Free Echoes by Kristen Heitzmann

motherless babe; poor lonely man. What need of covenant when need itself is covenant? Grieving man; helpless child. How innocently she'd stepped into the steel bite still piercing her heart with relentless tines.
    She clenched her hands. Somewhere out there, Carly slept, dreamed . . . feared. What hands would stroke and comfort, what voice whisper hope and courage?
    Eric's. His love for his child never wavered. His devotion never flagged. It smothered. It devoured. It cherished. She could not stem the desire to once more soften Eric's love for his child, to bear his all-encompassing, possessing love.
    Dawn touched the window, and she rose. Soon the baby would awaken. His needs were elemental, easily met. Too young to comprehend what he'd lost, he accepted what he had. She went and showered off the nightmare sweat, the scent of remembrance.
    ————
    Matt rang the bell, and Sofie opened the door with the infant curled over her shoulder like a fuzzy caterpillar in his yellow sleeper.
    "Hi." He had made an appointment for the baby with a pediatrician, though ordinarily he'd have directed them to do so. With the oddities in this case, he wanted answers straight from the source. "Is he ready?"
    Nodding, she stroked the baby's back, evoking a soft burp. "He's just eaten."
    Matt hooked the baby's splayed fingers with his thumb, cocked his head to meet the roving gaze. "I have an infant seat in the car."
    "Let me tell Lance. Here." She handed him the baby.
    He cradled the shaggy head in one palm, bearing the weight of his rump in the other. "Well, little guy, you don't look like you're suffering."
    The baby scrunched up his face and emitted a bleat. Matt raised him to his shoulder and the baby burped again, dribbling a thin line of milky saliva onto his shirt. He patted the fuzzy back, weaving side to side and murmuring, "'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe. Sailed on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew.' "
    He turned to find Sofie watching. She'd pulled on a red woolen jacket and had the diaper bag on her shoulder. He raised his brows. "Ready?"
    She preceded him out. Something in the way she walked arrested him, and he couldn't help asking, "Are you a dancer?"
    She turned at the car. "Why do you ask?"
    "You look like it." He buckled the baby into the backward-facing carrier in the center of the second seat.
    "Momma would be proud. I went from diapers to tutus to jazz slippers and heels. I taught with her at sixteen, danced a few shows off Broadway and one on."
    "Impressive."
    She shrugged. "It didn't change the world."
    Hmm . That same modesty her brother displayed. He held the door while she slipped into the back beside the baby, then got in and started the engine. "Still dancing?"
    She shook her head. "I went back to school."
    "What field?"
    "Psychology. Behavioral disorders. I'm writing my doctoral dissertation."
    "Really." He hadn't pegged her for an academic. She was too—Cassinia would flame him for this thought—sensuous. The Mediterranean cast to her skin, high cheekbones and full lips. Most of all her exotic eyes. Who could concentrate on her lectures?
    She said, "We've probably had similar studies."
    "I started in law. Came into social work through the back door."
    "Did you practice law?"
    "Awhile. I took the track where you have no life but work, no religion but work, nothing at all but work."
    "And then?"
    "Then I thought it would be better to make a difference."
    She smiled. "You sound like Lance."
    He jolted. "I'm no miracle worker."
    "How do you know?"
    He framed her in the rearview mirror. "Because there are no miracles."
    The doctor's office was crowded with runny noses and coughs. He hated to bring a brand-new immune system into that, but the state required a medical evaluation. He'd filed the birth certificate Baby Boy Doe and obtained a social security number to process him into the system and start his care. If Maria came back, her child was now documented, though still