Free Homeplace by Joann Ross Page B

sleep.
    “Since I don’t want to explain to Hertz why my car was impounded, I suppose I have no choice but to let you drive me to Hurricane Ridge.”
    “With such a graceful acceptance, how could I possibly refuse?”
    Raine ignored his sarcasm. “But first I need to call the hospital and check on Ida.”
    “You can call from the truck. So, now that we’ve settled that, let’s get moving, Harvard. Your mother isn’t getting any younger. And neither am I.”
    Raine wasn’t all that surprised that he knew where she’d gone to school. After all, Ida had always enjoyed bragging about her granddaughters accomplishments. Although he certainly didn’t seem at all impressed by her Ivy League credentials.
    When he put his fingers around her waist and lifted her into the bucket seat of the Suburban, she had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being taken into custody. Because she wasn’t honestly certain she could have made it up there in her snug skirt and high heels, Raine didn’t object.
    A call to the hospital revealed that since the doctors had decided her grandmother’s fall was merely a passing case of vertigo compounded by a rickety stool, Ida could be released in the morning. Her concern eased, Raine turned toward the three teenagers who were sitting as stiff and silent as stumps in the back seat of the Suburban, as if afraid they’d be thrown back into juvenile hall if they breathed a single word.
    “Well, I suppose, since we’re going to be spending the next three days together, we should get acquainted. As you’ve undoubtedly figured out, I’m Raine.” She attempted a smile that didn’t quite work.
    Still acting as spokesperson, Shawna introduced herself. Then the others. As she greeted them all, accepted their uncensored gratitude, and lied a little by professing to be pleased to meet them, Raine reluctantly decided that none of them looked all that dangerous.
    Shawna was already a beauty. With her long swan’s neck and high cheekbones, she reminded Raine a bit of Tyra Banks. Her face was framed with a mass of beaded braids, her earlobes each adorned with three gold hoops.
    Sixteen-year-old Gwen, with her wide eyes and freckled face surrounded by carrot-hued curls, resembled a pregnant Orphan Annie. Or, Raine thought, taking in the red-and-white boat-necked polka-dot top she was wearing over black leggings, Lucille Ball, just before she’d given birth to Little Rickie.
    Renee—Shawna’s vegetarian runaway sister, Raine remembered—would have looked like any other thirteen-year-old girl poised on the threshold of womanhood. Had it not been for the terrified look in her Bambi brown eyes.
    “Are we going to jail?” Gwen asked, casting a nervous glance toward Jack. Raine watched her place a hand on her bulging stomach in unconscious protection of her child. “I don’t want to have my baby in jail!”
    Her high tone wavered toward hysterical, making Raine hope that the stress of the day—a day that already seemed forty-eight hours long—wouldn’t have the teenager going into labor anytime soon. At least if such an unfortunate event were to happen, having Jack O’Halloran along might prove useful. Weren’t all cops trained to deliver babies?
    “Of course you’re not going to have your baby in jail,” Raine assured her, not honestly knowing anything of the kind. If looks were any indication, the child appeared ready to give birth to a ten-pound basketball at any moment. “By the way, when are you due?”
    “In two and a half weeks.”
    “Oh, well then,” Raine said airily, “you’ve plenty of time. After all, first babies are always late.” She was certain she’d heard that somewhere.
    “But he’s already dropped.”
    “Mama Ida said that’s normal with a first baby,” Shawna reminded the younger girl. “It’s called lightening, remember?”
    “As if,” Gwen scoffed. “I still think that’s a dumb thing to call it, because the baby hasn’t gotten any bit lighter,” she