Protected (Jacobs Family Series Book 2) Read online

  “Kizmit?”

  “Yeah.” She patted the cow’s side, rubbed her hands up and down its flanks, then dropped some fresh hay in front of it. “You can sit on the bench there.”

  Travis sat and watched as she pulled up a stool and began milking Kizmit. The first time he’d tried milking his grandfather’s dairy cow he’d been fourteen. He still remembered the old man holding his sides and laughing when he’d barely managed to coax a trickle from the stubborn cow. Then Granddad had sat beside him and patiently shown him how to use his hands to bring the milk down. It had shocked him how difficult the work was. He’d been young and cocky and considered such things women’s work.

  Looking at her small hands, he thought of that summer and his grandfather’s patience. He remembered the way his hands had ached for weeks before he’d grown accustomed to the labor.

  Erin effortlessly squirted milk into the pail. She only paused to aim a stream at an old saucer, which she nudged out of the way with the toe of her work boot. The cats immediately began lapping at it. Travis could hear their purring from where he sat.

  “I thought about taking Joshua straight to the hospital, several times.” She glanced at him, then turned her attention back to Kizmit. Her milking had taken on a rhythm. In the dim lighting, he almost didn’t see her tears. Then she brought up the back of her hand and brushed them away. “He was wrapped in the camo blanket when I found him in the washtub. Doc had a baby seat in his truck—for his grandkids. He let me borrow it. When I put Joshua in the car he suddenly seemed cold and tired. He started crying, and I could tell he was hungry.”

  Travis looked down at the baby, sucking on his closed fist and staring up at him. He tried to envision him abandoned on a porch, alone in the woods, cold and hungry. Tried to imagine what he would do. He didn’t realize he was clenching the bench until the splinters from the wood began to dig into his palm.

  “Didn’t Dr. England tell you to go to the hospital, Erin?”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take him where they would poke and prod him. He’s just a baby. He only wants to be loved.”

  She stopped milking, and Kizmit turned her head and stared at her as the cow chewed the hay.

  “When we reached the highway, I called Doc, asked him to go by the store and pick up some formula, a bottle, some diapers…” Her voice trailed off. “Why would she throw him away? He’s so perfect.”

  Her words barely reached him across the stall. “As I drove back toward town, I couldn’t understand how this priceless gift could land in my lap.”

  Travis didn’t know what to say, so he stared into her eyes.

  “The woman seemed to know me,” Erin continued. “She used my name several times.”

  “Isn’t your name on your business listing?” Travis carefully moved the baby to the crook of his left arm. Joshua’s light weight had somehow caused his right arm to fall asleep, maybe because neither of them had moved while listening to her story.

  “No. I list under E. Jacobs. Joshua’s mom called me Erin several times.” She resumed her milking. “I told myself I’d bring him here, feed him, then call the authorities—and we did. But before they arrived I remembered the article in the paper.”

  “What article?”

  She stood, moved the stool to the next stall, and repeated the earlier process of patting the heifer and giving her a bit of hay. This time the cats sat on their haunches and watched her while they cleaned their paws and faces.

  Travis could still see her from where he sat, still make out her expression in the shadows. Worry lines had formed between her eyes, but she didn’t look at him.

  “What article, Erin?”

  “The one about the shortage of foster and adoptive parents, about how there are never enough and sometimes kids have to wait years without permanent parents.”

  “Erin, that article applied to children with special needs or older children. A child like Joshua would have no trouble—”

  “But don’t you see what such a thing implies?” She turned on him then, the urgency in her words alarming the cow, causing it to moan softly. Erin put a hand out to calm her, then continued. “Some families want a perfect child.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Some couples won’t take a child that is older.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Many families don’t want a child with the smallest of handicaps.”

  “Erin—”

  “Or a child that is ethnically mixed. Because Joshua’s blond doesn’t mean he couldn’t have some minority heritage. What if the adopting family decided they didn’t want an interracial child?”

  Travis searched his mind for how to argue with her, but before he could line up his defense she’d plowed forward.

  “What if they found out something about him and changed their mind? Then would they throw him away?”

  “No. Erin, it doesn’t work that way.”

  “But I promised her. You didn’t. I’m the one who gave my word.” The tears shone in her eyes, but this time they didn’t spill. “Don’t you see? I don’t care about what problems might crop up. When I give my word, I keep it. It matters to me that I honor my promises.”

  It was Travis’s turn to look away.

  How could he retain any objectivity when he stared into those beautiful brown eyes? When he heard the ache in her voice and saw the evidence of it still drying on her cheeks? He needed to ignore the warmth of Joshua in his arms. What did the manual say he should do next? He knew this process, had been through it several times before, though admittedly never in a barn with a woman like Erin Jacobs.

  When she stood and carried the buckets of milk to the tack room, he stood too.

  She stopped to feed an iguana and three rabbits. Apparently, the dogs in the kennel running adjacent to the house had already enjoyed dinner. They trotted along companionably, but didn’t raise a ruckus. How many animals did the ARK house? What percentage eventually found homes?

  Travis walked in silence, considering the list of emergency contacts in his phone. The night had settled around them. He wondered what time it was, then realized he didn’t care. He knew what his gut instinct was telling him—what he should do in this situation.

  Pausing at the porch, he reached out his hand to slow Erin. When she turned and met his gaze, worry clouding her expression, he wanted to touch her face—smooth it away. Instead he gently transferred Joshua to her arms.

  “I’ll be in touch tomorrow. I need to talk to my director.”

  She nodded, but made no move to walk up the steps.

  After he’d driven all the way down the lane, closing cattle gates behind him, he realized his folder with his case notes still lay on her porch—forgotten.

  Six

  Travis wanted to go home and forget the Baby Joshua case for a few hours. Better yet, he could take a left on the loop and head out to the marina. A few hours on his boat, even docked, would sooth his nerves.

  At the intersection, he looked left and could just picture Lake Livingston and his 2005 Skeeter.

  Tightening his grip on the wheel, he turned right—back toward the office.

  Minimal lights glowed downstairs, but one office at the second floor level blazed like a lighthouse in a dark ocean. He knew who else would be working after hours. As usual, he took the stairs, hoping to burn off some of his frustration.

  Instead of heading straight for Moring’s office, he stopped by his cubicle to check his e-mail.

  She found him there thirty minutes later playing with Newton’s Bracket, a game James had given him for Christmas.

  “Where did you get that?” She frowned at the seven metal balls clicking into one another with the precision of a well-designed robot. They hung from V-shaped swings in a perfect line. “I thought mutant mice had invaded the office from all the noise. Sounded like tiny claws scampering across the floor.”

  They both stared at the mechanism as the law of physics slowed it to a stop. Travis reached for the en
d ball to start it over, but Moring cleared her throat and he thought better of it.

  Instead he sat back in his chair and stretched, nearly touching wall to wall of his cubicle. “James bought it, of course.”

  “So did you stop by just to irritate me with that noise?”

  “Nope. Wanted to check my e-mail.”

  Moring stared pointedly at his computer, still dark and powered off.

  Travis shrugged. “Haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  She stepped into his cubicle, moved a stack of folders off his lone extra chair, and sat down. “Tell me about the baby.”

  Travis started to answer her, stopped, then reached out for the silver ball of the game. Surely if Newton could understand physics, he could make sense of one child custody case.

  “Don’t do it.” Without raising her voice, she’d issued a command—even managed to insert the edge of a growl into it.

  He sighed and sank into his chair.

  “Joshua appears to be a healthy six- to eight-week-old infant. Looks to be Caucasian. No obvious signs of abuse.”

  “How long did you spend with Joshua and Erin, Travis?”

  “Ninety minutes.” He studied a spot on the far wall.

  “Tell me about the baby.” Her voice had softened.

  He turned to meet her eyes and realized he didn’t know if his director was a mother. Had she ever raised an infant? Watched it grow through the phases of childhood?

  “He’s a little on the thin side, curly blond hair, trusting eyes.”

  “Better. Will your report rule this a Baby Moses case?”

  Travis didn’t even blink. “The most unusual one I’ve ever seen, but yes. I believe it is.”

  “Good enough. What about Erin Jacobs? Give me your impression of her, and I don’t want stats.”

  Travis needed to pace, but knew it would be impossible in his cubicle. Instead, he picked up the miniature basketball he kept near his computer and tossed it from one hand to the other.

  “She operates an animal rescue facility, which I know nothing about. I suppose it’s a real business, though it doesn’t seem terribly lucrative.”

  “Being wealthy isn’t a requirement for foster care parents.”

  “True.” Travis couldn’t hold back the anxiety in his voice as he pictured Erin. “She’s young—unbelievably young. Twenty-two! What twenty-two year old wants an infant? She should be out doing whatever twenty year olds do, not taking on the responsibility of a child. She’s not even married.”

  He squirmed under the weight of Moring’s gaze, but he couldn’t stop the rush of words now that they had begun.

  “She has an obvious emotional bond to the child, which is totally understandable since she rescued him. I think it might be a mistake to encourage her attachment though. It will only hurt her more—hurt them both more—when we find a permanent placement.”

  Moring held up her hand like a traffic cop, stopping his flow of thoughts.

  “Great. You’ve collected a lot of information. Let’s take it one objection at a time. It seems to me her occupation might uniquely equip her for being a foster parent. You know as well as I do we are critically short of people willing to partner with us and help children.”

  Travis heard what she said, knew she was right, but didn’t like accepting it. He remembered her description of the cabin, envisioned her going alone on the rescue. As always, his thinking froze.

  “You plan on popping that basketball?”

  He looked down at the object in his white-knuckled hands and forced himself to relax his grip.

  “But she’s awfully young for this level of responsibility.”

  “Point two. Her age. Twenty-two is young, but over half of our clients marry straight out of high school. Why does she seem particularly young to you? Is she immature?”

  “No.”

  “Are you worried about her level of commitment as a foster care parent?”

  “Not at all, but—”

  “Then let’s leave the age issue and move on to the fact that she is single.”

  Travis tried not to squirm in his chair, but found it difficult.

  “We’ve dealt with single foster parents before. Do I need to name them for you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why is Jacobs different?”

  “Because she’s single and young.”

  “Explain.”

  Travis began tossing the basketball back and forth again. “The single parents we have assigned foster children to have been older. They’ve had a long record of stability, and they’ve shown a history of wanting a family.”

  “Miss Jacobs doesn’t want a child?”

  “She wants this child, but she wasn’t looking for one when she found Joshua on a porch.”

  Moring stood, walked to the door of his cube, then turned and looked at him. “You’ve been here eight years, Travis. You’re one of the best social workers I have. Occasionally, an unusual case comes along. What is really bothering you about placing Baby Joshua temporarily with Erin Jacobs?”

  “She doesn’t want him temporarily!” The words exploded out of him as he shot out of his chair. “She wants him permanently.”

  “Which is not an atypical request. There’s plenty of time for you to determine what is in the best interest of the baby. Don’t get ahead of yourself on this one.”

  “But…”

  “But what?”

  “But if she does this, it cuts off so many paths for her. It limits so many options for the rest of her life.”

  Travis finally met his boss’s gaze. He understood how his words sounded. Knew they flew in direct opposition to everything their pamphlets and television spots preached, but those weren’t aimed at a twenty-two-year-old woman living across town on an ARK.

  “We don’t get to make those decisions for people.” A smile split Moring’s face, revealing teeth as white and perfect as the moon shining outside. “Erin will have the next three months to determine if this is what she wants, and you’ll be there to guide her through the process.”

  As his boss walked away, Travis thought again of his boat waiting for him over at Sneaky Pete’s Marina. He should have turned left. He would still have had to face the Jacobs case, but at least he could have done it from the bow of his boat. Some nights a little procrastination went a long ways.

  —

  Erin stood across the surgery table from Doc England. Both wore their lab coats, surgical scrubs, gloves, and masks. Doc was six inches taller and forty years older, but other than that they could have been twins—both entirely focused on the four-footed charge lying on the table.

  She’d avoided asking the question as they prepped the four-year-old basset hound for surgery. She’d rescued him three hours earlier from behind a dumpster at the park, his back foot tied with a belt to an old tire. In trying to chew through the belt, he’d also gnawed his foot almost completely through to the bone.

  “Do you think we can save him?” She pushed the emotion from her voice. Somehow she had to learn to take a more professional attitude toward this job or it would tear her up inside.

  “I’d suggest euthanasia if I believed it to be in the animal’s best interest. What did you name this one?”

  “Boomer. As you heard, he has quite the voice.” Erin positioned the light over the wounded leg. “His baying alerted the neighbors near the park. Though why they didn’t call me two days ago, I have no idea.”

  “Folks don’t usually call until they haven’t slept a few nights. Boomer should be fine once we fix this leg. You sure you can assist with Joshua sleeping over there?”

  Erin glanced over at the baby. He’d dropped off as soon as she’d fed him the bottle, so she’d set him in a basket usually reserved for her cat. She had, of course, lined it with fresh blankets.

  “Yeah. He’s out.” She grinned at Doc. “He’s been up since five. Helped me feed the animals. Could be why he’s so tired.”

  “Sounds like you two are on the
same schedule.”

  “I think so. Now if fancy-pants Williams will agree to let us be…”

  As England began repairing the ligaments in Boomer’s leg, neither of them spoke. When Erin had stitched the wound and wrapped the leg, Doc picked up the conversation right where they’d left off.

  “Didn’t care for the social worker, I take it?”

  Erin stripped off her surgical mask and shrugged. “He’s okay, I guess, if you don’t mind pushy people who spend their days meddling in other people’s business.”

  Doc’s laughter filled the small surgery room, but neither Boomer nor Joshua seemed to notice. He sat on the stool and ran his thumb between his graying eyebrows. Erin resisted the urge to squirm as he studied her. Instead, she focused on tidying the already immaculate room.

  She always suspected Doc could somehow see through the tight shell she kept around her life, perhaps because he had known her for so long. She still remembered the day she’d walked to his office with her older sister Dana and one half-starved kitten. He’d patiently told her what would need to be done to keep the animal alive.

  “He second guessed everything I told him. Said I should have left Joshua there at the cabin and gone for help. What kind of idiot would have walked away from a baby?” She couldn’t keep the contempt out of her voice as she swiped at the counter with antiseptic.

  “Well now, we discussed this. It’s their job to go over every single thing that has happened to the child, analyze it, and put a plus or minus in the column next to the person responsible. In their profession, it becomes something of a human equation.”

  “Hate math. Always have.” Erin knew she sounded like a petulant child, but it did ease some of her anxiety. She glanced again at the large wall clock. “It’s nearly ten. Why hasn’t he called yet? What does it mean?”

  “Lay it down, Erin.” Doc’s voice had grown soft like the blanket in Joshua’s basket.

  She didn’t want to raise her eyes to his, but she couldn’t resist. Blue, crinkly, and kind. Aged by sixty years. Patient and concerned. She had to fight the urge to run into his arms.