Another employee came in with her four-month-old and stood for a while by the window, nuzzling her little daughter’s cheek before finally giving her to the director with a wistful smile.
I know how you feel, he thought, staring at his baby son. It’s so hard to say goodbye, even for a few hours.
The day care center had been started almost sixty years ago by his grandmother, Alexandra Mercer, for whom Alexander was named. Back then, when the brilliant businesswoman, then president of Mercer Industries, became a mother, she’d insisted that her husband, Wilton, the CEO, agree to open a day care center on site for all employees. She’d hired the best nannies in Wedlock Creek to staff the new corporate day care and told off anyone who dared say that she should be at home, raising her child herself. Back then, not many employees partook in the service offered. But now, with women comprising over half the employees at MI, the day care center was almost always filled to capacity. Knowing their babies and toddlers and preschoolers were well taken care of just an elevator ride away made for happier, more productive employees. Liam could attest to that firsthand.
He kneeled down on Alexander’s play mat and pulled out his phone to take a photo of Alexander in his cowboy hat, noticing an unfamiliar number on the screen. The same number had called three times in the past half hour. As he snapped the photo of Alexander, the phone buzzed again.
“Can I throw this thing out the window?” Liam asked the director.
She laughed. “You go ahead—answer it, I mean. We’ll take good care of Alexander.”
Liam smiled and nodded. “See you in a few hours for lunch and a haircut, cowboy,” he said to Alexander, then finally answered the call on his way out the door.
“Liam Mercer,” he said.
“Oh, thank goodness we finally reached you,” a female voice said. “Mr. Mercer, my name is Anne Parcells. I’m the administrator of the Wedlock Creek Clinic. We need you to come to the clinic right away and to bring the minor child, Alexander West Mercer, and your attorney.”
He froze. The minor child? His attorney? What the hell was this?
Liam frowned. “What’s this about?”
“We’ll discuss everything at the meeting,” Parcells said. “If you can get here by 9:15, that would be appreciated. The others will be here by then, as well.”
“The others?”
She didn’t respond to that. “Can we expect you by 9:15, Mr. Mercer? Please come to my office, two doors from the main entrance.”
Liam glanced at his watch. It was 8:55. “I’ll be there.”
There for what, though? Alexander was born in the Wedlock Creek Clinic. If the administrator was referring to his son as “the minor child” and talking attorneys, there was probably some kind of liability issue regarding the night he was born. A class action lawsuit, maybe. Liam closed his eyes for a second as memories of the snowstorm came back, memories he’d tried to block. Alexander’s mother phoning him, a desperation in Liza Harwood’s voice he’d never heard before, not that he’d known her very long.
Liam, there’s no time for explanations. I’m nine months pregnant with your baby and in labor. I should have told you before but I’m telling you now. I’m on my way to the clinic. The snowstorm is so bad. If anything happens to me, I left you a letter...
Nine months pregnant with his baby. And something had happened to Liza.
Most of Wedlock Creek had lost power that night, and the clinic’s backup generator had blinked out twice. There had been so many accidents in town—from tree limbs falling on houses to car wrecks and pickups in ditches. Liza had made it to the clinic in one piece but had not survived childbirth. A tragedy that had had nothing to do with the storm or the clinic.
Liam closed his eyes again, then shook his head to clear it. He had to call his lawyer, reorganize his morning and get to the clinic.
He headed back inside the nursery for Alexander. At least he’d have some unexpected extra time with his son this morning, after all.
* * *
Shelby Ingalls sat in an uncomfortable folding chair in the Wedlock Creek Clinic’s administrator’s office, holding her baby son against her chest in the sling he was fast asleep in. She glanced at the doorway, hoping the woman would come back and get this meeting—whatever it was about—underway. Opening time at Treasures, her secondhand shop, was ten o’clock, and Shelby wanted to display the gorgeous antique frames she’d found at an estate sale the other day and the cute new mugs with napping beagles on them. She knew several of her regular customers would love those.
She’d been about to head down to the shop when Anne Parcells had called, asking Shelby to come in and “bring the minor child” and her attorney. The phrasing and the word attorney had freaked her out, but the administrator had refused to say anything else. Shelby had been so panicked that it had something to do with Shane’s blood test, that he was terribly ill after all. A week ago she’d brought him into the clinic for a stomach virus and had been waiting for the results, which she’d been sure would reveal nothing since the virus had cleared up and Shane was back to his regular happy little self. But despite the director assuring her that Shane was perfectly healthy, Anne Parcells again requested that she come immediately to the clinic—and to bring an attorney.
First of all, Shelby didn’t have an attorney, and despite the size of her extended family, there wasn’t a lawyer in the bunch. Nor did she want this weird request from the director to become family fodder until she herself knew what it was all about. Her sister, her mother, her aunt Cheyenne and a bunch of cousins would be crowded in the back of this room if she’d let anyone know. So she’d called her sister, Norah, who despite being a chatterbox who knew everyone and all the town gossip, could keep a secret like no one else. Turned out, Norah was newly dating a lawyer, an ambulance-chasing type, and so much of a shark that she was thinking of breaking up with him because of it. A few minutes later Norah had called back and assured Shelby that David Dirk, attorney at law, would meet Shelby at the clinic by 9:10—and that the meeting was probably about some lawsuit from the night Shane was born because of the storm and the generator failing twice. In any case, Norah had promised to keep mum about the meeting and texted:
I get to know what it’s about, though, right? Call me the minute you’re out of there!
Shane stirred against her chest, and she glanced down at her dear little son, caressing his fine brown wisps. A moment later, an attractive guy in his early thirties appeared in the doorway. He had a baby face and tousled hair, but he wore a sharp suit and had intelligent eyes behind black-framed glasses. Not Norah’s typical brawny rancher type.
“David Dirk,” he said, extending a hand and sitting down beside her. “When the administrator arrives and says her spiel, don’t comment, don’t agree to anything, don’t answer anything with yes or no. In fact, let me speak for you.”
“I always speak for myself,” Shelby said. “But I’ll listen to your advice and we’ll go from there.”
Before he could respond, two other men appeared in the doorway, and at the sight of the one holding a baby wearing a brown cowboy hat, Shelby almost gasped.
She knew him. Well, she’d seen him before. And she’d never forget his face. Not just because he was incredibly good-looking—six feet one or two and leanly muscular with thick, dark hair and gorgeous blue eyes, a dimple curving into the left side of his mouth. It was that she’d never forget the combination of fear and worry that had been etched into his features, in those eyes. The night she’d given birth, he’d been sitting in the crowded waiting room of this clinic, his head in hands, when the ambulance EMTs had rushed her inside on a gurney. He’d looked up and they’d locked eyes, and despite the fact that she was already in labor and breathing and moaning like a madwoman, the complex combination of emotions on the man’s face had so arrested her that for one single moment, she’d been aware of nothing else but him. Given the pain she was in, the contractions coming just a minute and a half apart, that was saying