“Business? Then why don’t you just hire a babysitter?”
“And why don’t you stop jumping to conclusions?”
At the snap in her voice, the baby, now asleep, flinched in his arms. He set the bottle aside. “Do you have a crib?”
She flung up her hands and collapsed onto the sofa. “The baby furniture doesn’t arrive until later today.”
“The carrier will do. I want to put this little one to bed before we finish our discussion.”
She rose from the sofa and returned with the car seat. He settled the sleeping baby in it, covered her with a blanket and lowered the carrier to the floor between the kitchen and family room.
Devon observed the child with a tremor that communicated her anxiety. “Will she be okay?”
He brushed a soft curl off the child’s tiny forehead with his finger and wondered how Devon would deal with the infant when he was gone. “She’s fine—for now.”
He had no intention of becoming entangled in any way with Devon Clarke, except to finish her renovations as a favor to his dad, but she’d sparked his curiosity with her talk of marriage as a business proposition. When she’d settled back onto the sofa and crossed her trim ankles on the coffee table before her, he realized his curiosity wasn’t the only part of him she’d aroused.
He sat back in the rocker, braced his work boots on the floor and challenged her. “Just what kind of business did you have in mind?”
“There’s good money involved,” she said.
“For baby-sitting? Give me a break.”
“I told you, it’s not babysitting. It’s….” Her face crumpled into a frown that drew her delicate brows together as she struggled for words.
He wanted to smooth the worry wrinkles from the satin skin of her high forehead, but he denied his dangerous impulse and grasped the chair arms instead. “It’s what?”
She raised her brows and forced a smile. “It’s a television show.”
“Whoa, that’s it. I’m no actor.” He climbed to his feet and strode toward the hallway. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Wait.” She rushed after him and grabbed his arm. “You won’t have to act, just be yourself.”
“Then what does being your husband have to do with it?”
Her lips twisted in a wry expression. “It’s a long story.”
“Sorry, Devon.” He fastened his tool belt and settled it on his hips. “I don’t have time for long tales. I have work to do.”
“Colin, please.” Desperation filled her voice. “I’ll split the money, fifty-fifty.”
He shook his head and lifted her hand from his arm. “I don’t think so. You’d better find another—” he almost let sucker slip “—candidate.”
“Fine.” The gold flecks in her eyes flashed with anger. “If you want to turn up your nose at $125,000, be my guest.”
“Yeah…” Her words took a second to register. His jaw dropped. “Did you say $125,000?”
She folded her arms across small, firm breasts and smiled at him with a satisfied look. “That’s your half.”
A hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars sounded tempting. Felicia and her bloodsucking attorney had cleaned him out in the divorce settlement, and his dad’s hospital bills would be astronomical. He’d be a fool to pass up that kind of money, and Mike O’Reilly hadn’t raised a fool.
But only a fool would agree without first knowing all the details. “What do we have to do for a quarter million, take a flying leap off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge?”
“Nothing so drastic.” She turned back toward the family room, confident now she had his full attention. “I’d better give you the background first.”
He shed his tool belt once more and settled back into the rocker. “I’m all ears.”
Not ears—she couldn’t even see them beneath his thick hair—but angles of bone, curves of rippling muscles, taunting eyes and a broad mouth with a devilish grin. She’d never get anywhere looking at him.
She focused instead on the baby carrier and the child who needed a home. Even without the constrictions of her contract, obtaining funds for lawyers to protect Amanda Donovan’s identity and insure Baby Amanda’s adoption made her entire scheme necessary.
She straddled the hearth before the fireplace and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, trying to decide how to begin. “I’m a writer.”
“So you said.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, straining the fabric across his broad shoulders.
She jerked her gaze back to the baby. “I write a syndicated column, Bringing Up Baby.”
“You?” He burst out with a half laugh, half snort. “Tell me another tall tale. Amanda Donovan is the Heloise of the baby world, but you? You can’t even hold a baby, much less raise one.”
“Look, I may not know beans about babies, but dozens of people write mysteries who’ve never committed a crime. Gramma Donovan was an expert on child care, and I use her journals for all my information.” She scowled at him, daring him to laugh again.
His expression sobered. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She flopped into a chair opposite him. “I didn’t set out to deceive anyone. I was still in junior college when Aunt Bessie died. We’d lived on her annuity, but that ended when she died, so I had to leave school and get a job.”
She studied his expression, attempting to gauge his feelings, but his hooded eyes and the set of his jaw gave her no clues. She plunged ahead.
“Jake Blalock, the editor of the local paper, was looking for a general reporter who could also write a weekly family column. I was desperate for a job, so I agreed.”
“And that’s how Bringing Up Baby came about?”
She nodded. “I found Gramma Donovan’s journals, fifteen years’ worth from 1926 to 1944, among Aunt Bessie’s papers. They were a gold mine. And I used her name because a few people in this town know me. My credibility as a family columnist would have been zilch.”
“And the column was a success.” The toneless quality of his voice left her guessing about his opinion of her.
“Amazingly so. Within a few months, it was picked up by a national syndicate. Two years later, I converted Gramma’s recipes into a cookbook, engaged Leona as my agent, and the rest, as they say, is history”
His eyes widened. “So that’s how you inherited the baby. Her parents had read your columns.”
Devon nodded. “I didn’t know Amanda existed until the attorney appeared on my doorstep this morning. Now you see why I have to find a place for her-”
“Spare me.” He reined in his temper. Devon Clarke had built herself a tidy, profitable career, with no place in her life for a family. He almost choked on her resemblance to Felicia. “Just tell me where I—as a husband—would fit into all this.”
Her eyes gleamed. “So you’ll do it?”
“Where do I fit in, if I agree?”
She seemed to shrivel before his eyes like an inflatable pool toy with an air leak. “That was Leona on the phone. Sara Davis wants to spotlight Amanda Donovan at home in her next television special.”
He gave a low whistle. “Sara Davis? You’re talking big time. Her show’s been at the top of the ratings for almost three years now.”
She nodded. “She’s asked that my husband and baby, whom she doesn’t know are just inventions for the column, be included in the interview. My contract with the syndicate obligates me—and the money was too good to turn down.”
“Of course.” He tried not to feel bitter. After all, acquiring money was his motivation, too. But he had an ailing father, a Mount Everest of medical bills and no bank account, while Devon Clarke appeared to have no shortage of ready cash, judging by her house and remodeling budget. He remembered how Felicia had insisted, “One can never be too rich or too thin.” His former wife and the woman across from him could be soul sisters.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I only want the money for—”
“How you spend your money is none
of my business. Just tell me what Mr. Amanda Donovan would have to do.”
“Nothing you can’t handle. Jeff—that’s the name I gave him—is a contractor, a sort of Norm Abrams and Bob Vila rolled into one. That’s why all you have to do is play yourself. Saw a few boards, hammer a few nails—”
“I’ve seen those interview shows,” he said. “There’s the obligatory sofa scene, wife snuggled at husband’s side, holding hands and smiling at each other.”
“We’ll have a whole month to practice—” she colored, evidently realizing what she’d said “—I mean, to prepare for the charade.”
“What about the house? I couldn’t finish it in a month, even if Dad could help.” He rose to his feet and headed toward the door. “You’d better find yourself another husband—and contractor. When Dad comes out of the hospital, he’s going to need round-the-clock care. I can’t do that and get much done here.”
She clutched his arm as he passed. “I have an idea that might solve both our problems.”
He towered over her by a head, and her hand burned on his arm. He resisted the urge to run his fingers through her thick, strawberry blond curls and stepped away, breaking her grip on him. “I don’t know, lady. You come up with the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard.”
“This one isn’t crazy. Come with me.” She rushed up the hallway, and he followed her to the dining room where she stood, pirouetting on bare feet in the center of the spacious room. “It’s almost finished. Once the pocket doors are hung and the painting’s completed, it would make a perfect bedroom for Mike, with easy access to the bath, kitchen and family room.”
“I don’t know—”
“Sure, don’t you see?” she said. “You and I could both work here and take care of Mike at the same time.”
“Did you learn nursing from those journals, too?” he asked.
He regretted his sarcasm when sadness enveloped her. “Aunt Bessie was bedridden for two years before she died, so I have lots of nursing experience.”
She seemed compassionate, but was her concern for his father genuine or just an added incentive to enroll him in her scheme? Once, he’d have trusted his instincts, but that was before he’d married Felicia, who had honed deception to a fine art.
Amanda’s shrill cry saved him from making a decision.
The sound rooted Devon to the spot, and she turned eyes round with apprehension on him. “What do I do now?”
He sighed in exasperation. “You find out why she’s crying, then fix whatever the problem is.”
“But how?”
“Use your head. You wrote all those columns. Somewhere in that brain of yours is all the information you need. All you have to do is put it to use. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He picked up a tape and began measuring the unfinished door that stretched across the sawhorses.
Devon watched him while Amanda’s cries accelerated, hoping Colin would give in and take charge of the baby. When he picked up the power saw and flicked the switch, she rushed back toward the kitchen.
The baby’s face was red with rage, and Devon experienced a sharp stab of conscience at the child’s discomfort. When she reached into the carrier, Amanda latched onto her finger with one delicate hand, and responsibility for the tiny bundle fate had dropped on her doorstep overpowered her. Would Amanda be content—or even safe—with such an incompetent parent?
She lifted the baby clumsily, laid her on a blanket on the sofa, slipped a finger beneath the child’s plastic pants as she’d seen Colin do and quickly retracted it, covered with a brown, disgusting goo. She lunged for the baby wipes in the carryall to clean her finger.
She’d never changed a baby before, but she’d better learn. Even with the best of lawyers, it might be weeks before she found the right family and finalized adoption plans. Setting her mouth in a determined line and holding her breath against the smell, she eased off the dirty diaper and cleaned Amanda’s tiny bottom with baby wipes.
The baby pumped her chubby legs and gurgled.
Devon cooed at her. “You’re a pwetty widdle thing.”
Amanda laughed, grabbed a fistful of Devon’s T-shirt, kicked her fat little legs and wiggled. Devon’s hands shook as she struggled to spear a pin into the clean diaper. What if she stuck the child?
After fastening the second pin, she tugged the plastic pants over the clean diaper while Amanda gurgled and smiled at her. Only then did she notice that the noise from the dining room had ceased. She glanced toward the hall. Colin was leaning against the door frame, watching her.
She flushed with embarrassment, wondering if he’d heard her babbling baby talk. Between her fear of caring for Amanda and the reaction of her body to Colin’s enigmatic expression, Devon’s senses flashed on overload. Good thing she’d just finished her column. It might take a week to concentrate on work again.
“Moving van’s arrived,” he said. “Where do you want Amanda’s furniture?”
“Upstairs in my room. It’s the only other habitable place in the house.”
Colin nodded and disappeared down the hallway. Devon strapped Amanda in her carrier, set it on the floor where it wouldn’t topple, washed her hands at the kitchen sink and hurried to the front porch to observe the unloading.
One by one, Colin and the driver wrestled a canopied spindle crib, rocking chair, bureau and changing table, all in sparkling white, up the porch steps, into the hall, up the stairs and into Devon’s big, sunny bedroom at the front of the house.
” Where do you want the rest of it?” Colin asked.
“The rest?” She slumped against the porch column. “You’ve already carried in more furniture for the kid than I have in the whole house.”
Colin pointed toward the van, where the driver continued to remove articles. “There’s a portable crib, playpen, swing, high chair and stroller.”
“Carry those into the family room.” Devon watched in amazement as the men made several more trips into the house, stacked items in the hallway, then covered them with drop cloths against the dust. The last load included a small plastic pool, a baby’s toilet seat, a life-size stuffed chimp and lion. Amanda even had her own computer and video-game library and a Mickey Mouse telephone.
“That oughta do it, lady,” the driver said. “Sign here.”
“The kid has enough stuff to open her own retail business.” Devon scrawled her name across the form.
“You can always have a yard sale.” The driver handed her a receipt, tossed the last of the moving blankets into the truck and drove off.
Across the street, an ancient green Buick pulled away from the curb and followed the van. The driver, a middle-aged man with a balding head, didn’t look familiar.
“Something wrong?” Colin asked.
Devon shrugged. “Just a stranger. Neighborhood Watch tells us to keep an eye out.”
Colin observed the battered Buick turn the corner. “Could be a new neighbor you haven’t met—or a salesman.”
“You’re probably right.” But she couldn’t shake the apprehension she’d felt when the man’s tiny porcine eyes locked briefly with hers.
She chalked up her fear as emotional residue from her roller-coaster day and followed Colin inside.
Chapter Three
Being a mother is a twenty-four-hour job—with no time off for good behavior. Relaxing your vigilance for even an instant invites disaster.
Amanda Donovan, Bringing Up Baby
Ernest Potts circled the block and once more drove slowly past the large Victorian house on Tangerine Street. Tailing the van all the way from Kansas City to Florida’s west coast had frayed his nerves. When he’d almost lost it temporarily in Chattanooga and again outside Atlanta, he’d panicked because he’d been depending on the van’s destination to reveal the identity of Amanda’s guardian. His persistence had paid off. He made a mental note of the house number and pulled away.
Back in his room at the rundown motel on the outskirts of the business district, he extracted a beer f
rom his foam cooler and reclined against the bed’s headboard. His luck was beginning to change. He could feel it.
His luck had bit bottom thirty years ago when his mother divorced his father, married Chadwick Phillips and gave birth to his half brother, Chad. He’d battled for years to gain the attention and money his mother had lavished on his handsome younger brother. But not anymore. Mother was long dead, and before long, dear deceased Chad would be providing him with an income for life.
He reached for the phone and dialed long distance.
“Yeah?” Muriel’s nasal voice answered.
“Pay dirt, sugar.”
“You found her?”
“Movers led me straight to her. Now it’s only a matter of time, and she’s all ours.”
“And the money?”
“Of course the money. That’s the whole point.” He pictured Muriel’s sweet, sagging face beneath her bleached blond hair and heard her chewing gum pop over the wire.
“I still don’t see how you’re going to pull this off, Mr. Brilliant. Your half brother hated your guts and made it plenty clear what he thought of you looking after his kid.”
Ernest Potts swigged his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You watch television, sugar. The courts are crazy these days to keep kids with their blood kin. All we gotta do is prove the couple are rotten parents.”
“How’re you gonna do that? They may be great with kids, for all you know.”
Her whine was beginning to get on his nerves. “They can be the best parents in the world, but if the kid keeps having unfortunate accidents—or even disappears, no judge in his right mind will let them keep her, especially when her loving Uncle Era and Aunt Muriel want her.”
” What are you gonna do?”
“Maybe it’s better you don’t know all the plans. That way you can play dumb if you’re questioned.” He grinned at himself in the dusty mirror above the bureau. Playing dumb was Muriel’s strong suit.
“You won’t hurt the kid, will you?”
“Not a chance.” He laughed again. “Wouldn’t want to risk killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
Bringing Up Baby Page 3
