“Sorry, Jim, it’s just that I—”
“No need to explain. You’re thinking about your son, aren’t you? New mothers tend to obsess about their babies. But you really should work your way through those typical feelings about neglecting and abandoning your child in favor of your career. You’re too smart to believe that you have to be the most important person in his life right now. After all, you have a perfectly capable nanny, don’t you?”
“Yes, a very capable nanny.”
“I understand that you have an extra burden of guilt on your shoulders since you’re a single mother.”
Leenie stared at Jim as he continued talking, giving her his opinion about the correct way to rear children, especially a son without a father figure. Not one to take criticism or advice well, his comments aggravated her. Who was he to be giving her advice? Had she asked him to share his wisdom on the subject of raising children?
“Jim!”
With his mouth open midsentence, he stopped talking and looked quizzically at her. “Yes?”
She’d been about to lambaste him, tell him in no uncertain terms that her relationship with her son was none of his damn business. Instead she said, “Let’s order dessert. Cheesecake.”
He arched his eyebrows in a disapproving manner. “Are you sure you want the extra calories? After all, you probably still have some baby fat you want to lose.”
He smiled at her in his good-natured manner. And she wanted to slap him. Baby fat, indeed! She weighed now precisely what she’d weighed before she’d gotten pregnant, having dropped twenty pounds when Andrew was born and another ten in the past two months. Everyone else she knew had marveled over how quickly she’d gotten back in shape.
“Right. No dessert.” It wasn’t the calories she could do without, it was the company. She gritted her teeth to keep from telling him off in no uncertain terms. “Look, I just remembered that I have a previous engagement this weekend, so I’ll have to forego dinner and a movie.” She shoved back her chair and stood.
Ever the gentleman, Jim stood up. “Perhaps lunch again next week, then?”
“Perhaps.” She picked up her purse.
“I’ll call you.”
“Please do. I hate to run, but—”
“Work awaits,” he said.
“Yes.”
She didn’t bother to contradict him, to tell him she was going home where she’d spend the afternoon and early evening with Andrew. Nodding, she forced a smile, then hurried away from the table, out of the restaurant and to her car. Once inside, she checked her watch. Two-fifteen. She’d go on home and be there in time to help put away groceries. About now Debra and Andrew were at Foodland on their weekly shopping excursion. Usually Leenie joined them for lunch on Fridays and afterward they bought groceries together, but today she’d had a date. A waste of time. Time she could have spent with her son.
Wonder if it’s too late to join them at Foodland? She could buy one of those frozen cheesecakes and indulge at supper tonight. That’s what she’d do. Eat cheesecake and forget about Jim Isbell. Out there somewhere was another guy who wouldn’t bore her to tears. Someone as much fun as Frank. As sexy as Frank. As good in bed as Frank.
All right already. Enough about Frank!
Frank is the past. Jim Isbell was a dud. Think about Andrew. And cheesecake.
Frank Latimer stretched out as best he could in his seat, thankful that he was in first class and not stuck back in coach. Most of the time when he flew, it was on the luxurious Dundee jet, but when his latest job had ended today, the jet was already en route to Key West, taking a crew of Dundee’s best for a top secret assignment. He was set for a week off and planned to do some fishing while he relaxed at Sawyer McNamara’s Hilton Head vacation house. He’d been working practically nonstop for nearly a year now. When he’d left Maysville, Mississippi, eleven months ago, he’d taken a European assignment just to get him out of the country and as far away as was possible from a certain long and lean blonde. If there had been a flight to Mars eleven months ago, he’d have taken it.
“Would you care for another glass of tea, Mr. Latimer?” the attractive brunette flight attendant asked. He’d noticed her immediately, the minute he’d boarded his flight from Chicago to Atlanta. Ms. Gant was petite and slender, with big eyes and big boobs and a come-hither smile.
“No, thank you.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Oh, yeah, there was something she could do for him all right. He was in bad need of a warm body in his bed. For months after his whirlwind affair with Leenie Patton, he hadn’t touched another woman. Then he’d convinced himself that what he needed to get Leenie out of his system was a woman—actually a lot of women. He’d tried that, but it hadn’t worked. No one had tasted like Leenie or felt like Leenie or sounded like Leenie. So after gorging himself on nameless, faceless bed partners, he’d sworn off women altogether, at least until he could stop wanting one particular lady—a sexy, wild woman he’d called Slim.
“Mr. Latimer?”
“Huh?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m fine.”
No, he wasn’t fine. He was tired. This last job had lasted six weeks and he’d been shot at twice and wound up in three fistfights. He badly needed some major down-time. And Sawyer’s luxurious home in Hilton Head was just the ticket. If he could find a gorgeous, sexy blonde to spend the week with him, he’d have it made. It was time to end his months of celibacy.
The trouble is you don’t want just any gorgeous, sexy blonde. You want Slim. She’s what you want. All you want.
So why not call her up when he landed in Atlanta? And say what? I’ve been thinking about you for eleven months? Every time I slept with somebody else, I wished she was you?
“Hell, no!”
Frank didn’t realize he’d cursed aloud until Ms. Gant said, “Yes, Mr. Latimer, did you say something?”
“Just talking to myself,” he told her. “That happens when you get old.”
She giggled like a teenager and flashed him a brilliant smile. “You’re hardly old.”
“I’m forty,” he admitted, feeling every year of it.
“That’s not old. That’s the prime of life for a man.”
He chuckled. “I thought prime time for a guy was eighteen.”
She moistened her lips. “A man of forty has experience that a younger man doesn’t. I prefer experience.”
She’s putting it out there for you, Latimer, he told himself. All you have to do is take what she’s offering. He was tempted. Damn tempted. Even if she wasn’t a long-legged, willowy blonde.
Leaning down close to his ear, she whispered, “I’ll be in Atlanta overnight.”
“How about dinner?” He’d definitely been celibate long enough. Months of doing without wasn’t his style. It was time he tried sex again. And past time to get Leenie Patton out of his system.
Two blocks from Foodland, Leenie heard the wail of sirens—police and ambulance—and couldn’t help wondering if there had been a bad wreck somewhere nearby. The first thought that flashed through her mind was that Andrew and Debra had been involved in the accident. But she quickly dismissed the idea as nothing more than her tendency to worry much too much about Andrew whenever he was out of her sight. Of course she understood that her worries, concerns and fears were perfectly natural, that almost every new mother experienced these emotions whether she was a working mom or a stay at home mom. Naturally, being a single parent only added to her concerns about motherhood. With each passing day of Andrew’s life, Leenie felt more and more guilty for not having contacted Frank to tell him about their child. She had given herself every reason not to call him, to keep Andrew’s existence a secret from him, but in the end she knew, in her heart of hearts, that Frank had a right to know.
Admit it, she told herself, you’re scared to tell Frank the truth. If she told him and he didn’t want to be a part of Andrew’s life, she’d wonder what kind of man
he really was. On the other hand, if he wanted to be a part of his son’s life, but didn’t want her in the bargain, then she’d have to not only share Andrew, but she’d have to accept the fact that she’d never been special to Frank.
As she cruised down the tree-lined street at thirty-five miles an hour, she forced her mind off Frank Latimer and onto cheesecake. Wonder if Foodland has any chocolate cheesecake? she mused.
Suddenly the Lexus in front of her eased to a halt behind a line of other vehicles. Noting that the car’s brake lights had come on, Leenie stopped her SUV and tried to see what lay ahead. Able to make out the whirl of blue flashing lights in the distance, she figured traffic had been stopped at the scene of the accident about a block ahead of her. If the wreck had just occurred, it could take quite a while to clear things up and get traffic moving again. Her lane was stalled and the other lane was empty, as if traffic had been stopped on the other side of the police car up ahead. She sighed. I should have gone home instead of heading to Foodland to meet up with Debra and Andrew, she thought. If she got stuck here for very long, she’d call Debra on her cell phone to let her know why she was delayed.
Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, she hummed. And waited. Suddenly an ambulance flew by, its siren mournfully eerie. Once again, an odd sensation hit Leenie in the pit of her stomach. Don’t do this to yourself, she cautioned. Stop thinking Debra’s Saturn was involved in the wreck. Debra and Andrew were either still at Foodland or they were stalled on the other side of the accident and were waiting in line, just as she was.
As the minutes ticked by, Leenie tried to think of other things. Her boring lunch date with Jim. The topics she planned to discuss tonight on her midnight radio show before she took phone calls. Andrew’s latest doctor’s checkup when she’d been told he was absolutely perfect, something she’d already known, of course. Getting his two-month pictures made next week. He was such a beautiful child. He had her coloring. Blond hair and blue eyes. But he had Frank’s mouth…and his little hands and feet were miniature replicas of Frank’s. Odd that she could remember so well everything about a man she’d known for such a brief time.
A heavyset guy in the truck ahead of the Lexus in front of her got out and walked down the street, in the direction of the wreck. It never ceased to amaze her how curious people were about disasters, as if some weird inner force drew them to blood and gore.
She checked her watch. Less than five minutes had passed since she’d stopped. It seemed more like thirty. If there was one thing she hated, it was wasting time. Surely it wouldn’t take that much longer before the police would get the traffic moving again, even if only in one lane.
A tow truck went by about the same time the man who’d gone to take a look at the scene came walking back up the street. Several people in other vehicles either got out to talk to him or rolled down their windows to ask him questions. A small crowd gathered in the middle of the road. Leenie rolled down her window, intending to holler and ask if the guy thought they’d be stuck here much longer, then she heard him say something that made her blood run cold.
“They were putting a gray-haired woman in the ambulance,” he said. “It looked bad. Somebody had T-boned her Saturn on the driver’s side and crushed it in.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t make out much, but there was a baby’s car seat in back.”
Leenie flung open the door, jumped out and ran, leaving the door open, her keys in the ignition and her purse lying on the seat. As she raced past the small crowd, they turned to stare at her, and one person even called out to her. She ignored everyone and everything. By the time she reached the scene of the accident, her breath was labored and her lungs ached. Fear consumed her. When she saw Debra’s blue Saturn, she stopped dead still. While she stood there trembling, gasping for air, the ambulance drove past her. She reached out as if she could grab it and stop it.
Andrew! Debra! Her mind screamed their names.
A policeman approached her. “Ma’am, you need to move out of the way.”
“Please, I have to—you don’t understand.”
“Ma’am are you all right?”
“Andrew and Debra. How badly were they hurt?”
“Do you know Mrs. Schmale?” he asked.
Numbness set in. Leenie nodded. “She’s my nanny.”
“Then you’re Dr. Patton?”
“Yes, I’m Lurleen Patton.”
The uniformed officer put his arm around Leenie’s shoulders and led her out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Without protest, as if in a trance, she went with him.
“Mrs. Schmale is on her way to the hospital,” he explained. “She has cuts, bruises, a broken arm and leg and possible internal bleeding. But she was conscious and able to tell us what happened.”
“And Andrew?” Leenie asked.
When she noted the peculiar look on the policeman’s face, her heart caught in her throat. Was Andrew dead? God, please, no. No! Surely he was all right. Debra always placed him in the regulation seat in the back of her car. And since it had been a driver’s side collision…
“Your son…Andrew…” The officer paused, swallowed as if wishing he didn’t have to deliver bad news, then said, “Mrs. Schmale told us that a white car came out of nowhere, crashed into her car and the driver jumped out and came to help her. Or so she thought. The driver—a woman—had Mrs. Schmale unlock the doors so she could get in on the other side. Before she realized what was happening, the woman got in the back seat and removed the baby from the car seat. Your nanny thought the woman was simply making sure Andrew was all right. But—”
Leenie swayed toward the officer, then grasped his shoulders and said, “Where is Andrew?”
“The woman took him, put him in her car and drove away,” the policeman explained.
“What?”
“We’ve got an all-points bulletin out for the car—an older model white Buick—and the woman—medium height, weight, short brown hair, sunglasses.”
The reality of the situation hit Leenie like a ton of bricks falling on her head. “Andrew was…was…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, as if not voicing it aloud kept it from being a reality.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Patton, but your baby has been kidnapped.”
Two
Leenie couldn’t sit still. She felt as if a hundred-mile-an-hour freight train was surging through her. Nerves. Adrenaline. Fear beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Everyone kept telling her to go lie down, take a nap or just rest. Police Chief Ryan Bibb had suggested calling her doctor for a sedative. She knew the man meant well, but why couldn’t he—and all the other people who had congregated at her house—understand that she didn’t want her senses dulled, that she couldn’t sleep or rest. Her baby had been kidnapped. Stolen from her by only God knew what sort of person. She’d overheard the local police surmising about the general identity of Andrew’s abductor.
“She’s probably some woman who either lost a baby or has a fixation about having a child,” Chief Bibb had said. “And if that’s the case, she’ll take good care of Andrew.”
Leenie supposed that believing the kidnapper was taking good care of her baby should be some comfort. It wasn’t. Anyone capable of stealing a child had mental problems, whatever their reason.
“Why don’t you let me fix you some tea?” Haley Wilson said, as she put her arm around Leenie’s shoulder.
The plump brunette, who’d taken over as the manager of WJMM eleven months ago when Elsa Leone—now Elsa Devlin since she’d married—had moved to Knoxville, was a bubbly, energetic woman in her mid-forties and the mother of two teenage sons. From the minute Leenie and she met, they had bonded. Instant friendship. Haley had been the first person she’d called, the first person who’d come to mind when the police had asked her about a friend or family member to stay with her. Haley had dropped everything and rushed to Maysville Memorial, where Leenie had been waiting for Debra to come out of surgery. Haley stayed with her and they had prayed for Debra and for Andrew. Tha
nkfully, Debra had come through the surgery to stop her internal bleeding with flying colors.
“Mrs. Schmale will be in intensive care for the next twenty-four hours,” Dr. Brenner had explained. “But I expect a full and speedy recovery.”
Knowing that Debra would be all right gave Leenie a great sense of relief. She loved Debra dearly, as a friend and mother figure. The police had said that Debra’s ability to accurately describe the kidnapper and the car she’d been driving would be of immeasurable help in locating Andrew.
“Leenie.” Haley shook her gently. “Come on in the kitchen with me. You can sit down long enough for me to fix you some tea.”
“I don’t want anything to drink.”
“Come in the kitchen with me anyway,” Haley said. “I’m going to prepare fresh coffee for those FBI people who just arrived and since it’s nearly morning, maybe I should offer to make breakfast, too. Why don’t you help me?”
Leenie stared at Haley, understanding what she’d said, but not comprehending.
Haley hugged her. “You can’t keep pacing the floor and you can’t keep going into Andrew’s room every ten minutes. You need something to do.”
“You’re right. Staring at Andrew’s crib in the nursery won’t make him miraculously appear.” Emotion lodged in Leenie’s throat. Don’t cry, she told herself. Crying isn’t going to help. You have to stay strong and in control.
“They’ll find him and bring him home to you.” Haley hugged her again, then grasped her hand and tugged. “Come on. Let’s make us some tea first, then put on fresh coffee for the others. After that I’ll take breakfast orders. And I expect you to eat. Even if it’s just a few bites.”
Leenie followed her friend into the kitchen, thankful that she had someone with her, someone who understood what it meant to be a mother with a baby boy lost. No, not lost—stolen. Suddenly feeling as if they had become glued to the spot, her feet wouldn’t move. The reality of Andrew’s disappearance struck her once again, but harder this time, and she sensed that he was being taken farther and farther away from her.
Keeping Baby Secret Page 2
