by Linda Cajio
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“So do I.”
After a long, reluctant moment, he reached for the phone.
Two
A short time later Angelica was in her bedroom wondering what clothes to put on. Another good dress was out of the question, so she quickly changed into the slightly rumpled slacks and shirt she had worn on the plane. She had a feeling that with a baby around, rumpled was best.
When she returned to Dan’s suite, she found him in his sitting room. She smiled as she watched him wandering around showing the baby the pictures, the furniture, the flowers, anything in an effort to distract the child. It wasn’t working, but Dan didn’t seem to mind.
She had never seen this gentleness in him before, and it fascinated her. He had always been, at best, distant with her. When they weren’t fighting, that is. She had made a fool of herself when Diana’s game had been stolen, and she had also gotten an excellent deal for her cousin with Starlight Software. She admitted that she had been rather hard-nosed during the negotiations, but she had only been doing her job. Dan, however, had taken her attitude as a personal affront. Since then, they’d had a kind of Mexican standoff. She knew so little about him, and admitted that she’d never taken the time to discover more. The fierce passion that rose within her whenever they were together frightened her too much.
Dan stopped the tour when he spotted her. He picked up the baby’s hand and waved it. The gesture, so innocently intimate, cut painfully at her heart. It hurt to know that doing the right thing might be horribly wrong for the child. Something more nebulous was tied to it, as well, something she couldn’t quite define.
“I think it’s my turn to change,” he said, chuckling as he held the baby away from his chest.
“We could try rigging—”
Somebody knocked on the suite door, and they both sighed with relief.
“The Cavalry” she said.
“One of them.”
Dan handed the baby back to her and answered the door. A motherly-looking maid was standing there with several diapers. He’d no sooner let her in when room service arrived, and behind that the police with the hotel manager in tow.
A madhouse immediately resulted with the police officer asking questions, the manager demanding an explanation of the baby’s appearance, the waiter fussing over the bottles, the maid advising Angelica about infants, and little “Tiger,” hungrier than ever and obviously aware of the chaos, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Dan found himself paying far more attention to Angelica as she gazed at the baby and listened to the maid, than to the authorities. She was beautiful, he thought. And the baby, despite the ear-piercing wails, looked so right in her arms. It felt right, too, watching her like this, as if …
“Just a few more questions, Mr. Roberts, the police officer said, “and then we’ll take the child to the hospital.”
“Hospital!” Dan exclaimed. He was echoed by Angelica.
The officer nodded. “To check out the baby. Then well turn it over to the Department of State Social and Health Services. Standard procedure in these cases.”
“No!” Angelica said, clutching the baby to her. “This child has been through enough! He needs to be fed and comforted, not poked or have needles shot—”
“Officer!” Dan called loudly over the din. “If the baby only needs to be checked out, why can’t a doctor do it here? One of my employees is married to a pediatrician on the staff at St. Mary’s. We could have her check the baby. If the least little thing is wrong, of course he would go to the hospital then.”
“Well …”
Angelica stepped closer to the officer. As if on cue, the baby screamed louder than ever.
“The baby’s really hungry,” she said, her voice low and persuasive. “It will be hours before the hospital is finished with the examination and they feed him. Will you be with him all that time, Officer?”
Dan didn’t know whether the poor man would or not, but the suggestion did seem to make up his mind.
“He certainly sounds healthy,” the officer said, smiling wryly. “And I’ve been in this job long enough to know when to stretch the rules.”
Dan strode over to the phone. “One pediatrician coming up.”
“Officer, why don’t you have the social worker come here, too?” Angelica suggested. Dan’s hand stilled over the phone, and he turned to see her smile as she picked up a bottle from the room service table. “I’m sure that person will have questions for Mr. Roberts and me, since we discovered the baby. Also, for the hotel management, since it happened here. In the meantime, I’ll just take the baby into the other room to change and feed him … or her.”
Beckoning the maid to follow, Angelica walked briskly into the bedroom and shut the door with such finality that they all stared at it. Dan hid a smile at everyone else’s bemusement. Leave it to Angelica to strike a roomful of people dumb.
He finished dialing, deciding he had been designated “tracker down of all things baby.”
Ten minutes later, Dan went into the bedroom and shut the door. He leaned against it and gazed at Angelica sitting in a wing chair. Serenity lit her features as she held the baby in her arms and watched him suck avidly at the rapidly emptying bottle, his eyes closed in pure bliss. He never would have imagined Angelica Windsor had a maternal streak.
She looked up, and he said, “Jan Williamson, the pediatrician, will be here in about ten minutes. I caught her between rounds.”
“One obstacle averted,” she said with satisfaction. She nodded toward the maid who was standing next to the chair. “This is Libby. She has six children, and she thinks the baby’s about three months old.”
“All mine are grown now with their own children.” Libby smiled at him before saying to Angelica, “Tilt the bottle higher, so he doesn’t get any air in his tummy. He won’t like it if he does.”
“Him?” Dan asked.
Libby chuckled. “And as proud as he could be of it, too, when I changed his diaper.”
“I got in the line of fire,” Angelica said cryptically, grinning at the child. She lifted her head and said fiercely, “Dan, we can’t let them just take him away without knowing where he’s going. What if they shuffle him from place to place, or put him in an institution? I couldn’t stand knowing we turned him over to that. If only we knew he was going into loving hands. He’s just a little innocent baby!”
The same worries burned in him. “What can we do?”
“Demand to know exactly where and to whom he is going. We’ve got a right to that for finding him.” She was silent for a moment, then dropped a quiet bomb. “And if we don’t like what we hear, we demand to keep the child until a proper permanent home can be found.”
He drew in his breath sharply. He and Angelica knew nothing about taking care of a baby. Neither of them had even been married—not that marriage qualified anyone for parenthood. Still, the state probably had all sorts of rules and regulations about abandoned children.
He stared at the baby, whose eyes were still closed in infant ecstasy. He had held that child, felt the helplessness in the tiny body. He and Angelica might not have experience, he thought, but they had caring hearts, and that had to make up for a lot.
He remembered vividly the look of tenderness in Angelica’s eyes when she had watched him hold the baby. Although directed at the child, he’d sensed that that tenderness had in some way included him, and the shock of electricity that had run through his body had been savage. He wanted to see that look again, needed to see it again. For once, they were in unison, and it had taken a baby to bring that about.
“Nobody,” he said, his teeth clenched, “is taking him anywhere unless we approve, even if I have to move heaven and earth to do it.”
“You better,” Angelica said firmly. “And if he has to go anywhere, we go with him, one of us holding him the entire time. Once they literally take him out of our hands, they’ve got him, Dan. And it will be almost impossible to help him aft
er that.”
Nodding, he strode out of the bedroom, ready to do battle with the system. He knew people in the city government, he thought. He’d call every damn one of them if need be to keep the baby safe from bureaucracy.
Jan Williamson arrived almost immediately. Dan had no sooner sent her on through to the bedroom, when someone else knocked on the door.
He mentally steeled himself to face the person from State Social and Health Services, and opened the door.
Instead, he was confronted with Clark and Mitch Garner, obviously finished with their lunch. Dan launched into yet another telling of finding the baby, as the police officer and hotel manager stood by as silent observers.
“Well, how long is this going to take?” Garner demanded. “We’ve got a very important meeting to finish.”
“I’ll get there when I can,” Dan said patiently. He refused to desert Angelica and the baby to the social worker. “In the meantime, Clark can work through the details of the agreement with you.”
Garner exploded. “Dammit, man, I didn’t fly up here from L.A. for you to fool around with some baby! You’re stalling, Roberts. We start that meeting now or you can kiss any deal with Mark IV good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” Dan said coldly.
“What!” Garner gaped at him.
“I said good-bye. You know, so long, adios,” he added, in case the man missed the point entirely. “Come back when you can negotiate like a human being.”
Garner turned beet-red, then whirled out of the room.
“Good!” Dan, said, slamming the door shut behind him. “Clark, call Mark IV and tell them negotiations have broken down with Mitch Garner, and tell them why. We’re willing to reach an agreement, but not through threats and ultimatums.”
“Right,” Clark said.
As Dan saw his lawyer off, he decided State Social and Health Services didn’t stand a chance. Then it occurred to him that he would have to tell Angelica he had blown the deal. And after his scolding her for nearly losing her temper! He cursed aloud, and at the same time a knock sounded on the door.
“Look out, State Social and Health Services,” he muttered grimly, and opened the door.
To his shock, he faced a mountain of domineering humanity. His first thought was that Mitch Garner was a piece of cake compared to this. The stern, no-nonsense face could have been male or female, and the only way he knew it was the latter was from the tight iron-gray curls framing it. Several names immediately popped into his head: Steamroller; Drill Sergeant; Tyrant; Sister Agnes the Terrible from Second Grade.
“Martha Canfield, State Social and Health Services,” the mountain said in a deep clipped voice.
Dan instantly decided to skip the mental girding of his loins and go right for the steel truss. Heaven help him if this one was anything like Sister Agnes.
He took a deep breath and smiled. “Come in.”
“His heartbeat is perfect, his internal organs are where they should be and the size they should be, and his lungs are super.”
“Are you sure?” Angelica asked anxiously.
Jan Williamson chuckled. “Did you hear him scream in outrage while I examined him? Healthy babies have a lusty, strong cry. Since they can’t tell us what’s wrong, it’s the best sign we doctors have of any problems.” She rubbed her ear and smiled. “He’s about as healthy as they come. His motor reflexes and size indicate he’s about three to four months old. You know, I’ve seen more abandoned babies than I care to think about at St. Mary’s, and usually they show some sign of neglect. But he doesn’t have any.”
Holding the now contented baby, Angelica wondered about the mother who would take good care of an infant, and then callously dump it in a hotel room with no precautions for its safety. Unfortunately, of the two people who would know, one wasn’t present, and the other was too little to give any further clues.
“Could he have been kidnapped?” Libby asked, still hovering.
Angelica, grateful for the maid’s reassuring presence, replied, “I would think the police would have told us if there had been a kidnapped baby. Besides, the note makes it pretty clear he’s been abandoned.”
Libby nodded.
“Well,” Jan said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling a clipboard of forms onto her lap, “you’ve got yourself a good one.”
Angelica stifled a sigh of relief that the first obstacle of the hospital had been avoided. But she knew the next obstacle was yet to come.
Once she had lost a child to the system, she thought bitterly. Never again.
The bedroom door suddenly swung open, and a large woman marched in.
“Miss Martha Canfield, State Social and Health Services,” she said brusquely. “The young man said the baby was in here.”
Angelica narrowed her eyes at the woman’s abruptness. Dan followed behind the social worker, his expression hard and set. She tightened her hands around the baby.
“Well, he looks healthy enough,” Miss Canfield said.
“Quite healthy,” Angelica snapped. “And fed, and cleaned and changed.”
“So I see.”
The woman stared at her, clearly sizing her up for something. Angelica set her jaw and stared back. Dan came to stand next to her chair, and she drew strength from his silent support.
“Mr. Roberts has already explained about the baby,” Miss Canfield said. “And I’ve seen the police report. But I’ll need a statement from you, Ms. Windsor, and a report from you, Doctor, then the baby and I will be on our way.”
Angelica rose awkwardly from her chair. An armload of baby did not allow for proper body language, she decided, and she needed all her tools of argument at the moment. Besides, she would not use the child as a shield or prop. Her gaze met Dan’s, steady and sure, and she knew she could trust him to hang on to the baby at all costs. She carefully transferred the child into his arms. His hands touched hers in the process, and she felt strength and comfort combined with an underlying sizzle of awareness. The baby gazed up at them in round-eyed wonder.
“Don’t let go of him for anything!” she whispered, then turned around and faced the confident Miss Canfield. “And where will the child be going?”
“To a temporary accommodation. Until we can find out something more about his circumstances.”
“Temporary?” Angelica echoed. “Temporary what?”
“I can’t divulge that kind of information,” Miss Canfield said frostily.
“We’re concerned for his welfare,” Angelica said, “and we want to know if you are taking him to a good home, a loving home.”
The woman hesitated, and it was all Angelica needed to confirm her suspicions.
“You don’t have one available, do you? Your temporary ‘accommodation’ is some kind of institution, isn’t it?”
“We’ll take care of the child—”
“That’s not care!” Angelica exclaimed. “Look, we’re willing to keep the child here until you have a good home ready for him.”
“You’re not qualified.”
“Then approve us!” Angelica snapped. “Mr. Roberts is a respected businessman of this city, and I am a lawyer licensed to practice in this state. We’ll sign anything, do anything you want, but we won’t give this child to you unless we are fully satisfied with the arrangements.”
“Now calm down,” the woman began.
“I will not calm down!” Angelica said fiercely. “If I have to, I’ll file a very public lawsuit on this child’s behalf—”
“Lady!” Miss Canfield suddenly bellowed. “I’m on your side!”
The loud voice startled the baby to instant tears and cries. Angelica hurried to Dan’s side and patted the baby on the back.
“It’s okay, Tiger,” Dan cooed, rocking the infant. To Angelica, he whispered, “Dammit, you did it again.”
“No, I didn’t. She’s on our side. Hush, sweetie, everything’s fine.”
She smiled with pleasure as the baby’s cries dwindled into soft sniffling.
“Obviously, he likes the two of you,” Miss Canfield said, drawing their attention. She commandeered an armchair and settled her bulk into it. “I’m on your side, believe me. We’ve got a terrible shortage of foster homes in the city right now, and there’s nothing I’d like better than to leave the baby with willing people. But there are a number of problems.…”
“Whatever you need, well do it,” Dan said, tilting his head to glance at the infant snuggled against his shoulder. “I like this little guy very much.”
The baby smiled at him, and Dan proudly smiled back. Angelica smothered a grin of her own. One thing that was becoming more obvious to her was that she liked Dan. Well, she thought, if a baby liked him, he couldn’t be all bad.
Miss Canfield nodded. “The last thing I want to do is put this baby into a hospital until I find even a temporary foster home for him.”
“A hospital will only keep him for a day or two at most,” Jan Williamson said.
“True. And the alternative gives me nightmares.” Miss Canfield looked sternly at Angelica and Dan. “So the two of you want to take care of the child for a while.”
They nodded.
“Both of you together.”
Angelica glanced at Dan, then said, “Yes.”
“Mr. Roberts and Ms. Windsor.”
“Ahhhh …” Panic-stricken, Angelica realized they wouldn’t give a small baby to a single man. And she wasn’t a resident of Seattle. Because of a technicality the child would be put into a temporary foster home or worse. She’d seen the devastation a legal technicality could cause. She couldn’t allow that, she thought in despair. An idea popped into her head, and hoping against hope she blurted it out.
“We’re engaged!”
The room was deathly silent. Although she’d said them, her words shocked Angelica as much as everyone else. Swallowing hard, she refused to look at Dan. She didn’t dare. His body was totally still and she could easily imagine what he was thinking. She would explain to him later, she thought, as she kept her gaze steady on Miss Canfield. Surely he wouldn’t kill her for lying like this, not if it got them temporary guardianship of the baby.
