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  "Can we do that today?"

  "No. Today the judge must either rule that Kippy be in the custody of the Ministry or returned to Dorothy."

  "But she's in the hospital."

  "I think we can get them to agree to your looking after Kippy on your grandmother's behalf, but it would mean you can't leave the country until we get the custody agreement. With luck, you might be able to take Kippy to the States in a couple of weeks."

  She couldn't walk out of her job for two weeks with no notice.

  She couldn't leave Kippy with strangers.

  "Yes," she said. "I'll stay."

  An hour later, standing behind Dexter in front of the robed judge in family court, Samantha felt as if she were still in shock. At Easter she and Dorothy had walked together every evening, Dorothy pushing the baby carriage as often as Samantha. If Dorothy knew she had a health problem, she'd managed to hide the fact from Samantha.

  Was Dorothy secretive? Samantha had never thought so, but as she listened to the social worker reading the doctor's report, it was obvious that Dorothy had sheltered her granddaughter from her health problems.

  Congestive heart failure.

  "Your honor," said Dexter. "Dorothy Marshall is in the hospital, but she's instructed me to advise you that she has appointed the child's aunt, Samantha Jones, to act as caregiver to the child while she's there. I have with me the child's aunt. We request that Katherine Morrison be returned to Dorothy Marshall's care, and that the protection hearing be scheduled as soon as possible."

  The judge asked Samantha several questions, then the social worker murmured to the Ministry's lawyer, who protested, "Your honor, Ms. Jones is an American citizen who lives and works in Seattle. Does she intend to remove the infant from Canada?"

  The judge said, "Ms. Jones, are you willing to accept a restriction against removing Katherine Morrison from this jurisdiction?"

  "Yes, your honor."

  After some discussion with the lawyers and the social worker, the judge said, "I'm going to order that the child be returned to the care of Dorothy Marshall under the supervision of the director, with the restriction that Ms. Jones is not permitted to remove the infant from this jurisdiction. We'll set a date for the protection hearing as soon as possible."

  Dexter murmured, "You understand, Samantha, that you'll be getting supervisory visits from the Ministry of Children and Families? The social worker?"

  "Yes."

  "OK. I'll see Dorothy tomorrow at the hospital, talk to her about applying for a permanent transfer of custody under the Family Relations Act."

  An hour later, Samantha stood outside the front door of a small, blue house with the social worker, Brenda Simonson. She'd just obtained Ms. Simonson's grudging permission to fly back to Seattle Friday afternoon for the open house, leaving Kippy in Diana Foley's care for the afternoon and evening. Now if Cal would agree to act as her chauffeur with the helicopter, she'd be able to attend the open house.

  Cal wasn't going to like it when she told him she needed a two-week leave of absence, with no notice.

  The social worker said, "I'll be visiting several times over the next few weeks. If Katherine isn't being cared for properly, I have the authority to remove her again."

  "Of course I'll care for her properly. She's my niece."

  The social worker glared at her. "This infant has already been subjected to enough traumatic change. I don't see the point of giving her to you. You're supposedly family, but you're taking off, leaving her within hours. How many trips do you plan to make to Seattle, Ms. Jones? Katherine doesn't need a caregiver too busy with her job to care about her orphaned niece."

  "Look, Ms. Simonson, I—"

  "Just don't forget: I'll be watching you."

  Samantha's lips were parted to retort when a middle-aged woman wearing a soft blue tracksuit opened the door.

  "Hi, Brenda." Her smile included Samantha as she said, "You're Katherine's aunt? I'll get her."

  "We call her Kippy," said Samantha, stepping inside the house.

  Seconds later she heard the cries of a baby. Kippy? She wasn't sure, and wondered if the social worker would criticize her for not being able to recognize her niece's cry. As the cry grew louder, closer, Samantha nervously wondered if Kippy would cry even louder when Samantha took her in her arms. Would the social worker make another negative note in her file about Samantha Jones?

  Then she saw Kippy, the baby's familiar face creased in outrage as she struggled in the matronly foster mother's embrace.

  Samantha held out her arms.

  Kippy stopped in mid-howl and held out her arms toward her aunt. Seconds later, with the baby clinging tightly to her, Samantha fought away tears. The dried tears on Kippy's face told their own story, as did the baby's clinging grip on Samantha. She'd been with strangers, lonely and miserable despite the obvious warmth and maternal urges of the foster mother.

  Now, said her tight grip on Samantha's shirt, she was with someone of her own, and she wasn't letting go.

  "Her infant seat came with her," said the foster mother. "I'll get it and her diaper bag."

  Brenda hissed, "It's not enough that the child cares for you. You're a single woman with a high-powered career in Seattle. How much time are you going to have for a small child?"

  "As much time as she needs," said Samantha, although she was filled with her own doubts about her ability to mother Kippy. What did she know about looking after a baby? What if she couldn't give Kippy the loving security Dorothy had given Samantha and Sarah?

  Brenda doubted her. How much weight would the judge give to the social worker's testimony? Surely he wouldn't deny Samantha's claim to Kippy? She was Dorothy's choice, Kippy's aunt, a mature woman who earned an excellent salary and lived in a spacious apartment with a room available as a nursery. She'd never been in trouble with the law, wasn't promiscuous, and was Kippy's only relative other than Dorothy.

  Samantha vowed she would win the social worker over before the protection hearing.

  Outside, she shifted Kippy and opened the front passenger door.

  "You can't put her in the front seat!" shrieked Brenda.

  Samantha froze. "Why not?"

  "The air bag! Don't you know anything about child safety? If you're in an accident and the air bag inflates, that child could be horribly injured, even killed."

  "Thank you." She made herself smile at Brenda and turned to the back door. She'd seen items on the news about air bags and children, hadn't really listened, she supposed, because it didn't seem to apply to her.

  Kippy began to cry when Samantha put her into the car, was shrieking by the time Samantha climbed into the front seat and started the engine. Did she need a bottle? A new diaper?

  Kippy gulped in the middle of her cry.

  "We're going to visit Dorothy," Samantha told her.

  Brenda stared at her through the window. Samantha didn't know what to do: Drive away, or get out and pick up Kippy and try to soothe her under Brenda's watchful eyes.

  "I'll change your diaper at the hospital," she promised Kippy, shoving the car into gear.

  Two blocks from the hospital, the baby miraculously stopped crying, but when Samantha parked in the visitor's lot, Kippy immediately began fussing again and didn't stop until she'd been picked up.

  Samantha had phoned earlier and got Dorothy's room number. Now she walked straight to the elevators, hoping no one would challenge her. Babies probably weren't allowed, but surely both Kippy and Dorothy needed this meeting, and Samantha needed it, too, both to reassure herself and to find out more about Dorothy's health.

  Kippy started fussing again.

  Was she hungry? Two months ago at Easter she'd been living on bottles of baby formula and a couple of spoons of cereal at bedtime. Had that changed? Did Dorothy have formula in the house? There was none in the diaper bag.

  When Kippy caught sight of Dorothy, she immediately began squirming in Samantha's arms, reaching for her great-grandmother.

  Doroth
y looked pale and haggard. She looked—well, she looked her age.

  "You got her back for us! Oh, darling, I knew you would!"

  Samantha gave the baby into her grandmother's eager arms and sank into the chair beside the bed.

  "Oh, Kippy, darling," crooned Dorothy. "Samantha, honey, thank you."

  Samantha's arms were aching from the baby, and she hadn't yet pulled off the miracle Dorothy thought she'd already achieved—making Kippy safe and secure. Looking at her grandmother's pale, drawn face, she realized the doctor must be right. Dorothy was very ill.

  "Kippy's so glad to see you," said Samantha. She needed to question Dorothy, to know just what the medical situation was, how long she'd been sick, whether this nursing home the doctor talked about was what Dorothy herself wanted and needed.

  "I'll never forgive that doctor," muttered Dorothy, still clinging to Kippy, although the baby was now struggling for freedom.

  Samantha held out her arms and Dorothy surrendered Kippy. Her grandmother looked even paler now and seemed to be having trouble breathing. With the baby sitting on her lap, still squirming, Samantha said, "I'm worried about your health. If you're not happy with your doctor, I'll arrange for—"

  "Not happy? I'm furious. What right had he to go behind my back and do that to Kippy?" Dorothy's breath came in short hard bursts as if the energy of her anger exhausted her.

  "Grandma, he thinks you should go into a nursing home."

  "He's delusional. A couple of days and I'll be fine. I overdid it a bit and had a few cramps, and he's ready to call the funeral home. I won't have it, Samantha!" She stopped to take a few breaths, said more quietly, "If you'll just look after Kippy for a few days, I'll be home and all this nonsense will be over."

  Holding her niece in her arms, Samantha knew the judge wouldn't give custody of Kippy back to Dorothy, not after the medical report he'd seen today. A few cramps, Dorothy said, but the doctor called it congestive heart failure, and two days in the hospital had left her looking old and weak. Samantha couldn't imagine Dorothy confined to a nursing home, but what were the alternatives?

  She needed to talk to Dorothy's doctor and talk to other doctors, too. She had an uneasy feeling that she might have to battle for custody of her grandmother as well as her niece.

  "We'll work it out," she promised. "Dexter's coming up to the hospital to talk to you tomorrow morning. Right now, you and Kippy both need a rest. I'm taking her home to Gabriola, and I'll call you in the morning."

  Wayne was right, Samantha thought as she walked out of the hospital carrying a struggling six-month baby in her arms. She wasn't superwoman. It was one thing to say, "I'll look after it," to the judge, the social worker, her grandmother, and Cal, but how was she going to manage?

  Samantha knew what it was like to be a child ignored in the chaos of adults' lives. There was no way she'd let that happen to Kippy, even if it meant giving up the job she loved.

  Chapter Four

  I won't need you.

  Cal couldn't have said why the memory of Sam saying those words bothered him so much. The idea of her needing anyone seemed laughable—she was the most capable woman he knew. Hell, the most capable person. It hadn't irritated him until now. After all, when a man hired someone to look after an administrative nightmare, he'd be crazy to resent her for competence.

  Cal sure as hell wasn't crazy—at least, he never had been before. But here he was, on the eve of doubling the size of his company, which was enough to give a man ulcers, unable to stop thinking of the shadows in Sam's eyes, the evasiveness in her voice.

  Had she always been evasive? If so, why hadn't he noticed?

  What kind of problems would put a woman like Sam off balance? She'd been prickly this morning, and he'd sensed ragged emotions, disconcerting when he knew her as calm and perfectly controlled.

  Two hours after she dropped him off, he called her cell phone only to be told by an annoying computerized voice that the caller he wished to reach was away from her phone. Hadn't she said she would have her cell phone and computer with her? What if he'd been calling with an urgent message? What if he needed her?

  What the hell was up with Samantha Jones?

  Why hadn't she told him where she was staying? She'd grown up on Gabriola Island—was she staying there? His memory of the island included a network of little gravel roads that could take hours to cruise. And she might not be there at all. She could be here in Nanaimo, in a hotel somewhere. He'd already checked the Coast Bastion to be sure she didn't have a reservation, but he would check the others too.

  I've been working eighteen hours a day for weeks and I deserve a few hours off the leash.

  He couldn't deny that, but damn it, every instinct he had told him something was wrong. When an employee took time off for a family emergency, surely it was normal to explain the damned emergency.

  Sam hadn't explained, not really. Her grandmother was sick, but she'd said it wasn't serious.

  He located the hotel’s found the Gabriola Island section of the phone book he’d found in his hotel room. Four listings for Jones. He could call them all, looking for Sam's parents or her grandmother, but was Sam's grandmother named Jones? For all he knew, Jones might not be Sam's birth name. What if she'd married, then divorced, but kept her husband's name?

  The idea of Sam married bothered the hell out of him.

  Damn the woman! Why couldn't she stay the way he knew her—cool, remote, and capable?

  He connected his laptop computer to the hotel's Wi-Fi. A minute later he was typing in his administrator login and password for Tremaine's secure network.

  Then into the HR records.

  Samantha M. Jones's next of kin was listed as Dorothy Marshall, who lived at 1401 Crocker Road on Gabriola Island.

  Kippy wouldn't stop screaming.

  Samantha had bathed her, setting her on the anti-slip rubber mat in six inches of warm water in the big bathtub. Kippy hadn't been able to sit on her own at four months, but tonight she sat solidly in place, a rubber duck clenched in one fist as she splashed and emitted high, happy shrieks while Samantha soaped and rinsed her. Then she'd eaten the half jar of peaches Dorothy said she took with her cereal each night before bed, and guzzled her bottle.

  The baby was obviously sleepy, her head drooping against Samantha's shoulder as she carried her to the little room at the back of the house. But as soon as Kippy's head touched the sheet, her tiny body scrunched up and she began screaming.

  Samantha desperately needed a book on baby care. She should have bought one at the mall near the ferry terminal. Why hadn't she thought of it before she brought Kippy home?

  She'd bathed Kippy, fed her, changed her diapers, held her, and played with her on an average of one weekend a month. But she realized now that whenever Kippy cried, it was Dorothy she reached for. She had no experience with calming baby hysterics. If it weren't for the fact that Kippy stopped crying each time Samantha picked her up, she'd think the child was ill.

  She carried Kippy to the kitchen table where she'd set up her portable computer and sat down with her. "Why don't we work together?" she murmured. "You just lie there and fall asleep, and I'll check my e-mail."

  Kippy squirmed and began crying. Samantha rubbed her back, talked to her, and even sang a half-remembered version of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."

  Kippy screamed.

  "Honey, I don't know what to do for you."

  She didn't want to worry Dorothy with a phone call to her hospital room, but perhaps Diane knew some magic cure for whatever was troubling Kippy.

  When Samantha stood and walked to the telephone at the end of the kitchen counter, Kippy fell magically silent, only to begin whimpering again as Samantha dialed Diane's phone number.

  "She may be teething," said Diane, "but it's more likely separation anxiety."

  "Separation anxiety?" echoed Samantha.

  "I noticed it the last couple of times Dorothy left her with me. It's normal, usually around the time babies start to notic
e the difference between people and realize that Mom—in this case, Dorothy—isn't always there. They go through a stage where they cling if they think Mom is going to go away and cry when she does."

  "She's crying every time I put her down. What should I do?"

  "Try walking her, or sitting in the rocking chair upstairs. The motion will soothe her. If you're desperate, you could try putting her in the infant seat and taking her for a drive. That always used to put my babies to sleep."

  Miraculously, Kippy had fallen silent again. Samantha turned her head and found the baby's head resting on her shoulder, eyes open and staring.

  "Thanks, Diane. Right now she seems OK."

  "That will probably change when you put her down. Good luck, Mom."

  "Thanks. Diane, I have to go to Seattle tomorrow afternoon to tidy up some loose ends before I'm free." Brenda Simonson hadn't liked the fact of those loose ends, and the judge had given Brenda the power to take Kippy away again if she thought it necessary. "I'll be back late tomorrow night. Can you look after Kippy for me?"

  "I'd love to. Anytime, Sam. I'm almost always home, and I enjoy Kippy. I wish mine were babies again."

  Now she needed to talk to Cal.

  Samantha hung up the phone. With Kippy's wide eyes staring at her, she knew there wasn't much sense trying to put her down in the crib again. She carried Kippy upstairs to the room she and Sarah had slept in through their teenage years, the room that had been her own mother's as a child.

  After Samantha and Sarah had moved out, Sarah to marriage and Samantha to university, Dorothy had replaced the twin beds with a double, but otherwise left the room as it was. The bookshelves held a chaotic mixture of romances and kids adventure stories, with a couple of school textbooks mixed in. The contents of the closets were more up to date. Samantha and her sister had sorted through the closet last summer and had given most of their old clothes away to the Goodwill.