His Forever Family(3)

No. This baby, whoever he was, was not going to die. Not if she had anything to do with it.

"This is disgusting," Marcus said, but she didn't pay any attention to him.

She folded herself into a cross-legged position on the gravel, ignoring  the way the rocks dug into her skin. "It's okay," she soothed as she  tried to dribble some water into the baby's mouth. "You're a good boy,  aren't you? Oh, you're such a sweetheart." The baby turned his head from  side to side and wailed piteously. Panic gripped her. What if he wasn't  going to make it? What if she couldn't save him? "You're loved," she  told him, tears coming to her eyes. "And you're so strong. You can do  this, okay?"                       
       
           



       

"Here," Marcus said, thrusting the rag at her. Except it wasn't the rag-it was his shirt.

She looked up and found herself staring right at Marcus Warren's bare  chest. In any other circumstances she would have taken her time admiring  the view because damn. He was muscled and cut-but still lean. He had a  true runner's body.

The baby whimpered. Right. She had much more important things to deal  with than her boss suddenly half-naked. She held the baby away from her  body. "Drape it over him."

Marcus did as he was told, laying the sopping-wet cloth over the baby's  body. The sudden temperature change made the poor thing howl. "It's  okay," she murmured to him, trying to get a little water into his mouth.  "You'll feel better soon."

"Should I go for help? What should we do?"

Help. That would be a good thing. "My phone is in my pack," she said.  He didn't run with his phone-that was her job. "Call 911." She was  amazed at how calm she sounded, as if finding a baby on the verge of  heatstroke in the trash was just another Tuesday in her life.

Marcus crouched behind her and dug through the fanny pack that held her  water, keys and phone. "Got it." She told him her password without a  second thought and he dialed. "We're at Buckingham Fountain and we found  a baby in the trash," Marcus said way too loudly into the phone.

"Shh, shh," Liberty soothed as Marcus talked to the 911 dispatcher.  "Here, let's try this." She dipped her finger into the water and held it  against the baby's mouth. He sucked at it eagerly and made a little  protest when she pulled her finger away to dip it into the water again.

He latched on to her finger a second time-which had the side benefit of  cutting off the crying. Liberty took a deep breath and tried to think.  There'd been a baby at her second foster home. How had the foster mother  calmed that baby down?

Oh, yes. She remembered now. She began to rock back and forth, the  gravel cutting into her legs. "That's a good boy," she said, her ears  straining for the sounds of sirens. "You're loved. You can do it."

Agonizingly long minutes passed. She couldn't get the baby to take much  more water, but he sucked on the tip of her finger fiercely. As she  rocked and soothed him, his body relaxed and he curled up against her  side. Liberty held him even tighter.

"Is he okay?" Marcus demanded.

She looked up at him, trying not to stare at his body. Never in the  three years she'd worked for Marcus had she seen him even half this  panicked. "I think he fell asleep. The poor thing. He can't be more than  a few days old."

"How could anyone just leave him?" Now, that was more like the Marcus  she knew-frustrated when the world did not conform to his standards.

"You'd be surprised," she mumbled, dropping her gaze back to the baby,  who was still ferociously tugging on her finger in his sleep. Aside from  being hot and filthy, he looked healthy. Of course, she'd never seen  William before he died in foster care, so she didn't know what a  drug-addicted newborn looked like. This child's head was round and his  eyes were still swollen; she'd seen pictures of newborns who looked like  him. She just couldn't tell.

"You're just about perfect, you know?" she told the infant. Then she  said to Marcus, "Here, wet your shirt again. I think he's cooling down."

Marcus did as he was told. "You're doing an amazing job," he said as  she wrapped the wet cloth around the baby's body. The baby started at  the temperature change, but didn't let go of her finger. Marcus went on,  "I didn't know you knew so much about babies," and she didn't miss the  awe in his voice.

There's a lot you don't know about me. But she didn't say it because  it'd been less than-what, twenty minutes? If that. It'd been less than  twenty minutes since Marcus Warren had said he trusted her because she  was the one person who was honest with him.

She wasn't-honest with him, that was. But that didn't mean she wanted  to lie outright to him. She hated lying at all but she did what she had  to do to survive.

So, instead, she said, "Must be the mothering instinct." What else  could it be? Here was a baby who needed her in a truly primal way and  Liberty had responded.

The baby sighed in what she hoped was contentment and she felt her  heart clinch. "Such a good boy," she said, leaning down to kiss his  little forehead.

Sirens came screaming toward them. Then the paramedics were upon them  and everything happened fast. The baby was plucked from her arms and  carried into the ambulance, where he wailed even louder. It tore her up  to hear him cry like that.                       
       
           



       

At the same time, a police officer arrived and took statements from her  and Marcus. Liberty found herself half listening to the questions as  she stood at the back of the open ambulance while the medics dug out a  pacifier and wrapped the baby in a clean blanket.

"Is he going to be okay?" she asked when one of the paramedics hopped out of the back and started to close the door.

"Hard to say," the man said.

"Where are you taking him?"

"Northwestern is closest."

Marcus broke off talking with the cop to say, "Take him to Children's."  At some point, he'd put his shirt back on. It looked far worse for  wear.

The paramedic shrugged and closed the doors, cutting Liberty off from  the baby. The ambulance drove off-lights flashing but no sirens blaring.

The cop finished taking their statements. Liberty asked, "Will you be able to find the mother?"

Much like the paramedic, the cop shrugged. She supposed she shouldn't  have been surprised. After all, she'd barely survived childhood because,  aside from Grandma Devlin, people couldn't be bothered to check on  little Liberty Reese. "It's a crime to abandon a baby," he said. "If the  mother had left the baby at a police station, that's one thing. But..."  He shrugged again. "Don't know if we'll find her, though. Usually  babies are dumped close to where they're born, and someone in the  neighborhood knows something. But the middle of the park?" He turned, as  if the conversation was over.

"What'll happen to the baby?" Marcus asked, but Liberty could have told him.

If they couldn't find the mother or the father, the baby would go into  the foster system. He'd be put up for adoption, eventually, but that  might take a while until his case was closed. And by then, he might not  be the tiny little baby he was right now. He might be bigger. And he was  African American. That made it that much harder to get adopted.

She looked in the direction the ambulance had gone.

The cop gave Marcus a sad smile. "DCFS will take care of it," he said.

Liberty cringed. She did not have warm and fuzzy memories of the  Department of Child and Family Services. All she had were grainy  memories of frazzled caseworkers who couldn't be bothered. Grown-up  Liberty knew that was because the caseworkers were overwhelmed by the  sheer number of kids in the system. But little-kid Liberty only  remembered trying to ask questions about why her mom or even Grandma  Devlin wasn't going to come get her and being told, "Don't worry about  it," as if that would make up for her mother's sudden disappearances.

What would happen to the baby? She looked at her arms, wondering at how  empty they felt. "Marcus," she said in a hoarse voice as the cop  climbed into his cruiser. "We can't lose that baby."

"What?" He stared at her in shock.

She grabbed on to his arm as if she was drowning and he was the only  thing that could keep her afloat. "The baby. He'll get locked into the  system and by the time the police close his case, it might be too late."

Marcus stared down at her as if she'd started spouting Latin. "Too...late? For what?"

Liberty's mouth opened and the words I was a foster kid-trust me on  this almost rolled off her tongue. But at the last second, she snapped  her mouth shut. She'd created this person Marcus saw, this Liberty  Reese-a white college graduate, an excellent manager of time and money  who always did her research and knew the answers. Liberty Reese was  invaluable to Marcus because she had made herself valuable.