Waiting for Someone Like You (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams Book 3)

by Helen Conrad

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Copyright © 2013 Helen Conrad

  Cover Copyright © 2013 DoorKnock Publishing

  Cover images from Shutterstock.com

  First Edition May, 2013 published by DoorKnock Publishing

  Waiting for Someone Like You

  Destiny Bay: Baby Dreams - Book 3

  By Helen Conrad

  Cast of Characters in the series Destiny Bay~Baby Dreams

  WAITING FOR SOMEONE LIKE YOU

  Edward Carrington, wealthy entrepreneur,

  and Adele Bennington Carrington parents of:

  Tanner Carrington~investor, entrepreneur, exceedingly wealthy and firmly a bachelor. Experience has made him distrust women once they find out how wealthy he is.

  Katherine (Kat) Clay~food columnist from Nebraska, divorced and suspicious of fortune hunters. She’s sure the rich are different than the rest of us—much worse.

  Mildred Clay~Kat’s mother who just won the lottery .

  Colonel John Carrington~older man romancing Mildred.

  Shelley Carrington Hudson~Tanner’s cousin and good friend, married to Michael Hudson and pregnant.

  Amity Crane~pregnant new girl in Destiny Bay with a suspicious fascination for Carrington men.

  Marlena Carrington~Tanner’s sister, runs a temporary employment agency.

  Ted Alfred~The managing editor of the newspaper Kat writes for and her good friend.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Cast of Characters

  CHAPTER ONE ~ A Grand Seduction

  CHAPTER TWO ~ The Tables Get Turned

  CHAPTER THREE ~ Hero on a Jet Ski

  CHAPTER FOUR ~ To Catch a Thief

  CHAPTER FIVE ~ Shelley Jumps the Gun

  CHAPTER SIX ~ Talk to Me

  CHAPTER SEVEN ~ Baby Time

  CHAPTER EIGHT ~ Broken Hearts and Stolen Kisses

  CHAPTER NINE ~ The Old Brush-off

  CHAPTER TEN ~ The Truth Comes Out

  CHAPTER ELEVEN ~ Learning to Love the Rich

  EPILOGUE ~ Double the Fun

  My Mailing List!

  Also in the Destiny Bay series

  ABOUT AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE:

  A Grand Seduction

  A grand seduction. That was what Ted had told Kat she needed to pull off to get to the bottom of this.

  “Hey, you’re a beautiful woman,” he’d claimed when she’d said he must be joking. “Be provocative. Let your sensual instincts romp. Make him think you’ll play his game.”

  Yeah, she was the great seducer alright. She glanced at her reflection in the mirrored wall as she followed the manager into the empty restaurant. She made a face at herself. She looked more like she should be playing the female lead in “Oklahoma!”

  “Is this corner secluded enough, senorita?” the manager asked.

  The manager in his sleek black suit and crisp white shirt was pointing out a dark corner of the hotel restaurant. It was secluded, all right. It was also dingy and depressing.

  Kat wished Ted hadn’t talked her into this. She wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. But the invitation had been made, and there was no taking it back now. She might as well do it right, if she was going to do it at all.

  Smiling apologetically, she shook her head, setting in motion the natural sway of her warm blond curls. “I’m sorry, that just isn’t quite what I had in mind.”

  She glanced around the empty dining room, contemplating the choices. The late-morning sun was slanting in through the glass, casting golden beams on the white linen tablecloths and sending rainbows of sparks through the crystal goblets. It was a lovely restaurant, one of the best here at the resort hotel in Nueva Bahia, a little corner of coastal California that almost seemed as though it still belonged to Mexico.

  “Oh, here. This looks better.”

  She led the manager to a booth surrounded by a semicircular planter. The booth faced the window overlooking the tranquil bay with its tiny islands and resort cabanas.

  “Yes, this will be perfect.” She smiled at the manager, her warm dark eyes a contrast to her blond hair. “But I will need some fresh flowers in this planter. These pothos have seen better days.”

  He hesitated. “But, senorita...”

  “Here.” Digging into the pocket of her long, embroidered skirt, she came up with some crisp bills. “Will this cover it?”

  His face was immediately wreathed in a satisfied smile as he accepted her offering. “Of course, senorita. I will take care of it right away.”

  “Thank you.” Funny how money always changed everything. And that was just what this was all about, wasn’t it?

  Money, the root of all evil. She shivered, then put her hand over her heart and steadied herself.

  The manager returned quickly with violet irises and yellow daffodils in a lovely arrangement for the center of the table, and pots of bright red geraniums which he deftly settled in among the pothos in the planter. Kat stood back to examine the results and smiled. She’d never been one for domestic decorations, but this was sort of fun.

  “It is too bad, Senorita Clay, that your mother is ill and cannot join you,” said the manager as he worked.

  “Yes.” Kat felt like a hypocrite. If it weren’t for her mother’s headache, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity for this little scheme.

  “But Colonel Carrington, he will like this, no?” the manager commented as he passed her on his way to the kitchen.

  Kat’s smile faltered. She was getting nervous again. Mentally, she steeled herself.

  “Stay calm,” she whispered, touching her cool fingertips to her hot cheeks. She was going to do this right. She was completely committed.

  Committed—ha! That was exactly what she should be for having agreed to go along with this. She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath.

  “Looks good. What’s going on?”

  Kat glanced up. For just a moment she thought the handsome, blue-eyed man in the slightly rumpled suit was flirting. His eyes were brimming with amusement, and he had a singular air of confidence that attractive men often had, a basic assumption that he would be welcome anywhere he chose to intrude with his presence.

  Her eyes narrowed and it was on the tip of her tongue to say something caustic and put him in his place, but then she realized he must work in the restaurant. After all, it was still a few minutes before opening time for the dining room. He was just an employee trying to be helpful.

  “Oh, this?” She waved a hand toward the table with all its extra foliage. “It’s very important that I get just the right tone here,” she told him earnestly. “I want my guest comfortable. I want him to feel completely at home, completely relaxed. I just came in a little early to make sure everything was set up right.”

  “Ah.” The handsome man nodded wisely, his intense blue eyes gleaming with amusement. “A seduction, I take it.”

  Kat was startled by that characterization of her plans. Could he read her mind, or was this something they had here all the time?

  “Oh. No, not at all.” Heavens, she certainly hoped no one else had assumed anything like that.

  She looked at him again, taking in the wide shoulders, the dark hair cut precisely but g
enerously, the grooves that had once been dimples, carved deeply beside the sensual mouth, the brilliant blue eyes that seemed too wise, too knowing. A little ripple of appreciation ran through her, but she squelched it. She had to keep her mind on the job at hand.

  “More of a... an audition,” she decided at last with a quick grin, running her fingers through her full blond curls in a last-minute freshening of her abandoned hairstyle. “That’s it. A tryout”

  She frowned at the picture the table made, trying to concentrate on that and wishing this distractingly handsome man would take a hint and leave her alone with her thoughts. She needed a bit of mental preparation now. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be the perceptive type. Instead of excusing himself, he leaned back against the planter and watched her, his blue eyes still crinkling with humor.

  “Then what’s the audition for?” he asked chattily.

  She blinked at him. “It’s personal and private,” she said in what she hoped was a quelling tone.

  “Ah “ His grin was slow and lazy. “Then it is a seduction, after all. Tell me, do you audition all your potential escorts this way?”

  She gave him a gentle glare and shook her head dismissively. There was no point arguing with the man. She just wanted him gone. She frowned with even more concentration at her table, wondering if there was anything missing.

  “Are you accepting applications?” he went on, seemingly teasing her.

  She looked up again, letting her annoyance show. “What?”

  He was oblivious, still in the best of moods.

  “For the job as your beau. If you’re auditioning this man, I’d like to know how to get in on the action.” He gave a lazy shrug that made him look exceptionally attractive and debonair.

  “I can escort like crazy, and I’ve got experience in chair holding and ordering French wines.”

  He gave her a long, appreciative glance that took in everything about her, from head to toe. With his easy self-confidence, he didn’t mind letting her in on exactly how much he relished what he saw. At the same time, his eyes were full of laughter.

  “Is there a waiting list?”

  She blinked at him. His casual examination had thrown her for a bit of a loop and she’d only taken in about half of what he’d said. What on earth was he talking about?

  “You want to be an escort?” she asked in bewilderment. “Do they really have jobs like that? But... but what about your job here?” She looked into his eyes and knew he was teasing her again. In exasperation she glanced around the room. “Shouldn’t you be maitre d’ing or something?”

  He looked nonplussed. “No. Why?”

  She gestured toward the entry lobby. “People are queuing up,” she informed him. “It’s time to open the restaurant.”

  “Ah.” He snapped back his cuff and examined his watch. “You’re right. I guess I’ll go ahead and take my table.”

  She frowned, still confused. “You...you don’t work here?”

  “Work here?” He looked about him with a bemused smile. “No, I’m afraid not. I only arrived at the airport an hour ago.”

  “Oh.” She felt foolish and then annoyed, because she was pretty sure he’d led her down that prickly path on purpose just to see her stub her toe. “Sorry,” she mumbled, watching him from beneath lowered lashes as he walked away.

  He was walking out of her life.

  And a good thing, too. Just this short encounter had convinced her this was a man who could complicate things—such as emotions, commitments, plans for the future—with very little effort.

  Still, she couldn’t ignore him. He had that indefinable sense of presence that lit up a room and caused heads to turn. In all her years working for the newspaper at home, she’d only met a few men who had that, and they were invariably top executives or politicians or rock stars—men who commanded attention and deserved it.

  She shivered suddenly. A premonition? She hoped not.

  He slid into a booth just across from the one she’d picked. From where she was planning to sit, his position would be extremely visible right between a geranium and a pothos.

  She wanted to ask him to move farther away, but the words stuck in her throat. She had a feeling he would take perverse pleasure in doing exactly the opposite of anything she might ask of him. She wasn’t sure why she was so certain of this. But she knew it.

  “Bon appetit,” he said pleasantly, waving a napkin her way, his eyes shining with laughter in a manner that let her think he really might be reading her mind—and enjoying her discomfort. “And ‘bonne chance’.”

  “Make that buena suerte,” she corrected, her eyes flashing fire at the infuriating man. “You’re in a Mexican restaurant, you know.”

  He smiled at her and it was a smile that seemed to reach out and curl around her. She looked away quickly. He was ruining her concentration. She was getting cold feet as it was, and his amused scrutiny wasn’t helping.

  She slid into her own booth and waited nervously, her fingers locked together in a tortured crunch, wishing she’d never let Ted talk her into this.

  “Tempt the dear old colonel,” Ted had said on the last cell call she’d been able to take from Nebraska before taking the turnoff that took her to this remote island resort. “Throw out some bait and see if he snaps at it.”

  Ted was very big on hunting and fishing metaphors. As her mother was always telling her, Ted was a solid rock of a man. You couldn’t go wrong with good old Ted.

  He was also her boss, publisher and managing editor of the Sunflower Ledger, for which she currently wrote a food column. She was used to following his advice. But she wasn’t sure he’d been on the money this time.

  “I’m not going to do anything of the sort,” she’d told him. “I’m not going to try to trap the man. I’m just going to get to know him better and make him see...”

  “It’s the only way,” Ted had insisted. “You’ve got to make him think you’ve got money. Big money. If the man really is a fortune hunter, he’ll make a pass. If he plays it straight, then you’ll know you don’t have anything to worry about where your mother is concerned.”

  She’d thought about it long and hard, but she just couldn’t force herself to do that to her own mother. Instead, she was going to probe and pry and try to get to the bottom of just what this Colonel Carrington wanted—and do it in an honest, straightforward way.

  Except for the flowers and things.

  Everything had turned topsy-turvy since her mother had won the lottery prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Suddenly, predators had sprung from every bush. Her mother, darling that she was, would have gladly handed out contributions to everyone who appeared on her doorstep. Luckily, Kat was made of sterner stuff. And had a more suspicious mind, as well—suspicions earned in the flesh, so to speak.

  Someone had to be the dragon lady, the Medusa, the guardian of the gate. The job had fallen to Kat by default. She wanted to make sure her mother had that money to protect her in the long run.

  There was nothing else—no pension, no secret nest egg. Her mother had worked for years as a clerk in their local pharmacy in Nebraska, only to see the place close down, leaving her with nothing. She’d had a few tense years. Now she could finally take it easy—as long as she didn’t lose all that wonderful money to some sharp operator. And there certainly were plenty of those around.

  When her mother had made plans to come out to the Central California resort town of Nueva Bahia on her own, Kat had been wary. But her mother had been adamant. It had always been a dream of hers to go on a trip like this.

  Kat had reluctantly watched her fly off, fearing the worst. And when the phone calls had started coming back to Nebraska, full of glowing reports about this handsome gentleman who was being so kind, so attentive, Kat had been pretty sure her fears were being realized.

  Kat had met the colonel shortly after she’d arrived to check things out. The man had impressed her as an old-fashioned charmer,
but she’d been hoping against hope that he was on the up-and-up. Now she was about to do what she could to find out the truth.

  “Senorita Clay, the colonel has arrived.”

  “Ah. Thank you.”

  Her fingers felt like ice. How was she going to shake hands with him? Bracing herself, she turned and put a smile on her face.

  “Above-all,” she told herself silently, “relax.”

  Tanner Carrington was telling himself the same thing as he stretched out his long legs beneath the table of his booth. The flight from the New York, where he’d been on business, had been a long one. A shower and a nice big bed were going to feel great, but he was starving and his room wasn’t ready, so he had decided to have lunch first. And of course, he was going to have to meet with his uncle.

  He frowned at the thought and a waiter hurriedly asked if there was something he wanted.

  “Just the menu, please.”

  He was going to need something substantial to prepare for the session with Uncle John. The telephone call from his cousin had been clear.

  “You’d better get down there right away,” Shelley had warned. “This time it’s some widow from Nebraska who’s got her hooks in him. From what I hear, he’s head over heels, and I’ve got my hands full, what with the baby coming and all. I’ll try to come down and help, but it’s your turn to rescue him.”

  Rescuing Uncle John from gold diggers had always been one of those things you periodically had to do, like rotating tires on a car. The trouble was, the man liked women. And from all the signs, Tanner had to admit, they liked him pretty well, too. In fact, there’d been a time when he’d envied his uncle his success with the ladies.

  But that, he reminded himself with a grin, had been years and years ago.

  Filet of sole, he decided, putting down the menu. He glanced up for the waiter, and there was his uncle striding into the room.

  He felt a twinge of regret that his lunch was going to be spoiled by arguing. He’d hoped to get a meal and a rest in before calling his uncle and letting him know that he was in town. He’d half risen from his seat to greet the man when he realized that his uncle hadn’t seen him.