.

“And for Jane you’ll need to—” She tucked a strand of light brown hair behind her ear and it stuck out messily, adding to her aura of nervous distraction.

“I know a fair bit about babies,” Connor soothed her again.

“Allie…doesn’t.”

“I gathered that,” he nodded.

He was actually a little put off by how cold Allie seemed toward her cute little niece. Maybe his positive first impressions were going to need some revision. She had neatly ducked the task of getting Jane into her snowsuit and Karen had done it instead, with a tight face. Was she angry at her sister’s lack of interest?

I would be, Connor decided inwardly. It doesn’t take much to show a little warmth toward a baby.

“Look after her—and Allie,” Karen said now.

“Oh. Sure. Of course.” Did Allie need looking after?

“Seriously, Connor.” For a moment, Karen actually held still long enough to look him in the eye. “She’s been through a really rough time, and she’s such a great person. Warm, funny, sincere.” She stopped suddenly, as if rethinking the wisdom of what she’d just said. “Anyway, I’ll be back pretty soon. I know what you said about the forecast, but look at that sky.” She waved in the direction where it was still blue. “Does that look like a storm to you?”

It didn’t, and Connor didn’t waste his breath pointing to the clouds that had begun to build behind them. She could well be right. The storm would pass to the west, or hold off altogether.

“And I have my cell phone,” Karen was saying. “Oh, this is such a nightmare!”

“No, it isn’t. Really, it isn’t.”

She hadn’t heard. “See you later.”

She was gone in a flurry of dirty roadside snow seconds later, and so he turned with a fatalistic shrug and began to walk back down the winding quarter mile of track to Diamond Lake.

Allie stood outside to greet him after he’d brought the snowmobile across the lake and wheeled it around to park it by the front door.

“You said this place was a cabin,” she said accusingly.

“Never did,” he returned lightly, following her inside. She peeled off her coat to reveal black pants tucked into damp leather boots, and a pale blue angora sweater that hugged her small frame.

He decided Allie was an assertive woman, despite her size! If he hadn’t heard it in her voice, he’d have seen it in the lift of her strong, but graceful jaw and in the electric flash of her dark eyes. Eyes like hot chocolate syrup, he could see, now that she’d unjammed that hat from her head.

“Karen said—”

“Karen might have said it was a cabin,” he pointed out, enjoying their trivial conflict. “But I didn’t. I probably used the word ‘place,’ as in, ‘my brother Tom’s place in the Adirondack Mountains.’ She must have assumed it was a cabin, as people tend to, when you mention mountains. I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.”

“Disappointed?” She shivered and stepped toward the warmth of the open fire, a sudden grin lighting up her face and draining away the tension in her that he still didn’t understand. “Are you kidding? It’s fabulous! And you even lit this fire! I’ve been toasting myself.”

“After what you said about blazing fires and good music and hot chocolate, how could I not?”

Knowing what a panic Karen was in, he hadn’t wasted time on coming into the house with Allie after he’d brought her here with baby Jane. And he’d deliberately left the fire he’d lit for her earlier to be a surprise. He didn’t know, at the time, what had prompted the impulse to light it in the first place. The central heating was very efficient.

Now he understood. He’d wanted to imagine her face lighting up like that when she first saw it, and he’d gotten his reward as it lit up again now. It changed her whole personality, hinted at a warmth and softness and sense of fun that he hadn’t seen much of yet in that small package of womanhood. Karen had mentioned those qualities, but he wasn’t going to take them on trust. He liked to make his own decisions.

“Well, it was wonderful,” she answered him. “Thank you. I haven’t even tried to look around or unpack.”

“You haven’t made yourself that hot chocolate yet?”

“No, as I said, I’ve just been toasting myself. And—and Jane.” She frowned.

Remembering what Karen had said about looking after her, and the rough time she’d been through—had she been ill, maybe?—he offered, “I’ll make one for you, after I’ve taken your stuff up to your room.”

“I can do that. I can make the hot chocolate, too, if you’ll show me the kitchen. And I can cook dinner. Karen brought up a frozen casserole and some other stuff. While you look after Jane.”

“Whatever.” He shrugged.

Back to that again. She really didn’t want to be with Jane, he could tell. He was aware of a disappointment nagging at his guts like stomach acid, and he took a few moments to analyze it.