Baby vs. the Bar

by MJ Rodgers

  “It won’t last forever. The money I get for you will give you the ability to get out of the spotlight and take care of Nicholas without ever having to worry again.”

  “Marc, I keep trying to tell you, there are some very convincing reports about the sad consequences that accrue to children born in the lap of wealth and privilege. The vast majority are permanently, psychologically debilitated.”

  “Just because they don’t have to work for a living?”

  “Children born into wealth are like the high-born female Chinese children of centuries ago—forcibly bound at birth by their privilege, destined never to walk into the world on their own two feet, but to daily bear the excruciating pain of their bondage as they are carried on the shoulders of others.”

  “That is one very vivid image, Remy,” Marc admitted. “But not necessarily an accurate one. David was raised in a wealthy home. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t sit back and let his family carry him. He went out and made it on his own.”

  She shook her head. “Even if that’s true it just means he was a rare exception.”

  “Nicholas can be, too.”

  “I’m not a gambler—not where my son’s life is at stake. I’ve read extensively about these individuals and their inability to gain any true happiness in their lives. Have you?”

  “No. Unlike you, I don’t have an undergraduate degree in child development.”

  “How did you know... Oh, A.J., of course. I keep forgetting you know all about me.”

  He scooted even closer. “No. Not all. And everything I do learn fills me with nothing but more questions. I’ve never met a woman who brought out so many in me. Nor one who filled me with such an insatiable desire to have them satisfied.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her unbruised cheek. That was all he planned to do. But once his senses were wrapped in the perfume of her skin, he yearned for more. When he heard the sharp intake of her breath, he pushed aside all his plans and gently took her mouth with his.

  She tasted of that wonderful hot-buttered-rum flavor, instantly warming, instantly intoxicating. His fingers feathered the soft skin of her cheeks, then her neck. Her lips opened to his as a yearning sigh escaped her throat.

  He wrapped his arms firmly around her waist and molded her lips and body to his. He had only one thought, one desire. To sip on those lips until he was drunk and sated.

  And she was wonderfully willing. Her arms encircled his body, drawing him closer, deeper, into her flesh, her moans ripping through his body, rending him with their need.

  A recklessness engulfed him—wild images of tearing off their clothes and rolling naked together on the seat of the car. He yearned to put substance to those images. He pressed the lever to recline the seats. He eased her back, his hands eagerly lifting the edges of her sweater, aching to touch her bare skin.

  Marc instantly felt the jolt of her body, the cooling withdrawal of her previously eager, seeking lips. He pulled back to see her face, to discover what was wrong. He was winded, his breath shallow. He fought to fill his lungs.

  She was winded, too, laboring for breath, her face flushed, her eyes filled with golden flames. Aroused. Beautiful. But her lips carried a far different message from the rest of her body. “No.”

  The word made no sense to Marc at all. “Remy—”

  “No. This is not me.”

  “It sure feels like you,” he said, smiling as he attempted to lower himself to her again. She held him determinedly back, despite her injured shoulder, her palms firmly planted on his chest. “I said no.”

  Marc took several deep breaths. He had never met a woman who had kissed him hot enough to melt his brains only to turn around and say no. His body was on fire; his mind, totally disoriented and baffled.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “Remy, I’m not a fool. I practice safe sex.”

  A breathless laugh escaped her lips. “Safe sex? Now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Why is it a man only thinks of trust in terms of the mechanical terms of protection from infection?”

  “Remy—”

  “No.”

  For several seconds he just stared down at her, trying to fill his lungs and fight his body’s urgings. Finally, he lifted himself off her, raised the seats and lowered the driver’s-side window.

  Several long moments passed as he drank in the cool air, letting his heartbeat slow to normal—wondering if it would ever slow to normal.

  When he felt a semblance of control returning, he rested his hands on the steering wheel and turned to her.

  Her window was rolled down also, and she was looking straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap. She had retreated into that quiet, self-contained center of hers, cool and composed. But he had tasted her passion. She might be able to control it, but it was there and it was hot. And for one glorious moment back there, it had been totally for him.

  Until she had pulled away.

  He knew so much about her. And so little. He leaned forward and turned the key in the ignition. The car roared to life. He kept it idling in Park as he turned to her.

  “Remy, for the record, the man who takes no for an answer after your kiss has just melted his brain stem is the man who knows sexual trust goes far beyond the avoidance of infection.”

  Her voice was mellow, ludicrously formal. “I would appreciate it if you could drop me off at the lab.”

  “Sure. Great.”

  He pulled the car away from the curb and spun into a one-eighty at the end of the cul-de-sac. Here he was, still humming from holding her, and all she was thinking about was work. Her coolness scraped like a rake across the blackboard of his mind. What was a man supposed to do with a woman like this?

  Remy could feel his eyes every time they strayed to her profile on the way to the lab. She kept her attention straight ahead. Outwardly she had composed herself. But inwardly she was in turmoil as tiny intense thrills swam through her senses every time she remembered his kiss and embrace.

  She still couldn’t believe the depth of passion she had felt in him. In her. She was shaken at how quickly she had succumbed to it, coming so close to losing all control.

  She concentrated on keeping her expression composed. It wouldn’t do to let him know how strongly he affected her. No, it wouldn’t do at all.

  She had told him she did not trust him. That was true. But what was also true was that she was no longer sure if she could even trust herself. Not with him. And that realization was clearly the most disturbing of all.

  It proved to be a long, uncomfortable ride to the university and the Primate Language Studies Lab.

  When they finally pulled into the parking lot, Marc switched off the engine and turned to face her. “Remy, before I go I want to say—”

  “Something’s wrong,” Remy interrupted, her eyes riveted on the front entrance to the lab. She pushed open the passenger door and jumped out of the car.

  She ran toward the entrance. An elderly security guard, who was manning the temporary security guard station that had been set up in front of the lab, appeared to be having trouble with a man and woman.

  Remy heard Marc’s footsteps right behind her as she hurried toward the lab’s entrance. As they got closer, Remy could see that not only the security guard, but also Braden Fromm, the lab assistant, were both arguing with a couple in their mid-fifties. The couple looked familiar, but Remy couldn’t immediately place them.

  “What are they doing here?” she heard Marc say beside her.

  “You know them?” Remy asked.

  “That’s Colin and Heddy Demerchant.”

  Of course. Now she remembered. At the Bio-Sperm trial. Colin had been sitting right behind Louie Demerchant. She had guessed even then that the men were related. They both had the distinctive mop of silver-auburn hair, the tall heavy frame, the broad shoulders, and even the same pattern of fine lines of time and temper etched into their foreheads and around their mouths.

  In contrast, Heddy De
merchant’s much-lifted face was as smooth as frozen Jell-O—and about as warm. She would have had to have gained five pounds to have qualified as anorexic.

  As Remy and Marc approached, Heddy turned. Her light eyes stared at Remy like headlights switching from low to high beam.

  “Where is my grandson? I must see him!”

  Remy immediately stiffened at the high, almost hysterical, sound of the woman’s tone.

  “Mrs. Demerchant, I would appreciate it if you and your husband would leave.”

  Heddy took a quick step toward Remy.

  “Please,” Heddy screeched in that still-too-high, hysterical voice. “We have the right to see him. He’s our grandson! Tell her, Colin.”

  Colin stepped beside his wife, his enormous hand swallowing her toothpick-size arm whole. Remy’s back muscles tightened, her shoulders becoming as straight and level as a plumb line across a thick beam, readying herself for new conflict.

  Colin surprised her completely by smiling.

  “You’ll have to excuse my wife, Dr. Westbrook. Ever since she learned of our grandson, she’s been so eager to see the little fella. I’m sure you understand. Now, won’t you just let us in to have a peek at him? We’ll only stay a moment.”

  Remy was even more uncomfortable with Colin’s smiling request, packed in such presumed reasonableness, than she had been with Heddy’s emotional plea.

  She did not lower her guard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Demerchant. You cannot see my child.”

  His smile didn’t waver. “But why? What harm could it do for a pair of loving grandparents to see their grandchild?”

  “I do not believe my son is your grandchild. Now, please leave before I have to ask this security guard to call the police.”

  Colin’s smile disintegrated as irritation deepened the lines around his mouth. “You’re threatening us?”

  Marc had stayed back throughout Remy’s exchange with the Demerchants. But now she saw him step forward in one very swift and powerful move that placed his lean six-two frame directly in front of Colin Demerchant’s.

  Marc’s words bit into the air like an early frost. “Dr. Westbrook has asked you to leave. And now you will leave.”

  Temper suffused Colin’s tone with sudden heat. “Don’t make the mistake David did and believe everything Louie tells you about us. We lost our son to him. We’re not going to lose our grandson. Come on, Heddy,” he said as he angrily stepped around Marc with his flyweight wife in easy tow.

  Heddy Demerchant looked back at Remy as she was carried forward by her husband’s momentum. “How could you do it? How could you?” she yelled.

  Do what? Remy wondered as she watched the couple stomp over to their black Lexus and disappear inside. As soon as they had driven away, she turned to the security guard.

  “How long have those two been trying to get in?”

  “About fifteen minutes,” the security guard said. “When Braden came out on his way to class a few minutes ago, they took advantage of the door opening and tried to get through. Thanks to Braden holding his ground, they didn’t succeed.”

  “I was afraid to move, Dr. Westbrook,” Braden said. “They were literally trying to push their way past me to get inside to Nicholas.”

  Remy smiled at the lab assistant and put a hand on his bulky forearm. “Thank you for not letting them.”

  Braden’s smile was almost shy. “No problem, Dr. Westbrook. I really must get to class now.”

  Braden scurried down the stairs.

  Remy put her key in the lock, opened the door and went inside the lab with Marc on her heels. She sent her question over her shoulder. “Why didn’t you warn me they might try this?”

  “Because the last thing in the world I ever thought they’d do is to show up here and try to force their way inside to see Nicholas.”

  “So you don’t buy that loving grandparent explanation?”

  “Way I heard it, Colin and Heddy weren’t even loving parents. They had to be bribed into having David.”

  “Bribed?”

  “Louie Demerchant made a deal with his son and daughter-in-law. If they produced a grandchild, he’d let them live in his mansion for the rest of their lives, have it free and clear on his death, and give them a half-million dollars a year, to boot. He’d obviously spoken the magic words. Fourteen months later, David was born.”

  “Did David know this about his parents?”

  “He was the one who told me about it.”

  “That’s...sad.”

  “Yeah. If David’s grandparents hadn’t been around to raise him, he’d have been a pretty lonely kid.”

  “If Colin and Heddy didn’t even care about their own son, why this sudden interest in Nicholas?”

  “Damn good question. Wish I had an answer for it.”

  Remy walked into the viewing room and saw Phil on the phone with Nicholas on her lap. The playroom on the other side was empty. She checked her watch. It was still early. Nicholas, Sean and Thumper should be together practicing signs. What was going on?

  Phil was trying to have a conversation while keeping Nicholas from pressing the speed dial buttons on the base of the telephone. Both she and Nicholas looked up as Remy and Marc entered. But it was only Nicholas who smiled.

  “Mommy.”

  Remy quickly covered the distance between them and lifted Nicholas into her arms. He gave her a big hug.

  Phil sent Remy a relieved look, obviously happy to be free of the energy-filled toddler.

  “Yes, yes, Mrs. Barker, I’m still here,” Phil said into the telephone in a harassed tone. “No, none of the things they told you are true, please believe me. The children have never been in any danger while working with the chimp.”

  Remy looked questioningly at Phil, instantly alarmed at hearing her side of the conversation.

  Phil shook her head, pointing at the phone to indicate her frustration with whatever Mrs. Barker was saying on the other end. “Yes, well, of course after seeing something like that... I understand, but—”

  Phil halted again, obviously being frequently interrupted by Mrs. Barker. Whatever the woman was saying was causing Phil to shake her head with ever-increasing frustration.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Barker. Your concern is natural, I’m sure, but—”

  Phil suddenly blinked in surprise as she let the receiver drop onto the telephone base. “I don’t believe it. She hung up on me!”

  “Mrs. Barker hung up on you?” Remy asked. “What’s going on?”

  Phil took a moment to reposition her wheelchair so she could face Remy and Marc more squarely. “Mrs. Barker didn’t bring Sean by this morning. After waiting several hours, I finally left word at her work. She just called me back before you walked in. She says she’s putting Sean in a day-care center and not bringing him by anymore.”

  “But she was all for Sean participating in learning sign language with Nicholas and Thumper. What happened?”

  “Colin and Heddy Demerchant happened. They went to Mrs. Barker’s home last night and told her that we were letting her child loose with wild chimpanzees and that it was a miracle he wasn’t already injured or killed.”

  “But Mrs. Barker knows that’s a lie! We took her through the center, let her meet Thumper. She knows how well behaved Thumper is and how careful we always are to be close and to watch when the chimp and a child are together. Why, it was she who begged us to select Sean over the other applicants for the study.”

  “Well, she’s changed her mind,” Phil said with a frustrated exhalation.

  “But it doesn’t make sense. Mrs. Barker is a sensible woman. How could they convince her of such nonsense?”

  “Mommy?” Nicholas asked in concern at the rise in Remy’s voice.

  Remy fought for control over her voice and her expression as she hugged her son to her. “Mommy’s upset, sweetheart, but not at you. You know Mommy gets upset over things sometimes?”

  Nicholas nodded solemnly as he watched her with large troubled eyes
.

  Remy sighed and gave his cheek a kiss.

  The intercom that was connected to the guard station buzzed. Remy pushed the button. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Westbrook, I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a man out here who says he has something for you and it’s urgent. He refuses to give it to me. Says he has to give it to you in person.”

  Remy exchanged a quick glance with Marc. “Let me go,” he offered.

  Remy shook her head. “You heard what he said, the guy wants to give whatever it is to me. I’d better go.”

  “All right, but I’m going, too.”

  Remy nodded as she refocused her attention on the intercom and pressed the button to talk. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Give Nicholas to me,” Phil offered.

  Remy gave her son another hug before she released him to her sister’s waiting arms. “When I get back, we have to talk, Phil. We have to figure out what to do about trying to replace Sean.”

  Phil shook her head. “Nicholas and Sean and Thumper have been together three months. It’s too late to bring in a brand-new toddler. It will corrupt the learning-curve data.”

  Remy knew Phil was right. As she and Marc turned into the hallway, Remy looked up at him. “Why are the Demerchants trying to sabotage my work here? And how could they convince Mrs. Barker of something that never happened?”

  “Remy, are you certain that Nicholas has never been alone with the chimp?”

  “Positive. Our facilities here are large enough for two chimps, but because our funding only covers the salaries of myself and Phil and a graduate assistant, I specifically only took delivery on one chimp. I didn’t want us spread too thinly. And we’re not. One of us is always with the chimp and the children.”

  “How old is the chimp?”

  “Thumper is fourteen months old, and she’s a real sweetie. She has never, ever shown aggression toward either Nicholas or Sean. On the contrary. She senses she’s stronger and has consistently shown a very gentle, even protective, demeanor toward both boys. Why are the Demerchants doing this? What can they possibly hope to gain?”