Christmas in Key West

“Loretta called her to help out with Huey.”

Ellen crossed her arms. “She’s got quite a job there. I hope you don’t get mixed up with that bunch, Reese. The whole lot of them are trouble. Loretta taking up with Huey’s brother, Huey acting like a crazy man…How long is Abby staying?”

“I didn’t ask her. But if what you say is true, she’s got more worries with Huey than just his code violations.”

Leaving the marina, Reese wondered if Abby had heard about the taxes. She probably hadn’t, since Ellen knew everything on the island before anyone else found out, and he figured Huey wouldn’t have told her.

Reese pictured Abby’s reaction when she learned the news, and he decided to check his mother’s facts on his own. Then he’d take an even bigger step. He’d tell Abby himself. She already resented his interference in Huey’s life, but she had to believe she could trust him. He wasn’t that wild guy she’d known years ago. He was a cop now, not a crusader who ignored the law.

He sat in his truck a minute, looking over the water, hoping the panorama of a glass-smooth Gulf would calm him. Not today. Not when Abby’s troubles were on his mind. She’d stood right up to him this morning, staunchly denying that Huey had any problems.

He remembered that proud stubbornness from when she’d been in high school. She always kept herself apart from everyone.Apart and above.He’d never once heard ofAbigail Vernay breaking the rules or getting into trouble. She’d been a straight-A student and always seemed to possess a fierce determination to succeed despite not having a lot of support from home. When Abby was just a kid, Loretta had tried to be a good mother to her, stretching limited dollars every way she could. But Huey had always managed to screw up.

Reese recalled Loretta’s saying that Abby worked in social services in Atlanta. He figured she’d be tops at whatever she did.

He cranked up the engine on the patrol car and smiled. In his youth, he’d pulled a lot of stunts he wasn’t proud of. Some of them he would arrest himself for now. And a couple of them, including that one brief encounter with Abby, came back to haunt him sometimes. But he’d bet that Abby didn’t have much in her past to be ashamed of.

Chapter Four

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER Reese’s unexpected visit, Abby stacked the breakfast dishes in the drainer and tried, unsuccessfully, not to think about him. She’d heard of some significant events in Reese’s life over the years. Her mother had told her when he’d married, and then when he’d divorced, seven years ago. Abby didn’t know the details, just as she didn’t know if he was involved with anyone now. One thing she told herself. If Reese was in a serious relationship, she shouldn’t care.

She hung the dishrag over the sink and looked out the window. Why in heaven’s name was she wasting even a moment of thought on a man she’d sworn she’d gotten over completely? Unless she hadn’t.

If only she’d been smarter all those years ago! She wouldn’t be wasting brain cells on him now.

Grateful when her cell phone rang, she went to the kitchen table, where she’d left it. She recognized the caller’s name and pressed the connect button as her concern mounted. “Alicia?”

“Miss Vernay? I’m sorry to call you…” The teen’s thin voice trembled.

“Don’t be. I gave you my number so you could use it if you needed to. Is something wrong? Is everything okay with the baby?”

“Yes, the baby’s growing fine.”

“Then are you rethinking your decision about the adoption?”

“I have to. Things have changed.”

Abby sat in the closest chair and imagined the anguish on Alicia’s pale face, the sadness in her big brown eyes. “But when I left, you’d made up your mind. You were going to keep the baby.”

“That was when Cutter agreed to help me raise it.”

Abby pressed her fingertips against her forehead. She’d heard this story too many times. “What happened, Alicia? Did he back out?” She hoped not.Alicia’s boyfriend had been in trouble with the law a couple of times, but the prospect of becoming a dad seemed to be turning him around.

“No, ma’am.” Alicia hiccupped—the prelude to what Abby knew would end in sobs. “He got arrested last night. He st-stole a car.”

“Oh, no. That’s not his first offense.”

“It’s his third. He’s in jail right now. They aren’t going to let him out.” Alicia was crying. “I’ve got no choice, Miss Vernay. I’ve got to give up this baby. Otherwise my daddy’s going to throw me out.”

For just a moment, Abby considered that being thrown out of a ratty trailer sitting on cinder blocks on the outskirts of Atlanta might not be a bad thing. But she didn’t say that. The single-wide was the only home Alicia Brown had ever known. And other than the group homes Abby sometimes sent girls to—an option Alicia had already rejected—Abby didn’t have any other housing suggestions for her and her baby.

“Can you find me a family, Miss Vernay? A good family to take my baby?”

“You’re at four months now, right?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve got a little time. I want you to think about this very carefully. You need to use the best decision-making skills you have.” Abby realized the near futility of what she was suggesting. When a vulnerable sixteen-year-old girl found out she was pregnant, her world fell apart. Yet that was when she had to make the most crucial decisions.

“I’m just a phone call away, Alicia,” Abby said. “We can spend as much time as you want going over your options. I can try to locate a foster home for you. You can apply for work-study programs. I can guide you to some fine state-run child care facilities…”

“I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to do this without Cutter. And I want a closed adoption.”

As many times as Abby had counseled young girls that giving up a baby was a personal and critical decision, as many times as she’d told them they had to make the decision based on their emotions, needs and expectations, she would never advise one of them to choose closed adoption. Even Abby, thirteen years ago, hadn’t picked that option.

She approached the issue carefully now. “You know what that means, Alicia? You won’t ever see your baby again. You won’t know where he’s gone. You’ll never know what he looks like or what he becomes.”

Alicia drew a trembling breath. “It’s the way I’ve got to do this, Miss Vernay. I have to say goodbye to this baby and be done with it. I just need you to find a family. And I need it to be somebody who’ll pay my doctor bills. With Cutter in jail…”

“Okay. That won’t be a problem. I have more than forty families on my list at the moment.”

“You think I’m being selfish, don’t you?”

The desperation in the girl’s voice almost brought Abby to tears. “No, honey, I don’t. What you’re doing is one of the most unselfish acts a mother can do for her child. I just want you to be sure.” She waited until Alicia’s sobs subsided. “I’ll have one of the other counselors in the office begin the match for your child and the perfect parents today.”

“Thanks.”

“But there’s time. If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

“Are you still going to school?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good.”

“Nobody can tell yet.”

“Don’t lose this number. You call anytime, day or night.”

Alicia disconnected and Abby slid her phone into her pocket. She walked through the house to the front door. Huey had gone upstairs to rest. She should have appreciated the solitude, but the quiet only gave her more opportunity to think about the Alicias in the world.

Abby was getting better about accepting these stories as facts of life.And she was definitely grateful that she had the knowledge to help so many troubled teens through one of the most difficult times of their lives. she was relieved when she watched a birth mother come to terms with her future and take her baby home. She was equally happy when a birth mother agreed to a fair open-adoption plan with eager adoptive parents. Happy endings existed, andAbby considered herself lucky to be able to participate in them.

She hadn’t felt so lucky thirteen years ago. And she hadn’t experienced a happy ending.

Had she been in Atlanta, Abby would have started to work immediately on Alicia’s plan. In Key West, her home for years, she didn’t know what to do, so she walked outside and looked for a diversion, something to take her mind off the place where it so often returned.