The Baby Wore a Badge

by Marie Ferrarella

  With that, Jake led the way to the stairs.

  No doubt about it, Calista thought as she followed behind him and walked up the stairs to his room, the man looked good coming and going.

  There went her stomach again, contracting into a knot.

  Get a grip, she ordered herself. The man needs someone to help him out, not to drool all over him. He’s already got the latter covered.

  When they came to the landing, Jake brought her over to the second door on the right. The door was closed. He opened it, then walked in and nodded toward the bathroom located over in the far corner of the room. There were four other guest rooms in the large house, but this one was the largest. Erin had told him that she thought this would be more suitable to his needs, especially with the baby.

  “Right in through there,” he told Calista. He pointed in the direction of the bathroom as he stopped by the bureau. Opening the top drawer, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the latest deposit of baby drool from his shoulder. That done, he absently shoved the handkerchief into his back pocket.

  Setting Marlie down in her portacrib for a moment, Jake went over to the closet. He was still in the process of unpacking, but there were a few shirts already hanging there. He grabbed the one closest to him, a blue pullover that, once on, brought out the color of his eyes more intensely.

  His stained shirt still clutched in her hand, Calista forced herself to look away and head toward the bathroom. She couldn’t help but notice that the room looked as if it’d had an encounter with a tornado, and lost.

  “Still unpacking?” Calista asked, raising her voice so that he could hear her.

  “Still hunting for things,” he amended. “Well, I’m decent again,” he said to his daughter after he’d pulled on the new shirt. “Try to keep your lunch down for at least a few minutes,” he urged her, picking up the baby again.

  Marlie cooed in response, as if she understood him and was telling him that she’d do her best to try.

  The noise made him smile. Funny how outwardly perfectly insignificant things like a sound coming from a seven-month-old infant could make him feel so warm inside. He supposed this was what being a father was all about, celebrating the small, personal things that no one else was privy to or could begin to comprehend.

  He looked over toward the bathroom. The woman he’d just agreed to allow to watch over his daughter was still in there, but he wasn’t hearing any sounds.

  “Let’s go see what’s up,” he said to his daughter as he crossed to the other end of the bedroom. “So how’s it coming?” he asked Calista, raising his voice.

  Calista glanced at him over her shoulder. He was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, once again holding Marlie in his arms, and mercifully wearing a shirt again.

  Now if only that fact would register with her racing pulse and make it settle down, she thought.

  “It’s coming along,” she repeated.

  To prove her point, she picked up the shirt and held it up over the sink to allow him to see for himself. She’d filled the basin with a little water to dilute the concentrated lemon juice and it was dripping down as she raised the shirt for his perusal. The spot that Marlie had branded with a gooey, milky-white substance was actually growing fainter.

  “Like I said,” she repeated, pleased, “sometimes it takes a little longer than other times. But it looks like you won’t have to throw this one away.”

  He joined her at the sink for a closer look. It really was fading, he thought, impressed.

  “So that’s all I have to do?” he asked, his eyes shifting to look at her. “Just pour lemon juice on it and let it soak? Because I’ve got about ten shirts that really need work,” he confessed. “None of them would really come clean, even after I threw them into the washing machine a couple of times.” He was on the verge of throwing them all out. Tossing out shirts after wearing them only once or twice wasn’t exactly something he could afford to do indefinitely.

  Calista looked a little skeptical as she asked him, “When you washed your shirts, you didn’t have the setting on hot, did you?”

  Damned if he knew. “The machine has settings?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you pile them up for me and I’ll take a look at your shirts the next time you have me over to watch Marlie?” she suggested.

  Initially he had balked at asking for help or letting anyone know that he wasn’t up to handling this situation he found himself in. But after closer scrutiny, maybe this wasn’t going to be such a bad deal after all, Jake thought. If this cheerful woman with the sparkling brown eyes and endless brown hair could save his shirts as well as help him save his sanity, she was clearly worth her weight in gold.

  “Sounds good to me,” he responded to the suggestion with feeling.

  Yes, Calista thought, unable to contain her smile any longer, it certainly did.

  Chapter Three

  “You’re late.”

  Jasper Fowler bit off the words as he glared at Calista from beneath shaggy gray-and-white eyebrows.

  Just coming in, Calista eased the door to the Tattered Saddle antique shop closed behind her. If Fowler expected her to flinch at his obvious displeasure, he was going to be sorely disappointed, she thought. Growing up amid seven brothers and sisters had long since taught her how to hold her ground and stand up for herself. It was either that or suddenly find herself getting plowed under and lost in the shuffle.

  So far, she’d never once gotten lost in the shuffle.

  “I’m on time,” Calista corrected pleasantly, deliberately pointing to the closest clock to her on the wall.

  Currently, there were several clocks on display, all hanging on the shop walls, all antiques, all fashioned with a decidedly Western flavor. And each and every one of them testified to the fact that she, and not the crotchety, cantankerous elderly owner of the store, was right. She was right on time.

  With a frame that resembled nothing if not an animated question mark, his shoulders hunched in so far that they appeared to be almost touching one another, Fowler moved past her and grumbled, “Well, you would have been late in another minute.”

  As was his habit, he refused to give in or concede the point. If asked, no one in town could recollect ever hearing the old man admit that he was wrong—about anything.

  “But I didn’t take another minute,” Calista countered cheerfully. “So I’m here on time.”

  In her own way, she was just as stubborn as the old man she was working for this summer. Beneath it all, she wanted to think that the man rather enjoyed sparring with her, enjoyed the challenge of having someone who didn’t cave in to him. Everyone else, she’d noted, always backed away, considering a verbal bout with the man just a waste of time and energy.

  Maybe she was wrong, she thought, picking up the ancient feather duster he required she use every day to dust the eclectic collection of memorabilia he housed within the old shop’s four walls. But in complying with his specific instructions and using the duster, Calista couldn’t help but feel that all she was accomplishing was pushing the dust around, ineffectively moving it from one spot to another and then back again the next day.

  But the pay was the same whether she eliminated the dust or just gave it another place to stay, so she had given up trying to introduce a few basic improvements into the daily routine. Fowler, she’d quickly discovered, was a stickler for adhering to routines, to all but worshipping the status quo.

  She’d learned her first week here that it was pointless to try to point out the benefits of doing anything new or different.

  But then, she reasoned, if Fowler had been opened to new things, he probably wouldn’t be dealing with items that were older than he was.

  “When I finish dusting out here, if there aren’t any customers, maybe I’ll just go dust the storeroom,” she volunteered.

  Although she’d brought along a couple of books to review, books that promised to help her get a better handle on her internship at the mayor’s office, she really
didn’t like being idle for any stretch of time and because Fowler was paying her—minimum wage to be sure, but it was still her salary—her first efforts should be to do something worthwhile in the antique store.

  About to shuffle off into the very same storeroom she was proposing to clean, Fowler stopped short and turned around to glare at her.

  “No,” he all but shouted, then struggled to regain his monotone composure. “I already told you to stay out of there.”

  He’d told her that the very first day she’d worked here. At the time she’d thought the edict was just fueled by his myriad of idiosyncrasies.

  “I know, but I thought maybe you’d like to have me straighten things up in there, maybe do an inventory for you,” she proposed.

  “Don’t need no inventory,” Fowler retorted. “I know everything that’s in there and where it is if I need to get at it. I don’t need some eager beaver messing things up with her own damn system that makes no sense to nobody on God’s green earth but her.”

  He was really getting heated about it and she couldn’t help wondering why. She’d glanced into the storeroom once in passing and it was just a dark storage space as far as she could see.

  “Okay, I won’t go in there,” she surrendered, at the same time trying to figure out just what it was that the old man was trying to protect. Most likely, it was nothing, but he certainly was behaving peculiarly—even more so than usual. Every time she mentioned the storeroom, he acted, in her opinion, as if she was trying to break into the U.S. Mint and he was its only defender.

  But then, she reasoned, she’d known what the old man was like when she’d initially answered his want ad and interviewed for the job. Everyone in town—her family included—had warned her about going to work for “crazy ol’ Jasper Fowler.” And everyone from around the area knew about the legend.

  Knew how, according to the legend, Fowler had once driven cross-country with a coffin rattling around in the back of his pickup truck. Moreover, the same legend claimed that there’d been a rotting corpse in that coffin, supposedly the remains of a woman who had once jilted him.

  Over time other identities had been assigned to the so-called decaying cross-country traveler. Some said it was a business partner who had tried to cheat him out of the profits of their business. Others said that there were two bodies in there, his late wife and the infant son she’d given birth to minutes before both she and the baby had died.

  That, at least, would explain his winning personality.

  As for her, Calista figured that because the old man was so eccentric, Fowler invited these kinds of stories to be made up about him, maybe even reveled in them and that, ultimately, none of it was true.

  Although, if it was true she supposed that might be a good reason why Fowler wouldn’t allow anyone but him to enter the storeroom. That might be where he was keeping the legendary coffin.

  Stop it, she told herself. You’re smarter than that. There’s no coffin. It’s all just a bunch of fabrication about an odd old man.

  She heard the front door open. The next second she heard the bell attached to it ring, announcing the entrance of another person into the store.

  Having already walked into the storeroom, Fowler poked his head out to see who had come in. The etchedin frown on his stubble-laden face seemed to deepen as his small eyes focused on the woman who had just come into his shop.

  Recognizing her, he challenged Erin Traub. “You here to buy anything today?”

  Erin knew how to play the game. “I might be,” she answered evasively.

  Fowler allowed a dismissive sound to escape his lips as he waved his hand at Erin’s words. “No, you ain’t. You got five minutes to talk to the girl and then you go,” he ordered. “And you,” he said, shifting his hawk-like intense gaze to Calista, “consider this your break, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Calista answered, inclining her head with a formal little bow, as if he was some small far-from-benevolent despot.

  Uttering another dismissive noise, Fowler withdrew back into the storeroom.

  Erin looked at the younger woman she’d come to see in disbelief. “How can you stand it, working for Old Man Fowler? He’s so rude.”

  “I’ve had practice dealing with foul moods. When you’ve got seven siblings, there’s always someone who’s bound to be in a snit—or worse,” she added with a careless shrug. “And besides, it’s not exactly like I don’t need the money,” she confessed. At twenty-two, she’d just graduated, but that didn’t mean that all that struggling was behind her. A great deal of it was just up ahead. She was currently living at home to save as much money as she could, but it was still slow-going. “I’ve got school loans to pay off and other expenses to juggle as well. Right now, I can’t afford to be picky.” Besides, she added silently, afraid of being overheard, Fowler was harmless.

  “Is that why you agreed to babysit for my brother?” Erin asked her.

  She’d stopped by to get her friend’s take on working for her brother and to make sure that Calista didn’t decide to suddenly change her mind and tell Jake that she’d had second thoughts about agreeing to babysit for him. Dealing with an infant could be draining. Especially after having had to put up with a Neanderthal despot like Fowler.

  “Oh no,” Calista said with feeling, “I’m more than happy to take the job. I think that Marlie’s really adorable.”

  Erin laughed. She had fallen in love with her niece at first sight, but she had to admit that there were drawbacks. “For a child who never sleeps, she’s wonderful.” Erin raised her slender shoulders and then let them drop. “At least it feels that way. Our bedroom is just one door down from Jake’s room. I can hear him pacing the floor with her at all hours. That baby cries every night.”

  “Well, yes, that’s not unusual. They do that for a while,” Calista assured her. “But that eventually changes and they sleep through the night. For the record, babies don’t learn to manipulate their parents until they’re a few years old.”

  Erin sighed, wondering how she would measure up when the time came to have a baby of her own. Right now, it seemed almost daunting to even think about. “You sound a lot more knowledgeable about how to handle things than I am.”

  Calista shrugged off the compliment. “I come from a really big family,” she pointed out. “Somewhere along the line, I started taking care of my younger brothers and sisters. Suddenly, I was the expert when it came to changing diapers, feeding and burping. The funny thing is, I don’t really mind, so I can’t complain. The truth of the matter is,” she freely admitted, “I kind of like it.”

  “You don’t have to sell me,” Erin assured her with feeling. “I actually just stopped by to find out if there’s anything I can do to make the experience better for you.”

  Several things popped up in her mind, none of which she could have ventured to say out loud. All of them concerned Jake Castro. The very thought of him made her feel warm, a reaction she did her best to stifle. It wasn’t something she could readily explain to the man’s sister.

  Instead, she guessed at the reason behind Erin’s impromptu field trip to the antique shop, and her. “Don’t worry, Erin, I said I’d babysit and I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “Good.” Erin released a large sigh, then immediately asked, “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

  Calista hadn’t expected to be asked to babysit so soon. She looked at Jake’s sister in surprise.

  “Tomorrow,” she repeated, thinking for a second. “I was just planning to do a little dry reading on government procedures so I don’t come across like some empty-headed little intern. I don’t want people to think that Cousin Bo’s guilty of nepotism, although technically, I suppose he is.” Their connection was distant, but they were still family. “Why? Is Jake going out tomorrow night? He didn’t mention anything to me about it during the interview.”

  She would have assumed that he would have right after telling her that she had the job. Had something come up, or had he just held
back for some reason of his own?

  The smile that rose to Erin’s lips was a self-satisfied one. “That’s because my big brother doesn’t know he’s going out yet.”

  “You’re having him kidnapped?” Calista guessed drily.

  To her surprise, Erin answered the quip seriously. “In a manner of speaking. I want Corey and Jake to have a guys’ night out.”

  She might not have a whole lot of experience beyond her academic one, but that struck Calista as rather unusual.

  “You haven’t been married all that long,” she recalled, then marveled, “Boy, talk about an understanding wife.”

  Amused, Erin set the other woman straight. “Don’t stick wings on me yet, Calista. There’s a reason for my shipping those two out of the house. I want a clear playing field so that I can help Corey’s sister get ready for her date.”

  It was a small enough town to keep up on the various activities of the locals. Corey’s baby sister Rose was, like her brothers, a recent transplant to Thunder Canyon. As such, she didn’t know all that many people yet.

  Calista greeted the news with surprise. “I didn’t know that Rose was dating.”

  Even though they were alone in the front room of the shop, Erin still drew closer and lowered her voice. “That’s just the problem, she hasn’t been and she’s really nervous about going out.”

  To Calista, going out on a date was just an extension of talking. But she supposed she could see why it might make someone else a little nervous. If she were about to go out with Jake, there might be more than one or two butterflies involved.

  “So who’s the lucky guy she’s going out with?” she asked Erin.

  Erin paused for a moment. This wouldn’t have been her first choice, but it certainly was going to be a great way for Rose to get her feet wet again. “It’s Nick Pritchett.”

  “Bo’s brother-in-law?” Calista asked, surprised.

  The name belonged to yet another one of her distant relatives, this one being really distant. On the stocky side and more than a little opinionated, Nick Pritchett was one relative she certainly didn’t mind keeping distant.