Darren shook his head. “No. She watched her nieces and nephews when they were babies. You should’ve seen the first time she took Gabriel from me and fastened him into the car seat. It was snowing, windy and she just did it so naturally. That was the same day as the interview.”

“Oh, she doesn’t have any children?” Joan said, clearly processing the information. “Well, that’s interesting.”

“She seems like a nice girl,” Carol said, butting in. She’d been admiring the neighborhood’s architecture. “And in a lot of ways, as crazy as it sounds, but it’s a coincidence too, but Gabriel looks a lot like her to me. When I saw her then looked at your mother holding the boy, I thought they really looked like. You know, we didn’t have a nanny when we had Harrison and Kenner. We went ahead and did it ourselves, but you know, I’ve never really thought about what it must be like to be virtually raising someone else’s child.”

Joan nodded. They hadn’t used a nanny either, but rather her mother filled in the gap. A resemblance between John and Gabriel and herself was to be expected. She then nodded, recalling Sherry’s face as Gabriel was handed over to her in the foyer. “Yeah, I see that too. Really, he definitely looks like another of you when you were a baby.”

“Hmph,” Darren said, nodding his head. “I guess I never noticed it.”

“Yeah, well,” Joan said. She looked at her time. “We better get back on the road. I wanted to stay longer, but you know the prosecutor’s daughter has a drunk driving case coming up. If I get her off, that would certainly make it easier for your father to pull off a couple things we’d been thinking about doing.”

Darren’s eyebrows furled as he shook his head disappointingly and hugged his aunt Carol. Joan stepped up to take her hug then headed out into the street. ?

?Oh, Darren...Would you calm down? You act like we have dead bodies buried under the house or something.”

“You could, Mom,” Darren said. “You very well could.”

Joan lowered Carol’s window and talked across her. “Darren, you should know me better than that. You know me and your father wouldn’t have them buried under the house.” She smiled. “That would be too obvious.”

Darren turned away, playfully, heading back up the walkway to his porch. He waved at his mother, she honked, then he stepped back into the house. He paused in the doorway, looking up toward the top of the staircase. The light from either Sherry’s room or Gabriel’s nursery shined toward the landing. His mother’s words simmered in his mind as he climbed the stairs, his destination already in mind.

Darren stepped up to Gabriel’s bedroom doorway and peeked inside. Sherry sat in the wooden chair on the other side with Gabriel in her lap. Ever so affectionately, she looked down into the beautiful baby’s eyes and calmed him by singing a soft melody. Whatever song it was, Darren didn’t know; however, after the tune looped around, he too found it a bit entrancing. Sherry’s low, singing voice was so lulling Darren himself could very well drift to sleep thinking about it. The light whining Gabriel had been doing faded into soft giggles with his tiny hands reaching up for Sherry’s necklace.

With a slight grin on his face, he stepped away from the door and headed down the hall to his bedroom. He pushed the door closed softly then crossed the room and through the french doors of his tiny sitting room. There, he approached his bookcase and pulled a couple of family albums he’d held on to since leaving Chicago. Sitting down in front of the window, he looked through them. The man gazed at photos of himself as a baby. Certain poses were funny while others were too embarrassing at this point to show people. He couldn’t help but to take in how youthful and almost nurturing his mother looked with him in her arms. And to no surprise, the woman wore pants in every single picture.

“Hmph,” Darren said. Gabriel really does look like me. He then envisioned Sherry’s face, thinking of his mother’s and aunt’s comments. I see Sherry in him too. That’s crazy...really crazy.

Shortly after closing the albums then placing them back on a lower shelf, he stopped in the doorway. He vividly replayed his mother’s reaction to Sherry not having any children. Oh, she’s never had a child? That’s interesting. Darren wondered what she meant by that.

Darren leaned out into the hallway and looked down toward Gabriel’s room. He still hadn’t had his question answered about Sherry. He badly wanted to know what it was that she’d been through because whatever it was had obviously changed her since that night at her apartment.

Chapter 10

Darren hung up the phone Sunday afternoon relieved. What started off as supposedly going to be a busy day suddenly got a lot lighter. This morning, he’d gotten up to go deal with a tenant who was moving out quickly so he could get back to Indianapolis. He then rushed across town to the apartment complex, let himself into the office, and collected some documents he needed for banking. By the time he finished, it was nearly three o’clock and the weather outside was wonderful. Sherry had just been getting the baby bag and heading out when he walked through the front door.

“Where are you headed to?” Darren asked.

“Oh, I was just going to take Gabriel to the park,” Sherry explained. “We were just out back after he had lunch and the weather is great, so I thought about taking him to, you know, that park downtown where the people walk their dogs and they play with each other.”

“He loves dogs,” Darren said, rubbing the side of his son’s head.

“Yea, that’s just what I was thinking,” Sherry said. “And I’m sure a lot of people will be out with theirs today.”

“Hmm,” Darren said. He then said he needed to make a phone call and he’d be ready to go. Ten minutes later, he met Sherry with Gabriel out on the porch. He insisted on driving then they walked down to his MKZ and climbed in.

At Headwaters Park, Gabriel’s face lit up like a child on Christmas when he saw puppies. He laughed when tiny, ankle bitter dogs, as Sherry called them, came close and barked. His eyes filled with terror and he clung to Sherry desperately when big dogs came nearby. A playful Saint Bernard got to close to Gabriel that the baby screamed. Darren sitting next to her, they both comforted baby Gabriel until he called down. Soon enough, the baby drifted off to sleep in Sherry’s arms. Darren and Sherry both leaned back and gazed out at the green grass, rolling over the slope then descending into a thick wooded layer separating the park’s open space from the rushing St. Mary’s River. A chilling breeze whipped by.

Oh, she doesn’t have any children? Interesting?

“So, Sherry,” Darren said, bravely. “I don’t know if we ever talked about it yet, but I don’t think you ever told me if you want any kids one day.”

Sherry turned away from Darren and stared off toward the walking trail coming out of the woods. Within only a matter of seconds, a young mother pushing a stroller walked into view. “Uh, well….” she said, thinking of her own baby. The memory of walking into that adoption agency with Gabriel popped into her mind with a vengeance. She had long dealt with the guilt, but it still was sharp enough to sting her, even if only momentarily, like a needle pressing into her skin.

“I don’t know,” Sherry said, turning toward Darren. “I really don’t know at this point.” She chuckled. “Sometimes you don’t know what you want until it comes to you, I guess.” She felt one of her eyes swelling up, so she wiped it quickly and held her head high as she tried to show as little emotion as possible.

Darren nodded, looking into Gabriel’s sleeping face then at Sherry. Mom and Aunt Carol were really on to something. Gabriel’s eyes were strikingly similar to Sherry’s. In fact, Darren was amazed he had never noticed before his mother and aunt pointed it out. His eyes were then drawn to the dip above Sherry’s upper lip. This too was similar to the one between Gabriel’s lips and nose. This is strange, he thought. Gabriel looks just like Sherry. Throughout his life, Darren had been in many households where nannies were the primary caretakers to their employers’ children. Sure, it wasn’t strange for a nanny to be close to their boss’s children almost like mothers; however, much like he noticed before, such as when Gabriel woke up in the night, the bond between his adopted son and Sherry seemed far stronger than one would expect.

“I see, I see,” Darren said, accepting Sherry’s answer. “I just wondered. You seem like you would be a good mother.”

Tags: Mia Ford Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net