Disclaimer: I wish I owned the sexy Mort Rainey and his cabin, but I don't.

AN: For those of you who didn't read my author's notes for the first chapter: please read my bio for explainations. For those who did: here is chapter two. I hope that my readers are all still with me and that you'll stick by me while I get this all cleared up and reposted! Thanks for your support!

Chapter 2: The Good Life…Or is it?:

Amber's POV:

The thing about babies is that you never know what to expect from them. Many of the nurses in the hospital had informed me of that, and I had taken their words to heart, even writing them down on a pad of paper a nurse had given me for just that purpose. Even with those notes, I could feel that I had a trying time in front of me, and so I braced myself for the worst.

The first few weeks away from the hospital, I went to bed early so I could get some sleep before Elizabeth did the traditional crying-in-the-middle-of-the-night routine that all babies went through. However, I was shocked that Elizabeth never, not once, woke up in the night, crying for attention or to be held. I had woken up several times in the night, listening for her cries, but they never came.

One night, two weeks after we'd brought her home to the cabin, I had rushed to Elizabeth's crib, panicked as to what I might find there. I'd heard about babies dying in the night from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), and I was scared to death that this would happen to my precious baby. For the next several nights, my rushing to Lizzie's side happened frequently, and I tried my best to do it without waking Mort. I was beginning to think that I was getting good at not waking him, but one nightly visit to the crib told me otherwise. I was bending over to check Elizabeth's breathing when I heard footsteps coming in from the hallway.

"Amber?" Mort whispered, coming up beside me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

"It's nothing," I replied in a soft tone. Carefully reaching down, I stroked my sleeping baby's cheek, getting a thrill from the feel of her soft baby-skin on my fingers.

"Come on, sweetheart, let's go to bed," Mort murmured in my ear as he gently led me away towards our room.

I didn't want to leave her, but with Mort gently dragging me, I didn't really have a choice. After we had entered our room, Mort left the door open and turned the baby monitor on so we could hear what was going on in Elizabeth's room. We had just tucked ourselves under the covers and wrapped our arms around each other when Mort grasped my chin and forced me to look up at him.

"Amber, I know you haven't been sleeping well these past few weeks," he said, his thumb gently caressing my chin. "What's on your mind?"

I sighed and snuggled into his warm firm chest. "I'm just worried about Lizzie not crying at night." I felt silly about my fear, but I couldn't hide it from Mort…he knew me too well. I let my husband pull me close and felt him bury his face in my hair.

"Most babies cry, but some don't," Mort whispered into my ear as he held me. "There's really nothing you can do about that."

"But what if she falls asleep and never wakes up again?" I asked, tears forming in my eyes. "What if she dies in her sleep from the Infant Death Syndrome?"

Mort grabbed my face and forced me to look him in the eye before kissing me, hard. I let him hold me and kiss away my fears, and, slowly, I calmed down and relaxed in his arms, my tears fading away to nothing. Once he was sure I was calm, he stroked my back until I fell into a peaceful sleep.



Mort's POV
:

As he held his dozing wife in his arms, Mort couldn't help thinking about the fear that Amber had just told him. He knew that a woman's hormones were out of whack during pregnancy and after childbirth, and he couldn't help but feel this fear of hers might be caused by those same hormones. He knew about the tragedy that happened to some babies in the night, but he seriously doubted that anything like that would happen to their child. Elizabeth was simply a good sleeper, that's all. The nurses at the hospital had told him that she had always slept straight through the night without causing problems, and to not be alarmed if she did the whole thing at home. However, Mort seriously doubted that they had told Amber that before she had left the hospital.

Mort sighed as he snuggled closer to his wife. It would be up to him to make sure that his wife got enough sleep and made it through her first few months of motherhood without losing her mind. So, confident in his husbandly and fatherly abilities, Mort drifted off to sleep, his wife in his arms, and his ears open for any sounds his baby girl might make in the night.



Two months later, Amber's POV
:

I was never as relieved as I was now. Mort had finally convinced me that Elizabeth was not going to die at night, and I had given up my nightly vigils by her crib at night. However, I heard Mort get out of bed at night several times during the week, and realized that he was just checking up on Elizabeth to let me get more sleep at night. I really did have the most amazing man for a husband…

As time passed, I felt like I was made for motherhood. It's funny really, but I'd never thought that I could handle kids (considering that I'd always been bad at babysitting other people's kids and had given up on that teenage occupation after only two babysitting jobs). Now, though, I felt like I was meant to do this, to hold my baby when she cried for me, to change her, feed her, dress her, and play with her. It all came with rough times, like when she would spit up when I burped her, but that's the way life goes.

Mort, on the other hand, seemed to be having a difficult time with everything. He'd panic whenever he was alone with Elizabeth and she started crying, and he never knew how to calm her down besides hold her. He seemed to think that holding her would always calm her down, and I had a hard time breaking him of that idea. Eventually, I just gave up on it, and Mort and I came to an agreement as to how we would take care of Elizabeth. Our arrangement was simple, and it worked out fairly well (plus, we both got to spend time with our baby and have some time to ourselves). During the day, I would be with Elizabeth in the nursery or Lizzie's playroom while Mort tried to focus on his work. Whenever I thought Mort could use a break, I would take Lizzie to visit her daddy, and Mort would play with her for a couple of hours while I spent some time in my little library downstairs, reading and relaxing. Meanwhile, Mort would do "nightly duties" and keep an ear open in case Elizabeth needed something. Since Elizabeth was a sound sleeper and rarely woke up during the night, this arrangement worked out perfectly…plus it kept Mort from freaking out too much whenever Elizabeth cried or fussed.

One morning, as I was feeding Elizabeth in the living room, I heard the phone ring, so I waited to see if Mort would answer it. When it didn't stop, I looked up and opened my mouth to call Mort, but saw that he was sitting on the couch, directly on my left, watching me as I breastfed Elizabeth. For some reason, he always knows whenever I breastfeed and he always gets the oddest look in his eye whenever he sees me doing it…

"Mort, could answer the phone?" I asked, looking back down at Elizabeth.

It took me a few seconds to realize that the phone was still ringing, meaning that Mort hadn't moved an inch from his spot on the couch. Looking up again, I saw that he was still watching me as I fed Elizabeth, a strange smile on his lips. Sighing, I reached over with my free hand and gently slapped his cheek. Mort quickly snapped out of it with a small yelp and started looking around for whoever had slapped him. I started giggling and Mort pouted at me.

"I don't think I deserved that, darling," he said, rubbing his cheek.

"Mort, I asked you to answer the phone, and all you did was stare at my boob," I said, laughing at him as I closed my shirt and shifted to burp Elizabeth. "Now be a good boy and answer the phone!"

Mort muttered a few things as he got up and went to phone. As he picked it up, I focused my attentions on burping my baby girl. I had just finished when Mort came up beside me and held the phone in front of my face. I gave him a confused look, but from the concerned expression on his face, I knew the call couldn't be good.

"It's your brother," Mort whispered. "He sounds a bit…odd."

As I took the phone, I couldn't help but wonder what sort of nightmare my baby brother was going through at home with our parents, or had been through the last two months. I felt terrible for leaving him there, alone, without me there to protect him, but what could I do? Sighing, I handed Elizabeth to her father and took the phone from Mort.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Amber?" whispered Mike. He sounded frightened.

"Mike, are you okay?" I asked, worried that something had happened.

"Amber, can I come and visit you in a few weeks?" he asked. He sounded scared and…tired?

"Why, what's wrong? Did something happen?"

"Look, Amber, I can't talk for long before they get home, so could you just answer me?" my brother pleaded.

"Of course," I said, looking Mort in the eye to tell him something was wrong. "We'll send you a ticket ASAP, just keep an eye out for it, okay?"

"Thanks, sis," Mike whispered. There was the rumbling sound of an opening garage in the background. "Gotta go, Mom and Dad are home…I'll talk to you later, bye!"

"Mike?"

My call went unanswered and the sound of the dial tone filled my ear. I looked up at Mort. Even though he didn't really know my brother, the look in his eyes told me that he was genuinely concerned for my brother's wellbeing.

"What's wrong?" Mort asked, rocking Lizzie back and forth to get her to sleep.

"Mort, I think we need to get my brother here as soon as possible," I said, hanging up the phone. "I think my choosing to stay with you caused some sort of meltdown for my parents, and I think they're taking it out on Mike."

My eyes swelled with tears. My poor baby brother…I had always been there to protect him, and now he was thousands of miles away, in the hands of my now psychotic parents, alone and defenseless. I had to do something to help him, and help him fast.

"I'll call around and see what our options are," Mort said, taking Elizabeth upstairs. "Why don't you get some rest while I make dinner tonight?"

I nodded and sighed as I went to lie down on the couch. As my head fell to the pillow, I couldn't help but think about what my parents were doing to my brother, or what they had done over the past two and a half months. Were they mentally scaring Mike even worse than before my disappearance? If so, then couldn't there be something I could do to save him from it? Couldn't I take some sort of action against my parents for what they were doing to him?

Dozens of thoughts swirled in my head and I had barely closed my eyes before sleep claimed me.



That Same Day, Mike's POV
:

As he hung up the phone, Mike Olson made sure that his parents hadn't caught him calling his sister at her house. His mom and dad didn't know that Mort had given him his cellphone number and the number to their cabin in the woods, where he had taken Amber after kidnapping her and where they were living now. Breathing a sigh or relief at not being caught, Mike was extremely glad that he had both numbers. Cellphones had a habit of running out of minutes or become deactivated, while normal phones ran just fine, unless they were disconnected for some reason.

"Michael, get down here and help your mother!" his father yelled upstairs.

Mike rolled his eyes. Why did he (and in the past, his sister) always have to bring the groceries in and store them? His father never did that, nor did he help to wash the dishes, do the family laundry, or anything else to help out…oh, well…

After stowing away the food (and getting another lecture from his mother about his lack of strength and slowness of completing the matter), Mike flopped down on his waterbed and stared at his ceiling. It had been over two months since they had left Amber with Mort Rainey, and life had been a nightmare, even worse than it had been before. If he'd thought that life had sucked before Amber had left them, things were a million times worse now! His mother spent the day screaming about how they should have done more to convince Amber to come home, and shouting insults at Mike for even the tiniest mistakes or flaws he had. Meanwhile, his father was always on the phone, trying to get a hold of someone who might know how to contact the cabin that Amber now lived in. When they were out of people to call or yell at, his parents screamed at him because he hadn't wanted Amber to come home, and they called him stupid for siding with the insane author who had taken Amber from them. After two months of verbal and emotional bashing, Mike had decided to take matters into his own hands and call his sister…she was the only one who could help him out of this mess, thus the long-distance call to the cabin in New York.

'I hope that plane ticket gets here soon,' Mike thought, putting on his headphones and closing his eyes, copying what he'd seen Amber do whenever she wanted to escape the world. 'God, I miss her so much!'

Not a day went by where he didn't think of his sister, or of the baby girl she had given birth to…however, he missed his sister more than the tiny infant he had seen for only a few hours. And yet, Mike really wanted to see his niece again, and maybe even have a hand in her growing up. After all, he was the youngest in the family, and he'd always wanted a baby brother or sister so he could try and set an example for…maybe this could be his chance…

Mike drifted off to sleep, visions of a certain baby girl in his mind.



A Week Later, Amber's POV
:

The plane ticket to my brother had gone out the same day he'd called us, and I couldn't be more relieved at the quick work and the strings Mort had pulled to get it to him. It was an open ticket so that Mike could come and visit us whenever school was out for the summer, and he could go home when he got tired of being in the same house as a newborn baby. Hopefully, no matter how much time he spent here, it would do him some sort of good to be here, away from Mom and Dad.

That time came sooner than we expected, and totally caught us off guard. I was putting Elizabeth down for her nap and Mort was in the middle of what he called his "next masterpiece" when someone started frantically knocking on our door. Through the door of the Elizabeth's bedroom, I gave Mort a pleading look, and he sighed as he got up and went to answer it. A few seconds later, I heard frantic whispering from downstairs, a car door slam, and the screech of tires, so I went to see what was going on. I was not prepared for what, or should I say who, greeted me in the living room…

"Surprise," Mike said, giving me a small smile and a wave.

An hour later, we were seated at the dinner table, hot cups of cocoa in front of the three of us and a baby monitor in the center in case Lizzie woke up. On my left, Mike had a shamed look on his face, and on my right, Mort looked ready to strangle someone, preferably my fool of a brother. I didn't know who to side with, but I was pretty close to smacking my brother in the head and kicking him out the door, after a good screaming lecture at him. However, first things first…

I took a deep breath. "Okay, let me get this straight," I said, very slowly. "You skipped the last week of school, packed a suitcase, and ran away from home so you could come here early and get away from Mom and Dad." I looked at my brother. "Is that right?"

Mike nodded, and I buried my head in my hands. Oh, God, my parents were going to burst a blood vessel when they find out where he is…oh, man, I could smell a lawsuit on our hands already. Mort would be arrested, Mike and I would be sent home, and Elizabeth…well, I'd be dead and buried before I let my parents touch my baby girl!

"I'm sorry for doing this to you, Amber, but you don't know what it's like at home these days!" he said, looking pleadingly into my eyes. "Mom and Dad have totally lost it, even more than they had before, and I couldn't take it anymore! Don't send me home, please let me stay!"

"Hold on," Mort said, preventing me from answering. "I may not be a lawyer, but I know one thing: Mike, as a seventeen year old boy, you are still a minor, and still subject to your parents. If you were eighteen, there'd be no problem with this arrangement. However, with you as a minor, and they as your parents, if they want you home, you have to go, no matter what you want. If we're lucky, they won't dump a lawsuit on us. If worst comes to worst, we'll both be prosecuted and I'll be arrested for kidnapping, rape, and any other things your parents will make up with to charge me with. In that situation, you, Amber, and Elizabeth will all be home with your parents before you know it."

Mike paled. "So what do we do?" he whispered, clutching his mug tightly.

Mort sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I'll get on the phone to my agent and my lawyer to see what we can work out with your parents," he said, fiddling with his mug before reaching over to cover my hand with his. "Maybe we can work a deal out with your parents."



Hours Later, Amber's POV
:

It was a long night of talking with Mort's lawyer and agent, but he eventually worked out something. While he was on the phone, I had settled my brother in a storage-turned-guestroom in the back of the cabin that I hadn't known existed until Mort showed it to me. It had a door that looked so much like the walls of the cabin that it was invisible, even when walking right past it. Originally, Mort had turned it into a bedroom and was going to put me in here after kidnapping me, but had changed his mind. It was plainly decorated: desk, chair, lamp, wardrobe, bed, small TV, but Mike liked the room, since it meant that he could get some of privacy, and he liked the fact that the kitchen was close by so he could raid the fridge when he was hungry and not have to wake anyone. To him, the room "rocked."

After settling Mike in, I left him alone and went to talk to Mort. I thought that I was prepared for whatever news he had, but as I joined him at the window by the door, the first words out of his mouth were not ones I wanted to hear.

"They want to see you," Mort said, combing his fingers through his tousled hair.

"Who?" I asked, looking at him and begging him not to say what I thought he was saying.

"Your parents," Mort whispered. "They'll let Mike stay and not press charges against me if you take Elizabeth into New York City and meet with them. They say it's only for a week, not long at all."

I snorted. "Only a week? Please, Mort, a week with my parents is like having a hole slowly drilled into your head, without anesthesia and having a dozen people screaming in your ears with bullhorns."

Mort sighed as he wrapped his arms around my waist. "It's the only way we can be together, Amber," he said, pulling me closer. "There's no other way."

I knew he was right, but I didn't want to admit it. This was the only way all of us, Mort, me, Mike, and my parents, would get everything we wanted.

There was no other way…



AN
: Just thought I'd let you all know how much I appreciate you guys sticking with me. Peace out!