by Raye Morgan
“But I heard from a very reliable source,” she went on, setting down her mug and putting her hands on her hips as she turned to look questioningly at him, “that you would be able to help me out.”
Ah-ha. A very dangerous mine had appeared right in front of him with this one. Careful!
“Me?” he asked, trying not to let his voice rise with anxiety. “Why me?”
She started to say something, then stopped and looked down, uncomfortable and showing it. “See, this is why this is so hard. I don’t really know. My source said that you would know where to find him.” She looked back up into his face, waiting.
“So you think it’s someone I know?” he asked, still at sea. “Obviously, it’s not me.”
She hesitated much too long over that one and he let out an exclamation, appalled. “You can’t be serious. I think I would have noticed a little thing like that, and I know damn well I’ve never seen you before.” He shook his head in disbelief.
She sighed. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“Good. So why are you here?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay, the person who advised me to look you up is a man associated with the firm I work for.”
“In Texas? And he thinks he knows who I know?” He shook his head, turning away and beginning to pace the floor in frustration. “This is absurd. How did he even know my name?”
“He told me you socialize in the same circles as Cici’s dad. He said, ‘Don’t worry. He’ll know how to find him.’”
“Oh, he did, did he?” For some reason this entire conversation was stoking a rage that was smoldering inside him. He stopped and confronted her. “So this person who’s supposed to be Cici’s father—this person I’m supposed to know where to find—what’s his name?”
She half twisted away. This had all seemed so easy when she’d planned it out as she made her way to the airport in Dallas. She would dash off to London, find Cici’s father, hand over the baby and head back home. She hadn’t realized she would have to try to explain it all to someone in between. When you got right down to it, the bones of the story weren’t making a lot of sense. And she realized now that one element would sound really goofy to this man. She was hoping to keep that one under wraps for as long as possible.
She turned back with a heart-wrenching sigh and said dramatically, “Well…you see, that’s the problem. I’m not sure what his actual name is.”
He stared at her. The absurdity of the situation was becoming clear. She was looking for a man who had fathered her baby. She didn’t know where he was. She didn’t know his name. But she’d come here for help. And he was supposed to ride to the rescue? Why, exactly?
It was true that he had a reputation for knowing everyone who counted within a certain social strata. He’d made it his business to know them, for his own purposes. But he had to have something to go on. He couldn’t just throw out possibilities.
“What are you going to do when you find him? Are you planning to marry the guy?”
“What?” She looked shocked, as though this very mundane idea was too exotic to contemplate. “No. Of course not.”
“I see,” he said, though he didn’t.
She bit her lip and groaned silently. She was so tired. She couldn’t think straight. She just wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe things would look clearer in the morning.
“How am I supposed to find someone if I don’t know his name?”
She turned and gave him an exasperated look. “If this were easy, I could have done it on my own.”
“I see. I’m your last resort, am I?”
She thought for a second, then nodded. “Pretty much.” She gazed at him earnestly, feeling weepy. “Do you think you can help me?”
He gazed at her, at her pretty face with those darkly smudged, sleepy eyes, at the mop of blond hair that settled wildly around her head as though it had been styled by gypsies, at her slightly trembling lower lip.
He had a small fantasy. In it, he told her flat out, “Hell, no. I’m not helping you. You give me nothing and ask for miracles. I’ve got better things to do with my time than to run all over London looking for someone I’m never going to find. This is insane.”
As the fantasy began to fade, he saw himself reaching into his pocket and handing her money to go to a hotel. What a happy little dream it was.
But looking at her, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Right now, her eyes were filling with tears, as though she could read his mind and knew he wanted to get rid of her and her problems.
“Okay,” he told her gruffly, clenching his fists to keep from following his instinct to reach out to comfort her. And then he added a touch of cynicism to his tone, just for good measure. “If all this is a little too overwhelming for you in your current state of hysteria…”
“I am not hysterical!” she cried indignantly.
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s a matter of judgment and not even very relevant. Why don’t we do this in a logical, methodical fashion? Then maybe we can get somewhere.”
She moaned. “Like back to bed?” she suggested hopefully.
“Not yet.” He was pacing again. “You need to fill in some of the blanks. Let’s start with this. What exactly is your tie to Ambria? Give me the full story.”
He’d given up wondering if she was here to harm him. The complete innocence she displayed wasn’t very likely to be a put-on. And anyway, what sort of an incompetent murder master would send a young woman with a baby to do the dirty deed? It just didn’t make sense.
“My parents were Ambrian,” she began. “I was actually born there but that was just before the rebellion. My birth parents died in the fighting. I don’t remember them at all. I was taken out with a lot of other refugee children and rushed to the States. I was adopted right away. I was only about eighteen months old, so as far as I’m concerned, my adoptive parents are my parents.” She shrugged. “End of story.”
“Are you kidding? We’ve barely begun.” He stopped and looked down at her, arms folded over his chest. “Who told you about your Ambrian background?”
“Oh, the Sommerses had Ambrian roots, too. Second generation American, though. So they told me things, and there were some books around the house.” She shook her head. “But it wasn’t like I was immersed in the culture or anything like that.”
“But you do know about the rebellion? You know about the Granvilli family and how they led an illegal coup that killed a lot of people and left them in charge of an ancient monarchy that should have been left alone?”
She blinked. “Uh…I guess.”
“But you don’t know much about it?”
She shook her head.
He gazed at her, speculation glowing in his silver-blue eyes. “So you don’t have family still in Ambria?”
“Family?” She stared at him blankly. “Not that I know of.”
“I guess they were all killed by the rebels?”
She blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know if the rebels killed them.”
He raised a cynical eyebrow. “Who do you think killed them?”
She ran her tongue nervously over her lower lip. “Well, to tell you the truth, I really don’t know what side they were on.”
That stunned him. The idea that someone decent might support the rebels who had killed his parents and taken over his country didn’t really work for him. He dismissed it out of hand. But if she were around long enough, and he had a chance, he would find out who her parents were and what role they played. It seemed like something she ought to know.
“Now that we’ve established who you are, let’s get to the real topic. Why are you really here?”
She sighed. “I told you.”
But he was already shaking his head. “You told me a lot of nonsense. Do you really expect me to believe you had a baby and don’t know the father? It doesn’t add up, Ayme. How about giving me the real story?”
She felt like a bird caught in a trap. She hated lying. That was probably why she did it so bad
ly. She had to tell him something. Something convincing. Had to be. She was beginning to see that she would really be in trouble if he refused to help her.
But before she could conjure up something good, a wail came from across the apartment. Ayme looked toward where the sound was coming from, uncertainty on her face. Why didn’t this baby seem to want to sleep for more than an hour at a time, day or night?
“I just fed her an hour ago,” she said, shaking her head and thinking of her dwindling stash of formula bottles. “Do you think she really wants to eat again?”
“Of course,” he told her. “They want to eat all the time. Surely you’ve noticed.”
She bit her lip and looked at him. “But the book says four hours….”
He groaned. She was still using a book?
“Babies don’t wear watches,” he noted, feeling some sympathy for this new mother, but a lot of impatience, as well.
“True.” She gave him a wry look as she turned to go. “But you’d think they could look at a clock now and then.”
He grinned. He couldn’t help it. If he really let himself go, he would start liking her and he knew it. And so he followed her into the room and watched as she stroked the little round head rather inefficiently. The baby was definitely crying, and the stroking was doing no good at all. From what he could tell, Ayme didn’t seem to have a clue as to what to do to quiet her.
“Why don’t you try changing her?” he suggested. “She’s probably wet.”
“You think so?” That seemed to be a new idea to her. “Okay, I’ll try it.”
She had a huge baby bag crammed full of things, but she didn’t seem to know what she was looking for. He watched her rummage around in it for a few minutes, then stepped forward and pulled out a blanket which he spread out on the couch.
“I can do this,” she said a bit defensively.
“I’m sure you can,” he said. “I’m just trying to help.”
She winced, feeling genuine regret for her tone. “I know. I’m sorry.”
She pulled out a paper diaper and laid it on the blanket, then pulled Cici up out of the drawer.
“There you go little girl,” she cooed to her. “We’re going to get you nice and clean.”
David stood back and watched, arms folded across his chest, mouth twisted cynically. She didn’t seem very confident to him. Cici wasn’t crying hard, only whimpering at this point, but he had the impression that she was looking up at the woman working over her with something close to apprehension.
“Don’t you have someplace else you could be?” she muttered to him as she worked, and he could see that she was nervous to be doing this in front of him. Like someone who didn’t really know what she was doing.
One thing he knew for sure—this woman didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby. How crazy was that? And then it came to him. She wasn’t the mother of the baby. Couldn’t be. In six weeks time anyone would have learned more than she seemed to know.
“Alright Ayme Negri Sommers,” he said firmly at last, “come clean. Whose baby is this?”
She looked up, a deer in the headlights.
“Mine.”
“Liar.”
She stared at him for a moment, degrees of uncertainty flashing across her pretty face. Finally, she threw her hands into the air. “Okay, you got me.” She shrugged, looking defeated. “She’s not really mine.” She sighed. “What was your first clue?”
He grunted, stepping forward to take over. “The fact that you don’t know beans about taking care of a baby,” he said, taking the diaper from her and beginning to do an expert job of it in her place. “The fact that you’re still reading a book to figure out which end is up.”
She heaved a heart-felt sigh. “I guess that was inevitable. It’s really such a relief. I hated living a lie.” She looked at him with more gratitude than resentment. “How come you know so much about babies, anyway?”
“I grew up in a big family. We all had to pitch in.”
She sighed. “We didn’t have any babies around while I was growing up. It was just me and Sam.”
The baby was clean and in dry diapers. David put her up against his shoulder and she cuddled in, obviously comfortable as could be and happy to be with someone who knew what he was doing. He managed a reluctant smile. It was just like riding a bicycle. Once you knew how to hold a baby, you didn’t forget.
He turned back to Ayme. “Who’s this Sam you keep talking about?”
She swallowed, realizing the answer to that question was going to be tied to very different emotions from now on.
“My…my sister, Samantha. She was Cici’s real mother.”
And that was when the horror hit her for the first time since she’d left home. Her legs turned to rubber. Closing her eyes, she sank to the couch, fighting to hold back the blackness that threatened to overtake her whenever she let herself think, even for a moment, about Samantha. It was the same for her parents. The accident had taken them, too. Her whole family.
It was all too much to bear. If she let herself really think about what had happened and about the emptiness that was waiting for her return to Dallas, the bubble she was living in would pop in an instant. She couldn’t think about it and she couldn’t tell him about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The pain was just too raw to manage.
Steeling herself, she forced out a quick explanation.
“Sam died in a car accident a few days ago.” Her voice was shaking but she was going to get through this. “I…I was taking care of Cici when it happened. It was all so sudden. It…”
She took in a gasping breath, steadying herself. Then she cleared her throat and went on.
“Now I’m trying to get her to where she belongs. I’m trying to find her father.” She looked up, surprised to find that she’d gone through it and was still coherent. “There. Now you know it all.”
He stared at her. Her eyes looked like dark bruises marring her pretty face. The tragedy in her voice was mirrored by her body language, the tilt of her head, the pain in her voice. He didn’t doubt for a minute that everything she’d just told him was absolutely true and it touched him in a way he hadn’t expected.
The urge was strong to put down the baby and take the woman in his arms. If anyone needed a bit of comfort, Ayme did. But he stopped himself from making that move. He knew it wouldn’t work out well. The last thing she wanted right now was compassion. The smallest hint of sympathy would very probably make her fall apart emotionally. He assumed that she didn’t want that any more than he did. At least he hoped so. He looked away and grimaced.
But—back to basics—he still didn’t understand why she’d come to him.
“Ayme, I’m not Cici’s father,” he said bluntly.
“Oh, I know. I know it’s not you.”
He shook his head, still at sea and searching for land-fall. “Then why are you here?”
She shrugged. “You’re going to help me find him.” She gazed at him earnestly. “You just have to. And since you’re Ambrian…”
“I never said I was Ambrian,” he broke in quickly. He had to make that clear. As far as the rest of the world knew, he was a citizen of the Netherlands, born and bred Dutch. That was the way it had been for twenty-five years and that was the way it had to be.
“Well, you know a lot about Ambria, which not a lot of people do.”
Reluctantly, he admitted it. “True.”
Rising from the couch, she began to pace much the way he had a few minutes earlier. She was exhausted and her emotions were spent. But she had more work to do. Glancing over at David, she noticed that Cici’s downy head was tucked against his shoulder and the little eyes were closed. She was asleep. Ayme’s sigh was from the depths of her wounded soul.
“If only I’d had you along on the flight over the Atlantic,” she said.
“Don’t try to change the subject,” he said, turning to lay the baby down very carefully in her makeshift bed. “If you want my help, you’ve got to give me
more. I can’t do anything unless I understand the parameters I’m dealing with.”
She nodded. He was right, of course. But what could she say to explain this crazy situation? She moved restlessly toward the doorway and leaned against the door-jamb. From there, she could see across the living room and out through the huge picture window surveying the city. The mass of city lights spread out below added a manic energy, despite the time of night.
That made her think—what if all those lights went out one night?
She nodded, realizing that the stars would take their place. And that would be a whole different dynamic. She wasn’t sure which she would prefer at the moment—manic energy or soothing starlight. But her preference didn’t mean a thing. She had to deal with what she had before her.
Throwing her head back, she began.
“Sam didn’t tell me much about Cici’s father. Actually, I hadn’t seen her for almost a year when she showed up with a baby in her arms. I had no idea…” She put a hand to her forehead as she remembered the shock of Sam’s return home. “Anyway, she didn’t tell me much, but she did tell me that Cici’s father was Ambrian. That she’d met him on a trip to London. And that she wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to find him and show him his baby.”
Of course, there were other moments, even hours, when Sam acted as though she didn’t care at all—especially when she took off without her baby. But he didn’t have to know about that.
She turned and came back into the room, watching David tuck a blanket in around Cici. It was unusual to see such a strong, handsome man doing something like that. At least it seemed unusual to her. But who knew? Maybe she should get out more.
That sweet little baby was finally getting the sort of care she deserved. She thought of how careless Sam had seemed with Cici. Their mother had been appalled. But maybe that was because of her precarious circumstances. If she could have found Cici’s father and they could have formed a real family, maybe things would have been different.
“Now she’ll never get the chance,” she murmured softly, then caught herself and frowned. None of that. She couldn’t let herself drift off into that sort of sadness. They would never get anything done.
