Page 88 of Vaquero
Chapter Thirty-Five
Two days after Meg’s conversation with Captain Dooley, Dom started eating on his own. Applesauce and pudding first. Then soup and toast. Weak tea. Rice and bananas. Luke suggested fresh air might help him recuperate quicker.
So that morning, Meg and her two armed guards were back in sickbay. While they took position in the hall, she dressed Dom in the new jeans, undershirt, and Navy t-shirt she’d bought him. Socks and cowboy boots, so small and cute that they brought tears to her eyes, completed his first set of real clothes, not castoffs. His Navy jacket and ballcap finished him off, and Dom was a new boy, ready to go up top. He still looked like one of those sickly Saint Jude’s kids with his big dark eyes and nearly hairless head. But to Meg, he was her miracle baby. He looked just like her.
“Mum!” he squealed, pointing to where Marta, Craig, and the rest of the kids were now standing at sickbay’s open door.
“You’re ready to run like the wind, aren’t you?” Meg asked him even as she bundled him in his favorite quilt. “But not yet.” This boy had been through Hell. She wasn’t going to let anything happen to him. If that meant carrying him until he was one hundred percent cured, she intended to do that.
“Look!” Maria cried. “He’s smilin’!”
“Ah, baby, he smiles all the time now,” Craig replied. “You just haven’t seen him lately, but wait until we get up top. He’s going to love seeing the ocean and this big b-b-b-b…ship!”
“He can walk with me,” Maria declared, a determined glint in her pretty brown eyes.
“Maybe later,” Meg said as she handed Dom over to Marta. “He’s still got an IV line and the bag that goes with it, honey. How about Marta and Craig carry him until that’s gone, so you won’t have to worry about it?”
“Okay,” Maria agreed easily. “But then, it’s my turn, ’kay?”
Craig ruffled the short hair on her head. “You got it, princess. Let’s head out.” He winked at Meg. “See you when we’re done with our adventure.”
“Come on,” Maria whined, pulling Craig’s hand to get him moving out the door. “I want to go up top.”
Meg smiled at those Navy words coming out of that little girl. Yet the upcoming pain of waving goodbye stabbed Meg’s heart. God, she loved these kids. How could she ignore the possibility they still might have parents who cared and were looking for them? How could she find those parents for them? They deserved that much. So did their families. There had to be a way. She needed to contact a Brazilian adoption agency. They’d know.
“You kids go ahead,” she said as brightly as she could. “Make sure Dom has ear protection. Keep warm!”
“Mum!” Dom squealed, wriggling out of Marta’s grip, his hands stretched for Meg to take him.
Man, this was hard. She forced a grin. “Hey, big boy. Don’t you want to see the flight deck? There are lots of jets up there.”
His nose scrunched. Poor kid probably didn’t know what a jet was. “Mum!” he squealed again, still reaching for her. The panic in his eyes was breaking her heart.
Instead of taking him from Marta, Meg leaned forward, kissed his forehead, and told him. “Hurry back, sweetheart. I love you. Be good!”
Marta turned her back, effectively creating a wall between Meg and Dom. But sweet little Dom pitched a fit, bucking and kicking, screaming and arching his back to get back into Meg’s hands. He had become everything Meg hoped for. A regular boy.
She couldn’t do it. Choking on a sob, she took Dom back, and pressed his thrumming little body to her heart. So this was what separation anxiety felt like.Shit. It felt like shit!
She held him close, blinking to keep her tears from falling. That would only make the other kids sad, then they’d all be bawling. But, God. Who would’ve thought she could love another woman’s child as hard as she loved this little lost boy? But she did. To lose Dom now, to have to put him into Brazil’s foster care system—would kill Meg.
“It’s okay, baby,” she murmured into the top of his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I just can’t go up with you this time, okay? Go with Marta and Craig. When you’ve seen all the jets and you’re tired, come back, and I’ll be right here. Promise, sweetheart.” She kissed the top of his Navy cap. “I’ll be waiting for you. You’re my baby, and I’m your…” She paused, her heart breaking at the uncertain path ahead of her.
Sure enough. Dom sucked up a shuddering breath and whispered, “Mum.”
“Yes, Dominic,” she told him sincerely, wishing it were so. “I’m your Mum.”For now.
God help me find a way to be just that. Dom’s Mum. Please don’t let me break his heart.
She waved goodbye and watched her babies leave. They were no sooner in the hall when one of her guards shut the sickbay door and closed her in. Again. That was the catch to this fun adventure. Meg couldn’t go with Dom. She wasn’t allowed up on deck, not with some invisible assassin lurking in the Atlantic to kill her. It sounded crazy, but Dooley was adamant. Even if the kids were flown to American or back to Brazil, she wasn’t going with them. Only Marta and Craig. Meg was under protective order. Talk about unfair.
Now that the children were eating better, and Luke had thoroughly assessed them, they were all happy and smiling. Craig and Marta had kept them entertained and busy from day one, had even started them back on their studies. Then along came Ensign Shaw. He’d proven to be quite the artist. He’d gifted them with sets of watercolors, modeling clay, and then spent hours showing them how to paint and otherwise play. The deck was no place for children, but since so many of the sailors aboard had taken them into their hearts, the children always had plenty of exercise. Sometimes in the onboard gym. Sometimes playing hopscotch in the halls.
But now that time was coming to an end. Meg could feel it. Everything Ensigns Giacomo and Shaw did seemed directed at getting Dom healthy enough to travel. Not that Meg minded, she just hadn’t wanted the kids to leave before Julio returned. He needed to say his goodbyes, too. He loved these kids. She knew he did.
Captain Dooley hadn’t gotten back to her with further news on Julio or Hotrod, err, Walker Judge, except to tell her they were both off the island, and Julio had gone onto Fort Campbell, then Washington, DC, with his two prisoners. It seemed he’d acquired another one of those Matryoshka Dolls on whatever island he’d been stuck on. How that happened, Meg had no idea. But it figured. Julio seemed destined for covert life.
But worse, she had no way to contact him except through Captain Dooley. Meg didn’t feel right asking. The captain of an aircraft carrier was an important, busy man. She didn’t want to bother him.
Meg felt off-balance, as if everything and everyone was moving on without her. Especially now that she’d had time to ask Dooley about the possibility of securing humanitarian protection for the children. Not only did they not meet the requirements for humanitarian protection under theHague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, but national Brazilians were given first priority when it came to adoptions. It didn’t matter that they’d been kidnapped by Zapata, or that she, a United States citizen had rescued them. Neither did their orphan status.
Meg would not only have to prove that each of her children had no extended family, but that no other Brazilian citizens wanted them. Which was difficult, since these orphans hadn’t come with much history or backstory, much less official paperwork, like birth certificates or shot records like kids in America. They hadn’t come with anything. In most cases they were starved little rescues when they’d been found. Joseph and Fernando had simply gathered these babies up on their daily patrols through the local villages and provided safe refuge. They had no way to know who the kids belonged to, who had deserted them, or what disaster had stolen them from their families. If any. Joseph and Fernando had just stepped in where others had not, and rescued kids who’d needed rescuing. They’d saved these children’s lives, but even that didn’t matter.
As for Dom? While it was extraordinarily rare for a United States citizen to be allowed to adopt a healthy Brazilian child, special needs children were another category. That was where Dom fit. But once again, Meg could adopt him only after she’d satisfactorily proved he had no family. That no one wanted him. Which was sad, because he deserved to be wanted. All of her kids did. But really. Everyone in the village had known about the orphanage. If anyone knew who these kids belonged to, wouldn’t they have come forward? At least notified those relatives?
To top that off, Brazil’s adoption laws demanded that prospective foreign adoptive parents live in Brazil with the prospective adoptive child thirty days prior to adoption. Which was not going to happen. Even if she could somehow prove that Dom was indeed, an orphan without any family who wanted him, she was confined to one of the best aircraft carriers for the next two months.
Damn it.
