A Daughter's Trust

SHE’D BEEN OFF THE PHONE from her parents less than fifteen minutes, not nearly enough time to deep breathe her way back to calm, when someone knocked. With Carrie on her hip, Sue did a visual check of her sleeping young men and pulled open the door.

Rick Kraynick, looking too good in jeans and a button-up denim shirt, stood there.

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head,

swinging the door closed again. She was already having enough trouble getting the man out of her thoughts.

“Wait. Please.” The hand administering resistance against the solid wood panel wasn’t violent. Or particularly pushy. But it was firm. “I need to speak with you.”

There was something about him. A sense of vulnerability mixed with toughness that she couldn’t ignore.

And she couldn’t give in to it, either.

“You know my number.”

“In person,” he said. “I need to speak with you in person.” He swallowed, his eyes beseeching her far more than anything he could say. “Please.”

“We’ve been through this, Mr. Kraynick. Talk to social services. Or better yet, get yourself into some kind of counseling. You don’t seem to be able to take no for an answer.”

“I called my mother.”

Christy’s mother. Carrie’s Grandma. Sue didn’t want to care. She repositioned the baby, holding her up against her, with Carrie facing back into the house.

“You have to leave now.” She wished she felt the conviction behind her words.

With a glance behind her, Sue verified that both boys were still sleeping. Chances were that wouldn’t last long. William was eating every two hours.

All night long.

As well as during the day.

And Michael wasn’t sleeping through the night yet, either. Or at least, if he was, he’d stopped since his move to a new home. Which meant, since she also used her evenings to do Joe’s bookwork, Sue was coming off a night with very little sleep.

“My mother just told me she’s adopting Carrie,” the man said, a hint of desperation in his voice.

“I can’t discuss that with you.”

Dressed casually today, he looked no less serious about himself. Or his business. He had no less effect on her. Sue rubbed Carrie’s back, bobbing to keep the baby entertained.

To keep her close.

To ignore how drawn she was to this intense man.

“She says Carrie’s birth changed her. I guess she was there for the last couple of months of the pregnancy and was with Christy for the birth.”

“And she wants Carrie.”

“Yes.”

“If she’s the junkie you say she is, she’ll never get her.”

“She got me back enough times. And Christy, too.”

“Yes, but…”

“She’s older now. She’s already got a job, working in a preschool. And she’s renting an apartment from a preacher and his wife. And I just found out from my lawyer yesterday that there was a suicide note. In it, Christy said she wanted the baby to go to her mother.”

“Which could carry some weight, of course, but a judge could just as easily decide that Christy’s suicide meant she was unstable—not fit to be making decisions for her baby.” For the baby in Sue’s arms. Why was she still talking to him? Anyone else and she’d have shooed him away immediately.