Previously…
– On her cruise, Diane had a fling with a younger doctor named Ben. She told him her name was Ann Marie and, after he fell asleep, slipped out of his cabin; the next morning, she got off the ship at the next port and flew home.
– Tempest had a private realization about the trip she almost went on to Idaho with Samantha.
– Travis planned to ask Rosie to marry him.
– An infant was left outside the KBPD. Rosie took the child to the hospital, where Claire helped arrange for the baby to have medical care and be seen by a social worker.

For as long as he can remember, Travis Fisher has hated the hospital. When he was younger, when it was more instinctual, he assumed it was because of the usual reasons kids hated going to the hospital or the doctor’s — like how his friends dreaded getting shots so much that they’d break down in tears at the mere mention of going there. As he got older, however, Travis realized that he hated the place for a much more concrete reason: because his mother worked there. That meant unexpected stops, casual weekday visits to get a last-minute permission slip signed or to wait while she took care of some outstanding paperwork; Travis would wait, unable to keep from noticing the sickness, the sadness, and the death all around.

Claire always told him to think of it as a place full of hope, where fortunes could change and people would leave with a new lease on life, but Travis could never bring himself to see the hospital as such a place. It was too hard not to notice all the despair, the sullen faces and the cast-down eyes. That was only reinforced as he grew up, especially as his family even spent a Thanksgiving here while his cousin lay in a coma — a Thanksgiving that turned to horror when his grandfather was killed the next morning.

Today, however, he understands that he has no choice but to be here. He does his best to block out the sights and sounds as he steps off an elevator and locates his mother in her pale blue scrubs by the nurse’s station.

“Hi,” Claire says warmly, greeting him with an embrace. “I was surprised when you texted. Are you here with Rosie?”

“She said she was heading here, but I guess she got stuck at the station,” Travis explains. “She was supposed to come over last night, but…”

“She was here late with that baby and the social worker. I told her she should go home and rest, but she insisted on staying.”

“Well, she’s on her way back any minute now. She sounded a little rattled, so I thought I’d, I don’t know, come say hi before I head to the restaurant.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.” Claire smiles, but Travis can tell that she is forcing it just a touch.

“What’s going on with this baby?” he asks. “Someone just dumped her at the police station?”

“As far as we know, yeah. It turned out she was running a fever, so the doctors wanted to keep her overnight. But it’s not looking like anything serious.”

“That’s good. What happens now? The social worker takes her and puts her into a group home or something?”

“I’m sure they’ll be able to find a foster home,” Claire says, “but even that’s no guarantee of her winding up somewhere secure.” She pauses, letting out a weary sigh. “It’s so sad to think about a little baby, out in the world all alone like that. I know it’s different, but it makes me think of you and Spencer a bit — being that young, taken away from where you were supposed to be safe and loved…”

Now it is Travis’s turn to offer her an encouraging smile. “I’d say that worked out pretty well for me. Despite some, uh, bumps in the road.”

“Despite some bumps,” Claire says with a small laugh at the absurdity of their lives that would not have been possible even a few years ago. “And let’s hope it turns out well for this baby, whoever she is, whoever she’s meant to be.”

“Here’s hoping,” Travis agrees.

The large drum of purified water gives off its trademark glug glug glug noise as a stooped-over Officer Rosie Jimenez finishes filling her water bottle from the cooler inside the King’s Bay Police Department.

“Jimenez. There you are,” Brent Taylor says as he steps through the bullpen area toward her. “Glad I caught you.”

Rosie stands. “I’m actually headed back to the hospital in a minute. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to go over the file you brought me on the North Side robberies last night.”

“Is there a problem?” she asks.

“No. Looks great. Just need to clarify a few things before I pass it back to the detectives. But thank you for digging through all that evidence.”

“Of course,” she says as she screws the top back onto her water bottle. “It was actually pretty interesting to dig in and get to line everything up and analyze it.”

“You keep that up, you’ll be making waves as a detective sooner rather than later,” Brent tells her, his pride showing through. “Why are you going to the hospital? Everything okay?”

Rosie hesitates and then explains to the commander, “That baby who was dropped here last night had a fever. I feel like I should check in with the social worker — especially if there’s anything else we might be able to use to track down whoever’s baby that is.”

“Track down? Under the Safe Haven law–“

“Safe Haven doesn’t apply,” Rosie says, stopping herself before she inadvertently mentions Claire and raises a whole new bit of awkwardness. “They think this baby’s closer to six weeks old.”

“What? Someone just happened to drop a six-week-old baby here?” A wild glint flares in Brent’s eyes. “I’m coming with you.”

With his messenger bag slung across his body, Jason Fisher hurries up the staircase leading to the office on the second story of Edge of Winter Arena. When he enters, his car keys still in hand, he finds Tempest Banks closing the middle drawer of the metal filing cabinet against the wall.

“Morning,” she says as the drawer clanks shut. 

“Morning.” Jason drops his bag onto his desk chair. “I didn’t expect you in so early.”

“I got all the registrations for the winter Learn to Skate program entered into the system and filed away.”

“Already? How long have you been in?”

“A couple hours,” Tempest says. “I’ve actually gotta run an errand, so I wanted to get a jump on work.”

“Thanks for doing all that,” Jason says. “You don’t have to come in hours early if you need to run an errand, by the way. I trust you. Stuff gets done when it needs to.”

“Thanks… but this one might take a while.”

He raises one eyebrow. “Why do I feel like you’re doing more than picking up a prescription?”

“‘Cause I am,” Tempest says. “I think I figured out something that’s been bugging me for weeks.”

“Do I want to know?”

“You will when I’m done,” she tells him. “Right now, I’ve gotta go call someone out on some bullshit and get to the bottom of this.”

Diane Bishop sits in her office in the basement of the building where KBAY’s headquarters are housed. Earlier in her career, she would have turned up her nose at a windowless office in a basement. She worked too hard, outsmarting and overcoming too many men who looked down on her or saw her as merely a sex object, not to have an office that would be a visual signal of her success to anyone who so much as walked by it. At Vision Publishing, she fought for a corner office nearly as hard as she fought for her authors and their work. The thought of winding up in a place like this would have been unthinkable and, frankly, horrifying.

These days, though, she finds herself not minding too much, and that never ceases to shock her. It helps that she spends the bulk of her time at work in the studio itself, mostly in the recording booth with her cohost, Luke Berman, so her private office is more a home base than anything. What she values about it is that it is all hers, that she can come in here, leave her things, close the door, and even take a nap without being disturbed if she so wishes. She often wonders if she would be so accepting of it if not for her miserable experience being fired from Vision and then having to work at a bookstore that was being used as a front for a drug ring.

Now that today’s morning show has wrapped, she sits at her desk with a cappuccino, checking e-mails. When her seldom-used desk phone rings, she nearly ignores it, but some instinct makes her reach for the receiver.

“This is Diane Bishop,” she says as she places it against her face.

“Ms. Bishop, this is Rick at the front desk,” comes the loping voice of the security guard who greets her most mornings. “Got a visitor up here for you.”

“Who is it?” 

Moments later, she is on her way up to the lobby in an elevator. Her black leather flats slap against the tile floor as she beelines toward the front desk — only to stop in her tracks when she spots the man standing across from Rick.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks.

“He okay, Ms. Bishop?” Rick asks.

Diane folds her arms and waits a long moment, relishing the silence — or, really, the way she hopes that it makes Ben squirm. He looks as tall and handsome as he did that night on the cruise ship, possibly even more so, if that’s possible. He wears a brown leather jacket over a plain sweater and jeans, but as good as he looks, all she can think is what incredible nerve he has to track her here.

“I’ll handle him,” she finally says, motioning for Ben to step to the side with her. She feels Rick’s watchful eyes on them as they move to a more private spot by the wall.

“How did you find me?” Diane asks.

Ben smirks ever so slightly. “I saw your KBAY badge when you dropped your purse that night. Didn’t think much of it at the time… but when I couldn’t find you anywhere and went to report you missing–“

“You what?! Are you insane?”

“I was worried you fell overboard or something!”

“You think I’m stupid enough to fall off a cruise ship?”

“I don’t really know you too well at all, that’s what I found out. Diane.“

She can’t decide if she deeply enjoys or absolutely hates hearing him speak her real name.

“They told me a lady had voluntarily left the cruise when we got to port that morning,” Ben continues, “but they wouldn’t give me your name.”

“Yeah, ’cause you sounded like a stalker.”

“So I looked up KBAY, thinking I could see if there was an Ann Marie somewhere on the website–“

“Still stalkerish.”

“–and imagine how crazy it was when I saw your face on the damn front page. With the name Diane Bishop.”

“So you hopped on a plane to come, what, confront me?” she says. “You got me, Ben. I lied. Is that what you wanted?”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest and shakes his head. “Nah, that’s not why I’m here. At all.”

—–

At the hospital, Travis tells Claire, “I was going to text you to have dinner soon. I have some news.”

“What kind of news?” she asks.

“It’s about Rosie and me — and our plans for the holidays.”

“Are you thinking of traveling for Christmas?” Claire asks, a flash of disappointment showing on her face before she quickly covers it. “We’d miss having you guys here, but I’m sure you’ll have a great time–“

“It’s not that,” Travis says, laughing as he holds up a hand to slow her down. “Actually, it’s something Rosie doesn’t know about yet. And won’t know about until Christmastime.”

It takes only a second before Claire’s eyes go wide. “You mean you’re going to…”

“Ask Rosie to marry me. Yeah.” Travis feels a grin spreading over his face, the same way it does every single time he thinks about this. “We’ve been so solid since we got back together last year, and — Mom, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”

“Oh, Travis.” Her hands reach for him, pulling him into another hug. “This is such good news.”

“I’m glad you approve.”

“Of course I do. I love Rosie. We all do.”

“She’s amazing,” he says. “I do need your opinion on something.”

“The ring?”

“I will definitely need your opinion on that, but this is… do you think I should go ask her mother before I do it? Is that old-fashioned, or am I, like, rude if I don’t ask?”

“Are Rosie and her mom doing better these days?” Claire asks.

“Way better. We’ve seen her for dinner a few times, and I know Rosie’s been over on her own. It seems like they’re really healing.”

Claire touches her index finger to her chin as she thinks. “As the daughter of a man who was far too possessive and territorial about me, I would say no. Rosie’s an adult, and she’s her own person. You’re asking her to be your partner, not asking her mother if you can take ownership of her.”

“Right,” Travis agrees. “I don’t want to be disrespectful or anything, that’s all. Her mom is pretty Catholic.”

“I think what you should do is make some time to go see Rosie’s mom alone, and tell her that you’re planning to propose. That way she gets to be a mother and process it and bring up any objections she might have — although, what objection could she have? Look at you!”

Travis blushes as Claire reaches up to touch his cheek.

“I like this plan,” he says.

“And I can’t think of better news for our family,” Claire says as she beams proudly at her son.

—–

In a frenzy of energy that Rosie recognizes all too well, because the same thing happens to her, Brent springs into motion without a second thought.

“Commander,” she says, feeling awkward at using the title to address him over something so personal and yet not wanting to step out of line, either. “The baby — she’s a girl.”

That gets Brent to stop mid-movement.

“She is?” he asks sadly.

Rosie nods, a contrite expression on her face. “I’m sorry. I know you must want to believe–“

“No, it’s– it’s stupid.” Brent squeezes his eyes closed for a minute, as if needing to block out everything to re-center himself. “It would be crazy, anyway. Our baby wouldn’t just be…”

“I get why you’d want to think that,” Rosie says softly. 

Brent tries to laugh, though his pain shows through as he does. “I need to get a grip.

“You’re going through something really difficult.”

“Yeah, but I still need to keep my head on straight. Go check in at the hospital. We’ll look over the robbery stuff when you get back.”

“Okay,” Rosie replies. “And I meant what I said last night: if you ever need to talk or vent or anything, just ask. Actually, don’t. Just come to me and start doing it.”

“Thanks, Jimenez,” Brent says, but she can see how hard he is working to make his professional demeanor override his anguish.

—–

In the KBAY lobby, Diane stares Ben down, but she waits until a sound engineer from the radio station passes — offering her a friendly wave, which she returns — before speaking again.

“Then why are you here?” she asks.

“‘Cause I had fun with you,” Ben says, “and I was kinda looking forward to spending the rest of the cruise with you. And honestly, it’s weird as hell you lied about your name–“

“Because I wanted to get away from my real life. I wanted that whole cruise to just be…” She trails off and then waves her hands around. “…its own separate world.”

The tip of Ben’s tongue flicks out, licking his upper lip quickly as he contemplates his response.

“Look, I’ll get out of here if you really don’t want to see me,” he says, “but I did come all this way, so if you had fun on the ship, we could grab dinner or a drink to chat.”

Again she looks him up and down. He seems like a nice guy, and he’s right: she did have fun with him on the ship. To say the least. But he’s also young. So young. And now here he is, in her real world, her everyday life, and it all seems so absurd.

“Are you sure you’re not batshit crazy?” Diane asks. “Who gets on a plane to track down some insane lady who lied about her name and then left a cruise halfway through? Or does chaos turn you on?”

Ben snickers, the tip of his tongue again slipping out briefly. “That’s part of me why I wanted to chat. The thing about you lying about your name–“

“It’s a long, ridiculous story,” Diane tells him.

“Maybe not as ridiculous as you think.”

Diane is about to challenge him on that when a voice, loud and very familiar, slices through the air.

“What the hell?” Tempest says as she strides toward them.

“Not now, Tempest,” Diane says with annoyance. “What are you even doing here?”

But Tempest doesn’t look at Diane when she responds; she is laser-focused on Ben.

“Uh, the real question ought to be, what are you doing here, Isaac?” Tempest asks her brother with shock.

END OF EPISODE 1047

Is “Ben”‘s true identity a surprise to you?
Should Brent listen to his gut regarding the baby?
Will Rosie’s mother be accepting of Travis’s plans?
Talk about all this and more in the comments below!

Next Episode