Finders Keepers, page 8
And then he hit the ground.
Lila cried out, then fear lent speed to her steps. It seemed to take forever, but it was in fact only seconds before she reached his side.
“Call 911,” she shouted as she leaned over the child and began tracing his tiny body for obvious signs of broken bones.
The young assistant raced toward the office as Lila knelt in the rain-splattered yard beside the child. Touching his forehead, she winced at the flow of blood welling from a cut at his hairline, as well as the awkward angle at which he was lying. He looked like a little broken doll.
Lila was afraid to pick him up. “Joey, darling…where do you hurt?”
The child moaned, then slowly, and to her immense relief, opened his eyes and looked up. His expression was dazed, his eyes full of pain and of shock as he crawled out of the dirt and into Lila’s lap. While she was happy that he had moved of his own volition, she was not surprised when he suddenly burst into tears.
“Want my Daddy,” he cried, and then stuck his thumb into his mouth and began to sob.
She lifted him into her arms and made it inside the office just as the deluge unloaded. Rain came down in blinding sheets, but Lila didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to stem the flow of blood running down the child’s face.
“Bring me some ice,” she yelled as she ran to the washroom, “and call Joseph Rossi’s office. Tell him to meet us at Saint Anthony’s emergency room. And get the rest of the children out of here. The last thing I need is for all of them to go into hysterics.”
Within minutes, an ambulance had arrived, and a paramedic began his examination of Joey while questioning Lila about the accident.
“I didn’t want to move him after he fell,” she said, “but he moved himself and crawled into my lap. That was when we came inside and called you.”
The medic nodded. “Children are very resilient,” he said. “I’ve seen kids fall from second-story windows and wind up with nothing more serious than a black eye.” His tone lowered and the seriousness of Joey’s possible injuries made them all take notice. “I’ve also seen them die from nothing more than a fall off a bed.” Then he added. “Who’s responsible for this child?”
Lila answered. “I am. I’m legally allowed to have first aid rendered to any of the children here. But his father’s office is near. I’ve instructed him to meet us at the hospital.”
And then Tracy came running back into the room where Joey was being examined.
“Mrs. Forshee, Mr. Rossi’s secretary is unable to reach him! She said he went out on a job site and didn’t take his pager. She has no way of contacting him until he calls in.”
Lila groaned as the paramedics began rolling Joey toward the waiting ambulance, and then she remembered.
“Call Molly Eden. Her name and number are on Joey’s records. Tell her to meet us at Saint Anthony’s and then keep calling Mr. Rossi’s office. Do you hear me?”
Tracy nodded as the doors closed behind the child who was being wheeled away to the waiting ambulance.
Molly wiped her hands and then stretched her aching back. Sometimes standing was as tiresome as running a mile, and she’d been filling orders all afternoon.
Harry, if you’ve got the last of the flowers in water, would you mind holding down the fort for a while? I think I’ll take an early afternoon and go by the flower market. I got a call from the rep earlier. There’s a new shipment of pottery in the warehouse and we’re nearly out.”
Harry nodded, but felt compelled to add, “No problem, but do you really think you should go out? That storm cloud looks pretty fierce.”
She looked out the window and shrugged. “Did Gary England say it was a tornado watch, or a tornado warning?”
Harry grinned. No self-respecting citizen of Oklahoma got nervous until their premier weatherman told them it was time to panic. “Just a watch,” he answered.
“Then I’m gone,” she said. “This time of year, every other cloud in the state is a storm watch. I don’t worry until they update them to warnings.”
“Spoken like a true Okie,” Harry said.
The phone rang, breaking the mood of the moment, and Harry picked it up on the third ring.
“Garden of Eden,” he said, and then frowned. “Molly, it’s for you. Sounds serious—it’s someone from your neighbor’s day-care center.”
Molly’s heart thumped twice in rapid succession as she hurried to answer the phone. It had been nearly a week since the kiss and what she laughingly called her “fall from lack of grace.” And in that time, she’d been wooed by the best. There were blue crayon pictures from Joey that she’d hung with pride on her refrigerator door and a goodly number of heart-stopping kisses that Joseph Rossi had stolen without asking. Although, to be fair, not once had Molly objected to the thefts.
“This is Molly Eden.” Her smile disappeared. She paled, then turned a lighter shade of pale as she listened. “I’ll be right there. In the meantime, keep trying his office.”
She slammed down the phone, her hands trembling as she struggled to write down a set of instructions for Harry to relay to Joseph should he call here instead of the center, and then made a run for her jacket and purse.
“What?” Harry asked. “Is it bad news?”
She shook her head. “It sounds like it. All they said was Joey fell,” she said. “But the ambulance is already on the way to Saint Anthony’s with him, and they can’t locate Joseph. I have to go.”
“Call me,” Harry said, then frowned as the raindrops outside turned into a wall of blowing water. “And for God’s sake, drive carefully,” he ordered.
And then she was gone, and Harry stared blindly at the rain and the wind, and knew that the storm outside was nothing to the one inside Molly Eden’s heart. Whether she realized it or not, her reaction to this news had given her away. Her relationship with Joseph Rossi had obviously gone way past neighborly.
Marjorie Weeks was in a panic. Joseph’s pager was on the desk in his office. Because of that, she had no way to contact him and inform him of his son’s accident, nor did she imagine, from the looks of the weather outside, that he’d be calling in any time soon. He hadn’t answered his car phone, he didn’t have the pager, she didn’t know what to do.
She paced the floor, trying to think of an alternative plan, when the second phone call came from the center informing her that Molly Eden had been located and was en route to the hospital.
She made note of the information, fuming as she did that it wasn’t decent for a child to be in the care of a woman like that. Memories of the first time they’d met, and of Molly Eden’s teasing remark about not recognizing Joseph with his clothes on, disgusted her.
“It’s just not right,” Marjorie muttered. “A child needs his own mother. Not an overavailable female who happens to live next door.”
She didn’t see it as wrong that she was taking too much upon herself to worry about her boss’s private life. As far as she was concerned, it was her duty to see that a nice man like Joseph Rossi didn’t make the same awful mistakes as her ex-husband had done. It was that irrational thinking that made her do something very unlike her—something very unprofessional. She went into Joseph’s office and snooped.
Days earlier, Joseph had remarked about needing to return certain papers to his safe-deposit box. She knew for a fact that they were papers that concerned his legal relationship with his son. After the incident at the day-care center, he’d had to show proof of his legal custody and guardianship rights as well as prove that he was really Joey’s father. If she was right, the mother’s name should be mentioned somewhere on the papers.
Her hands shook and her heart was pounding as she opened the file. Nervously, she glanced toward the closed door, then began to search. She didn’t have long to look.
Shock at what she read overwhelmed her. Somehow, Joseph had coerced Joey’s natural mother into giving up all rights and claims to her child forever. She was appalled at the clinical manner with which her rights had been disposed of. While Marjorie knew and accepted that many women could give birth and then give their child away, she wouldn’t let herself believe that this was the case. In her mind, she was certain that if Joey Rossi’s mother knew what danger her child was in, she’d surely come running.
She wrote down the information she needed, and quickly returned the papers to Joseph’s desk drawer. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and, she thought, in the long run, he’d thank her. It was with that misguided bit of information and thinking that she went about doing her bit toward trying to ruin the rest of Joseph’s life.
The windshield wipers gave a halfhearted swipe at the sheet of rain blowing against the windshield. But Molly knew the city like the back of her hand, and she negotiated the streets almost on autopilot. Instead, her thoughts were focused on the way Joey’s arms felt as he threw them around her neck or the way that his eyes could well with unshed tears when his feelings had been hurt. She couldn’t imagine him in pain. And she knew that when Joseph was finally found, he would be devastated, knowing that his baby had suffered alone. All she could do was get there as quickly and safely as possible. If Joey needed someone and his daddy wasn’t available, then “momma” would have to do.
Her hands were shaking as she wheeled into the parking garage across the street from Saint Anthony’s Hospital. Seconds later, she was out of her car and running before she remembered that she hadn’t even put on her jacket. But there was no way she’d turn back. All she could think about was getting inside and looking into Joey’s face, assuring herself that he was all right. He just had to be.
“God help me, I can’t lose another child,” she whispered, and then dashed out into the rain and across the street.
It didn’t dawn on her that Joey wasn’t hers to lose. He and his father had already taken up residence in her heart.
Lila Forshee was trying not to get hysterical. But the doctor and nurses who were tending Joey were having a difficult time keeping him still long enough for treatment. His screams and shrieks could be heard all the way down the long hallway in X-ray.
Joey Rossi’s world was coming apart at the seams. Strangers were hurting him, and the unfamiliar smells and noises only added to his terror.
Lila paced the waiting area outside of the ER, hoping that someone would arrive soon who could soothe the child’s fears. Her heart was breaking for the toddler in panic, but she’d been unable to calm him, and only wound up getting in the doctor’s way. Waiting out here while he was being treated was her only option. She glanced at her watch, wishing as she had for the last few minutes that Joseph Rossi would make a miraculous appearance, and then she heard the rapid sound of footsteps and looked up. Relief came with the tall slender woman who was running in an all-out sprint down the hallway.
“Molly…thank God you’re here!”
Lila’s worried expression turned Molly’s stomach. The room tilted. She refused to admit, even to herself, that she was scared out of her mind. Fainting was not an option. She grabbed Lila’s arms, literally shaking the answer out of her.
“Where is he? Is he hurt badly? I could hear him screaming before I got off the elevator.”
Lila pointed, and Molly ran.
“Momma!”
The child’s kicking and screaming stopped simultaneously with Molly’s arrival. His silence shocked the doctor and nurses in attendance almost as much as what he said. They turned as one in time to see the slender woman who burst through the doorway. They didn’t even have time to move before she rushed past them, grabbed Joey from the bed and clasped him to her breast as if she needed him to take her next breath.
Tears that Molly had been willing away suddenly flowed. But it didn’t matter now. She was here, and Joey was in her arms.
“Well now, little man,” the doctor said, as he leaned against a cabinet and smiled at the now near-silent child. “I see why you were so worried. I would be worried too, if I didn’t have someone this pretty holding me.”
Molly smiled through tears as she raked her gaze across Joey’s face and body, trying not to gasp at the amount of blood on his clothes, then sank onto the bed with Joey cradled against her breast. She smoothed the hair away from his forehead, noting for the first time the three tiny stitches just below his hairline, and tried not to burst into a fresh set of tears. Joey’d had a big enough fit alone, he didn’t need to see her distress and start a new one.
“How is he?” Molly asked, and unconsciously rocked Joey as he slipped his thumb into his mouth and tried to work himself up into another set of tears. His sniffles and sobs nearly broke her heart.
“Except for a cut on his forehead, which we managed to stitch—against his wishes, I might add—he seems to be fine. He’s been x-rayed and given a thumbs-up, although I will say that Frank down in radiology will never be the same.” The doctor grinned to make his point. “Sounds really echo down there. You could hear this fellow on the next floor.” He pointed to the child in Molly’s arms.
“I fell,” Joey announced. “Want my daddy.” Just thinking about his absent parent sent a fresh set of tears flowing, but the screams and shrieks had disappeared with Molly’s arrival.
“I know, darling,” Molly said, and hugged him gently, afraid to squeeze too hard and injure something bruised. “Daddy will be here as soon as Mrs. Weeks can find him, okay?”
Joey nodded, and snuggled against Molly’s breast. “My momma,” he said, clutched a handful of her shirt, and closed his eyes.
The doctor slid a practiced hand along the child’s arm and let it slide gently across his wrist, pausing long enough to test the pulse rate of the child in Molly’s arms.
“He should sleep,” the doctor said. “We’d given him something for pain just before you arrived. He has no signs of concussion, no broken bones, only the cut on his forehead. But I recommend that you or your husband take Joey in to his pediatrician tomorrow morning and let him check him again, just to be safe.”
Molly nodded. There was no use trying to explain to this man that she had no husband and no legal right to be holding this child. There was no way she was about to let go of Joey. And from the way Joey was holding onto her wet clothing, he had no intentions of letting go of her, either, even in sleep.
“What should I do?” Molly asked, aware that the feelings swamping her amounted to a lot more than overwhelming love for the child in her arms. “What if he wakes up in pain? Can he get his stitches wet? Will the medicine you gave him make him nauseous? Can I—”
The doctor smiled. “Spoken like a true mother. The nurse will give you a set of instructions. Other than that, use your instincts, and”—he put a gentle hand on Molly’s shoulder—“when you get home, get into something dry so you don’t get sick, too.”
Molly shuddered and sighed. “Yes, Doctor.” She shifted Joey’s limp body in her arms to get a firmer grip, then walked out of the ER, pausing long enough to stuff the sheet of paper the nurse handed her into her hip pocket.
“I’ll get a wheelchair,” the nurse said.
“I don’t need one,” Molly said. “I’m not hurt, and I’m not putting him down. I’ll carry him.”
The nurse frowned, and then relented as she saw the doctor nod his approval from behind Molly’s back.
“Is he all right?” Lila asked, as Molly walked out with the child in her arms.
Molly nodded. “Just a cut. He has stitches.” Her mouth wobbled. “His first.”
Lila sighed. “And from the looks of this little man, they won’t be his last. He’s one of the more daring children I have at the center.”
“Just like his father,” Molly said. “He dares a lot, too.”
She couldn’t help but remember her rescue from the bathtub and the unabashed way in which Joseph went about it.
“Did you drive?” Lila asked.
Molly nodded. “I’m across the street in the parking garage.”
“We’ll take the underground tunnel to get back to the parking garage. It’ll save getting wet again, and I’ll drive while you hold him. After I get you home, I’ll call a cab.”
“Thanks,” Molly said. “I appreciate it.”
Lila grinned wryly. “Don’t thank me. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t showed up.”
Molly looked down at the sleeping child in her arms, and resisted the urge to cry again. Her world had been rocked off its axis in a big way this afternoon. She wasn’t certain what it all meant, but she had a feeling that things would never again be quite the same.
All the way across town, Molly clutched Joey tight against her breast and prayed that Joseph would somehow be waiting when they arrived. When they turned the corner and started down the street, her heart dropped. His car was nowhere in sight.
“I have a key to Joseph’s house,” she said. “Just park in his driveway. You can call a cab from here. I don’t want to put Joey to bed at my house and then have Joseph have to move him again later.”
“Good idea,” Lila said, and then she cocked her eyebrow as she parked Molly’s car. “So…you have a key to his place, do you?”
Molly flushed, and stared down at the sleeping child in her arms. “It’s not like you think. We’re just friends.”
Lila nodded sagely. “It’s always good to have friends.”
“You have my permission to shut up at any time,” Molly said. “I can read your mind, and it’s crawling in the gutter.”
Lila wiggled her eyebrows. “There are worse places to be,” she teased.
Molly looked up at the sky, thankful that there seemed to be an intermittent break in the rain. “Not today,” she said. “If I don’t miss my guess, the gutters—and the streets—will flood before this is over.”
Lila made a run for the house, opened the door, then stepped aside as Molly hurried in with Joey, who was still asleep in her arms. The only reaction he made to being moved or disturbed was to tug harder at the thumb stuck inside his mouth.
And then Lila was gone, leaving Molly alone in Joseph’s house with Joey clinging tightly to her blouse. She walked to his bedroom, thinking she would put him down in his own bed. But each time she tried to lay him down, he would whimper and cry.
