by Jule McBride
Taking another deep breath, Lo shouted, “Just go!”
Sergeant Mack merely peered through the back window, as if to see from whom she was running away. His eyes met hers again. “Why?”
“B-because if you don’t—” without warning, Lo doubled over “—you’ll be delivering my baby in your b-back—”
Sergeant Mack clearly wasn’t registering her words. “Back seat?” he ventured helpfully.
From her hunched position, Lo craned her neck upward to meet his gaze. “I’m in labor!” she shrieked.
The news seemed to hit Sergeant Mack all at once. His dark eyes widened. Then in a swift, simultaneous motion, he whirled around, turned on his siren, grabbed his police radio and stomped on the gas.
FEELING STUNNED, Max stared at the cruiser’s receding taillights. He never should have let Lo go outside. Or raced outside after her, he realized when he glanced down. He was still clad only in his red boxers with the big white hearts. Glancing between his car and the house, he couldn’t decide which to do first—dress or follow the cruiser.
Or deal with the neighbors.
They were all slowly gathering across the street on Dotty Jansen’s lawn. Kids on bicycles were starting to ride in circles in the street and gawk at Max. Max could see Colleen and Dotty and Melvin and Timmy and…
They’re all glaring at me.
Wondering why, Max raised his voice. “Did I do something wrong?”
Nobody said a word. The kids on bikes circled closer, and Helen and Gladys headed toward Dotty’s, clutching each other’s elbows. From far down the block, Mrs. Wold charged right down the middle of the road.
Max watched as Dotty’s hands shifted from her swollen belly to what used to be her hips. She headed across the street with fiery wrath in her eyes. Max just hoped Dotty would hurry and say her piece. He had to get to the precinct, and he’d prefer to do so quietly, without the neighbors realizing the true criminal identity of their most upstanding citizen.
Dotty leaned against his front gate. “Did you call the cops on Lo?” she demanded.
“Call the cops?” Max echoed. His first thought was that Dotty was a cop. His second was that Dotty already knew who Lo was.
“You heard me, Tremaine.”
Guess she knows who I am, too. Not that it mattered. The way Dotty’s eyes bored into him, Max could have been wearing a T-shirt that said Max Tremaine, Enemy To All Hormonal Pregnant Women. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw little Jeffie Rhys run up to the wrought-iron fence posts. Jeffie grabbed the bars and scowled through them at Max. The kid looked as if he could win a spot in the Guinness book of Records for world’s youngest prison inmate. Max swallowed hard. For all he knew, Lo was already locked in a cell.
Dotty sounded disgusted. “You did call the precinct!”
“No, I didn’t.” Max’s jaw slackened. “And I can’t believe you knew who she was.”
“Do I look like an idiot?” Dotty fumed. “I’m a cop. Of course I knew who she was. Everybody knows. Her picture’s been all over the papers for months! Including the Times, for which you yourself write. We’re just trying to give her some space until I can catch—” Dotty cut herself off. “Oh, never mind!”
Max sighed. “Hey, Melvin,” he managed to say when Melvin appeared next to Dotty.
Melvin didn’t even bother to respond. He merely grabbed Timmy and Jeffie and started hustling them back across the street. Over his shoulder, he shouted, “Your place used to be a real eyesore, Tremaine. One big abandoned blot on the block. We won’t forget it was Lo Lambert who turned it into a showcase.”
“And it’s safer for the kids now because of her crime watch program,” Colleen added, urging her girls away from Max’s yard as if from under the bridge of a resident troll.
Helen and Gladys were still keeping their distance—their postures painfully erect, their arms crossed and their chins in the air.
Max raised an eyebrow. “Anything you two would like to add?”
“Mr. Tremaine, that sweet girl could never commit a crime,” Helen pleaded in a tearful voice.
“C’mon,” Gladys said, dragging Helen back across the street. “We’ll just go inside now. We most certainly will!”
Max’s lips parted in mute protest as the two women skedaddled home. Then he thought of Josephine Lambert—and winced. No doubt Gran was still waiting for him to rescue her from the Fountain of Youth. He realized Mrs. Wold was standing stock-still in the middle of the street, staring at his bare chest and clearly trying to think of something suitably nasty to say.
“You are barred from the library forever, young man!” the librarian finally shrieked.
Thankfully, the front door of Dotty’s house suddenly swung open. “Honey,” Dotty’s husband shouted.
Dotty’s expression softened the second she glanced away from Max. “Yeah, sugar cube?”
“The precinct’s on the phone. Lo Lambert just went into labor. And they need a lady cop.”
“Labor?” Max’s hands shot to his pockets, searching for his car keys. But of course he was still in his boxers. He stared at Dotty. “I swear I didn’t call the cops. And I’ve got to get to the hospital!”
Dotty’s eyes turned steely. “Within ten minutes, I’ll have a restraining order. You come within a hundred feet of that hospital and I will arrest you.” She raked her eyes over him. “Indecent exposure will only be the beginning. I’ll book you for harboring a fugitive, your past outstanding parking tickets, which I do know about, Tremaine, and—”
“Dotty, you can’t be serious. She needs me.”
“Like she needs a hole in the head.”
“I didn’t call the cops. That’s crazy. Sheldon Ferris probably called. If I was going to turn her in, I would have done it already. Lo and I have been living here together for—”
“This entire neighborhood has been listening to you two fight all morning. In the carport. Upstairs. In the yard. Pul-lease,” Dotty finished.
“Dotty…”
Her eyes narrowed. “Consider that hospital your personal gateway to a holding cell.”
For a stunned moment, Max merely stood there in his underwear. And then he did the only thing left to do—stormed inside the house. Lord, his life had sure become complicated since Lo Lambert had barged into it. What in the world was he going to do?
Clear her name, Max.
Without hesitation, he retrieved the file Zach had given him, then headed for the shoe box in the desk drawer, with T-shirt close on his heels. Plunking the box on the desktop, Max started rereading the articles. Words were his business. He knew how to read between the lines. Text, and subtext. In here, somewhere, was something that could clear Lo.
“C’mere,” he murmured, lifting T-shirt onto his lap.
After a long time, Max’s hand stilled on the car service receipt. When he’d first seen it, it had bothered him. But why? Lo’s signature was far too neat to be his own undignified scrawl, but the driver, Jack Bronski, was the same man who’d brought Max home some weeks ago…
Max held his breath. He was close. He could feel it with every journalistic instinct he possessed.
He shook his head, remembering. When he was leaving for South America, the car he’d ordered had never come. Probably Jack Bronski thought he was supposed to bring Max home from the airport rather than take him there. Inhaling sharply, Max suddenly said, “The time.”
And then he knew he’d found his answer.
11
How It All Ended Happily Ever After
“FIVE MORE MINUTES—” Dotty Jansen shoved her hands in the pockets of her police uniform and glanced stoically into Lo’s hospital room, clearly determined not to let her emotions undermine her law enforcement professionalism. “And then I’ll have to come back for the baby, Lo.”
Lo nodded in spite of her tears and stared down at little Josephine again. The baby was clad in a pink cotton blanket and a white skull cap that was knotted on top, and she was curled in a fetal position against Lo’
s chest, almost as if she’d never even left the womb. Named after her great-grandmother, Josie was completely bald, and as far as newborns went, she was both long and heavy, measuring twenty-one inches and weighing nine pounds, four ounces. Already, she had the Lamberts’ trademark devious glint in her eyes, and all the nurses who’d witnessed Lo’s twelve-hour labor remarked that Josie had definitely inherited her hearty screams from her mother. Josie was healthy—solid and sturdy and strong. But curled against Lo, her infant daughter felt like the most fragile thing on earth.
Especially since Dotty was taking her away in only five more minutes. Lo tried to assure herself the separation was only temporary. Dotty said the neighbors would provide character references, so Lo might get out on bail. And rather than place Josie with child services while Lo’s future was decided, Dotty had arranged to watch the baby.
Lo glanced at a clock, then through a window. It was dark out, just after one in the morning. Maybe she should make a run for it, baby in tow. She was tired and she ached all over, but she could do it. She’d find Max, beg him to hide her and Josie.
Get serious, Lo. She could still envision him shoving all her clothes into that big old steamer trunk on the bed. Yesterday—or was it only today?—he hadn’t even folded her delicates. The sheets and spread had still been rumpled from the tenderest lovemaking Lo had ever known. It was the kind of detail she desperately wished she could forget.
Tears threatened again, but she bit them back. Or maybe she’d simply cried them all. She sighed. Why did I confess?
Because, she answered herself, in the throes of a twelve-hour labor, all women probably lose control. It was at the eleventh hour—quite literally—when Lo had spilled her best-kept secrets. Dotty Jansen had been hovering over her all day like a kindly nun-dabbing her sweaty forehead, squeezing her fingers, murmuring encouragement.
In a spasm of guilt, Lo simply told all—that she was Lo Lambert, that she was responsible for everyone in the community being out of jobs, that she’d stolen Max Tremaine’s house and car and name and life. Not to mention ruined the clutch on his prized Corvette.
“Max might have loved me—” Lo’s voice had risen to a wail “—if I wasn’t the kind of awful person who abandoned my own grandmother.”
“There, there.” Dotty had patiently rubbed her shoulder. “We knew who you were the first day you arrived on the block. And I’ve been doing everything I can to clear you.”
And now you’ll just have to cling to that, Lo thought, possessively clutching Josie. As her gaze trailed slowly over the little white cap on Josie’s head, her eyes filled with tears again. The skull covering made Josie look like the world’s littlest cat burglar. “Maybe it’s something horrible in our genes,” Lo whispered mournfully as she snuggled the blanket around Josie. Something Max sensed.
Dotty had told Lo she’d threatened Max with a restraining order. But Max was a professional journalist, accustomed to railroading his way into wherever he wanted to go. If he’d wanted to come to the hospital, nothing could have stopped him.
The door opened.
Lo’s eyes remained riveted on Josie, and her arms tightened around the pink blanket. Pure panic welled inside her, and she had a sudden change of heart. I’m not giving up my daughter! Not even for a minute. Not even to Dotty. Lo rose, clutching Josie, thinking she’d fight the entire Connecticut police force if she had to. She looked up, her fierce eyes full of newfound maternal fury.
Max stared back.
There was a long silence.
Then he simply plopped the first edition of the Times onto the bed. Only one thing could have pulled Lo’s gaze away from Max’s gorgeous amber eyes: Lo Lambert Cleared Of All Charges.
When Lo’s eyes shot from the headline to Max’s face again, his unreadable expression made her heart squeeze tight. He’d done exactly what he’d set out to do—written his story. He’d come here because he’d cleared her name, not for her and Josie. Still holding the baby tight, Lo concentrated all her energies on not letting Max see her cry. Her eyes stinging, Lo stared down at the newspaper and tried to look interested.
“Well, Lo…” Even though Max’s voice was matter-of-fact, it sent ripples of awareness through her, which she did her best to ignore. “The primary source who tipped me off about you called before the warrant to search Meredith and Gersham was ever even issued. I broke the story. Wrote it on my laptop while I was on a plane to South America. But it turns out I had the news a full hour before I logically could have. The car service receipt in the shoe box downstairs made me start questioning the time frame…”
Max waited. When she said nothing, he went on, “I’ve been running around all night. I found the source who tipped me off. He admitted Sheldon paid him to tell the Times you were guilty of price-fixing. By the time the SEC arrived at Meredith and Gersham, I was already collecting secondary sources.
“I also found your assistant, B.B. She got married down in Arkansas, which was why she wasn’t listed anywhere under her maiden name, but she wants to come back and testify against Sheldon.
“When I tried to call the hospital, so you’d know, I couldn’t get through because of Dotty’s instructions.” Max dragged a hand through his tousled hair. “Anyway, Sheldon’s been arrested in Manhattan-and the D.A.’s made deals with some of his business associates who’ve agreed to testify against him.”
Lo forced herself to look at Max. How could he be so unemotional? He sounded like Hercule Poirot. One more solved crime down. Four to go. She sighed. Max was a great investigative reporter. She had to give him that. Her voice sounded far more stiff than she intended. “Well, thank you so much for coming by to let me know.”
Max’s eyebrows knit together. “Excuse me?”
“I said—”
“I heard what you said.”
God, Lo wished he’d leave. As far as she was concerned, every woman was entitled to a wellearned postpartum depression. And she was starting to crave another good long cry. No one was going to take away Josie. Sheldon had been arrested. Now Lo could go get Gran and access her bank accounts and…
Max was still staring at her. She fought to keep her tone calm and controlled. “I’ve kept records of my expenditures. And I’ll get a check to you.”
When Max said nothing, she added, “ASAP.”
His eyes had narrowed so much they were nearly closed. “Have I missed something here, honey?”
Lo managed to shake her head. “No, I think that concludes our business.” I can’t believe it. I sound like I’m back at Meredith and Gersham.
“Business?” Max gaped at her. “Shoot, Lo. I thought you were in love with me.”
Suddenly, Lo realized he looked as haggard as she felt. Her eyes trailed over him—from his bloodshot eyes to his uncombed tawny hair and the rough stubble on his jaw. A cigar poked from the pocket of his untucked, wrinkled plaid work shirt. It was wrapped in bright pink paper that said It’s A Girl.
It hit her. Max cared about her. He cared about Josie. And all the time she’d been in labor, Max had been busting his buns to clear her name and make the morning edition. Lo’s throat squeezed shut and her voice came out strangled. “Do you want to see Josie?”
The next thing Lo knew, the baby was in Max’s arms. “I did see her, honey. First thing. When I got here, she was in that—uh—incubator room or whatever they call it. I just didn’t want to see you until I had the newspaper in my hands and could convince Dotty not to arrest me. But Josie was the best-looking baby in there. Definitely, the very best.” Max finally stopped, then asked, “Don’t you love me, Lo?”
“Do you love me?”
“Is this a Mexican standoff?”
Lo noticed how comfortable Josie looked, curled against his chest. “I guess it is.”
“Look,” Max murmured, “I know this is a lot at once. But I just got a message from my sister, Suzie. She eloped with her boyfriend, Amis, to Paris. Anyway, they got back to the States last night and they’re desperate for a place to stay.
So I was thinking you and I could give up the cottage.”
Feeling a little unsteady, Lo sat down on the bed. Max sat next to her, cradling Josie. Lifting a finger, he trailed it down Lo’s cheek.
“We’ll need a bigger place,” he continued. “And Dotty said Blake and Karen changed their minds again—they’re definitely taking the Manhattan condo. So, Suzie and Amis could live in the cottage and we could buy Blake and Karen’s place. It’s just four doors down.”
“In the same neighborhood,” Lo murmured.
Max nodded. “Unless their house moved since I last looked.”
Lo realized she was holding her breath and forced herself to exhale. “Max,” she began, trying to keep her voice level. “That house has got five bedrooms and a garage apartment.”
“Josie needs a nursery,” he countered. “And we may want other kids.”
Was he proposing? Or asking her to live with him? “What would we do with a garage apartment?”
“It’s separate from the house—” Max flashed her a quick smile “—so I figured we could put your grandmother in there.”
Lo’s heart skipped a beat. And then it hit her. Max wanted it all with her. The house in the suburbs. The little white fence. The dogs and cats and kids and Gran. The suburban home she used to dream about would now be a reality. And Lo would have her dream wedding, too.
“You okay, honey?” Max whispered.
Gingerly, so as not to upset the baby, Lo wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you, Max.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Oh, yes.”
The baby squirming between them didn’t stop Max’s lips from finding hers. He kissed her hard-until she started hoping he’d never stop. After a long moment, he leaned away. Then he called, “Send in my surprise.”
The door swung open.
And Josephine Lambert jogged into the room in a nautical blue-and-white warm-up suit. “Ahoy there!” she boomed.
“Gran!” Lo gasped.
Gran didn’t respond, merely raced over and flung her arms around Lo. The hug squeezed the breath from her granddaughter and another tear from her eye. Running her hands over Gran’s back, Lo sighed in relief. She could feel the wiry, pulsing energy that told her Gran was just fine.
