Makin' Whoopee (15 page)

"That's a blizzard, Sara Love," he said.

"No," she whispered, clutching the curtain. "It can't be. Charlie, we've got a baby to take care of. We can't have a blizzard."

"You'd better take that up with God," he said, shrugging. "Because whether we want it or not, that's definitely a blizzard."

"But what are we going to do with the baby?"

"I don't know. ... We could give her a peanut-butter sandwich and send her on her way." He glanced down at the pink bundle in his arms. "What about that, kid? Are you ready to shuffle off to Buffalo?"

"Food!" Sara gasped.

"You get hungry at the strangest times," he said, shaking his head.

"No . . . Charlie, what you said about a peanut-butter sandwich—what are we going to feed it?" she asked urgently. "I don't know anything about taking care of a baby. Oh, why couldn't they have left it on the doorstep of a motherly person? Mrs. Keoghan or Mrs. Evans. Mrs. Evans has grandchildren coming out of her ears, and she's only a mile away. Why couldn't they have left it with her?"

"Sara?" he asked calmly.

"What?" she snapped.

"Are you panicking?"

Her first impulse was to scream at him. Then, catching herself, she laughed weakly. "I've gone a long way past panic. What you're seeing now is pure, old-fashioned terror."

When she felt his free arm slide around her waist, she sagged, leaning against his strong shoulder. "Oh, Charlie, what are we going to do? Even if I didn't ask to have a baby on my doorstep, and even if I don't want so much as a minimal amount of responsibility for it, we can't let it go without food. But what do we feed it?"

"Her," he corrected again. "We'll feed her food. There was a bottle wrapped up in her blanket, but she's old enough for solid foods."

Right on cue the baby began to suck noisily on her chubby fist. Charlie chuckled. "Look, Sara. She's talking to us. She's saying, 'For heaven's sake, somebody throw me a pork chop.' "

Sara shot him a look of pure venom. Damn his eyes, he was enjoying this. How could he take it so lightly? This was a baby. But then, Charlie didn't understand how she felt. He couldn't possibly.

"All right," she said, forcing calmness into her voice. "All right, it's old enough for solids. You're the expert—what kind of solids? Do I grill her a steak?"

"The first thing you do is track down your emergency candles. Then well try to find the kitchen and see what we can do."

He sounded as though he were talking to an imbecile, Sara thought moodily. Even though she admitted that at the moment she felt more than a little imbecilic, she still resented being treated as one.

Fifteen minutes later the kitchen was illuminated by half a dozen fat candles, and Sara was holding one of them in front of the open refrigerator.

"This is the weirdest thing of all," she grumbled. "Even weirder than a baby on my doorstep. A dark refrigerator interior is—is unnatural. It's un-American. The light coming on automatically is something basic, an unchangeable given, like the sun rising in the morning."

"What are you muttering about?" Charlie asked from directly behind her.

"You wouldn't understand." She turned around to look at him. "What am I looking for, Charlie?"

"Have we got any bananas?"

"I don't know. I never eat them."

"I do. And Irma always buys them for me," he said smugly. "Where's the fruit bowl?"

"It's here on the counter somewhere." She ran her hands along the shadowy counter. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

"Trust me."

She snorted inelegantly. "The last time you said that to me your car broke down."

"No," he said. His voice had deepened, becoming slightly husky. "The last time I said that to you was the first time we made love."

"Oh," she said softly. A comforting warmth spread through her with the memory. "So what do I do with the banana?"

"Mash it up."

Minutes later she brought a bowl of brownish mush to the table and sat down beside him. "Okay, expert, now what?"

"You've got a choice." His blue eyes sparkled darkly in the candlelight. He was laughing at her again. "You can hold her and keep her little hands out of the way while I shovel it in, or else you can do the shoveling."

"I'll do the shoveling," she said firmly, picking up the spoon.

At first Sara was nervous and awkward, but after a while she relaxed a bit. It seemed to be going all right. Even though she had no idea what she was doing, the baby didn't seem to care. She only cared about getting food into her mouth as quickly as possible.

When Sara leaned close to spoon more banana in, the baby made a sputtering noise, and mashed banana splattered all over Sara's face. She lifted her gaze slowly to Charlie. "You knew about this, didn't you?"

He laughed. "I knew it was a possibility. Remember you chose to do the feeding." He cocked his head sideways to consider her. "Besides, you look beautiful with banana on your face. I would have just looked silly."

She picked up a towel and wiped her face. "My mother always told me never to trust a man with an easy tongue."

As soon as the banana mush was gone, Charlie wiped the baby's mouth and stood up. "That wasn't too painful, was it?" he asked cheerfully. "Now it's rime for her bath."

Sara stared at him in wary fascination. "You're crazy," she said.

"No, but I'm teasing," he said, laughing outright now. "It's getting colder, so I guess she'll have to skip her bath tonight."

"That's a relief."

"Chicken," was his only mocking comment.

As they walked back into the living room, he said, "I guess I'd better light fires in the bedrooms."

She nodded. "Yes, but you'll have to get more wood from the—" She broke off and groaned. "The shed. You'd never even find it in this storm. Oh, wonderful. What else can happen? Not only are we stuck with Little Orphan Annie in the middle of a blizzard; now we'll all freeze to death."

"Don't get all worked up," he said, his voice bracing. "It's only a small blizzard. We've weathered them before. We'll just all sleep in front of the living room fire. Mr. Hubbert couldn't have known this was coming or he would have laid in more wood."

As soon as he reached the fireplace Charlie turned to look warily at Sara. "I'm afraid you'll have to hold her this time, Sara Lovelight." He smiled apologetically. "I've got to get stuff together for our beds."

After a moment Sara nodded reluctantly and held out her arms for the infant. She accepted it stiffly. She might have to hold it, but she didn't have to like it.

"Take her bottle," he said, "and if she starts yelling, just stick it in her mouth." He paused, his face sober. "The mouth is the little rosebud thing on the front of her face."

"Get out of here, Charlie," Sara said sweetly, "before I slug the big rosebud thing on the front of your face."

After he had left, Sara looked everywhere in the room except at the baby. All those years she had avoided being around children, all the years she had avoided even thinking about them. She certainly couldn't avoid it anymore, not with a baby in her arms.

She glanced down warily. The baby didn't seem to know she was inadequate. She didn't know that the woman holding her had no motherly instincts at all.

"Dumb kid," she muttered, and the baby laughed.

Sara's mind buzzed with all the thoughts she had managed to hold at bay for most of her adult life. She began to pace restlessly back and forth. Everything had been going along fine, she told herself in agitation. She had finally come to grips with the emptiness of the future. Almost, she amended silently. But now something so small, so helpless was forcing her to face what she was missing.

And Charlie's response to this baby ... He was so easy about the situation, she thought grimly. Did he really know what being actively involved with this child was doing to her? But he couldn't know, she told herself. He couldn't realize how painful it was tar her even to look at a baby.

She sighed with relief when she heard him in the hall. He came back into the living room carrying an empty bureau drawer, a blanket thrown over his shoulder.

He set the drawer in front of the fire and nodded. "This will do just fine. After all, Jesus only had a wooden box and a bunch of hay."

"I think you're exaggerating her importance just a lithe.'' Sara said. "But I'll tell you one thing," she added dryly, "if any wise men come to the door, you ran deal with them. I'm a little off men tonight."

His soft laughter drifted through the room, adding warmth as he arranged the blanket in the drawer. When he was through he took the baby from her and laid it down.

"It's a perfect bed," he said, sounding pleased with himself.

While Charlie searched the storage room for a sleeping bag, Sara sat on the floor beside the drawer, not looking at the baby although her hand rested on the blanket.
What would she have done if he hadn't been with her?
she wondered. Somehow Charlie could make boiling in oil sound like a fun adventure. He always knew just what to do and just how to do it. She had never seen him at a loss for action. And that was only part of why she loved him so much.

She closed her eyes tightly as a sharp pain shot through her. Weil, she thought as she tried to steady her breathing, so I'm finally going to admit it.

The admission hurt dreadfully. It caused an immediate pain and a lingering ache. She could never let him find out, she told herself in desperation. He was so damn kind. He would hurt for her, and she couldn't stand the thought of seeing pity in his eyes.

She pulled herself up sharply when she heard him come back into the room. He had changed into his two-toned, moth-eaten sweat suit and was carrying two pillows as he dragged the sleeping bag behind him.

"Our royal bed, m'lady Love," he said as he spread the bag in front of the fire, beside the baby's bed. "Fit for a surly princess and a prince among men."

"You're an imposter, remember?" she said, knowing full well that she was the fraud in the room.

She sat down beside him. He was staring at the baby. "I think I'll call her Trudy Lee," he said, "because I found her on the back stoop."

"I don't even want to know what that means," Sara said, smoothing back her hair as she pretended to ignore him.

He smiled broadly. "Come here, Sara Lovely," he said. His voice was filled with gentle warmth as he folded her into his arms. "Trudy Lee isn't the only one who needs taking care of." He kissed her forehead. "You've had a bad day, haven't you, Love?"

"The understatement of the year," she murmured, snuggling closer. She needed Charlie's arms around her; she needed them desperately.

He must have sensed the tension in her, for he pushed her down on the sleeping bag and found her lips hungrily with his own. His power was complete; his demanding mouth banished ghosts and vanquished fears.

Beneath his sweat shirt, her hands clutched frantically at the hard muscles of his back and shoulders as she tried to absorb him and the exquisite feeling. There was no end in sight, she thought. Never was when she would get enough of him. Forever was how long she would need him.

"Has it really been years since I've kissed you?" he asked hoarsely against her throat. "Or only months?"

"Centuries . . . eons," she murmured.

"I think—" He stopped to clear his throat and looked down at her. "I think it's bedtime."

She ran trembling fingers down the length of his jaw. "I think maybe I'd better go change. This dress isn't exactly built to sleep in."

He nodded, never taking his gaze from her face. "You're right—too many buttons."

Standing reluctantly she glanced down at him. "Save my place?"

"I guess I could do that," he said, leaning back against the pillow. "But I warn you, I'll only hold it forever."

She laughed softly, then left the room, taking a candle with her. Even just in the hall outside the living room the cold struck her sharply. Her bedroom was like a cold-storage vault. She shivered uncontrollably as she quickly changed into her flannel pajamas.

She wanted to get back to Charlie's arms. She wanted to get back to the need he had built in her, but now that she was away from him, that same need worried her. Where would it end? How could they continue the way they were? Making love with him brought an ever-growing desperation. The more she got, the more she wanted.

"I love you, Charlie," she said to the empty room. "I love you so much, it hurts."

Her breath was visible in the candlelight, making the words seem impossibly lonely. She closed her eyes for an instant, then picked up the candle and left the room.

When she reentered the living room, Charlie was on his knees, leaning over the baby. She slowed, then stopped, when she realized he was speaking. The words were soft and low, but they reached her clearly.

"Trudy Lee," he whispered. "What a funny name for a catalyst. And what a funny sort of catalyst you are, so small and helpless." He stroked the baby's cheek with one finger. "How could you know that you're just what we've been needing, that I've been praying for something just like you? Only I never dreamed it would turn up at the back door in the middle of a blizzard. But funny or not, blizzard or not, I've got a feeling you're going to take us to the next step."