This Little Baby

by Joyce Sullivan

  The house had never felt so damned empty. He promised himself that when he found Mikey he’d make a home for him here. He’d also find the right significant other, someone who loved kids and wouldn’t mind jumping right into motherhood. Gil would make it work somehow. He glanced at Paulina, who had washed her hands at the kitchen sink and was rummaging through his refrigerator as if it were her own. He’d never been so glad for company.

  She pulled out packages of cold cuts, cheese, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes, plopping them on the granite island. “Are sandwiches okay?”

  He nodded and passed her a loaf of eight-grain bread, then set out clean plates, chips and soft drinks. Paulina made him two enormous sandwiches. By the time he’d finished the second sandwich, he felt his strength rebounding. Paulina had been quiet during their meal, her black winged brows drawn together, her silvery eyes narrowed in concentration. He knew her well enough by now to realize she was deep in thought. He hoped that sharp mind of hers had come up with something brilliant. He poured them each a snifter of brandy before they settled onto the living-room couch.

  “So what do you think happened to Jean-Luc?” he asked, as her slender fingers closed around the crystal snifter. “He had a gun in his hand. Do you think he killed himself?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Gil,” she murmured. “We’ll have to wait for the autopsy report. My guess is he’s been dead for several days but not a week. He probably died over the weekend.”

  Gil gulped his brandy, hoping it would erase the stark image of Jean-Luc’s body from his mind. The brandy burned a warm path to his gut. “Maybe he killed Cindy and couldn’t live with himself afterward.”

  “It’s possible, but Robbins told you Cindy had been transported in a car with a burgundy interior. Jean-Luc’s car has a green interior.” She curled her legs beneath her. “The luggage in Jean-Luc’s car suggests they planned to leave Wednesday night as scheduled. Cindy had to have given Jean-Luc their luggage Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. That could have occurred in several ways.” She held up a finger. “One—Jean-Luc could have helped Cindy clear out of her apartment Tuesday night. It’s easier to vacate in the middle of the night. Then he dropped Mikey and Cindy off at the diner for breakfast Wednesday morning while he did errands—maybe he went to the bank for travelers’ checks. But the distance between his row house and the diner bothers me. Surely there are restaurants closer to where he lives.”

  “What if Jean-Luc spent Tuesday night at Cindy’s apartment and took her things over to his place early Wednesday morning while she took Mikey out to breakfast?” Gil suggested, seeing what she was driving at.

  “That’s my second option.” She gave him an approving smile that made his heart stumble against his ribs. “Maybe Jean-Luc had other errands, as well. It’s possible they agreed to meet later, but Cindy never showed. Jean-Luc got worried. At some point he checked the airlines and tried to reschedule for a later flight—or maybe canceled the tickets. The police can corroborate that. But the big thing is…eventually he’s frantic enough to break into her apartment. You said you climbed onto the balcony Friday afternoon and the door was locked, right?”

  “That’s right,” he affirmed, relieved to know she’d believed him when he’d told her he hadn’t forced the door open. Too bad the police weren’t as perceptive of his veracity. Robbins had asked him a lot of questions about Jean-Luc and those tickets to Reno. Gil was certain Robbins hadn’t believed him when he swore he hadn’t even known Jean-Luc existed until the busybody in Cindy’s building let the cat out of the bag.

  Paulina’s voice intruded into his thoughts. She was still hypothesizing. “It’s possible Jean-Luc noticed something in Cindy’s apartment to indicate she’d deserted him, and he took his own life. If the autopsy report supports that theory we need to look more closely at Edison Tweedie, because he’s the last known person to see Cindy alive.”

  Gil stared at her in shock. “Why would that old guy kill Cindy?” His hand shook as Paulina shared her theory about the hardware salesman.

  “Some people are willing to pay big bucks for a child,” she said. “Tweedie could be working on his own—or be part of a ring. I asked my ex-husband to check with the RCMP’s Missing Children’s Center to find out how many infants or toddlers have disappeared in stranger abductions along Tweedie’s route in the last five years.”

  Gil drained his snifter. Numbing rage took hold of his body. The thought that Tweedie could have preyed on Cindy—because she seemed alone and vulnerable—sickened him. He’d tried to be there for her. But he’d failed Cindy as he’d failed Ted. Please God, I don’t want to fail Mikey, too.

  The brandy slowly dispersed through his body, its warmth and comfort a poor artificial remedy for the desperate craving he had for human contact and comfort. Paulina’s sweet-scented warmth beckoned him. Irresistibly. Gil’s fingers crept along the back of the couch, seeking the heat of her body. Unable to stop himself, he slipped his arm around her shoulders, needing to hold someone. No, not just someone. Paulina.

  He inhaled deeply, breathing in her lilac scent as if he were drawing her essence into his soul. Her heat, soothing and feminine, seeped into his bloodstream.

  To his gratification, she didn’t pull away. Gil lost himself in the succor her body offered from the living hell that had started the day Ted died—and wouldn’t end until Gil held Mikey in his arms again. Gil refused to consider he might have to lay Mikey to rest beside his parents. He swallowed hard, his throat aching with the effort of keeping himself together. “If Tweedie took him, what are the chances of getting Mikey back?”

  Her chin jutted up so she met his gaze squarely. “That depends on whether or not Tweedie kept records and if he talks to the police. Even if he doesn’t talk, the records might indicate who Mikey was given to—but sometimes they’re encoded. Of course, this is all assuming the police can convince a judge enough reasonable grounds exist to get a search warrant.”

  Not the most reassuring of answers.

  “And if Jean-Luc killed Cindy and left Mikey there for someone else to find—?” His voice cracked, reflecting his uncertainty.

  She hesitated, and Gil’s heart caked with ice as Paulina diverted her gaze to the green marble fireplace. She’d been brutally honest with him so far. Now, he counted on her honesty. He needed it.

  He touched her cheek. “Paulina, is finding Mikey hopeless?”

  “No, Gil. Moments arise in this business when you have to be realistic and acknowledge possibilities. I won’t lie to you. Statistically, the odds of recovery on stranger abductions are slim. But with a lot of media attention we may get lucky. Someone, somewhere, might notice a couple suddenly has a baby. The investigation is still in the early stages. I don’t see any reason for us to give up hope that Mikey won’t be recovered.”

  Paulina leaned into the touch of Gil’s hand and wished there was more she could do to remove the shadows of pain from his eyes. The rough feel of his fingertips on her skin stirred desires she hadn’t let herself experience in a long time. What was it about Gil that affected her so?

  “I don’t tell all my clients this,” she said very softly, “but I wasn’t quite five when my mother decided my father shouldn’t have the right to see me. She packed our suitcases and told me we were going on holidays to the States. That holiday lasted sixteen years, most of those spent in Hartford, Connecticut. I thought Hughes was my last name until I was twenty-one years old and a man showed up at our house claiming to be my father.”

  Her lips trembled. “I didn’t believe him at first. When I was eight my mother told me he’d died, so I’d quit asking about him.” And quit hoping he’d show up one day and tell me how much he’d missed me. How much he loved me. “But he had pictures of the three of us together. And the name Stewart had stuck in my head, but I thought it was my father’s first name.” She realized she was blabbering, but at least she was distracting Gil from thinking of Mikey.

  “To make a long story short, he was my dad. And y
ou know, he never gave up looking for me. He never stopped believing he’d see me again. He’d been a lawyer, but he’d turned to private investigating in order to find me and help other searching parents find their children.” Hot tears slipped down her cheeks. Lord, she wanted Gil to have a happy ending with Mikey.

  Gil wiped away her tears with his thumbs, capturing her face between his large palms. Paulina felt as though Gil was holding her heart in his hands and decided the brandy must be altering her perceptions. The warmth of his solid, muscled body spread through her, magnetic and overpowering. “Is that how you got into this racket?” he asked huskily.

  She nodded. “I moved here to live near him. We had four great years together before he died of a heart attack.”

  “I’m sorry.” His thumb caressed her cheekbone.

  “Don’t be. I’m grateful for every day we had together. He gave me unconditional love and a greater purpose in life—finding these kids. But the point is, he didn’t give up hope—and neither should you.” She smiled up at him, realizing that what made Gil a special man was his capacity to care. “We’ll find Mikey, whether it takes a week, a month or years. Okay?”

  “Okay.” A faint determined smile tugged at his mouth, and Paulina felt her heart expand and contract. “What about your mom? Is she still alive?” he asked.

  “My mom?” Her throat suddenly ached with tightly reined emotion. “She’s still in Hartford, but that’s another long story. Let’s just say she isn’t happy about my living in Ottawa and my choice of profession. She didn’t even come to my wedding. Not that my marriage lasted long. I’d hoped Karl would understand my commitment to missing children because he was a police officer. He knew before we were married that I wasn’t prepared to have children and he didn’t take me seriously.”

  Gil frowned as though perplexed. “Why wouldn’t you want to have children? You obviously love them.”

  Paulina lowered her eyes. “I do love kids. But the thought of being responsible for a child’s upbringing terrifies me. I’m so afraid of making a mistake that’ll leave emotional scars. There’s no way to predict whether a marriage will last. People say that having children is supposed to bring couples closer, but just the talk of having a baby was driving Karl and me apart. I know it sounds selfish, but I just couldn’t agree to have a child. In my heart, I knew I couldn’t give Karl what he wanted and still be there for my missing kids.”

  “Selfish is not a word I’d use to describe you, Paulina. Ever,” Gil said brusquely.

  Paulina smiled, appreciating the accepting warmth of his fingers on her cheeks. The mood shifted subtly between them as her gaze rose to linger on the shadows hovering in his eyes. An insane and crazy desire to kiss him flared through her. His mouth hovered inches from hers. She wet her lips, the temptation so strong it pulled at her with invisible strings. It would be foolish. Stupid even. Her heartbeat tripled. She’d already conducted an experimental foray into that danger-laden zone.

  Yet, her hand slowly slid over the muscled plateau of his chest to cup the back of his neck. She knew it was his love for a little boy that defeated all the logical, rational reasons why she shouldn’t kiss him right now. His eyes shuttered closed as she planted moist, featherlight kisses on his brow, his lashes and his firm, supple lips. Something splintered in her as their tongues met in a tentative embrace. Fear and desire, passion and need passed between them in a heartbeat.

  Paulina felt a sense of urgency stir within her as Gil groaned deep in his throat and slanted his mouth more firmly against hers, deepening the kiss. His fingers fanned over her back, creating a field of sensuous friction between her skin and the filmy fabric of her red crepe dress.

  “Paulina,” he whispered in a ragged tone, breaking their kiss to run a trail of wet, hot kisses along her jaw. “Is it hopeless for me to want you to spend the night?”

  “No,” she murmured, forcing him to recline on the sofa. Her nervous system went haywire with need as her breasts and pelvis came into glorious contact with his male counterparts. She knew they weren’t talking about a relationship. They were both feeling vulnerable and were reaching out for comfort and moral support.

  She sought the heat of his kiss, rotating her hips against his groin as his fingers slid under the hem of her dress and caressed her thighs. She gasped and braced her hands on his chest as whorls of sensation pulsed toward the core of her femininity. The light from the table lamp illuminated Gil’s face. The sheer perfection of his features made her muscles clench deep inside her. Sometime she’d have to ask him how he acquired that perfect, rugged bump on his nose. But not now.

  She moaned as he traced circles up her thighs, his fingers brushing higher and higher. Her nails dug into his shoulders in anticipation when he reached the lacy border of her panties and—stopped? Her eyes flew open in disappointment. She lifted her mouth from his and stared into his questioning indigo eyes.

  He was waiting for her lead. Her invitation. She licked the tiny indentation in his chin, tasting his skin. “I’m a little wary of marriage and raising children, Gil. Not sex. Would you like to give me a tour of the master suite?”

  Chapter Seven

  Gil didn’t require a second invitation. Admittedly, Paulina didn’t quite fit the mold of the significant other he’d envisioned meeting someday, but running his fingers over her silk-clad legs ranked as one of the greatest pleasures he’d ever known. He had a feeling that sharing more intimate caresses with her would rank even higher.

  Settling his hands around her slender middle, he rose to his feet, loving the way she was forced to clasp her legs around his waist to keep from tumbling to the floor. He had no intention of letting her fall, but the seductive feel of her moist heat pressed erotically against him had the blood thundering in his ears.

  He carried her into the marble-tiled foyer and headed up the staircase. Paulina wasted no time. She loosened the buttons on his shirt and rubbed her fingers over his nipples, making him rigid with pleasure. Then she nipped his right pec with her teeth. Gil’s blood pressure skyrocketed. Damn, even his ears were buzzing. It was all he could do to concentrate on climbing the oak steps without stumbling. He slipped his hands under her dress and kneaded her buttocks through the thin, silky layers of her panties and hose. She was wet for him. His thighs trembled. Hell, they might not make it to his bed.

  She lifted her head, exposing her creamy white neck to his lips. Gil eagerly ran his tongue over the tender spot below her jaw. “Wait, Gil, I think that’s your phone,” she said breathlessly. “You should answer it. It could be the police about Mikey.”

  Mikey. Anxiety pierced his lust as he set her down and pounded up the stairs to the bedroom extension. “Yeah?” His heart hammered wildly in his chest.

  “Gil, honey? This is Mom. Is there any news about Mikey yet?” The grief rife in his mother’s tone sent Gil crashing back into reality. He pulled the open flaps of his shirt together.

  “Not yet,” he replied. “But the P.I. I hired has uncovered some promising leads.” Oh, God, how am I going to tell her about Jean-Luc and Cindy? Gil glanced toward the door, wondering if Paulina had followed him. She hadn’t.

  “Good. You can tell us all about it when we get there.”

  “You’re coming here? Mom, that’s not necessary. Dad hates not being at home. I’ve got everything under control.”

  “It’s too late, honey. We’re already on the road.”

  “On the road?” Gil croaked.

  “I’m calling from a pay phone about twenty minutes away,” his mother explained. “A neighbor was coming to Ottawa and offered us a lift. We want to be there to plan Cindy’s memorial service. I tried calling your office this afternoon, but your secretary wasn’t sure if you’d be coming in again. Can you put us up?”

  “Of course, Mom. You don’t have to ask.”

  “We just want to be near. When the police find Mikey, he’ll need his grandma.” Her voice broke.

  It occurred to Gil that it had been a long time since he
’d heard his mother laugh. “I’ll see you soon, Mom.”

  He slowly hung up the phone. Maybe it was for the best they were coming. They could learn the truth from him before the media televised the sordid story.

  He walked into the upstairs hall. Through the oak railing he saw Paulina waiting near the front door, her purse slung over her shoulder. Her eyes were wide and wary as she gazed up at him.

  “I heard,” she said succinctly.

  “My mom and dad are coming to stay with me for a while.” Gil tapped the newel post twice, uncertain what to say next.

  “It’ll be good for you to have them around. Besides,” she added, giving him a reserved smile as he descended the stairs, “they probably saved us from making a big mistake. You are my client.”

  Gil clamped his jaw tightly. There she went, pushing him away again. He hadn’t imagined the way she’d touched him. His body ignited at the memory. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I could stop paying you.”

  “Nice try. Meet me for coffee tomorrow at nine in my office?”

  He nodded.

  This time she didn’t offer him her hand in that charmingly assertive way of hers. “I’m going home to think.”

  As Gil watched her walk to her car, he refused to believe that sleeping with her could ever be a mistake. It would have been good to hold someone. And Paulina Stewart was a woman worth holding on to—even if it couldn’t be forever.

  FEELINO SAFE UNDER THE protection of the night, the woman carried the crying infant out into the living room and settled into the maple rocker, where she could gaze out the window at the slumbering neighborhood. She could never be too careful.

  The baby’s cries increased.

  “Hush, little one,” she crooned. The chair made a rhythmic, soothing noise on the carpet. “It won’t be long now. You’ll meet your new mother and father soon. I promise.”