The Baby Came C.O.D.

by Marie Ferrarella

  His eyes drifted over to the corner, where his wastepaper basket should have been. It was there, all right, but completely unencumbered by diapers.

  Hadn't he...?

  It slowly penetrated his mind that the room was neat. All of it. There was no container of overturned talcum, no used diapers waiting for further disposal, no hint of chaos of any kind.

  It was even neater than he normally kept it. The blanket he'd used to separate his bedspread from Rachel's overactive bottom was neatly folded at the foot of his bed. Even the pile of empty diaper boxes had gone the way of the used diapers and disappeared.

  Evan looked around again, completely confused. Maybe he had dreamed it after all.

  Uncertain about the stability of his mind, he walked cautiously to the closed door.

  As soon as he opened it, he heard Libby announce, "He's up!" and knew that if this was a bad dream, he was still trapped inside it.

  Before he could say a word, Libby grabbed him by the hand. She immediately commenced chattering like one of the scrub jays that appeared by his window in the early spring. It seemed that her enforced silence had only given her that much more energy to exude on him, now that he was awake.

  "Mama's got coffee for you." With the guileless determination of a terrier puppy, Libby began tugging him toward the kitchen. "She said to tell her as soon as you were awake, but not to wake you." She smiled up at him brightly. "So I didn't. Mama says that's what makes me a big girl. Do you think I'm a big girl?"

  Evan's head was swimming. He was vaguely aware that Libby was asking him questions, but he couldn't quite make out what they were. The only thing his brain had latched onto was the word coffee, and it was hanging on to it as if it were a life preserver.

  Maybe coffee would help him make sense of what was going on. He stumbled the rest of the way to the kitchen, still in Libby's wake.

  Coffee was waiting for him at the table. Yes, there was still some order to the universe.

  Evan automatically picked up the cup in both hands and drank, then swore, breaking the word off in the middle when he realized that Libby was still standing there.

  "Careful, it's hot," Claire warned needlessly after the fact, then shook her head. "But you already know that."

  Nursing his bottom lip, Evan sipped the rest of the coffee slowly, needing the liquid and what it could do for him more than he needed to keep himself from getting burned. When he finished, he set the cup down and looked around, getting his bearings.

  He knew for a fact that he'd left the kitchen in an advanced state of upheaval, trying to warm bottles for Rachel while keeping her from wailing. Yet everything was washed and replaced, as if he'd never even been in here last night. No spilled mess, no pots flung every which way, no empty milk carton left standing. It hardly looked like his kitchen.

  She'd worked nothing short of a miracle, he thought as he slowly began to feel like his old self again. Evan looked around a second time. He'd always admired the ability to organize. Last night, he'd thought that he had completely lost the knack himself, utterly undone by a six-month-old.

  He turned to look at Claire. She was by the stove, busy with something that was sizzling. "Do you hire out?" he asked, only half joking.

  She looked at him over her shoulder, a smile dazzling him. "You couldn't afford me."

  "Probably not." As consciousness settled in to stay, so did the grudging admiration. Grudging because she'd succeeded where he had obviously failed. "How did you man-age?"

  It wasn't in her nature to brag, although this time she was a little tempted.

  "I've had more on-the-job training than you," she replied simply. With Rachel nestled comfortably against one hip, Claire crossed to the table and poured Evan a second cup of coffee. "Try not to burn your mouth this time."

  He began to protest that he'd been half-asleep, then gave it up. Life-reaffirming coffee was more important than his pride.

  Setting the pot down, Claire surprised him by cupping his chin in her hand before he had the opportunity to bring the second serving to his lips. She examined his mouth.

  "Doesn't look too bad." She smiled into his eyes. "You'll be yelling again in no time."

  Yelling was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment. What was on his mind was that he was very, very conscious of the touch of her hand, the feel of her skin against his.

  And the lack of it when she drew her hand away and picked up the coffeepot again.

  He couldn't seem to clear the fog from his brain, he thought, not quite sure if it was Rachel, his sleepless night or Claire who was responsible. Probably a combination of all three. He grasped at straws, trying to draw her attention away from the fact that she left him tongue-tied.

  "Um," he began, looking around again, "you didn't have to do this."

  Thank you would have been nice, she thought, but she shrugged in reply.

  "I drink coffee, too. And eat." Deftly, using only one hand, she shifted the contents of the frying pan to a plate and then brought it over to the table. "Libby and I helped ourselves to some toast and juice."

  Claire set down the omelet she'd prepared for him out of odds and ends she'd found in the refrigerator. It was obvious that he either didn't believe in eating at home a great deal, or had takeout sent in most of the time. There had been almost nothing to work with.

  Deciding she needed a break, Claire went to the living room to place Rachel in the swing.

  Maybe it was magic, he thought, looking at the omelet. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a home- cooked meal, other than at his mother's house.

  "I didn't mean just the coffee," he told her. "Or breakfast."

  "What?" she called from the other room. "I can't hear you."

  "I said," he began, his voice raised, only to realize that she'd returned, "I didn't mean just the coffee or the breakfast" He looked at her empty arms. "Where's the baby?"

  "I put her in the swing." She nodded toward the living room. "Libby's watching her. They seem to have taken a shine to each other." There was pure affection in her smile. "I guess it's good for Libby not to be the center of the universe for a while."

  Claire sat down at the table, shifting her chair so that she could keep an eye on her daughter and Rachel, just in case. Libby might be growing up, but she was far from grown.

  For the moment, though, Evan had her attention. She liked him better this way, she decided, messy, with the residue of sleep in his eyes.

  "That's a good sign, you know. Your asking about the baby, I mean. I guess I might have misjudged you."

  He raised his eyes to hers and she explained.

  "You have potential to be a good father."

  She was giving him credit where none was due. And he was still a long way off from declaring himself Rachel's father. "Look, I'm just trying to do the right thing and take care of her for a few days—just until I find out what's going on."

  Maybe she hadn't misjudged him all that much, Claire thought, drawing back. Maybe she was just being too lenient because there was something about him that transcended their obviously different points of view. Something that silently reached out to her.

  She had to stop trying to be everyone's mother, she reminded herself.

  Claire pinned him with a long, scrutinizing look. "You're still sticking to your story that she's not yours?"

  He didn't like the way she worded that. "It's not a story. It's the truth." And then, as before, uncertainty nibbled at his denial, making him waver. He didn't believe in lying. "At least, I think so." He clung to what he knew for certain. "I never saw her before the day before yesterday. Some woman left her with my secretary, saying it—she— was mine."

  The intensity of his words convinced her he was telling the truth, no matter what it sounded like. Claire arched an eyebrow. "Women do this often with you?"

  He couldn't tell whether or not she believed him and didn't know why it was so important to him that she did. But for some reason, it was. "No, not often. This is a first"r />
  "And you really have no idea...?" Claire's voice trailed off.

  Did she think he was some kind of promiscuous womanizer who bedded women solely for the satisfaction of having done it? Women weren't trophies to him; they were alien creatures he didn't have a prayer of understanding. Present company included.

  "Of course I have an idea. A vague one," he amended after a beat. "I'm not exactly the village seducer." He looked at his cup. It was empty. He needed more to fortify himself against her. Evan turned his attention to his breakfast. "That's more my brother's line."

  Claire glanced toward the living room. Libby was busy kissing Rachel's feet each time the swing went forward. Rachel seemed to like it. She had a few more minutes of respite.

  "There are more like you?"

  He thought of Devin. "I wouldn't say he was more like me. He's my twin brother, but we're not alike. We're not alike at all."

  So Evan had a twin, too. At least he knew where his twin was, she thought ruefully. Until her father's friend had made that slip last week, she hadn't even known she had a twin. And she certainly didn't know where to start looking for her.

  "You mean he's friendly?" The sharp look Evan gave her had Claire raising her hands in surrender. "Sorry, maybe that was a little low, but you do have to admit you bite people's heads off." In a vague way, he reminded her of her father. There was that same tendency to keep her at arm's length. "If you were a doctor, your bedside manner would be classified as lousy."

  "Well, I'm not a doctor." He finished eating and pushed back the plate just as his appetite vanished. "What I am, though, is very busy and I don't have any time for this—"

  Oh, no, not this refrain again. She'd already given him points for getting past it. She really was too soft on people, she thought. Just because he looked like a rumpled puppy dog didn't make him one.

  "You took some time off, remember? A week's vacation. Your secretary arranged it."

  The true meaning of her words sank in, possibly for the first time. "A week of this?" He looked like a man who had just heard his death sentence.

  Despite her best intentions to the contrary, Claire couldn't help softening again. She laughed at the hapless expression on his face.

  "It gets better." She rose, clearing away his plate. "Speaking of which, do you feel any better? You slept like a dead man."

  He wanted to say no, he didn't feel any better, but that would be a lie.

  "Yeah, some." He caught a whiff of her fragrance, and it brought an instant reaction. Springtime. "Did you come into my room while I was asleep?" Or had that just been unconscious wishful thinking on his part?

  "Just to clean up." She'd left his bedroom to the very end, thinking he might wake up first. When he didn't, she'd parked Rachel in her crib and gone in, restoring order as quickly as she could. She didn't care for cleaning, but she was good at it when she set her mind to it. "I didn't think the pile of diapers you left there would have been the most aesthetic thing for you to wake up to."

  No, but she would be. The thought sneaked up on him, taking him completely by surprise, as Evan watched Claire move more effortlessly through his kitchen than he did. As if she belonged there.

  He had the feeling that she could make herself at home anywhere.

  "Thanks." The word seemed hopelessly inadequate for everything she'd done, but while he had the ability to compose twenty-page memos on the spot with absolutely no effort at all, once the matter was personal, his ready supply of words seemed to all but dry up.

  "Don't mention it." The moment hung awkwardly between them. She did her best to brush it away. "So," Claire continued, trying to sound as if she was making casual conversation, "you think you might know who Rachel's mother is?" She turned on the water and began scrubbing the frying pan furiously to hide an uncustomary onslaught of nerves.

  He had his suspicions. Actually, he doubted it could be anyone else. If this baby actually was his. "Devin's looking into it for me."

  "Devin?" She set the pan on the rack and turned around.

  "My brother. He's a private investigator." Evan was more surprised than she must be to hear himself telling her any of this. He didn't usually trot out his family for people.

  Claire cocked her head, studying him. She tried to picture him and his brother together and couldn't quite manage it "No kidding. He really is different from you, isn't he?"

  Evan laughed dryly. He'd heard that often enough. "Like night and day." Devin was day, while he was night Women generally preferred the day.

  Differences were what made things interesting. She wondered if his brother lived anywhere close.

  "It must have been nice, though, having someone to talk to when you were growing up." She'd spent her entire childhood wishing she'd had a brother or sister to share the loneliness with. It hurt horribly to discover that she had had one all along without knowing it, without being able to do anything about finding her. "I imagine you must have been close at one point." She finished washing off his plate and set it next to the pan to dry.

  Evan considered for a minute. "Maybe. I was closer to one of my sisters, really."

  "Sisters?" She dried her hands and draped the towel over the back of the chair before sitting down again. "How many are there in your family?"

  She sounded as if she was really interested, he thought, and wondered why. "Four, counting me, not counting my parents. How many in yours?"

  The question seemed to come of its own accord. As a rule, he didn't delve into people's private lives. He simply had no curiosity about others to prompt the questions, not the way Devin had.

  But Claire was different. She made him curious. Maybe because the circumstances he found himself in with her were so unusual.

  "Two," she said firmly. "Libby and me."

  He had the strangest feeling a door had just shut. "I meant—"

  "I know what you meant," she said tersely. The rest came out as if she were reciting it. "I was an only child." There was no point in telling him about the sister she'd never known. "My mother died when I was six. My father was a surgeon. I hardly ever saw him."

  He picked up on the crucial word. "'Was'?"

  "Was," she repeated. "He died, too, before Libby was born."

  She had no grandfather to give her daughter, and no grandmother. That bothered her at times, although it didn't seem to faze Libby any more than not having a father did. She was one terrific little girl, Claire thought warmly.

  "So," Claire concluded briskly, "in a way, that makes her my whole family."

  There was more here, he thought, deciding to turn the tables on her and press. "'In a way'?"

  She shrugged, looking off. There was no reason this should make her uncomfortable, except, perhaps, in the manner it had been revealed to her. Like some dark secret to be atoned for. But then, that had been her father's doing.

  "I was adopted," she said matter-of-factly. "Maybe that's why I relate so much to Rachel. We were both given away." She realized that there was more emotion in her voice than she had intended and was quick to remedy that. "My birth mother gave me away, and my adoptive father couldn't find it in his heart to get close to me."

  The smile on her face was sad, Evan thought. It stirred something within him, a desire to comfort, to protect. It was, he realized, a first for him. He rather liked it, although for the time being, he didn't explore why. Life was complicated enough for him right now as it was.

  "When I was little, I used to think it was because of something I had done. Oh, he was a nice man and all that," Claire added quickly. "I had all the creature comforts a kid could want. Except for love." And without love, she thought, none of the rest had really meant anything. "He just couldn't find it in his heart to love a stranger. That was the way he always thought of me, he said, as a stranger. I didn't know that until he was dying. He made a confession to me. A dramatic deathbed scene during which he asked my forgiveness."

  She pressed her lips together. It seemed foolish to let this hurt now. It was years i
n the past But it made no difference. She had had so much love to give her father, and he'd never wanted it. It had all gone to waste.

  "It seemed that he'd never wanted to adopt me. It was all his wife's idea. And then she died and left him to take care of me. Poor man, he was never cut out to be a father. He had a lousy bedside manner, too."

  A sad smile turned to one of compassion as she thought of Douglas Walker. It hadn't been his fault, either. He just didn't have it in him to love anyone other than his wife.

  "He was a really great neurosurgeon, but not a man to shoot the breeze with. Or derive any comfort from."

  "And you forgave him?"

  "Sure. What else could I do? Besides, I was so relieved that it wasn't because of anything I had done."

  Another woman, he thought, would have withheld forgiveness, feeling that revenge was her due.

  Claire blew out a breath. She'd talked way too much. "All right, there you have it, my life story."

  "Not quite." Evan looked toward the living room. She knew he was thinking of Libby.

  "We'll save that for another time." With an air of finality, Claire rose and pushed her chair against the table. "All right, if you're sufficiently fed and rested, Libby and I have to be going."

  The thought of her leaving didn't rest any better with him now than it did last night.

  "Um, look, I have to check in with my office. Not physically, just over the telephone," he explained quickly before she could get it into her head to deliver another lecture, or worse, just turn on her heel and leave. He put himself on the line and asked, "Could you hang around until I finish?"

  She felt uncomfortable after what she'd just told him. There was no reason for her to have said all that she had. It wasn't as if she'd been reacting to his compassion or sympathy. If anything, she'd been reacting to Rachel's dilemma.

  Right now, all she wanted to do was go home. "How long a conversation?"

  He wasn't about to give her an exact time frame. This way, if he ran over, she'd still stay.

  "Not long."

  There was nothing pressing for her to do now that she had fed Libby. She was still running on empty as far as work went, and staring at the blank screen would only de-press her.