“How do you think I felt?” he muttered to the comely brunette’s back.
“Mmm. I guess so. You tried to tell me before, when you asked to leave her with me, but I’m not sure I understood you correctly. You said someone left her on your front steps?”
“In that basket.” As Jenny glanced over her shoulder at him, he nodded toward the table and the clothes basket, but avoided inspecting the contents again. He figured the longer he put it off, the greater the possibility that a miracle might happen. Who knows, someone could come by and say this was all a misunderstanding, that the baby was theirs—and not his.
“And there was a note attached that said ‘Take care of your baby,”’ Jenny said, finishing for him. “That’s it? No signature? No indication as to what time the mother might want her back?”
“I don’t think whoever did this planned to use me as a day-care center, Jen. There was nothing else on the note.” Every time Mitch thought about it he kept getting an extremely weak feeling in the pit of his belly. “Who would do such a thing? It’s... barbarian!”
“There must be some explanation. The mother must be in the dark about what’s happened.” Testing the liquid on her wrist, Jenny crossed to the table. “Come on, sweetheart.” She lifted the infant carefully into her arms, and as she eased the bottle into the baby’s eager, open mouth, she made a wistful sound. “How precious. Mitch, with every passing minute I’m around this child, I’m more and more convinced she must have been kidnapped. No mother could give up a gift like this. You don’t have a clue as to who that person might be?”
“Do you think I’d have made a fool of myself by going to the police and the hospital, if I did? How am I supposed to guess something like that?”
After a startled glance, Jenny’s expression turned wry, and she eased onto one of the dinette chairs to better support the baby. “It’s elementary, Watson. You simply count back nine months, add—oh, I’d say a few days, no more—and whoever you were with in the, er, biblical sense, is more than likely your baby’s mother.”
Now she was going to be a comedienne? “Listen, I went through enough of that talk with Tyson down at the police station.” He and Brad had gone to school together, and his friend now had two young, ferociously energetic twin boys. Brad had been all too happy to use his stature as a legal father to pick on Mitch. “I can count.”
“Well, then... have you?”
He stared at Jenny’s expectant face. She had skin as creamy and smooth as the sweet milk she was feeding the baby, and an honest, winsome face that while not stop-in-your-tracks stunning, was complemented by soulful eyes and a tug-at-your-heart smile. In an odd way, she had always bothered him, but she was not the kind of woman he dated, and she certainly wasn’t the person with whom he should be having this conversation.
He cleared his throat. “No.”
“Why not?”
Because he’d been terrified—was terrified. Because he still didn’t want to believe this was happening to him. Because she was the last person he wanted to admit the answer to.
When he didn’t reply, she nodded toward the wall by the telephone. “There’s a calendar over there.”
She had to be kidding? “Jen, regardless of what conclusion you’ve come to, I don’t know that this is my baby.”
“You mean the police are going to let you keep someone else’s baby? And the hospital didn’t insist you bring in this stranger’s child so they could ensure expert care for her?” she mused, lifting her finely arched eyebrows again. “I thought you were pretty sharp to charm me into watching this little darling while you were gone for an hour or so, but to continue to avoid claiming her, while obviously convincing the authorities not to take her...wow! Your powers of persuasion are beyond even what I thought you capable of. Why, you’re in a class all of your own!”
And he’d brought the child here because he believed Jenny Stevens was a pushover? A marshmallow? The eternal good samaritan who did noble deeds without being judgmental? Boy, had he been living in fantasy-land. Jenny intended to find out who the mother was, and she wasn’t going to let him rest until he figured it out and confessed it to her. If Saint Peter ever needed a vacation from guarding the pearly gates, Jenny Stevens would be a perfect replacement.
But despite his annoyance, Mitch’s guilt was that much stronger. Once again he hung his head in shame.
“All right,” Jenny said with a sigh. “What did Chief Tyson say?”
“Exactly what you’ve already guessed. I told him what happened, and he told me that if I continue to insist the baby couldn’t be mine, that I need to bring her in and turn her over to him, whereupon she would become a ward of the state and go into foster care while they try to either find the biological parents or arrange for new legal ones.”
“But you’re not denying you’re the father anymore, are you?”
Although softly posed, her question held a strong challenge, and he knew that if he answered, if he continued with his plan to ask Jenny for more help, things would never be the same again. He was at a crossroads, and while he knew the path he chose would change his life drastically, he was equally leery at how it would affect them as neighbors.
Mitch rubbed the back of his neck. “Hell, Jen. I can’t talk to you about this.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake! I do know where babies come from and how this one was made, McCord. What’s more, you look as if you need to talk to someone, or go out of your mind. Now, I may be a bit disappointed in the choices you made that ultimately resulted in your conceiving this child, but it would be a waste of good oxygen to criticize what’s already written in stone. Go ahead and say what you need to say.”
He should have known generous Jenny would be a pillar of logic. He liked to think he possessed his fair share, too; however, he was more successful on a subjective basis. People, especially women, who could be continually objective made him nervous. Somehow they seemed incongruous to all of his theories about the female species.
Mitch gave himself a mental shake. If Jenny wanted the truth, so be it. Maybe when inundated with a full dose, she would stop looking at him as if she expected him to pick up a lance and mount a noble charger for her. He’d never been the white knight type and didn’t want to start.
Jenny watched Mitch McCord struggle with his decision. It was nothing new. She’d seen him debate over how to respond to her countless times over the years that they’d been neighbors.
She wasn’t his type. Mitch Was a picture-perfect image of the American heartthrob: Robert Redford good looks complemented by amber eyes guaranteed to twinkle at almost any female from seven onward, even when he wasn’t smiling beneath that dark mustache. Put him in his airline uniform and he cut a devastating figure.
He was, however, equally lethal when stripped down to a pair of well-fitted jeans and sweaty from mowing his lawn. According to New Hope gossip, women melted in his presence, and he seemed to like them in return, considering the rumors that constantly floated around about him being seen with this ex-beauty queen or that wealthy divorcée. Unfortunately, Jenny had never been able to count herself among those lucky souls.
Years ago, after she’d asked him to be her escort to her senior prom, he’d made it clear that he would never date her. He’d said it was because she was his neighbor and too nice of a girl. A “forever girl” was how he had suavely put it, the stinker. He had that way about him, an ability to keep a girl’s heart tied in knots, even if there was no hope that she would ever win his. At least he’d been circumspect over the past decade and had conducted his liaisons away from his house and out of her view. That meant a great deal to Jenny.
She had a feeling that despite what he’d said so long ago, she bothered him. Maybe she didn’t have the flashy, cosmopolitan look so many women had today, but sometimes she found him watching her with a strange look in his eye. She couldn’t quite define it—she doubted he could explain it himself—but she made him uncomfortable, and hesitant, restless, when they were alone.
No, she wasn’t his type. But she planned to be. Someday. She believed it with the same simple and clear faith that had helped her build her modest but thriving business. The key was patience. Long ago her grandmother had taught her that a yeast bread wouldn’t rise before it was ready. In the same way, Jenny believed that when the time was right, Mitch would open his eyes and realize they could be good together.
On the other hand, who said a lady couldn’t turn up the heat a bit to coax things along? She watched tight-lipped Mitch as he headed for the calendar, and bowed her head over the baby to hide a satisfied smile.
Mitch flipped pages back and forth, back and forth. Beneath the jacket of his black pilot’s uniform, she saw his broad shoulders stiffen and square. He knows, she thought, feeling a knot tighten in her own stomach. Would it turn out to be someone she knew? Someone she actually liked? That would be tough to handle. Maybe even dream-shattering.
“Oh, brother.”
The dull mutter wasn’t meant for her ears, but Jenny didn’t care. “What?”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Mitch, I’m holding physical proof to the contrary in my arms. Would you mind telling me what conclusion you’ve come to over there?”
When he finally faced her, his gaze was vague, his thoughts clearly turned inward. “She would no more want to be a mother than I’m ready to be a father.”
“She who?”
Beneath his neatly trimmed mustache, his firm mouth turned downward. “Savannah Sinclair.”
Of all the people he could have mentioned! Jenny had to fight back a cry of outrage. But it was too much to ask her to be silent. “No. Oh, no, no, no.”
Mitch scowled back at her. “I heard you the first time.”
“Then tell me you were only kidding. You and New Hope’s most easily remembered telephone number since 9-1-1?”
“Very funny. Just because she’s always been popular is no reason to assume she was, or is, easy.”
Spoken like a typical man whose brains had gone south. From the stories Jenny remembered, the leggy blonde—whose ambitions for fame and fortune had included campaigning for everything with a title attached to it, from Miss Register Your Pet onward—had developed quite a reputation almost from the minute she reached puberty. It came as no surprise when she left New Hope as soon as possible for points farther west, toward Hollywood to be exact.
“Where on earth did you run into her?” Jenny asked, not bothering to hide her distaste.
Mitch looked as if he would rather confess to making obscene phone calls than answer. “Our fifteen-year class reunion last fall.”
“She came to that? What happened? Weren’t they casting for any mouthwash or bug spray commercials that weekend?”
“Where’s this venom coming from?” He flexed his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking anything but comfortable. “At any rate, you were just a kid back when she and I were in high school. What were you, in the fifth—No, it was the sixth grade.”
She was too angry and hurt to be impressed with his memory, but he was right. It had been the year her parents died while on one of her father’s business trips. She’d been sent to live with her grandmother in this house, and promptly developed a lifelong crush on Mitch.
He had a point, though. She had no right to jump to quick conclusions about Savannah. She hadn’t known her, except by reputation and to see her around town. Any negative reactions she had were strictly the result of the green-eyed monster taking control.
She looked down at the baby, grateful that she could see no resemblance to the woman whatsoever. It made it easier to apologize. “You’re right, that was long ago.”
“I’m not saying Savannah was perfect.”
Good. That would save her from the temptation of throwing the baby bottle at him. “I shouldn’t have been so quick to condemn her,” she replied with a sweet smile. She could, however, just imagine what her grandmother would have to say about this. Her last surviving relative had always seen Mitch as a scoundrel in wolf’s clothing.
The only two good things you can say for the man, Jenny, love, is that he doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what he is, and that he looks mighty fine in that uniform.
No, her grandmother would not like hearing that it was New Hope’s most notorious vamp who’d joined with the town wolf to make this lovely child. It would mean yet another round of lectures about how Jenny had wasted years spinning dreams about the man.
“I’m not denying that Savannah’s a sensual-loving woman,” Mitch said, avoiding her gaze. “The thing is... well, wherever she got that reputation...it wasn’t from me.”
“But you always wanted her,” Jenny added, although she hated having to admit knowing that.
“At seventeen or eighteen with my hormones raging? C’mon, Jen.” He made a face. “And... I guess I got a bit starstruck when she noticed me at the reunion.”
Jenny supposed she could understand that, too. She’d seen Savannah in a few commercials and had to admit the woman was holding up well for someone approaching her mid-thirties. Though that didn’t quite keep Jen from wishing the woman stretch marks from her tummy to her ears!
Her disgruntled thoughts yielded to one of curiosity. “Was it worth it?”
Mitch considered the question for a moment, his gaze ultimately shifting to the baby. “Under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s a fair question to ask.”
Right again. Jenny decided she would do well to redirect their conversation away from Savannah for the time being. “I take it you won’t be flying today?”
“Of course not. Being a pilot for a national airline isn’t exactly like riding bumper cars at the amusement park. If you don’t make your flight, you don’t just climb into the next one available and take off.”
“But you called in to explain that an emergency forced you to ask for someone to take your place.” He’d told her that much before. “Surely they understood?”
“Yeah, they understood. But they don’t want their people to make a habit out of finding excuses not to fly.”
“You mean, you’re in trouble?”
“Not to the point where I have to worry about ferrying yak to Timbuktu in the foreseeable future. But I have to get my life in order, and fast. Seniority notwithstanding, in this age of corporate cutbacks, there’s always another qualified pilot waiting to take your job.”
The baby finished her bottle. Jenny set it on the table, then she shifted the child to an upright position against her shoulder.
“What are you doing now?”
“Helping her food settle in her tummy.” Ever so lightly, Jenny patted the baby’s back through the soft blankets she had come wrapped in. Within seconds a delicate burp erupted from the child. Jenny smiled at Mitch’s startled expression. “See?”
“I’ll be.”
“Sometimes she’ll spit up a bit, so you’ll want to put a dishtowel or a napkin on your shoulder to protect your clothes.”
“How did you know to do that?”
He sounded as if this was something you could only learn through membership in a secret society. “Quite a few of my friends have children, and it’s not as if the subject of babies isn’t on TV and everywhere else. Haven’t you been paying attention to what’s going on around you, McCord?”
He gave her a guilty look. “I guess not. Obviously I’m going to have to take a crash course, at least until I can get my hands on Savannah and find out what she was trying to prove by dumping—Er, by doing this.” No sooner did he say that than he made a deep-throated sound and ran his hands through his hair. “What am I talking about? What difference does it make how fast I try to learn how to care for a baby? I have a job that takes me across the country and back four days a week. I can’t take a kid with me on a 737!”
Jenny couldn’t have asked for a better opening line. “Would you like me to watch her while you’re gone? Until you decide what you’re going to do, that is.”
His exp
ression was something between relief and incredulity. “Just like that? You want to help me? Even though you know whose child she probably is?”
“I’m glad you put it that way.” Jenny was honest enough to admit she wanted something out of this for herself, even if it only turned out to be simply earning his respect. She resettled the baby in her arms and smiled down at the content child. “But the point is, none of this is this little darling’s fault, and... I do like one of her parents.”
“Damn, Jen, that’s...” Mitch hunkered down in front of her and took her hand in his. “I can’t tell you what your help will mean to me. And I’ll pay you, of course.”
She should have suffered whiplash for the speed with which she went from pleased to indignant. She snatched her hand back. “You’ll do no such thing! For your information I love children, and having a tidbit like this one around will be no inconvenience at all.”
“But, honey, you have a business of your own to worry about.”
Jenny forced herself not to be swayed by the careless endearment, although deep inside her heart did handsprings. “Don’t you worry about my business. In case you haven’t noticed, women have been proving themselves capable of doing more than one thing at a time for centuries. All I ask is that you think twice about being so quick to locate Savannah. She’s already proved what kind of mother material she is by today’s actions. What if after you gave the baby back to her, she turned around and offered it up for adoption? Your daughter?”
To his credit, Mitch’s whole body went stiff, his eyes flashed with 24-karat anger. “She damn well better not!” But he also looked less than ready to convict Savannah entirely. “Still, there is such a thing as mitigating circumstances.”
Jenny could imagine what they might be. No doubt Savannah had seen a baby and motherhood as cramping her social life, something that made her seem older, less sensual than an ambitious actress might want to appear.
She shrugged. “Maybe. In any case, think about it. And while you’re at it, don’t you think you should tell me what I’m supposed to call this little angel?”
Baby In A Basket Page 2
