Sure Shot (Brooklyn #4)(90)

I carefully close the drawer and finish buttoning my shirt.





Three hours later, the party is winding down. The sky is darkening outside the big windows. The kids are starting to yawn, including the one I’m holding.

I’ve had a fine afternoon. I’m full of roast chicken and cheddar grits and wilted greens and cheesecake. And beer.

“Ante up,” Leo Trevi says, shuffling the deck.

I put two chips on the table and rock the baby while I wait for him to deal.

Earlier, I lost gallantly at ping pong to Heidi Jo Castro. As one does. Now there’s a warm, sleepy baby in a carrier on my chest. He’s zonked from crawling around on the rug and watching my niece Nicole bounce around the party, stealing cookies off the dessert table. She’s three and a half now, with cinnamon hair in two pigtails on either side of her round little face.

That’s what Bess’s daughter would look like.

Oh, boy. Most days my brain doesn’t do that. And I really wish it would stop now.

Roberto presses his cheek against my chest and makes a sleepy little complaint. I pat him on the back. “Duerme ahora.” Sleep now.

Castro shakes his head beside me. “Nunca me dijiste que podías hablar espa?ol.” You never told me you could speak Spanish.

“No preguntaste.” You didn’t ask. And, in truth, my Spanish is pretty rusty. “When I was a little boy, my dad was a ranch hand in Washington state. There were some Spanish speakers who worked there, and I liked talking to them. Then I took Spanish in high school and college. I hadn’t spoken a word for years until we needed to convince the social services agency that we should be eligible for the temporary foster care program.”

“Ustedes dos son santos.” You two are saints.

“We’re not,” I insist. “It’s a small thing. Look at this place.” I wave in the general direction of the sumptuous party room, the food and drink. “We live in paradise. I’m only sharing it for a few weeks.”

“Until the little guy rips your heart out on the way out the door.” Castro clicks his tongue. “How do people give them back?”

“Well, he has a mother—”

“I know you said that. But still.”

“We’ll get our chance. It’s an adoption agency that manages this temporary foster program. When they finish our home study at the end of next year, they won’t forget what we’ve done.”

“Ah,” Castro says. “Okay. So you could have a baby in a year?”

“A year and a half, minimum. Probably more like two. But that’s all right with us. We got time.”

A soft hand lands on the back of my neck. “Oh, you have a pair of aces!” Bess says.

Everyone else looks up in shock.

“Kidding!” Bess says with a laugh.

“But now they know I don’t have a pair of aces,” I complain.

“Who draws a pair of aces, anyway?” She kneels down to peek at Roberto. “Hi, sleepy. Can I take him?”

“He’s pretty comfortable right now,” I point out. “If you pick him up, he’ll get the sleepy screamies.” It’s wild to realize that I already know this. Ten days is long enough to fall into a rhythm with a baby.

“All right.” She puts her hand over mine. “But when he wakes up, it’s my turn.”

“You’ll get yours, I promise.” I’m leaving on a trip the day after tomorrow. Bess will be a single (foster) mom for a few days. But she has help from her new office assistant and a babysitter we hired for a few hours a day so that Bess can run across the street to make calls in her office.

“Don’t bet too much against Heidi,” Bess says, stroking my hair.

“Like I’d be so stupid.”

“You’re already a hundred bucks down to her,” Castro points out.

“True, but I lost it very slowly and carefully.”

Laughing, Bess kisses me on the top of the head and then wanders off to talk to Zara and Georgia, who seem to be mixing up a batch of frozen margaritas. The whirr of the blender startles Roberto in his sleep a minute later, and I have to pat his back until he settles again.

Then I lose twenty bucks to Heidi, who’s a better bluffer than anyone on the hockey team. She takes me with a pair of fours, for God’s sake.

“Yes!” she whisper-shrieks, mindful of the napping baby. “Ante up, people.”

“Oh boy,” Anton grumbles. “This better be my last hand.”

Across the room, Bess is holding a frozen margarita in a pretty glass. And I decide I’d rather chat with the ladies than lose at poker. “I’m out, ladies and gents. It was a pleasure losing to you.”

Slowly I stand, careful to support Roberto’s head, so that it doesn’t flop and wake him up. I cross the room, and all the women give me that smitten face that they reserve for men holding babies.

It’s a perk, honestly. I’ll take it. But where is Bess?

At first I think she’s given me the slip, but then I see a flash of red in the corner behind a tall, potted plant.

Hmm. What’s that all about?





Thirty-Seven





Plant Killer





Bess