Boone Read online

  Hannah thought about the revelation a moment, then shook her head. “What’s the piece I’m missing? Why would Rachel give you a baby?”

  “Beats me. If it’s actually going to happen, that is. It’s possible this is her way to make me pay for letting my personal issues get in the way of professional ones. I let her down. I’m forging ahead as though that’s not the case because I really can’t afford to do otherwise. That said, I have serious reservations.”

  “Because those personal issues prevented you from doing your best in her case.”

  “Yes. Well, I allowed it. Unnecessarily.”

  “What were they? The personal issues?”

  “O-o-oh,” he groaned. “That is the soap opera part of the story. I don’t think we have the time for it. I’ve told you about Rachel, and that’s what I really wanted you to know tonight before we meet with Sarah.”

  Leave it to a man to dangle tantalizing information like that and then slam the door shut.

  “Okay.” Hannah unfolded from the sofa, stood, and slipped on her sandals. “Shall we go?”

  He gave her a long look, and his lips stretched in a slow smile. “You are a good sport, Hannah Dupree.”

  She nodded. “Doesn’t mean I’m not curious. You should expect me to nag you for more info at some future point.”

  “Fair enough.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and ordered an Uber. They exited the suite and headed for the elevator. Upon reaching the lobby, Boone made a scan of the area before moving forward. Within a few moments, they climbed into their ride and made small talk during the short drive to the restaurant.

  Hannah inhaled the mouthwatering aroma of smoking meat the minute she opened the car door. She realized she was seriously hungry. She hoped their dinner companion would arrive on time. “There’s Sarah,” Boone said, moments after entering the restaurant. He waved and headed for the round table in the corner where a middle-aged, dark-haired woman wearing a purple polo shirt and a welcoming smile sat with a glass of iced tea in front of her.

  She rose as Boone approached. He kissed her cheek, introduced Hannah, then suggested they order before diving into their meeting. “Lunch was a long time ago, and I’m hungry as a horse.”

  With Sarah’s and Hannah’s okays, he ordered for the table. Brisket and ribs and chicken and something called bacon burnt ends. Slaw and mac-and-cheese and corn and beans and onion rings. And rolls.

  “Just how many people do you intend to feed?” Hannah teased when he finally sent the waiter on his way.

  “Don’t make fun of me. This is one of my favorite restaurants in the world, and I’ve missed it. Besides, we’ll have great leftovers.”

  They spoke about the weather until the food arrived. Once Hannah got a taste of the brisket, she couldn’t help but moan aloud. Boone gave her a knowing look. “See, I told you so.”

  It wasn’t until both Sarah and Hannah had set down their forks, and after Boone had plowed his way through two plates of food and placed an order for banana pudding for dessert, that he was ready to get down to business. “Any updates on the little fellow? We are still set for a meeting this evening?”

  Sarah’s gaze flickered away for a moment, and Hannah’s stomach sank. Boone saw it too, because Hannah saw that he subtly stiffened. “Sarah?”

  “Everything is on course,” she assured him. “You will meet the baby today. There are just a couple of details I need to go over.”

  Warily, Boone asked, “Details?”

  Sarah wiped her mouth with a napkin and stood. “Excuse me, please. Before we get into this any farther, I’m going to make a quick visit the ladies’ room.”

  While Sarah was gone, Boone signaled the waiter for the check. He asked Hannah how she’d liked her meal. That question devolved into a debate about the superiority of Texas-style barbecue in comparison with what she’d sampled in Nashville during a recent visit. He’d just coaxed Hannah into trying the pudding when Sarah returned and took her seat. Without preamble, she said, “You and I have known each other for a long time, Boone. We worked together very well as colleagues, and I have long considered you a friend. You were a champion for children here in Tarrant County. I knew I could always count on you to put the children first.”

  Boone traced the rim of his water glass with his fingertip. “Cut to the chase, Sarah. What’s wrong? Is it Thompson? Has he decided to eff this up for me?”

  “No. David Thompson isn’t involved with this adoption in any way. Waggoner, Thompson, and Cole isn’t handling any of the paperwork. I told you that.”

  “Well, the firm is involved somehow. Ashleigh knew I was coming into town today. She ambushed me at the hotel.” To Hannah, he explained, “It’s her father’s law firm.

  “Did you tell her, Sarah? How is she involved in this? Wait, did she track down Rachel Davis and convince her that I’m a head case? She has a history of that, you know. I guess I should have anticipated—”

  Sarah interrupted. “No, Boone. Ashleigh isn’t part of this. I don’t know how she found out about your visit. It wasn’t from me.”

  He dragged his hand across his mouth. “I think Ashleigh has—”

  Sarah slapped the table. “Boone. Hush. Let me talk! The sooner I’m able to say what I’ve promised to say, the sooner you’ll get to meet the baby.”

  “Promised? Promised who?”

  She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Hardheaded Texan. Like I was saying, you’ve always put the children first. Tonight, I need you to remember that I’ve always put the kids first too. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. That’s why we clicked. We were always on the same page. Had the same sign on our desks.”

  “THE MOST VULNERABLE DESERVE OUR BEST EFFORTS,” she quoted. “You gave the sign to me for Christmas one year.”

  “That’s right. I’d forgotten.”

  “I have never forgotten. I will always put the children’s best interests first, even if that means bending a rule a time or two. You were the one who taught me about rule-bending, remember? I can quote you exactly: Don’t be afraid to bend or twist or massage a rule, Sarah. Trust your judgment.”

  “I am not liking the direction this is going.”

  “Well, you should like it, because, in my judgment, becoming your child is in the best interests of this baby. So I massaged the rules a bit.”

  “I want this adoption,” Boone said with a warning in his voice. “But if it’s not legal, we are stopping it here and now.”

  “No worries. Everything is legal. Where I’ve done some bending is with the broader picture.”

  “Okay. Fine. I get the warning. Cut to the chase, Sarah. What is it that you want to say?”

  She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay.” She stood. “Come with me, Boone. It’s time you met this child.”

  He shoved to his feet, reached for his wallet, and began tossing bills onto the table. “Let’s do it. Where do we go?”

  “They’re on the patio.”

  Boone froze with a twenty-dollar bill in his hand. “Here? He’s here? Now?”

  Sarah reached out and touched his arm. “Boone. There is one important thing for you to keep in mind. Think before you react. Everything is riding on it. More than you know.”

  “But he’s here.”

  Sarah encouraged him with a smile. “The foster parents are Jared and Katie Devlin. They’re waiting for you on the patio with the baby.”

  The twenty slipped from his fingers and floated to the table. “Now? Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  He grabbed for Hannah’s hand and held it in a grip so hard, she winced. Sarah led them toward a door Hannah had not previously noticed. They stepped onto a patio where large fans and misting machines worked to offset the heat of the evening. Boone didn’t appear to notice the heat. He focused on the infant seat placed atop a table next to a burbling fountain. A man and a woman were seated on either side of the carrier.

  His viselike grip on Hannah’s hand
tightened even more.

  He took three steps toward the table before he abruptly stopped. His head jerked to one side and then moved slowly to the other as he scanned the patio. He muttered, “What the heck?”

  “What’s wrong?” Hannah whispered.

  “Trace is wearing a hair bow.”

  Abruptly, Hannah understood. The pink blanket. Pink bow. Pink dress and booties.

  Either the foster parents were attempting to make a political point, or Boone McBride’s little boy was actually a girl.

  Chapter Eleven

  Boone had experience with being blindsided.

  After intercepting a pass and running it back for the winning touchdown in the semifinal round of the state high school football championships, he’d been tackled from behind by the losing quarterback and gotten his bell rung. Once when Boone was at his grandparents’ lake house, a rattlesnake wrapped around a bicycle’s handlebars had surprised him. The viper sank its fangs into Boone’s forearm and necessitated an emergency life-flight trip to a hospital with antivenin in stock. Add in Mary’s suicide and discovering how Ashleigh had betrayed him, and that just about made him a blindsiding expert.

  This experience gave him professional status.

  He swallowed hard and stepped forward, his gaze shifting between the man and the woman for the scant seconds he was able to keep his eyes off the baby. “Mr. and Ms. Devlin?”

  “Mr. McBride?”

  “Yes. I’m Boone McBride.” For the next few moments, anyway. Until he stroked out or his heart blew up. Could his pulse pound any harder and faster?

  The man stood. “I’m pleased to meet you, Boone. I’m Jared. This is my wife, Katie. We’ve been honored to take care of this little one for the past month. She’s such a good baby. Just a little doll.”

  “A little doll,” Boone repeated. It was true. She was tiny, with a heart-shaped mouth and smushy little nose and a round head full of dark hair that definitely had a reddish gleam to it. Red! “I’ve always been partial to redheads.”

  He took two steps closer. A little doll. Not Trace. She has an innie rather than an outie. Then, as if she sensed him, her eyes blinked once. Twice. And opened.

  Boone gazed into those dark-blue eyes, and he promptly tumbled head over heels into love.

  He cleared his throat. “May I hold her?”

  “Of course.” Katie Devlin rose and picked the baby up from her carrier, taking care to support her head. “She’s just finished a bottle, so she should be content for a bit. She might even stay awake for a few minutes. Do you want to sit down before I give her to you?”

  “I probably should,” Boone murmured, pulling a chair out from the table and taking a seat without tugging his gaze away from the baby.

  She was skinny, he thought, surveying the bare legs extending from the pastel-pink onesie with a white heart on the front. Was that normal for a newborn? Beyond welcoming new children of his friends and neighbors in Eternity Springs, he had little experience with newborns. He didn’t have a ton of experience with babies either, for that matter.

  As the thought occurred, he finally glanced away from the infant toward Hannah. She was standing back, not quite part of the tableau. When their gazes met, she gave him an encouraging smile and nod.

  Boone turned his attention back to the baby, made a cradle of his arms, and Katie Devlin handed her over. With the baby’s head nestled in the crook of his left elbow, Boone stared down into the little face, emotion clogging his throat. The handful of other times he’d held a newborn baby, he’d surveyed the face with the usual “Whose nose/eyes/mouth does he have?” exploration. This was a different experience entirely.

  Despite the fact that she weighed little more than a minute, the weight in his arms was heavier than anything he’d ever known. This was responsibility. This was commitment. Nothing else in his life had ever come close.

  Rather than the round, chubby Gerber baby look of older children, she had a little old woman’s face with puffy eyes, a brow that furrowed, and a mouth that frowned as she squinted and grunted and snorted. And yet Boone thought she was the prettiest baby he’d ever seen. Look at that mouth—the very definition of bow-shaped. And her little ears. She had dainty ears. And those eyelashes—how could they be so long already? They twitched. Her lids opened. Her eyes were a little crossed until she focused on his mouth.

  Reacting, Boone smiled. “Hello, gorgeous.”

  Her eyes were the blue of the mid-Atlantic on a cloudy day. He fell into them, drowned in them, until they drifted shut. Her body relaxed in sleep.

  Keeping her supported and held securely against his chest, he brushed his thumb across her cheek. Soft. So soft. The most delicate skin he’d ever touched. With his index finger, he gently traced her almost nonexistent eyebrows and then the curious pattern of her hair—thick in places, but thinner in others.

  “Aren’t you the sweetest thing?” he murmured. He lifted her hand, studied her long fingers and tiny fingernails. “Sweet as spun sugar, like my grandmother used to say.”

  He couldn’t say how long he sat holding her, staring at her, but eventually he realized someone was speaking his name. He glanced up. Sarah was standing in front of him, her hands clasped, her spine just a little stiff. He gathered that she’d just asked him a question. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I asked if you still want the baby.”

  “What? Why? I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “She’s a girl, not a boy.”

  “Yeah, that is a little detail I’m surprised you got wrong.”

  “But how do you feel about it? About having a daughter instead of a son?”

  Boone scowled at Sarah, then looked down at the baby. “Well, I’m not going to name her Trace. And the whole nursery theme will need to be redone. I’m modern enough not to push a girl toward pink and purple, but a moose head on the wall and a bear rug on the floor doesn’t fit this little angel.”

  “You put a moose head on the nursery wall?” Sarah asked, her tone aghast. Katie Devlin looked pretty appalled too.

  Hannah spoke up. “It’s a forest theme. They’re stuffed animals. It’s adorable, I promise. He saw it on Pinterest.”

  Jared Devlin smirked. “You don’t strike me as the Pinterest type.”

  “I had a baby on the way. Needs must.”

  Sarah’s voice grew insistent. “Boone. I need your attention. I need you to answer my question. Do you care that she’s a girl and not a boy? Do you want a daughter?”

  His hold tightened protectively around the bundle in his arms. “I want her! I want to be a father—her father—her daddy. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I don’t go back on decisions. You know that about me, Sarah. Did you really think I’d change my mind just because she’s a girl instead of a boy?”

  “No, I didn’t.” She lifted her chin, and sincerity blazed in her eyes. “I absolutely didn’t.”

  “I might be a little mush-minded right now because this is a big moment in my life, but I’m very well aware that more is going on than meets the eye. I do want an explanation, because I know you too, Sarah. You had a reason for the subterfuge. However, all that can wait. Right now, I’m getting to know my little girl.”

  He returned his gaze to the baby, sleeping peacefully in his arms. “We have lots of things to figure out, don’t we? Need to figure out what direction we want to go with the nursery so we get my designer working on it. You and I might need a Pinterest date. What do you say? Most important, though, Trace Parker McBride isn’t going to do. You need a name. To paraphrase the great Jimmy Buffett, tell me…” Boone softly sang, “Little Miss Magic, who you gonna be?”

  * * *

  Hannah was a great big glob of goo.

  Boone might not have been blindsided by the fact that this baby was a girl, but Hannah darned sure was. A girl? She’d committed to taking care of a girl?

  She couldn’t do it. That wasn’t the deal. It was a step too freaking far. Her heart was healing—emphasis on the ing. N
ot healed. She wasn’t there yet. She was a long way from being there yet.

  A girl. What the heck was going on here? How could anyone have made such a basic mistake? Nobody. Somebody misled Boone on purpose. Why?

  She watched him drink in the sight of the infant in arms, and her heart gave an extra-vicious twist. She couldn’t help but think of the moment she and Andrew had learned they were expecting a second daughter. Andrew had been sorely disappointed and cranky about it.

  His reaction had hurt. Hannah would have welcomed a boy, but she had been happy that Sophia would have a sister. All she truly cared about was that the baby be born healthy.

  Yeah, well. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Stones was her theme song, wasn’t it?

  Her mind drifted into the past, and tears stung her eyes. Her heart was hurting. She turned away, and that’s when something attracted her attention to the teenager half hidden by a hedge. Perhaps it was the tear trailing down her cheek. Maybe it was the intensity of the stare the girl had leveled on Boone and the baby.

  Probably it was the naked pain etched across her face.

  Hannah knew grief when she saw it.

  Vaguely, she heard Boone talking to the baby about Pinterest and nursery design.

  The teenager covered her mouth with her hands and shut her eyes. That’s when Hannah figured it out. This was that baby’s mother.

  Hannah studied the girl. No, the young woman. Older than fifteen, less than nineteen, would be her guess. A little taller than Hannah’s five foot six. She had long brown hair, big brown mournful eyes, and she dressed in yoga pants, sneakers, and an oversized T-shirt.

  When Boone sang to the baby, the girl turned away. She began walking away. Fast. Hannah glanced at Boone. He remained focused on the baby.

  She followed the teen, who exited the restaurant’s patio through a gate and headed toward a parking lot. Even as she pursued the girl, Hannah second-guessed herself. Maybe everyone would be better off if she just let this go. Nevertheless, she got close enough to call, “Rachel? Rachel Davis? Please, may I speak with you a minute?”