The Holiday Triplets (15 page)

Where was she now on her journey from Phoenix? Surely she'd crossed the state line into California. Possibly she was entering Orange County's northern limits right now, a mere half hour's drive from Safe Harbor.

He wondered how much she'd changed in the past five years. She must be thirty-three, and she'd lived those years hard. Yet to see her healthy and in control of her life would more than compensate for a few added wrinkles and gray hairs, and for the nights he'd spent searching for her in bars and alcohol-drenched flophouses.

But what about the lies, the money he'd wasted on rehab, the sense of angry frustration, and the silence after she disappeared?

Thou shalt not hold grudges. Thou shalt be grateful
for the prodigal's return.
Except, a tiny voice kept asking, what if she didn't come? What if, once again, she went back on her word?

He pushed those concerns aside when Ian introduced him to Mrs. Wycliff and her daughter. Both were charming, and filled with ideas. Eleanor, as she insisted everyone call her, had already talked to a number of influential friends. “They agree that this sounds like a worthwhile project. True, there are a number of programs asking for money, but how exciting to build something practically from the ground up.”

“It's special because it's named after that baby who died,” added Libby Wycliff, her eyes bright with tears.

“Don't start crying now!” her mother said. “It's Christmas.”

“I won't.” The girl bit down on a trembling lip. It was only a few months since her father's death, Mark remembered. Libby must be transferring some of her emotions to this new project.

“I suppose I shouldn't have jumped the gun, but I called the city of Safe Harbor's human services coordinator, and guess what?” Eleanor told him. “She's been trying to figure out how to expand the family and teen offerings at their community center. When she heard this was Dr. Forrest's clinic, she got all excited. We may have a new home already!”

“That's terrific,” Ian said.

A new home. It
sounded
great, but Sam already knew the human services coordinator. Why hadn't they discussed this possibility?

“Did I hear my name?” Sam joined them, her cheerful expression a touch strained. A short while ago, he'd seen her talking to a little boy who was obviously a cancer patient.

As Ian made introductions, Mark wished he'd informed her sooner about Eleanor's interest. For one thing, he didn't want to add to Sam's concerns right now. Also, he'd assumed Ian's friend would show up here as an interested newcomer, nothing more. Instead, she'd apparently appointed herself to represent the counseling center to the city.

He checked his watch. Nearly three-thirty. It was just as well Bryn had been delayed, he supposed; he'd hate for her to walk into the middle of a tense situation.

He glanced at Sam. She didn't seem to take offense. Instead, she listened politely, if guardedly, to Eleanor's explanation of what she'd been doing and how excited she was about the plans. It must be the Christmas spirit. Or was it possible that, as the mother of three, she finally felt ready to hand over the clinic to someone else?

 

S
AM RESTRAINED AN URGE
to poke Mark in the side for failing to warn her about this eager-beaver socialite. Still, the clinic had to move within the next few weeks, and it could use a sponsor. Also, when Jennifer mentioned Ian's wealthy contact, Sam had put her off—and never brought up the subject again. No wonder her friends had decided to act independently.

Still, Eleanor Wycliff's imperious manner was likely to intimidate the very people who most needed counseling. Also, from the way she talked about her friends' fundraising balls, Sam doubted they had any real concept of how this low-key, grassroots project operated.

As for coming under the city's sponsorship, Sam had been putting off any discussion of that possibility as a last resort. “Once you get officials involved, there's always red tape,” she explained to Eleanor after they'd chatted for a
while. “What's special about the Edward Serra Clinic is that teenagers and women can just wander in and talk to a peer counselor, or a doctor, like me. They don't have to fill out a bunch of paperwork first.”

Eleanor dismissed the notion with a lift of her elegant shoulders. “I'm sure we can work around that.”

“This will be so much fun,” added Libby, a sweet girl with an air of fragility. “My best friend's going to collect baby stuff for the clients at her next birthday party, instead of gifts. Isn't that cool?”

“That's very generous.” Sam liked the daughter, and she supposed she would like the mother, too, once she got to know Eleanor better. It
was
a relief to think of sharing responsibility for the clinic. Not that Sam intended to abandon her vision, but recently it had begun to feel more like a burden and less like the realization of a dream.

More playtime with the triplets. More leisurely evenings with Mark, and mornings waking up to his warmth lingering on the sheets. She craved those things, and she deserved them.

“Sam, I think you're needed.” Ian nodded toward Jennifer, who was standing across the room with Tom LaGrange and several other people. The photographer's flash went off, and Tom was taking rapid notes as he talked to someone Sam couldn't see.

Jennifer's anxious gaze caught Sam's. Something was wrong. “I'll go see what the problem is.” She excused herself and crossed the room. Unexpectedly, Eleanor broke away and walked with her.

At Sam's suggestion that she didn't have to get involved, the socialite replied, “This is a fundraiser for
our
clinic. I'm already involved.”

Too late to argue. Besides, at that moment Sam caught
sight of the woman who'd been hidden from view. It was Vivien Babcock, her hair even more matted than yesterday, her face flushed and her voice painfully loud.

Whatever she might be saying, the reporter was eating up every word.

“What a sham this whole thing is!” Vivien proclaimed in slurred tones as Sam and Eleanor approached. “A bunch of fancy people making themselves feel important. You should see the way they treated me!”

“Who
is
that creature?” Eleanor murmured.

“A very troubled woman,” Sam answered. “Let's find out exactly what she wants.” Despite her irritation, she hadn't forgotten Vivien's declaration that she planned to leave her husband. That was one of those turning points when people's lives could explode, or implode.

“Is she a client?” Eleanor asked.

“She dropped in last night. Christmas Eve, after dinner. Got mad that nobody was staffing the clinic.” After this quiet aside, Sam moved to join the group around Jennifer. “Hello, Mrs. Babcock.”

Vivien's jaw tightened pugnaciously. “Well! Here's the great doctor who gave me the brush-off last night.”

“I tried to refer you to a more appropriate, full-service facility,” Sam said calmly. “You chose to leave.”

“Well, you didn't try hard enough.” With a glittering, almost triumphant look, Vivien peeled back her blouse, exposing a massive black-and-blue patch across her shoulder and chest. With only the bra protecting her from indecency, she turned to display welts across her back. Gasps went up
from the observers. The camera was flashing again, and several onlookers raised cell phones to take pictures. “This is what my husband did when I told him I was leaving. You could have prevented this.”

No, you could have prevented it.
“I advised you to call the police, or simply leave without telling him.”

“Easy for you to say!”

Mark was heading in their direction, his face creased with concern. To the reporter, Sam explained, “No one threw anybody out. The Edward Serra Clinic offers informal counseling. We don't have a professional staff yet. I offered to arrange for Mrs. Babcock to enter a women's shelter, and I'll do that now. First, though, we have to report this to the police. Unless you've already filed a report?” She raised an eyebrow at the woman.

Vivien's face crumpled. “My husband
is
a cop.”

Sam's stomach tensed. No wonder the woman felt powerless and filled with rage. True, she had unreasonable expectations of the clinic, along with a harsh and not very likable personality, but she was clearly hurting inside and out. “Then I can understand…”

“Oh, you can understand?” Vivien mocked. “Sure you can.”

“You're drunk. Drunk and selfish.” Eleanor's voice snapped through the air like a whip. “Dr. Forrest offered to help you last night and you threw it in her face. You brought this on yourself.”

“How dare you!” Vivien tensed, as if she'd like to land a few blows on this elegant woman, a startling contrast to her own sagging, pouchy self. Both of them were in their late forties, Sam estimated, but what a difference.

“People are giving up their Christmases to help women like you,” Eleanor told the interloper. “Of course that man
had no right to beat you, but you should get a lawyer and make him pay for it.”

“Easy for you to say. Get a lawyer! As if they grew on trees. Maybe for rich people like you.”

To short-circuit the argument, Sam caught Vivien's arm. Too late, she realized her mistake. Although it was impossible to see through the sleeve, there must have been a nasty bruise underneath, because the woman let out a yelp.

“I'm sorry.” Too late.

“You're both hypocrites!” Vivien cried. “You don't care about the poor or the downtrodden. All you care about is prancing around acting important.”

More shutters clicked. Tom held up his recorder, capturing every word.

Barely bothering to yank her blouse into place, Vivien stalked off. “Oh, let her go,” Eleanor said. “That woman's beyond saving.”

“Nobody's beyond saving!” Sam flared. “If that's the way you think, this is the wrong place for you.”

Then she ran to catch up with Vivien Babcock.

 

M
ARK, WHO'D BEEN LISTENING
from a distance, assessed the situation rapidly. One wealthy donor about to flounce out of the party, deeply offended. A newspaper reporter barely suppressing his glee over stumbling across a controversy. Guests talking and texting on their cell phones, probably sending video around the world.

And then there was Sam disappearing in the wake of an injured woman.

Mark went after Sam.

He found her by the elevators with Vivien Babcock, who had tears streaming down her face. All the anger seemed to have whooshed out of her, leaving her deflated and
frightened. “I'm calling someone I know at a shelter,” Sam told him. “We have to get her to a safe place and figure out how to handle the situation with the police.”

“I'll call the chief at home.” Mark occasionally played golf with the man. “The boys in blue may tend to stick together, but once I explain it, I'm sure the chief will take this situation seriously.”

“What if he fires my husband?” Vivien cried. “He'll lose his income and his pension. I'll have nothing.”

“You'll have nothing if he kills you,” Sam replied. The woman fell silent.

Sam's gaze met Mark's. Clearly, she wasn't any more thrilled than he was about having to deal with this situation on Christmas, but when you were a doctor, emergencies came with the territory.

Fifteen minutes later, Mark had talked to the chief and been assured that the officer in question would be immediately suspended, and a report taken by a female officer. Sam's friend from the women's shelter was on her way, and the last hint of fight had gone out of Vivien.

Leaving the pair in the lobby to wait for Sam's friend, Mark returned to the party, or rather to the office suite, since by now the event had officially ended. The mariachi band had departed, the guests were gone, and the caterer was packing away what remained of the food.

Jennifer and Ian were taking down the decorations. “What happened after I left?” Mark asked.

The PR director regarded him glumly. “Mrs. Wycliff left in a huff. She's furious about the whole scene. Libby was in tears over the woman's bruises.”

“Eleanor was right,” Ian added. “Vivien had no business barging in here roaring drunk, blaming everyone else for her problems.”

Unfortunately, that was exactly what alcoholics did, in Mark's experience. They disappointed, disrupted and discarded others. Take Bryn. She was more than an hour overdue, yet she hadn't called. Maybe she was lying somewhere badly injured in a car crash, or maybe she'd just stopped at a bar for liquid fortification.

He should have insisted on buying her a plane ticket, or gone to Phoenix to meet her. Above all, he should have trusted his gut instinct that she hadn't fundamentally changed.

Nobody's beyond saving.
Sam's words rang in his ears. But while he admired her generous spirit, and had done what he could to ensure Mrs. Babcock's safety, today he wasn't sure he shared that optimism. About her client
or
his sister.

“Should I call Mrs. Wycliff and apologize on behalf of the hospital administration?” he asked. “This happened under our roof, and the clinic can't afford to lose her.”

“I'll call her,” Ian said. “I'm sure an apology from you wouldn't hurt, either. But Sam's the real sticking point.”

Jennifer folded her arms. “Sam's heart may be in the right place, but this clinic doesn't belong to her. It's named after
my
son, and it's going to fall apart without someone like Eleanor at the helm.”

“Good luck persuading Sam of that. She thinks she can carry the entire world on her shoulders,” Mark reflected ruefully.

“Well, she can't,” Jennifer said. “She made her choice when she adopted the triplets. Her first duty is to them now. She'll be mad at all of us for a while, but if it's a choice between her and Eleanor, we have to cut Sam out of the picture.”

Reluctantly, Mark agreed.

 

B
Y THE TIME SHE PULLED INTO
her driveway that night, Sam was bone-weary and fed up. Why couldn't other people get their acts together? Eventually, Vivien had quieted down, but she hadn't expressed any appreciation for being taken to a safe place or receiving a promise from Dr. Kendall, whom Sam had also called, to stop by the shelter and examine her injuries. The only positive note was Sam's hope that Vivien had bottomed out and would finally get treatment for her drinking. But what was Eleanor's excuse for
her
behavior?

The socialite had had no business confronting a client or making judgment calls. Her job was to raise funds, not run the clinic. But apparently she felt capable of doing everything.

Sam had been thrilled at the prospect of relinquishing her responsibilities. Now Eleanor Wycliff's arrogance made that impossible.

“Does she have to be such a snob?” she asked Connie as she fumbled with the straps on the baby's car seat.

In the seat behind her sister, Courtney began to whine. Colin was fussing, too. They must be hungry.

Sam tried to focus on one step at a time. She had to take them out of the van and into the house before she could heat their formula and get it into their tiny stomachs. While the day care center and the occasional night nurse were a big help, they weren't enough. She loved the triplets and had been confident that she could handle anything, yet she'd underestimated the sheer physical challenge of dealing with three infants. She needed to hire a nanny, a helper she could rely on day in and day out.

And she needed Mark, his quiet strength supporting her, his tenderness banishing her worries. He'd stood by her tonight, even though, as administrator, he probably should have stayed to placate Mrs. Wycliff. In the past, Sam hadn't
minded making trouble for him, because she'd figured he deserved it. Funny how differently things appeared these days.

As she lifted the little girl, headlights prowled along the quiet street, past houses twinkling with Christmas lights. Her spirits lifted. Had he come to spend the evening with her?

At the curb, a van halted, and she spotted the logo of a TV station on the side.
Oh, just go away!

“Shall we make a run for it?” she asked Connie. But she couldn't, because Courtney and Colin still had to be carried inside. Besides, the press never seemed to take a hint. They'd knock and phone and make pests of themselves.

Steeling her will, Sam turned to face the news crew. With luck, she could fob them off with a few shots of the triplets. Or, if they'd heard about Vivien Babcock, she'd update them on the situation.

One small counseling clinic was hardly a big story, even on the year's slowest news day.

 

M
ARK SETTLED ON HIS SOFA
—which was much too hard for comfort, he had to admit—and clicked on the TV. Nothing calmed a man's brain like channel surfing, so he flipped through station after station. Every one seemed to be running a movie about Santa Claus, the nativity or angels, with a liberal sprinkling of ads for after-Christmas sales.

He wondered what Sam was doing. Taking care of the babies, no doubt. Given her reluctance to force a nurse to work on a holiday, she'd be handling the situation alone.

The scent of baby powder. The warm softness of infant skin as he changed a diaper. The tiny burp as he patted a triplet on the back. And, later, Sam's legs tangling with his, her hungry mouth seeking him…

He ached to go over there. But, inevitably, the subject of
Eleanor would come up, and he'd have to admit that he'd spoken to her at length on the phone. And that, basically, he'd given her full control over the clinic.

Once he soothed hurt feelings and explained that the hospital administration was behind her, Eleanor had agreed to stay involved. But there were conditions he'd been in no position to refuse. After today's blowup, Chandra would no doubt insist the clinic vacate the premises immediately. Hard as Sam worked, she hadn't put together a new home
or
a funding plan.

As he tapped the channel-up button, a painfully familiar, blurred image filled the screen: Vivien Babcock stomping away at the Christmas party, her blouse fluttering out behind her. The image shifted, and there was Eleanor, snapping, “Oh, let her go! That woman's beyond saving.”

Then Sam, furious, retorted that no one was beyond saving, and that Eleanor didn't belong there. The sound quality was lousy. Unfortunately, not lousy enough to obscure the words.

“Is this cell-phone video an example of the Christmas spirit, Safe Harbor style?” a newswoman commented gleefully from behind the anchor desk of a TV studio. She briefly recapped the spat as if it were some sort of spectator sport. “Now here's an update.”

The screen displayed a photograph of Eleanor. In a staticky recording apparently made over the phone, her patrician voice proclaimed, “I have the assurance of Dr. Mark Rayburn that the hospital is behind me one hundred percent. From now on, Dr. Samantha Forrest no longer has any affiliation with the Serra clinic.”

Mark sank back and closed his eyes, wishing he could make this whole business disappear. In his entire career, he'd never had to deal with as much bad publicity as Safe
Harbor had suffered in the past four months. First, the misunderstanding about the Safe Haven law had led to multiple baby surrenders, then the press had seized on Sam's silly remarks about beauty makeovers, and now this ridiculous controversy.

Was it him? Was it Sam? Had the medical center inadvertently offended the gods of yellow journalism? He supposed that once the press decided Safe Harbor was news-worthy, any event there got blown out of proportion.

He muted the sound, took out his phone and dialed Sam's number. Mark had no idea if she'd heard the news. If not, he ought to be the one to break it to her. The clinic had been her idea from the start. She'd proposed it, championed it and worked her tail off to make it a reality. She deserved better than to be ousted in a backroom coup, and to learn about it from TV.