Look What the Stork Brought (Man of the Month)

by Dixie Browning

  Now she was one big bundle of flab. She felt tired and worried and unattractive as she hurried out to the waiting area, ashamed of herself for even caring what she looked like.

  “Joe, thank you. Did you find everything all right? Did you remember to feed Darryl? Oh, Lord, I forgot to tell you where I keep the fish food, didn’t I?”

  “On the shelf with your tapes and CDs. Sorry it took me so long. I had a few errands. How is she?”

  She took the two sacks from him, one of clothes, the other of personal articles and the box of chocolates. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that,” she said, ripping at the clear plastic wrapper. “Her temperature’s down almost to normal. I never realized how fast something could happen to a baby. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.” She picked out a big dark chocolate-covered cherry, bit into it and closed her eyes. “Oh, I needed this, I really did.” They were standing several feet apart, and shyly, she held out the candy box.

  “No, thanks. What else do you need?”

  What she needed more than anything else was to walk right up to him, lay her head on his shoulder, feel his arms close around her, and hear that deep, Texas drawl telling her everything would be all right. And that was even scarier.

  “Look, I’ve, uh, got a few more errands, a few calls I need to make. Will you be all right here for a while? I’ll come back tonight, just to see if you need anything else.”

  “Sure, I’m fine. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to go home in the morning, once the doctor’s been by to look at her. And Joe—guess what. She recognizes my voice! All I have to do is say her name, and if she’s awake, she looks right at me. That’s pretty advanced for someone her age, don’t you think so?”

  “Remarkable,” he agreed, and the austere lines of his face eased, making him look almost boyish for an instant. He was standing with his feet braced apart, his hands in front of him, left hand holding his right wrist. Sophie could picture him with a cowboy hat in his right hand and wondered if he’d ever worn one. He’d look good in a battered Stetson—a black one, with the brim curled up on the sides. He had the kind of lean, wiry physique that would look good in anything.

  Or in nothing.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked. “You look kind of feverish, yourself. Sure you don’t have a tick lodged somewhere on you? I could check it out if you want me to.”

  She was touched by his teasing, knowing that he didn’t mean anything suggestive by it. He was only trying to take her mind off her worries. Laughing, she shook her head. “I’m tired. I think I must have clenched every muscle in my body, willing Iris’s temperature to go down.”

  And clenched a few more, recognizing what this man was coming to mean to her. She’d told herself over and over that it was a case of—what was the word, propinquity? She’d latched on to him only because he was here, and she didn’t have anyone else at the moment. Not anyone close. No matter who had happened along at that particular time and done all the things Joe had done for her, it probably would have affected her the same way. Once her emotions settled down again, she’d be questioning what she’d ever seen in him.

  Or maybe this was all just a part of his good-cop, bad-cop routine, or whatever they called it on her favorite detective show.

  “I still think you look a little rocky. Better get something to eat. It’s early, but there’s a steak house not far from here. Why don’t we—”

  She shook her head. “I can’t leave. They said I could start nursing her again tonight if her temperature’s normal, and I don’t want to eat anything that might upset her.”

  “Okay, then I’ll bring supper to you. Steak shouldn’t be a problem. How do you like it, rare? Medium? You want fries or baked potato?”

  “Well-done and fries,” she said, feeling the first pangs of hunger she’d felt all day. “Wait. Make that a salad, instead. And no onions. And no radishes—oh, and fat-free dressing if they have it.”

  She looked down at her body, and Joe looked at it, too. When their eyes met again something sparked between them that had nothing to do with food or babies or even the jade they both claimed. Sophie was shocked to be feeling such a thing when she hadn’t even recovered from childbirth. Women lost interest in sex after they had a baby—she’d heard it over and over.

  “On second thought, I’m not really hungry.”

  Joe just looked at her, making her miserably aware of the limp, ill-fitting cotton she’d worn all day. She sighed. “Go home, Joe. Go do whatever it is you need to do, we’ll be fine here. They look after us real well.”

  He left her then. She swallowed her disappointment and told herself it was just as well. He was probably relieved to be let off the hook. He certainly didn’t owe her anything. Just the reverse, in fact.

  She watched him all the way to the elevators, noticing things about him she had never noticed about another man. Not even Rafe. Not even the man she’d been engaged to briefly several years ago, who had broken the engagement when his company had transferred him to the West Coast. Promised her he’d call the minute he got settled, but he never had.

  Joe was like a different species, which was probably why she was so fascinated by the way he was built. The way his shoulders swayed when he walked, but his hips didn’t. The way he carried his hands, as if they could curl into fists at a moment’s notice.

  Or cradle a baby.

  Or caress a woman’s body...

  Instead of heading back to Davie County, Joe pulled into a fast-food place, parked and called the sheriff’s office to see if anyone had checked out the Bayard place yet. They hadn’t. There’d been a bad wreck over near Fork, but as soon as they had a man to spare...

  “Right. Look, you know my credentials. Why don’t I just check the place over for evidence.” He’d already given the place a quick once-over. “If I find anything, I’ll bag it and save it for you. The house is a real mess. Ms. Bayard’s baby’s in the hospital. She’ll be bringing her home first thing tomorrow, and I don’t want her walking in, seeing things the way they are now.”

  Luckily he made a habit of checking in with the local law-enforcement agencies as soon as he hit town as a matter of professional courtesy. Not to mention the fact that it saved time in case he happened to need help.

  After breaking the connection, he punched in a new set of numbers. “Hi, Granny, it’s me—Joe.” He waited for her standard rejoinder, which usually went a long the lines of, “Don’t you granny me, you young puppy, my name is Emmaline!”

  She said instead, “Oh. You’re still in North Carolina, aren’t you?”

  So he told her about Iris’s tick bite. She seemed more interested in that than in the collection. “I’m real sorry it’s taking so long, but we’re on the homestretch. Don’t laugh, but right now I’m fixing to do some housework.”

  She didn’t even bother to ask why. “Is she going to be all right? Your father had whooping cough when he was only a baby. I worried myself sick.”

  “Yeah, well...Sophie’s handling it real well. She’s a good mama. Did I tell you she grew up in an orphanage? She says she used to look after the younger kids. It gives her an edge.”

  Joe didn’t know whether it did or not, but he felt the need to keep his grandmother on the line as long as he could get a response from her. Any kind of a response. Maybe he should have told her he was thinking about marrying Sophie and adopting Iris, just so she’d stop nagging him about grandchildren. Only then he’d have to come up with a good reason for changing his mind when he turned up alone.

  He teased her a few minutes more, but it was rough going. Depressing. So he broke the connection, called Donna, asked several questions, fielded a few of hers and then sat there in the pickup. As he stared out across the railroad tracks at a busy highway, his mind circled high and free over his problems like an eagle riding the thermals.

  Looking for perspective.

  Not finding it.

  Making a snap decision, he backed out, pulled into the drive-in line and orde
red four hot dogs all the way, two orders of fries and two big chocolate shakes. To go. Cleanup could wait.

  They ate in the solarium. There was no one else there. It was visiting hour. Everyone else was visiting.

  “I can’t eat all this, I’m full of candy,” Sophie protested. He’d sent a nurse in after her, informing her he’d brought her a few more necessities.

  “You’re not going to. Half of it’s mine. If it’s the onions you’re worried about, we’ll put ’em all on my two dogs, but I’d lay odds Miss Fatcheeks is going to take to them just like her mama does.”

  Without even thinking, Sophie bit into a hot dog, onions and all. “What makes you think I like onions?”

  “Sophie, Sophie. I know you better than you think. I took one look at you that first day and I said to myself, now there’s a lady who likes her onions.”

  She didn’t laugh—her mouth was too full—but her eyes sparkled like polished moss agates. It was progress.

  They finished off everything, and Joe told himself he’d done his good deed for the day. He’d fed her. He’d made her smile. He’d taken her mind off her problems for a little while, and now he was going to go back home and clean her house.

  All that was for her. The rest was for him, so he could leave here with a clear conscience. A dog. New locks. A decent alarm system. Something simple to operate and not prone to false alarms. In Dallas, about ninety-eight percent of the alarms that went off were false ones. Here, there were fewer alarms, but fewer cops to respond, too.

  “Look, Sophie—” He tried to come up with a nonthreatening way to broach the subject.

  “Joe, I’ve got to go back to the room.”

  Maybe later, he thought as she stood and collected his trash along with hers. She smiled again. Even in her ill-fitting, rumpled dress, with her hair curling untidily around her face and a smidge of mustard on her chin, Joe thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And in his prime he’d been considered something of an expert on women. Attracting them had never been a problem for him.

  Attracting this one was. Alarm bells were going off all over the place, and he knew he had to get out of there before he did something really dumb.

  “Look, I’d better head on back out—”

  “Joe, thanks for not taking me at my word. Things are so crazy here. It’s like another world. I hardly know if it’s breakfast time or supper time, much less how long I’ve been here, but—”

  A man cleared his throat from the doorway. “Er, um...Detective Sergeant Dana? Sir?”

  Seven

  His sister Daisy always said it was a mystery to her how uniformed policemen could stay looking crisp and cool on the hottest day of the year. This one was trying hard, but he was wilting. Still creased but sweating hard, he stood at attention by the solarium doorway.

  “Here,” Joe replied, wishing he’d left three minutes ago. He shot a glance at Sophie, preparing himself to answer a slew of questions he wasn’t yet ready to answer. What he saw on her face wasn’t curiosity. It looked more like fear.

  Fear? She was afraid of the law?

  Oh, hell.

  “I’ll take care of it, Sophie. You’d better get on back to Miss Fatcheeks. If it’s about my license plates, officer—”

  It was the best he could come up with at short notice. He steered the deputy over to the other side of the room and waited until Sophie left. Halfway through the doorway, she glanced over her shoulder, and he sent her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  It didn’t work. She seemed puzzled, doubtful and wary.

  “What license plates?” the young deputy asked.

  “Sorry. Diversionary tactic. Ms. Bayard doesn’t know about her house yet. I’d just as soon keep it that way until I’ve had time to clean up the mess. She’s got enough to worry about without that. Brand-new baby up in Pediatrics. What have you got?”

  “She don’t know about the break-in yet?”

  “It happened sometime after I brought her in this morning.”

  “There was these tire tracks pulled off to one side. It didn’t match none of the others. Does Ms. Bayard wear a size seven-and-a-half shoe?”

  Sophie sucked the last of her chocolate shake through the straw and peered over to see if the noise had disturbed Iris. She touched the tiny brow, then tucked her fingertips into a neck crease. It was warm, but not too warm.

  License plates? What was wrong with Joe’s license plates, other than being almost too muddy to read?

  For one awful moment she’d believed the sheriff had come about the jade. It was a mark of just how rattled she was that instead of worrying about having to give it back and then scrambling around to find another job to make ends meet, she’d been worried about Joe’s leaving her.

  Well, of course she would give it back. And of course he would leave. There’d be no reason for him to stay, once he got what he’d come for.

  Frowning, she went over the facts—at least those she knew—in her mind. While she rehashed the whole pathetic business—how she’d come in while Rafe had the pieces spread all over the table, and how when she’d asked what it was, he’d told her it was her engagement present. Fool that she was, she hadn’t even wondered why he would buy her something like that instead of a ring. As he’d mentioned collecting antiques, she’d put it down to his superior knowledge and tried to look appreciative. After he’d robbed her and left, and she’d learned how valuable it was, she’d tried to reassure herself he had come by it honestly. In her heart, though, she no longer believed it.

  Did that make her an accessory after the fact? Or before it, or whatever the proper terminology was?

  She was sorry she’d ever laid eyes on Rafe and his antique doodads and whatnots. Without him, she’d still be working at the bank; living in her comfortable, modern, air-conditioned apartment; going out to lunch with Terri and Jeanne and to movies and dinner once a week with Eddie Dinsmore from the downtown trust department.

  And if she hadn’t taken the jade to work with her he would have taken it with her other valuables. Without the jade, she wouldn’t be living out here in the country now.

  Probably would have been living in a shelter somewhere, in fact.

  Iris whimpered in her sleep, and Sophie reached out to touch her fat little knee, wanting to pick her up, not quite daring on account of that bulldog of a nurse frowned at her every time she did.

  If it weren’t for Rafe, she wouldn’t have Iris, she reminded herself. And if Rafe hadn’t robbed all those other poor women, she would never have met Joe.

  Did silver linings ever tarnish?

  Joe swore softly and sank down onto the cushion-less sofa, staring at the thing he’d just retrieved from the pile of broken glass, marbles and wet magazines. It had been in the damned aquarium all the time. Thirty-six grand. Lying on its side in a cheap aquarium with a fake diver, a fake treasure chest and a fake shipwreck, it had been all but invisible. Half-buried, with a coating of algae disguising the details, it would’ve looked like some kind of grotto if anyone had even bothered to look past the late Darryl and his magnificent tail.

  He set the thing on the coffee table, algae and all. Rising from the low sofa wasn’t as easy as getting down had been, but he did it anyway, grasping his thigh and grimacing. He still had the rest of the house to clean tonight. Not that he’d been able to do much to the living room. His skills didn’t extend to furniture repair.

  He could take the Ch’ien Lung and walk out right now. Or he could use it as leverage to get her to tell him where the rest of the stuff was. He had wondered if the thieves had found the rest of the jade and then decided they hadn’t. Wanton destruction indicated frustration.

  Why did things have to be so complicated? Sophie didn’t need the hassle. It wasn’t as if she’d taken anything herself. She might’ve suspected it was stolen—hell, he’d told her that, right up-front—but that didn’t make her guilty of anything worth reporting, not to his way of thinking.

  Granted, his way of
thinking had done a one-eighty over the past few days.

  But dammit, what was a pregnant woman with no family supposed to do after she’d been seduced, robbed, deserted and downsized? With a baby on the way and no one to advise her, she had let herself be talked into moving into a white elephant she couldn’t afford and probably wouldn’t be able to hang on to, unless she came into another fortune.

  Just how much of the stuff had she sold, anyway?

  Joe stood in the middle of the mess in the kitchen, rubbed the back of his neck and wished he’d never heard of Sophie Bayard and her baby. Or Rafael Davis and all his aliases. Wished his grandpa had collected raincoats or dead bugs or balls of string—anything except antique jade.

  If the choice was his, he’d walk away. What difference would it make? He never went to museums, anyway.

  But it wasn’t his call. Miss Emma was counting on him. “Find Jonnie’s jade, Joey. Bring it home,” she’d said, her voice still slightly slurred. She’d looked so fragile, lying there on the big, canopied bed. “You’re all I’ve got now.”

  Back when Daisy and Donna were going through men, booze and credit cards as if there was no tomorrow, and Joe’s wife was going through her own brand of craziness, they had agreed privately—he and Miss Emma—that of all the Danas, they were the only two sane ones left. They’d laughed about it, although it really wasn’t all that funny.

  Then last fall she’d scared the devil out of all of them by suffering a stroke. One morning she sat down in the library with her second cup of tea to read the stock report, an after-breakfast ritual, and three hours later when the housekeeper had come to bring her the mail, she’d still been sitting there, her head tilted awkwardly against the wing chair. Her eyes had been open, but she’d been totally nonresponsive. The housekeeper had called 911, and the call had been relayed to Joe. He’d gotten there before the ambulance.