The Baby Switch!

“I’ll call Anne Parcells and ask for the contact information. She may be cagey about it. Anne has to be worried about a lawsuit. The nurse, as well.”

“Are you thinking about a lawsuit?” she asked.

“Well, first we need back the DNA tests that conclusively prove we took home the wrong babies. But if the nurse made an honest mistake in the chaos of a blizzard that knocked out power...”

Shelby nodded. “An honest mistake is an honest mistake even if it’s turned our lives around. And who knows what this will mean for Shane and Alexander.”

“Meaning?”

She shrugged. “Well, what’s going to happen now? What’s going to happen when the DNA test says I have your son and you have mine?”

He sucked in a breath.

“I want to hold Alexander but I’m afraid to,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself as if protectively.

He stiffened, everything inside him going numb. “I know. Because if you hold him, knowing what you know, you’re afraid you won’t be able to hand him back over. It’s why I haven’t asked to hold Shane.” He’d have to face the truth, then, that Shane was his, that he’d left him behind, and he wasn’t sure he could handle that.

She stared at Alexander, who was smiling at the mobile and then looking at his little buddy, biting on his teething toy. “He has my eyes and the Ingalls straight and pointy nose. We all have that nose.”

“It’s a good one,” he said. Liam’s nose was more Roman. And Liza’s had been long.

“My head is going to explode,” she said. “I can’t think. I can barely stand up anymore.”

“I know. Same here.”

“I think I need to just go upstairs to my apartment, with Shane, and just let this all sink in.”

He nodded. “I think that’s a good idea. I could use some time alone to try to process this, too.” He headed over to where Alexander sat in the bouncer.

“Liam, I’m very close to my family, particularly my sister. I don’t think I can keep this from them until the DNA tests are in. Especially because I have no doubt anymore that the babies were switched. And to be honest, I don’t want to keep it from them. I need their support.”

He nodded again, letting his head drop back a little. “I can understand that. I’m not all that close to my parents or my brother, but I wish I were. I’m close to my cousin Clara, the one who likes your shop.”

An idea started forming and he dismissed it. Then came back to it. It involved inviting Shelby to the family dinner tonight. Shelby and Shane. He could drop the bombshell and they’d all have a chance to meet the Ingallses. It would be a way to get the conversation over with.

“Maybe getting our families’ takes on the situation is a good idea,” he said. “The Mercers get together every Friday night for dinner, a tradition going back generations. Why don’t you join us? You and Shane. We can tell them together.”

“I thought you said your weren’t close with your family. Weekly family dinners—on a weekend night, no less. That sounds close.”

“I think we all keep doing it because we want something to change but it never does, and the weekly dinners make us feel like we’re doing something to change it. But the evening always ends in arguments or stony silences, mostly because my brother won’t go into the family business, which is nothing new. He’s a cowboy on a cattle ranch.”

“Well, he’ll sure be glad to see me and Shane, then,” she said. “Talk about taking the focus off him.”

Liam laughed, and for a moment he was surprised he had any laughter in him. “I think he’ll be thrilled. He may actually hug me.”

“How do you think your parents will take the news?” she asked.

“Like we did. Who the hell can process this?”

She smiled, lighting up her pretty face. “Right?”

He smiled back. Then felt it fade. “But no matter what, Shelby, we decide what will happen. You and me. No matter how forceful or strong our families come on about this. I decide nothing without you, and you decide nothing without me. Deal?”

She stared at him hard for a moment. “Deal.”

He picked up Alexander from the bouncer seat, darting a glance at Shane. At the baby he had to accept was his flesh and blood. But it didn’t feel real or even possible. His head and heart were not computing, as was often the case.

“Pick you up at six-thirty?” he asked. “Cocktails at six forty-five, dinner at seven.”

“I’d prefer to meet you there,” she said. “I think. Yes, I’ll meet you.”

He nodded. “I’ll drive you over to the clinic so you can get your car,” he said, hoisting up Alexander and heading toward the door.

He felt numb as she scooped up Shane and followed him. They were both quiet on the ride to the clinic. He watched her open up the back door of her car and buckle in Shane. As she went around to the driver’s side, she held up a hand as if saying goodbye. For now, anyway.

He held up a hand too, then started his car. Part of him was relieved to be on his own with his son, his beloved Alexander. We’re safe, he thought the moment he pulled out of the lot.

But left behind, again, was his biological child.

* * *

Someone was ringing both doorbells—to the shop and the upstairs apartment—like a lunatic, pressing it so many times and holding it that Shelby’s poor cat, Luna, darted under her favorite velvet chair.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she called, turning around on the back stairs. She’d been on the way up to her apartment, Shane in one arm and her overstuffed tote in the other. Liam had just left five minutes ago. Could he be back? She hurried down the stairs and peered through the filmy curtain at the window.

Twenty-six-year-old Norah Ingalls, in her uniform of black pants, a white T-shirt and yellow apron with Pie Diner in sparkly blue letters across, looked frantic, her strawberry-blond hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Shelby let her in.

“You haven’t returned my texts!” Norah said, hands on hips. “Or my calls. The shop is closed at three in the afternoon. Four people at the diner mentioned it’s been closed all day. What the hell, Shelby? What is going on? David wouldn’t tell me a thing. Which freaked me out even more.”

Shelby closed the door behind her sister. “Let’s go upstairs. I need to be home for this, to actually say the words to another person for the first time.”

Norah’s hazel eyes widened. “Jesus, you’re scaring me, Shel.”

“It’s a doozy,” Shelby said, leading the way up the stairs to the apartment.

The moment Shelby unlocked the door at the top of the stairs she felt better. Home. She’d lived here for the past five years, ever since she’d opened Treasures with a little help from an unexpected small inheritance the Ingalls sisters received from their late grandmother. The apartment was like the store—old but with some beautiful architectural details, arched doorways and big windows that let in great light. She’d decorated the place with finds from estate sales, where she bought most of her goods for the shop. Whenever she was up here she felt at peace. And she needed that feeling to tell her sister what was going on.

“Let me put Shane down for his nap and I’ll be right back, Norah.”

The hands were back on Norah’s hips. “I can’t take another second, Shelby Rae Ingalls. Tell me now!”

“Two seconds, I promise. Shane is zonked. He’ll go right out.”

She slipped into the nursery, painted soothing shades of pale yellow and blue, cradling Shane against her before putting him in the crib. He let out a cry, then a sigh, his blue eyes drooping. He fussed for a few moments, but Shelby sang his favorite song, about the itsy bitsy spider, and his eyes drooped even more.

She watched him for a moment, closing her own eyes, bracing herself against the truth and for having to actually talk about what had happened today. Norah would be the first person she’d tell.

She closed the nursery door and headed back into the living room, where Norah was holding two bottles of whiskey that a handyman had given Shelby a couple weeks ago for taking so long to fix the washing machine.